The storm had begun to thin with the morning. What had been a furious, endless wall of black skies was now a tattered veil, shredded by streaks of light. Shafts of pale gold cut through the remnants of the downpour, staining the wet earth with faint warmth. The air still smelled sharp with the nasty ozone and wet stone and churned muck, but the worst had passed.
Two dragons cut through the clearing sky, their wings fanning sheets of vapour behind them. Ruben sat astride the shimmering back of one, Lea Lantern was steady at his side. A second dragon carried Corbin and Kade, its translucent body glinting like glass as it caught the light.
Kade whistled low under his breath, his eyes darting from one glimmering scale to the next. He patted the dragon's side with an almost reverent touch. "You've got to be kidding me. These things are…" He cut himself off, shaking his head with a grin. "Cool. These are cool."
Ruben's lips twitched into the barest smile. Compliments usually slid off of him, but Kade's awe didn't feel empty. "Thanks." He responded.
"Don't thank him too much," Lea called over the wind, shooting her partner a sidelong look. "He's easily impressed."
"Easily impressed?!" Kade waved his arms wide, nearly unbalancing himself as the dragon dipped slightly in the air. "Lea, you're telling me that you do things like this every day?"
Lea rolled her eyes, then leaned in closer to Ruben. "Ignore him. He gets like this every time he can admit something might be cooler than him."
Corbin, clutching tight with his good arm, snorted. "That's gotta be all the time then, right?"
Kade opened his mouth to retort but stopped when Ruben raised his hand. Ahead, the horizon was changing. The air itself seemed heavier, thicker with mist that swelled in slow breaths. What looked like a cloud bank stretched across the southeast, veiling everything in a silver haze.
"There," Lea said, pointing. Her voice lost its usual playfulness, replaced by a touch of reverence. "See that wall of white? That's no storm, it's the Eternal Cataract."
As they drew closer, the world began to dissolve. A roaring filled the air, deep and endless, like the heartbeat of the earth itself. Ruben's dragons slowed on their own, wings beating harder against the shifting currents.
Even Corbin, who had been grimacing against the ache in his arm, lifted his head to stare.
The Eternal Cataract dominated the world. A waterfall so vast its upper edge vanished into the heavens, its body poured endlessly downward, dissolving into mist before it ever got to touch the earth.
Sunlight struck the vapour and shattered into bands of fractured colour, shimmering arcs of green, violet and red that wove together like stained glass falling apart midair.
Ruben breathed it in, tasting the wetness, the mineral tang. "It doesn't… end."
"It doesn't have to," Lea answered, her tone almost solemn. "The city lives in it."
Kade gestured toward the wall of haze where faint silhouettes began to take shape, arched rooftops, balconies dripping with fog, lantern lights glowing faintly against the veil. "Brumália. Not your usual city."
Lea smirked.
Kade leaned back, his voice was quieter now. "We need to slow down. Daylight means eyes, and your dragons shine like fireworks. Last thing we need is half the city wondering just who rode in on flying beasts."
Too many people, there would be a chance that there could be people that may be against them. Ruben and Corbin still didn't know their entire situation yet, could their faces be plastered all over most wanted boards?
Why hadn't Dario shown up yet?
He had always seemed to pop up at the right time before.
For now, he continued focusing on what was in front of him. He pressed inward a silent command, and from his forearm a smaller dragon unfurled, no larger than a hawk. It burst forward in a streak of pale light, wings slicing clean through the mist as it scouted ahead.
Three minutes passed with only the hum of the Cataract to keep them company. Then the little dragon returned, circling once before darting off on a new path. Ruben's mount followed without hesitation, banking hard until the city's edge revealed itself.
They landed behind a wide barn whose roof sagged beneath years of damp fog. Its walls are cloaked in moss. The dragons' wings stirred the mist into swirls as they descended.
Ruben slid to the ground first, helping Corbin down with care before dismissing the creatures into a shimmer of light.
Lea stretched, giggling silently to herself, brushing the rain from her uneven hair, then turned to the boys with a grin. Her gray eyes were sharp but softer now, almost proud. She gestured toward the curtain of fog that hung above the streets in the outskirts of this city.
"Welcome to Brumália," she said. "My hometown."
***
Brumália was a city of two faces. The outskirts still drowned in mist, streets smothered by sheets of rolling fog that clung to buildings like damp shrouds. There, entire neighbourhoods lay half-empty, ghostly in their silence, where only the poorest and most stubborn still made their homes.
Yet the city center told a different story. Centuries of clever engineering had learned to tame the Eternal Cataract's endless fall. Towering filtration pylons stood like ribs around the heart of Brumália, drawing the fog inward and stripping the water from its body.
