The doors slammed open, and Kin strolled out on the street. The rest of the men had trouble keeping up and were panting heavily as they joined him outside the Hallow, lord Tamak’s building and the center of business on this side of the Crescent Lake.

It was a calm and cold night. The city was an ocean too still to be comforting. Kin was the predator sent to disturb the waters.

Kin took a deep breath. The cold air made him shiver, but he would not have it any other way. Better to feel the cold than to be numb against the pain of losing your limbs.

“Where are we going?”, asked one of the men. He was the one wearing the distinctive knots on his chest that marked him as an officer of some degree. He did not seem old enough to be wearing them though, Kin concluded as he took in the smooth skin and innocent eyes.

Most likely a son of someone important. Someone not yet skilled enough to clean the streets of the rot by themselves, but with a name that gave him a level of reverence.

Kin gestured towards the highroad leading to the town square.

“I need to have a look around”, he explained. “Only then will I pick up the trail. I meet you at the Northside Market.”

“Wait!”, the officer shouted as Kin stopped a green automobile with a sign on its roof. The driver jumped out and held the door for Kin. “We are supposed to accompany you.”

“Then you better not delay. I’ll see you there.”

He shut the door and told the driver that he would be given extra if he sped through the traffic.

He then proceeded to open the window and take in the scenery. The city was a smear of colors that blended together, ever changing, ever bleeding through the facades of the buildings. The longer he stared at the streets the more he found himself relaxing. He did not quite understand why but somewhere deep inside him something always stirred at the sight of Banmoor in the cold night.

He closed his eye for a moment, and when he opened them again the landscape had changed. Suddenly he could see them.

The light, the colors of the souls.

They were faint afterimages of the people of the city. They lingered behind, highlighting moments where someone might have done something meaningful. A shadow of a person, shining a warm violet light, stood at a crosswalk holding something or someone in his hand. Another one sat in the dark of an alley, a sickly green shadow, trying to keep itself warm.

They were everywhere.

It had taken Kin years, but eventually he had been able to close his eyes for them. It was a nauseating experience to see, and a terrifying thing to know that you in a way could see the past.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

He took out a small envelope from his jacket pocket and weighed it in his hand. Some objects carried a stronger connection to the people holding them than others. They were connected through emotions and memories, and the stronger that connection was the longer the shadow would remain.

Kin opened the envelop. A small cogwheel. That was all it contained. But it shined with a pulsating blue and red light. Such a curious thing to put so much affection to.

It did not matter. It would lead him to his pray.

A faint thread grew from the cog. Even at a distance, the shadow was looking for the person who had held it with such a loving touch.

South, the thread seemed to indicate. But Kin could not be sure, for the thread was faint and moving.

He pocketed the gear when he saw the driver glancing back at him.

“Pardon, master”, the driver said nervously. “But you look like one of them hunters. The lord’s men.”

Kin nodded.

“A fine job you’re doing, of course. Did not intend to insult you…”, the driver continued.

“You haven’t. Speak your business.”

“I only wish to serve, master. But I’d like to ask… As a man of our good leader… You might be able to put an end to this.”

“To what exactly?”

The man gestured to the streets and the buildings around them as if that was answer enough. When he noticed the confusion in Kin’s eyes, he continued stammering.

“The city reeks, master. Of terror and fear. And hunger. There… there’s something wrong...”

He shuddered and said no more.

Kin stared at him for a moment, unsure what to say. He could not see it, nor smell it. The reek the man spoke of.

Banmoor was such as it always had been. One of the last remains of a broken world. The refuge of human culture. Yes, it was a cold and cruel city, but the world around them was a far worse place. It was…

A sudden pain made him gasp. He rubbed his forehead, but the headache lasted only for a few seconds. When it was over, he had completely forgotten what he had been thinking.

Instead, he looked out of the window and was reminded of his mission.

Find the girl.

Nothing else mattered.

*

He got out of the vehicle and glared at the pedestrians until they made way for him.

Even here, closer to the true heart of the city, there were few people around this late. They hurried away, whispering and hushing. Lord Tamak was lenient in many ways but demanded his streets to be clean. To be orderly.

And the President demanded obedience from his subjects.

Kin paid the driver and went to check on his surroundings. The towns square was small with few shops and workshops. There was a statue of one of the original founders of Banmoor, but no one seemed to any longer remember their names. It now stood lonely on guard, watching the horizon and the Sunchain, the mountains in the south-west.

Kin took out the cog again and studied the colors. The thread he had seen earlier now pointed west. That could either mean his target had also moved or that the shadow was too erratic to be reliable. He needed to be sure of the direction before he made a move. If he traveled a bit further west, he might be able to pinpoint his target more accurately.

The officer and his men arrived just as Kin opened the door to another automobile and stepped in.

“We’re going to the Plaza”, Kin explained.

“So you’ve found her?”, asked the officer.

“I…”

Kin got interrupted by the sound of an explosion. Black smoke rose to the sky not far from there.

In the…

“West”, Kin mumbled but no one heard him. The officer stumbled and paled at the menacing smoke. Several of the men gasped.

“Take me there”, Kin told the driver and pointed the direction of the explosion. “NOW!”