By the time he reached the refinery, his ribs were screaming with every breath, pressing against the bruised flesh beneath his heavy leather coat. Broad-shouldered but gaunt from exhaustion, he moved with the stiffness of old wounds layered over fresh ones. His coat, reinforced with metal plates long worn dull with use, dragged at his shoulders. His knuckles, scarred and stiff, flexed against the repeaterâs grip.
The heat in the chamber wasnât normal, not just warmth, but pressure, the slow grind of something misaligned. Heâd fired too many rounds in too little time before. The barrel shouldâve cooled by now. It hadnât. The receiver vibrated under his fingers, an uneven pulse, like a breath caught mid-inhale. His lungs shuddered with it, his own breath syncing to the failing rifle. Not good.
Didnât matter.
The old refinery loomed, its twisted remains still pulsing with aetherâs dying heartbeat: weak, erratic light seeping from within.
Aether.
Kristos was inside. He didnât need to see him to know. The man had a way of filling space, broad-shouldered but weighed down, as if even his bones carried old burdens. He shouldâve been a powerhouse, but the pale cast to his skin, the way he carried himself, something was sapping him, stretching him too thin. Mael felt it before he even laid eyes on him.
His boots hit the rusted walkways, soft, measured, every footstep a countdown.
And then:
Movement.
Just the smallest flicker of motion inside the refinery.
There.
Kristos was there.
Mael exhaled slow, teeth bared in something close to a grin.
Because neither of them were walking out.
Inside, the air was thick. Wrong. It clung like static, tingled beneath the skin, left a faint hum in the bones. Not just heavy, charged. It tasted metallic, sharp, ozone, burnt magic, the ghost of old electricity.
The refineryâs broken skeleton stretched high above them, its rusted catwalks hanging in pieces, some collapsed, others just sturdy enough to bear weight. Mael moved fast. Too fast for a man his size, his bulk pressing low as he climbed a corroded service ladder bolted into the steel framework.
Nestled in the half-light of a ruined scaffold, the aether lanterns above him flickering in and out, he adjusted his aim. From here, any movement below was his to pin down.
Aether didnât just flow through conduits here; it hung in the space itself, leaking through the cracks of reality. The pipes overhead pulsed erratically, light shuddering through them like dying veins. Somewhere deep in the station, a sigil failed, and the resulting surge of raw aether sent a shiver through the entire structure.
The walls were streaked with corrosion, their old sigils faded and cracked, bindings, not circuits, not machines. Once, these symbols had channeled, directed, contained. Now, they flickered weakly, their authority over Aether slipping, strained against the press of untamed energy. Overhead, conduits pulsed off-rhythm, erratic surges of light stuttering through the structure like failing nerves. Deeper inside, machinery let out a low, shuddering groan, the sound of something too broken to stop trying.
Kristosâ eyes flicked to the trembling conduits, their sickly glow carving sharp shadows across his face. The green in his gaze caught the erratic light, fractured and rimmed with exhaustion. His skin, too pale beneath the flickering sigils, stretched tight over high cheekbones. The shadows beneath his eyes deepened, evidence of strain cutting deep behind them. The flickering sigils, the erratic pulses of energy writhing through the old structure, the shadows that werenât behaving the way they should. He scoffed under his breath.
âThis place looks like it was barely holding together even before they left it.â
Azariah didnât look at him. The low glow of flickering aether traced sharp lines over his dark skin, catching on the defined planes of his face, the high cheekbones, the carved severity of his jaw. He stood rigid, unmoving, his presence as deliberate as a held breath. âIt never was.â
Kristos frowned.
Azariah exhaled, barely more than a breath. âHow do you hold something that isnât meant to be caught?â
Kristos didnât answer. His grip on the blade tightened instead.
The refineryâs lights shuddered overhead, flickering out of sync. Not just the usual power failures, they pulsed, almost as if something was breathing with them. Kristos barely noticed, his vision was already blurring at the edges, the strain biting deep behind his eyes. Azariah didnât so much as blink, his gaze cutting through the dim glow like it wasnât even there. The refinery groaned around them, shifting in its sleep. The old regulators struggled to hold back the surges, pulsing unevenly with barely-contained energy. In the failing light, shadows didnât behave the way they should.
