Chapter 8 The Nest Beneath

Chapter 8 – The Nest Beneath

Crescent Terminal had been shut down for over a decade.

A sinkhole had collapsed the lower platforms, and the city declared it condemned. But in Greywood, condemned didn't mean abandoned-it meant hidden. And hidden places were where the worst kinds of people thrived.

Isaac stood at the cracked edge of the terminal, looking down at the rusted staircase that led into the dark. Third rail. No lights. No cameras. Just shadows thick as smoke.

The card in his pocket vibrated once.

Right place.

He started down.

The old subway station was a corpse. Tiles chipped. Glass shattered. Graffiti etched in languages that weren't human.

Isaac's boots hit the old platform, and he stopped.

No rats.

No sounds.

Just air thick with something ancient and wrong.

He followed the faint hum of power through a tunnel lit only by the faint gold flicker in his blood.

Then-

A whisper.

"You bleed wrong."

He turned fast.

Three figures stood behind him, cloaked in charcoal-gray, faces covered with veils of obsidian thread. They moved like smoke. Barely real.

"You don't belong here," the center one said.

"I'm here for the Lunecarve," Isaac replied.

"You've found us," another said. "You shouldn't have."

They moved without warning.

Fast. Silent.

Blades curved from their sleeves. Runes on their skin lit up blue and black. One swung for his chest. Another aimed for his throat.

Isaac reacted on instinct-and fire exploded from his veins.

A blast of golden energy surged from his palm, slamming the first assassin against the wall so hard the tiles cracked. He twisted, caught the second by the wrist, and flipped him over his shoulder.

The third lunged from behind.

Isaac turned-too slow.

The blade nicked his side.

Blood sprayed.

And sizzled.

Not red. Not human.

Liquid gold.

It hit the ground and hissed like acid.

The third assassin froze, eyes wide behind her veil.

"You're one of them," she whispered.

Isaac grabbed her by the front of her robe and slammed her against the wall. "Who sent you to my apartment?! Who gave the order?!"

She struggled. "We don't ask names-just take coin."

"I want a face. A voice. Anything."

A cough echoed behind him.

The first assassin-the one he blasted-sat slumped against the wall, blood leaking from under his veil.

He was laughing.

"You won't like the name."

"Try me."

The assassin lifted his head-and spat out a single word before the light left his eyes.

"Silas."

Isaac's heart stopped.

The name struck like a hammer to the chest.

"Silas Marshall."

His father.

Dead. Buried.

Gone for years.

But now-

The man who abandoned him... was the one who'd ordered his death.

Back in the Lunecarve sanctuary, the remaining two assassins didn't fight.

They knelt.

"You carry the serpent-fire," one said. "You bled us and lived. You earned an audience."

Isaac looked down at his side.

The wound was already closing.

The blood had sealed it.

He stepped past them, deeper into the tunnels. Doors opened without touch. Lights flickered to life on their own.

And at the end of the hall sat a chair made of bone and glass.

A girl no older than fifteen lounged in it, surrounded by books and blades.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Elya. And I think you and I need to have a chat about your very complicated daddy."

Meanwhile, across the city, Selene stood atop an abandoned bell tower, staring down at a smoking symbol someone had carved into the stone below:

Two serpents. One gold. One black. Twisting around a sword.

Behind her, the woman with the braids from before appeared again.

"He's moving fast."

Selene didn't look back. "He has to."

"He knows about Silas now."

"Yes."

"You think that'll break him?"

Selene turned, her eyes glowing faintly. "No. I think it'll make him."