The alley smelled like piss and rotting garbage, which meant it was just another Tuesday in Iron Hollow.
Davrin Coal pressed his back against the crumbling brick wall, trying to keep his breathing quiet. Not easy when your ribs were probably cracked and every breath felt like swallowing glass. Blood dripped from a cut above his eye, warm and sticky, blurring his vision on the left side.
Three streets over, he could hear the Soul Reaper's boots clicking against stone. Methodical. Patient. Like the bastard had all night to find him.
Maybe he did.
Davrin wiped the blood from his eye with a filthy sleeve and peered around the corner. The street was empty, lit by a single flickering lamp that cast more shadows than light. Iron Hollow didn't waste money on luxuries like proper street lighting. The slums were meant to be dark, meant to hide the Empire's dirty secret—that most of its citizens lived like rats in a maze, desperate and forgotten.
His legs were shaking. Not from fear, though there was plenty of that. No, this was exhaustion, the kind that came from running for three hours straight through narrow alleys and over rooftops, knowing that one mistake meant death. Or worse.
The clicking stopped.
Davrin's heart hammered against his broken ribs. Silence in the slums was never good. It meant either the danger had passed, or it was right behind you.
He slowly turned his head.
The Soul Reaper stood at the alley entrance, a silhouette of black armor and chain weapons that clinked softly with each small movement. The helmet was smooth, featureless except for a thin horizontal slit where eyes should be. No breath sounds came from it. The Reapers didn't need to breathe like normal people anymore, not after the essence bonding.
"Davrin Coal," the Reaper said, voice flat and hollow like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "Age twenty-two. Unawakened. Sister: Mira Coal, reaped five years ago. Currently wanted for theft, assault, and evading Imperial patrol."
Davrin pushed himself off the wall, swaying slightly. His right hand gripped the broken pipe he'd picked up six streets back. Rusted metal, maybe two feet long. Against a Soul Reaper it was basically useless, but it was all he had.
"You forgot handsome," Davrin said, spitting blood onto the ground. "People always forget that part."
The Reaper tilted its head, chains rattling. "Surrender. The reaping will be quick."
"Yeah?" Davrin's laugh came out wet and painful. "That what you told my sister before you ripped her soul out?"
"I do not recall individual subjects."
Something hot and terrible surged in Davrin's chest. Five years. Five years of searching, of asking questions, of following every rumor and dead-end lead. Five years of hoping Mira was still alive somewhere, even though he knew better. And this thing, this soulless piece of Imperial shit, didn't even remember her.
"You know what?" Davrin's grip tightened on the pipe. "I'm good, thanks."
The Reaper's hand moved to the chain coiled at its hip. "Resisting will only—"
Davrin threw the pipe.
It wasn't a good throw. His aim was off, his strength was mostly gone, and the pipe wobbled through the air like a drunk bird trying to fly. The Reaper didn't even bother dodging, just let it clang harmlessly off its chest armor.
But Davrin wasn't aiming to hurt it. He was aiming for time.
While the pipe was in the air, Davrin ran. Not away from the Reaper, but toward it, low and fast. The Reaper's chain whipped out, a blur of black metal that could wrap around a body and pin a soul in place for extraction. Davrin dropped into a slide, feeling the chain pass inches above his head, close enough that he felt the displaced air.
He crashed into the Reaper's legs, or tried to. It was like hitting a brick wall. Pain exploded through his shoulder and the world spun sideways. Davrin rolled, came up coughing, tasted more blood.
The Reaper looked down at him. "Pathetic."
The chain lashed out again, faster this time. Davrin tried to dodge but his body wasn't listening anymore, too broken, too tired. The chain wrapped around his left arm, cold metal biting into skin, and suddenly he couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. The chain was doing something, pulling at something inside him that wasn't physical.
"Soul scan initiated," the Reaper said. "Detecting... anomaly."
The pulling sensation intensified. Davrin screamed, feeling like something was trying to tear itself free from his chest. The chain glowed with a sickly green light.