The deeper they went, the thicker the air got.
The deeper they went, the more the refinery felt alive. Not in the way of something sentient, but in the way a place could hold echoes, memory. The walls seemed to breathe in irregular pulses, the lingering enchantments reacting to their presence like an old beast stirred in its sleep. Somewhere deeper inside, a containment rune failed, the resulting energy pulse sent a slow ripple through the walls, rattling loose pipes. Kristos swore the air flexed. Like something exhaling, sending a ripple through the air, an unnatural shiver, a brief misalignment in space.
A pull at the base of his skull. A wrongness just outside his peripheral.
Azariah breathed in through his nose. "Weâve got company."
Kristosâ hand moved toward his greatsword, the leather-wrapped grip firm beneath his touch. The blade was a familiar weight, muscle memory pulling his fingers over its hilt even as his mind reeled. The repeater sat heavy against his hip, its steel chilled from the refineryâs breath, a constant reminder of every moment heâd needed it, and every moment he hadnât been fast enough. "You sure?"
Azariahâs head tilted slightly. "Fortier."
The refinery stretched around them, a vast, skeletal carcass of rusted steel and failing magic. The main floor sprawled wide: rows of broken-down machinery standing like headstones, tangled pipes coiling across the ground, a graveyard of failed industry. High above, catwalks crisscrossed between skeletal beams, their rusted grating swaying faintly in the breath of old vents.
Kristos moved carefully, his boots scuffing against slick, dust-coated stone. Aether residue clung to everything, thin, electric, crackling at the edges of perception. The refinery groaned around them, shifting in its sleep. Not walls closing in, but space itself, pressing, distorting.
Azariah slowed first. Not much. Just enough for Kristos to notice. He hadnât drawn his rifle, but his hand hovered near the stock, his head tilting slightly, listening.His pulse was kicking too hard. His skin crawled for a reason he couldnât name.
The sigils along the rusted walkways flickered erratically. Some pulsed like dying embers, others stretched, distorting, as if struggling to hold their shape. The regulators groaned, failing, their rhythms uneven, like a pulse fighting to stay steady.
Azariah stopped walking. Just for a second. His weight shifted slightly over the balls of his feet, body angling as if listening.
Kristos felt it a second later. Just off. The air had thickened, pressing against his ribs, settling at the base of his skull like a thing waiting to be acknowledged.
Ahead of them, the refinery stretched wide and empty. No movement. No figures in the dark. Just the silent sprawl of rusted machines and towering pipes, lit only by the uneven flicker of failing aether lanterns. But something felt wrong. The refinery wasnât reacting to them. It was reacting to something else.
A pressure at the base of his skull. A breath of something cold, pressing just outside his peripheral. The refinery exhaled, a deep, metallic groan that didnât match the weight of their footsteps.
The overhead conduits flickered: not fast, not stuttering, but slow. Lagging, like light trapped in water.
Kristos stepped forward. His shadow followed. Then, half a second later, another shadow moved.
His pulse kicked. His vision blurred for a moment, his mind struggling to make sense of the shape before him. It wasnât a figure. Not really. It was something stretched too thin, flickering in and out like a candle flame caught in a draft.
Then,
The shadow didnât catch up.
It separated.
Kristosâ ribs locked. Cold air pressed against his lungs, like an exhale that wasnât his. A shape stood where the shadow shouldâve been. A silhouette that hadnât been there a second ago.
Not human. Not quite.
Tall. Gaunt. Limbs just a fraction too long, its shape blurred, stuttering in and out of solidity like a candle flame in a windless room.
An echo.
Kristos exhaled slow, forced his focus sharper. The refinery wasnât just falling apart.
It was adapting.
No.
Not the refinery.
Something inside it.
Azariahâs posture shifted, just barely, but Kristos caught it. The kind of adjustment a man makes when his instincts are screaming at him to stop moving.
The refinery pulsed again. The air flexed, buckled inward, then exhaled. A ripple across space itself.
The shape twitched.
It stuttered.
Like reality itself hesitated, trying to decide where it should be.
Kristos braced. His blade wasnât the right weapon for this. He reached for his repeater, slow, methodical, the smooth steel grounding him.
The refineryâs groaning settled. The light flickered. The conduits exhaled.
