Steel rang against stone.

  Boots thundered through the ruined street as Imperial soldiers surged through smoke and fire, forming ranks with grim efficiency. Runes flared along their armour, sanctified light cutting pale lines through ash-choked air.

  “Hold formation!”

  “Blades ready!”

  “By the Gods, look at him—”

  Seris staggered out of the alley and into the street, breath tearing from her lungs. The city reeled around her, firelight strobing across shattered walls and collapsed stalls.

  And then she saw them.

  Dozens of Empire soldiers spreading into a crescent, weapons raised, eyes fixed on the towering shape looming behind her.

  “The Bone Harrower!” someone shouted. “Cut her away from him!”

  She turned, panic clawing up her throat. “No, wait—”

  Her body lurched forward towards them, but she did not control it. The bond yanked tight, dragging her several staggering steps ahead of him, positioning her deliberately between steel and death.

  Pain detonated behind her eyes. She cried out, clutching her chest as the invisible tether burned through muscle and bone.

  The Bone Harrower moved.

  The street darkened as shadows bent toward him, rippling like heat over stone. Broken debris lifted into the air, rattling and spinning. His presence crushed outward, immense and suffocating.

  A shard of masonry spun toward her head, and she instinctively ducked. but the bond reacted first, yanking her into the wall. Pain flared, and for a heartbeat, she feared she had broken her own bones.

  “Sanctified strike—now!” a priest barked.

  Light erupted, but the incantation never finished.

  Seris screamed as the bond convulsed. It tore sideways, violently, as if two forces had pulled in opposite directions at once.

  The Harrower froze half a step. His head tilted slightly, surveying the street as if weighing the city’s value, and deciding it unworthy.

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  The sanctified blade shattered mid-swing. The backlash slammed into the priest like a hammer. He hit the street hard, body convulsing as necrotic energy crawled across his armor, devouring runes, blackening flesh. His scream cut off abruptly.

  Dead.

  The street went silent.

  A soldier whispered, “Gods preserve us…”

  Seris collapsed to her knees, bile burning her throat. She hadn’t touched the priest, she hadn't cast anything. She whimpered in realisation: the bond had done it.

  She'd killed a priest.

  Her head snapped up, horror flooding through her and straight into him. Shadows lashed outward, shattering windows, tearing loose stones from walls. Several soldiers were thrown backward, hitting the ground hard.

  A hollowed Bone Legion soldier lurched forward, fists striking a fleeing Empire soldier. Seris froze, heart hammering. She hadn’t moved it, but the bond had, and the first strike would trigger a chain reaction.

  “Fall back!” someone shouted. “Fall back—!”

  But it was too late.

  A second surge ripped through the bond; raw, unfiltered, fuelled by her terror and his fury bleeding together. A section of the street collapsed inward with a deafening crack. Fire flared higher. Bone Legion remnants at the edges of the chaos jerked violently, some crumbling to dust, others surging forward without command.

  Seris pressed both hands to the ground, screaming as pain ripped through her chest. “Stop... please... stop!”

  The Harrower’s presence slammed into her, overwhelming, fractured.

  You are tearing me apart.

  So are you, she thought wildly and felt the truth of it echo back, amplified, catastrophic.

  A soldier rushed her, blade raised.

  Seris didn’t think. She reached. Necrotic energy burst from her hands, wild and uncontrolled, and the soldier froze mid-stride, armour frosting over before he collapsed, lifeless, to the street.

  Silence fell again. But this time, it was not hesitation. It was terror. The surviving soldiers stared at her, not him. At her.

  “She did that,” someone breathed.

  "She's possessed," someone else cried.

  Seris stared at her hands, shaking violently. Smoke curled from her palms. She had crossed the line.

  Run, a part of her screamed. Another part - the darker, colder one now coiled through her thoughts - whispered something worse: If they die, it’s because of me.

  Us.

  The Harrower stepped forward. And this time, she felt it before it happened. The bond stretched, screamed, and then... it shifted. He was no longer fully restrained.

  Shadows surged outward as he moved, debris skittering across stone. He did not strike the soldiers, but the threat of it pressed down like the promise of annihilation.

  Seris staggered to her feet, heart hammering.

  If this continued - if the Empire struck again - he would finish it. And the city with it.

  She turned, desperate, mind racing.

  “Get back!” she shouted hoarsely. “All of you! Leave the street... now!”

  The soldiers hesitated, then the Harrower raised his hand. Just slightly.

  The street cracked. That was enough. The Empire forces broke, retreating into smoke and fire, dragging wounded with them, fear finally overriding discipline.

  Seris sagged against a shattered wall, barely upright. The city burned around them, screams echoing from distant streets. She had protected him. She had killed for him. And she knew - bone-deep, irrevocable truth - that whatever came next, the Empire would never see her as something to save again.

  The Harrower loomed behind her, vast and terrible.

  The bond pulsed, hot and volatile.

  Shadows surged around him, claws of darkness scraping stone. Seris pressed herself against the wall, trembling.

  The hunt had begun.