The silence in the cramped, soot-stained shack was suffocating.
Luna's fingers were white-knuckled as she gripped the silver locket at her throat. It wasn't a powerful artifact. It didn't grant mana or boost her speed. It was just a dented piece of jewelry with a faded lock of hair inside, the only thing that proved she had once been a normal girl with a mother who loved her, before the academy and the "Shadow" path had turned her into a frightened weapon.
"You're asking for too much," Kael said, his voice dropping low. He stepped between Luna and the old man, his hand tightening around the heavy iron rod. "She needs that locket. You can find another price. I have some low-grade spirit stones from…"
"I don't want your pebbles, boy," Hobb interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. He leaned over the counter, his one blue eye squinting at Luna. "Look at her. She's terrified every second of every day because she sees too much. Those daggers will stop the noise. They'll give her peace. But you can't buy peace with stones. You have to trade a piece of your heart for it."
Luna looked up at Kael. Her eyes were wet, but her expression was shifting from fear to a grim, hollow sort of resolve. She looked at the obsidian daggers on the table, the only things that had ever made the world feel "quiet" enough for her to breathe.
"It's okay, Kael," she whispered. Her voice was thin, but certain.
"Luna, you don't have to," Kael argued.
"Yes, I do." She unclipped the chain. The silver looked dull against the soot on her palms. She placed it on the counter. "If I'm going into the Abyss, I can't be looking backward. I need to be able to fight."
Hobb snatched the locket away with a surprising speed, tucking it into his apron. "A clean break. That's the best way to survive." He turned to Kael, his gaze turning serious. "Now, for that rod. I wasn't joking about the promise. That piece of iron is a 'Dead Star' fragment. It doesn't channel power because it hates power."
"I understand," Kael said, lifting the rod.
"Good." Hobb said. "But because it eats energy, it's like a beacon for the monsters in the Abyss. They'll smell the 'void' on you from miles away. My price is simple: when they come for you, and they sure will, you stay away from Oakhaven. You take your fight elsewhere. Deal?"
"Deal," Kael said. "I'm not looking to bring trouble to anyone's door."
"Good. Now get out. The air in here is getting too thin with the two of you standing in it. Besides, looking at the two of you makes my head ache."
~~~
They stepped out of the shack and back into the green-lit gloom of the Dross Pit. The trek back up the stairs was silent. Kael kept checking on Luna, but she seemed different. She wasn't flinching at every shadow anymore. She moved with a new, cold efficiency, her hands resting comfortably on the hilts of her new daggers.
"Are you okay?" Kael finally asked as they reached the halfway point.
Luna didn't look at him. "The daggers... they're working. It's like there's a wall between me and the rest of the world. I don't feel the 'rot' of this place as much." She paused, then added in a small voice, "I don't think I could have done that if you weren't here, Kael. Everyone else treats me like I'm crazy because I'm jumpy. You're the only one who actually feels... still."
Kael looked at the scarred iron rod in his hand. "I'm not sure 'still' is a good thing, Luna. The smith said I'm a void."
"It's better to be a void than a storm," she murmured.
They reached the Smog District an hour later, finding the "Iron Pulse" forge. Jax was outside, dripping with sweat and covered in gray dust, having finished moving the Star-Iron for Master Vane. Mina was sitting on a crate, protectively hugging her new silver pen and a heavy shield.
"Finally!" Mina jumped up, her glasses sliding down her nose. "We have forty minutes to get back to the drainage tunnels before the dawn patrol starts their rounds. Did you get them? Are they... why do they look so ugly?"
She was staring at Kael's rod and Luna's black daggers.
"They're not for show, Mina," Kael said, sliding the rod into a leather loop on his back. "They're for surviving. Let's move."
~~~
The trip back through the sewers was faster but more tense. The weight of their new weapons seemed to change the dynamic of the group. Jax carried his massive shield like it was a part of his own body, Mina kept clicking her pen, checking the runic flow, and Luna was a ghost, disappearing into the shadows of the tunnels before Kael could even blink.
They climbed out of the laundry chute just as the first hint of gray light touched the academy spires.
"We made it," Mina panted, leaning against the cold stone wall of the basement. "Three days. In three days, we'll be in the Abyss."
"We need to practice," Kael said, looking at his team. "We don't know how these weapons work together."
"Perfect," Jax grunted, his first words throughout the long night.
They all split up to head to their separate dorms.
Kael reached his room and collapsed onto his bed, his hand still gripping the iron rod. He fell into a dreamless sleep, unaware that in the High Tower, Lucien was looking at a map of the Abyss, a cruel smile on his face, planning exactly how he would use the "Flicker Core" boy as bait.