A whisper.
A thought that wasnât his, brushing against the edges of his mind.
Kristos didnât breathe.
Then the second one appeared.
No footsteps. No emergence.
Just there.
And then the third.
The wraith turned its head.
No eyes. No mouth. Just a sliver of awareness in a hollowed-out thing.
Kristos moved first.
His blade cleared its sheath in a blur of silver. He lunged, and for a fraction of a second, the blade met something. Then it shivered, recoiled, and collapsed inward, like reality hesitating on where it should be.
Aether rippled in its wake, like disturbed water.
Kristos staggered back.
The wraith flickered, then collapsed in on itself.
Like something recoiling from being seen.
Gone.
Kristosâ breath came sharp, his pulse hammering. His blade still hovered mid-strike.
Azariah was watching the empty space where it had been.
Kristos turned to him. His voice came raw, edged.
âYou knew that was gonna happen?â
Azariah tilted his head slightly. His eyes stayed fixed on the dark, unblinking.
The silence wasnât hesitation; it was confirmation of something unspoken. Then:
âNo.â
A flick of his fingers toward the air where the wraith had been.
âBut Iâm not surprised.â
Kristos forced himself to breathe.
The refinery settled. The flickering stopped.
And somewhere, in the thick dark, Mael exhaled.
Watching. Waiting.
From a distance, from the rusted walkways above, Mael saw it happen.
He had expected a fight. Expected Kristos to be ready for him.
He had not expected this.
For the first time, Kristos wasnât in control. Wasnât fighting. He was standing still.
Mael shifted in the half-light, his bulk pressing against the rusted rail. The faint aether glow caught the sweat pooling in the creases of his flesh, glistening over the swollen folds of his neck, the bloated weight of him spilling past the seams of his coat. His breath, thick and wet, exhaled in slow amusement. A man like him shouldnât have been able to move as quietly as he did, but Mael had always known how to let the room breathe around him, how to let silence work in his favor.
He saw the flicker in Kristosâ grip. The hesitation. The blade in his hand that suddenly seemed useless.
Aether flickered in the refineryâs veins, humming against metal, pulsing too fast, too erratic.
Mael exhaled, slow, steady. Watching. Waiting.
The refinery had given him cover. Had made them stop.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Perfect.
He had time. Let them face whatever this was first.
Then?
Then heâd take what was left.
The refinery pulsed. Not in a way that could be explained, not in a way that belonged to the living. It shuddered, exhaled, flexed, a deep, reverberating tremor that rippled through the metal bones of the structure, setting loose debris rattling, sending old pipes groaning under unseen weight. The air hummed, stretched taut as a bowstring.
Azariah and Kristos stood frozen.
Kristosâ shoulders squared instinctively, his stance solid, weight planted over his heels, a body built for brutal force, now locked in uncertainty. The greatsword at his hip felt heavier than it should, a weapon of steel against something that barely seemed real.
Beside him, Azariah stood differently, loose, weight shifting forward on the balls of his feet. His rifle strap pressed against his shoulder, but he didnât move to raise it yet, only watching. Calculating.
The aether wraiths didnât move, not exactly. They shifted; flickering at the edges of perception. They did not react like men would, did not move with purpose or intent, they simply⦠existed, flickering in and out, the refineryâs failing energy pulsing through their forms like a current struggling to find purchase. They moved as if tracing the steps of unseen figures, reliving something, repeating a moment long since lost. Their outlines wavered, unbound by the laws of flesh and motion. They flickered like figures inside a glass that had long since cracked, their edges warping where the refinery bled its final breaths. The air pulsed in time with their fading, an unnatural hum rattling through the refineryâs broken bones.
Kristos forced his breath slow, though his jaw had already locked tight, the motion drawing stark against the sharp lines of his face. His grip on the greatswordâs hilt was steady, but his knuckles had gone white, the tension crawling across his scarred forearms.
Azariah didnât tense. He watched, eyes narrowing slightly, the green catching flickers of dying aether-light, sharp, calculating, tracking their movement the way a sniper would track his prey.