"Impossible," the Reaper's voice lost its flatness, gained something that might have been surprise. "Latent awakening. Class unknown. Soul signature does not match Imperial records. This is—"
Davrin didn't hear the rest. The pulling sensation reached a peak and then something inside him cracked. Not broke, but cracked, like an egg hatching. Heat flooded through his veins, burning away the exhaustion, the pain, the fear. Everything went white.
When his vision cleared, the Reaper was stumbling backward, the chain hanging loose. Smoke rose from where it had touched Davrin's arm, the metal links glowing red-hot.
"What..." Davrin looked at his hands. They were glowing. Faint, pulsing with something that looked like veins of light beneath his skin. "What the hell?"
The Reaper recovered, chains whipping back into position. "Unregistered awakening. Code Vermillion. Lethal force authorized."
This time when the chains came, they were aimed to kill, not capture. Multiple chains, moving faster than Davrin could track. He threw his hands up instinctively, expecting to feel metal tear through flesh.
Instead, the chains stopped. Just froze in midair, inches from his face.
No. Not frozen. They were vibrating, shaking like they wanted to move forward but couldn't. Davrin stared at them, then at his still-glowing hands, then back at the Reaper.
"How are you..." the Reaper started.
Davrin didn't know either. But something inside him did, some new instinct that felt ancient and hungry. The light in his hands pulsed once, bright, and the chains shattered. Just exploded into fragments of metal that rained down on the alley floor.
The Reaper stood there, chainless, and for the first time Davrin saw it hesitate.
Then Davrin moved. He didn't decide to, didn't plan it. His body just knew what to do, like muscle memory for something he'd never done before. He crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat, faster than he'd ever moved in his life, and his glowing hand grabbed the Reaper's helmet.
The moment he made contact, everything changed.
Light exploded from the point of contact, so bright it turned the dark alley into noon. The Reaper screamed, a sound Davrin didn't know they could make, high and terrible and human. Then something started flowing from the Reaper into Davrin, through his hand, up his arm, into his chest where that cracked thing was waiting.
Soul essence. He could feel it, taste it, somehow knew exactly what it was. The Reaper's stolen power, accumulated over years of reaping, was pouring into him like water into a cup. But it wasn't just power. There were memories too, flashing through his mind too fast to catch clearly. Faces of people the Reaper had killed. Streets of cities Davrin had never seen. Orders given in cold Imperial halls.
And pain. So much pain.
The Reaper collapsed, armor clattering against stone. Davrin fell to his knees beside it, gasping, his whole body shaking from what he'd just absorbed. The glow in his hands was fading, but he could still feel the new power settling into that cracked space inside him, making it stronger, making it hungry for more.
"What..." he managed to say, voice raw. "What did I just do?"
The Reaper didn't answer. Couldn't answer. The armor was empty now, just metal and chains with nothing inside. Not even the Void. Just... empty.
Davrin sat in the alley surrounded by broken chains and an empty suit of armor, trying to process what the hell had just happened. His body didn't hurt anymore. The broken ribs, the cuts, the exhaustion—all of it was gone, healed by whatever power he'd just absorbed.
He looked at his hands. They looked normal now, no glow, no light. But he could feel something inside, coiled and waiting. Power. Real power.
And then he heard the sirens.
"Shit," Davrin muttered, scrambling to his feet. More Reapers. Of course there were more. They always traveled in pairs for dangerous assignments.
He ran, leaving the empty armor behind, heading deeper into Iron Hollow's maze of alleys. His mind was racing faster than his feet. He'd killed a Soul Reaper. Absorbed its power. Done something that shouldn't be possible.
The Empire would be looking for him now. Really looking, not just routine patrols. They'd tear apart Iron Hollow stone by stone to find him.
He needed to disappear. Needed to figure out what he'd become. Needed to—
A figure stepped out of the shadows ahead, blocking his path. Davrin skidded to a stop, hands already coming up, that new power responding to his panic.
"Relax," the figure said. A woman's voice, calm and amused. She stepped into the faint light.
One gold eye. One silver eye. Both staring at him with an intensity that made his skin crawl.
"Who—" Davrin started.
"My name is Seraph," she said, smiling like she'd just found something she'd been searching for. "And you, Davrin Coal, are either going to change everything, or destroy it."
She tilted her head, those impossible eyes gleaming.
"Probably both."
End of Chapter 1