Kristosâ breath came slow, controlled, but his fingers twitched toward his blade, the leather of his coat creaking as he shifted. The weight of the greatsword pressed against the reinforced straps across his back, an instinctive presence, a weapon meant to cut through flesh and bone. His entire body screamed at him to do something, anything, but what use was that against something that barely seemed real? Kristos kept his blade raised, breath coming sharp. âHow the hell are we supposed to fight that?â
Azariah watched the empty air where they had stood, his lips twitching, not quite a smirk, but something close. The refineryâs dim light traced the faint burn scar along his temple as he shifted, rolling his shoulders, still unbothered. His voice was smooth. âYou planning to fight a ghost? Let me know how that works out.â
Kristosâ jaw tightened. âAnd what if they donât care what I plan to do?â
Azariah didnt answer. He had seen things, bad things. He was no stranger to nightmares made flesh, but this? This wasnât flesh. His usual smirk had vanished, lips pressing into a thin line as he flicked his gaze between them, tracking the staggered, disjointed movements.
The wraiths had no faces. Not really. Sometimes, the outline of a jaw would appear, the suggestion of a hollowed-out face, flickering into place just long enough to seem almost real, then gone. The wraiths wavered, slipping through an unseen rhythm, responding to something beyond reach.And the whisper again. That cold touch at the edges of their thoughts, like something brushing against their minds without quite pressing in.
Kristos forced himself to exhale. âHave you ever seen anything like that?â
Azariah exhaled slowly. âNo. But Iâve heard stories.â His gaze flicked over the refinery before he added, âFrom an annoying kid who thinks he knows everything. Talks too much.â
The sigils burned for a brief, brilliant second before stuttering out, casting long shadows that didnât align with their sources. Pipes trembled, loose bolts rattling.
Another pulse. The refinery shifted.
Mael watched.
From the rusted rafters above, half-shadowed in the flickering, erratic glow of dying aether, he waited.
Kristos and the other one, the bastard who had pulled him away, the one who had come asking questions, stood below. Unaware. Open.
For a moment, Mael didnât move. His breath came slow, scraping through his chest like broken gears grinding together. Each shift sent a fresh lance of pain through his ribs, but he forced his stance steady. His boots barely whispered against the rusted metal as he leveled the rifle.
The stock was slick with sweat, his grip tightening. The barrel burned against his palm, too hot. Too long without cooling. It didnât matter.
He had to make this shot count. His hands were steady, but his body was running on empty. He exhaled, curling his finger around the trigger.
The trigger stuck. Not for long. Just a heartbeat, just enough for doubt to sink its teeth in before the shot rang out. The rifle was running hot. Too hot. A warning he didnât have time to heed. Blood loss, exhaustion, whatever damage had been done to his ribs; it didnât matter now. He wasnât shaking. He wasnât second-guessing.
He had one purpose left.
He lined up the sights.
Kristos stood just a few feet ahead, eyes sharp, stance wary but unguarded. Not expecting a shot from above.
Maelâs finger curled around the trigger.
And then,
The refinery shuddered, displacing the air in a slow, uneven breath.
Aether surged, not wildly, but like it had been waiting. The walls breathed.
The sigils lining the support beams burned for a brief, brilliant second, blue-white veins of power flashing across the rusted surfaces like lightning searing across old wounds. For that one instant, the refinery awoke.
The force rippled outward, not like an explosion, but like something correcting itself. A realignment.
The pulse slammed through the structure, not quite a quake, not quite a collapse, but something in between.
A pressure shift.
Aether groaned through the conduits, light flaring, then dying.
The metal beneath Maelâs boots lurched. His ribs screamed as he staggered, a fresh jolt of pain stealing his breath. He tightened his grip, but his hands shook against the rifleâs weight, too much blood lost, too much strain.
The platform buckled beneath him, not fully giving way, but enough. His aim swayed, fingers clenching around the trigger. Too high. Too wide.
His grip twitched.
The rifle jerked.
And from the rusted rafters.
Mael took his shot.
The bullet veered.
Too high. Too wide.
Instead of Kristosâ skull, the bullet slammed into a pipe two feet to his left. The impact sent shards of rust and molten aether screaming past him, and Kristos barely twisted in time, his coat snapping at his heels with the motion.
Aether screeched.
The refinery reacted violently.
The impact sent a fresh pulse through the station. The wound in the metal hissed, bleeding aether, rejecting the shot like a body purging poison.
And then,
CRACK.
The first shot tore through the refinery with an unnatural echo.
Kristos barely had time to move. The bullet struck near his feet, exploding stone and rusted metal outward in a spray of sparks and shrapnel. He flinched, arm snapping up too late, heat kissed his skin, something sharp stung past his ear. Too close. The air hissed, not just from the gunfire, but from the refinery itself. The old structure groaned, conduits overhead pulsing erratically, reacting like something wounded.
Kristos threw himself behind a rusted-out console, his broad frame slamming hard into corroded metal. The impact rattled his armor, layered plates beneath worn leather creaking under the force. His breath hitched, sharp between his teeth, and he pressed a scarred hand against his side, feeling the rough stitching of his coat where past fights had torn through.
Azariah was already gone.
Not out of fear. Out of efficiency. A blur of dark fabric moving like a second skin, his footsteps near silent despite the debris. He shifted, unhurried, the faint shimmer of reinforced weave visible only for a moment as refinery light caught the fabric. Not bulky. Not loud. Built for precision, just like the man wearing it.
Kristos scowled. âYouâre leaving me?â
Azariahâs voice came easy, laced with amusement. âRelax. Not like I'm leaving you to die, yet.â
He glanced over, dark eyes catching the flickering refinery light, turning sharp and knowing. There was always a glint there, calculated amusement, edged with something unreadable. Shadows danced along the side of his neck, where ink and old scars wove together into forgotten histories. "I like to see how things play out before I commit."
Another shot rang out. Kristos flinched as it struck too close, metal screeching as the round ricocheted.
Azariah didnât. He was already moving, hands working the dagger at his hip in a motion so practiced it barely looked conscious. His fingers ghosted over the engraved handle, not pulling it yet, just readying for when the fight would inevitably demand it.
Then: a click. No fire.
Maelâs breath hitched. He slammed the bolt forward again, gritting his teeth. The gun whined low, aether crackling too loud in the chamber, like something inside was resisting. He knew that sound. That wasnât a meager sidearm fired in rage.
That was a repeater.
That was Mael.
And he wasnât shooting to wound.
Kristosâ jaw locked, stubble rough against his skin as he exhaled slow. He knew that sound, that whine of unstable aether, the way the weapon hissed like a thing ready to rupture. His hand twitched near his belt, not for his pistol, not yet, but for the familiar weight of his greatsword, still strapped tight against his back.
The whole structure shuddered. Not a collapse, yet. But a warning. The grated floor vibrated beneath him, dust trickling from above in thin, weightless streams. The refinery felt alive, angry. Aether surged, rippling through the air like a shift in pressure.
Mael felt it before he understood what was happening, the metal grating underfoot jolted, aether hummed too loud, the entire structure trembled like a beast stirring from sleep.
The wraiths flickered. For a moment, there were more of them, outlines wavered, distorted, like shapes pressed into stretched glass. A breathless murmur, half a whisper, half a sigh, slipped through the refinery, then they were gone. Their forms barely held together, but they reacted. To the noise. To the fight. To the gunfire.
And one by one, they disappeared.
Fleeing.
Just elsewhere. Like they had been pulled, yanked off the board by unseen hands. Like something had changed the rules.
As if whatever held them here had snapped.
As if whatever kept them bound had shifted.
And just like that, the refinery was empty again.
Except for them.
Another shot rang out.
The air cracked apart with the force of it, the refinery shuddering like a dying beast caught in its final breath. Metal screamed as the bullet ricocheted off rusted plating, sparks bursting in erratic showers, flaring too bright, too charged, as if the very air had learned to hold onto fire.
Kristos felt the heat of the round as it passed close, too close, splintering the edge of his cover. Shards of rusted metal and shattered stone sprayed outward, biting into exposed skin. The refinery hissed, aether-charged machinery responding like a wounded thing, flickering light racing in unpredictable bursts along conduits that hadnât pulsed in years.
Mael was adjusting his aim.
Kristos barely had time to register it before the next shot thundered through the refinery, deafening in the tight, enclosed space. The whole structure shook, something deep in its bones giving way, a containment rune flaring bright before winking out, collapsing inward.
The refinery was coming apart.