The vapour was redirected through vast conduits hidden beneath the streets, funneled into reservoirs that fed the city's plumbing, cooled its great furnaces, and even powered the street lights. The mist within the city was not a suffocating curse, but a resource that they harnessed until only the fringes still drowned in its weight.
It was in this clearer quarter, where sunbeams actually pierced down to the streets, that Ruben now sat. Corbin's arm was bound tight in a pale cast, the stiffness pressing his skin in ways he hated. He flexed his fingers slowly, testing the freedom, but Lea's voice cut across the room before he could attempt anything more.
"Don't even think about it," she said, leaning against the frame of her kitchen doorway. Her hair was still damp, uneven strands were clinging to her cheekbones, but her eyes were sharp with amusement. "Lucy's healing is strong. But still, you have to be patient. By tomorrow, you'll take that cast off and it'll be like it never happened."
Corbin huffed, he had no intention of waiting. He stretched his fingers cautiously, then with a grin, rotated his wrist further than he should have. "Feels right already," he muttered, jaw set with stubborn pride.
Lea rolled her eyes. "You're a terrible patient."
Her explanation of Lucy lingered in Ruben's head, though. He hadn't met the woman, but Lea described her with a respect that suggested years of friendship, couldn't say the same for Corbin though.
Lucy's Ego was strange but something that would be considered a dream for many people. After diagnosing someone, she could manifest sweets, candied remedies spun from her palms like crystalized medicine.
Depending on the severity of the injury, the body absorbed the sugar, slowly knitting itself back together from the inside out.
Minor bruises faded in minutes, and Ruben could attest to that from the sweets that Corbin brought back for him.
The four of them sat in Lea's home, a narrow but tall house. It was certainly lived in, heated stone floors, shelves crowded with family photos, and the faint scent of candle wax and herbs.
She had bought it after rising to Silver rank, she explained proudly, a promise she kept to herself about making sure to keep close to her family and the city that she loved. For her, becoming a Paladin wasn't about escaping home, but instead about protecting it.
Corbin broke the quiet first, glancing at Ruben, then at their hosts. "How long are we supposed to stay here before someone actually explains what's going on?"
Ruben gave a silent nod, his eyes fixed on Kade. The man was lounging with infuriating ease on Lea's couch, his boots crossed at the ankle, and his arms folded behind his head.
"Not long," Kade said, shrugging. "Our contact will reach out when it's time. Till then? We play babysitters." Then, with a mischievous spark, he tilted his head toward the boys. "Unless, of course, you'd like to explain what you two did to need hiding in the first place?"
Corbin bristled instantly, but Ruben surprised them all by speaking first. His voice was flat, almost casual. "We were framed."
Kade blinked, his grin faltering as though he hadn't expected a real answer. He sat up straighter, the humour bleeding from his face. "Framed? For what?"
Ruben's eyes darkened. "The Gresham incident. A ton of people died during that. And it was pinned on us."
Lea's mouth opened in shock. Her gaze flicked between the two boys, disbelief pulling at her features. Kade, meanwhile, went still. He leaned forward slowly, elbows resting on his knees, his expression sharpening into something unreadable. When he spoke, his voice had lost all warmth.
"I'm from Gresham."
The words landed heavy, louder than thunder. Ruben's heart skipped, his stomach dropping. Across the room, Corbin's stance shifted in an instant, good arm flexing, ready to defend himself. Kade rose, shoulders blocking the light, his shadow stretching across the floor.
His eyes were colder, mouth a hard line as he loomed over them.
Ruben felt the pressure coil in his chest, he should speak, defend, explain himself, but before he could form the words, Kade's lips twitched. Then, with a sudden bark, he laughed.
"I'm kidding."
The air collapsed in a rush. Ruben exhaled sharply, pressing a hand to his temple as frustration spiked through him. Corbin's face flushed crimson as the tension drained into fury.
"That's fucking insensitive!" Corbin snapped, shoving himself to his feet. His voice cracked, raw from the strain of the last few days. "You think that's funny."
Kade was doubled over with laughter, wheezing out, "The looks on your faces… God it was priceless."
Lea smacked his shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. "Kade. Enough." Her voice was steely and unamused. "You don't make jokes like that."
He raised both his hands in mock surrender, still chuckling under his breath. "Alright, alright. Too far. My bad."
Ruben ignored them both as something had caught his ear. His senses sharpened in the quiet, catching a thread of sound from the adjourning room. A steady voice carried through the walls. He rose silently, following it, Corbin seemed intrigued and followed closely behind him.
The living room was empty but for a small television glowing in the corner. Its flickering light painted the walls with pale blue as the newscaster's voice droned on. Behind them, Lea had begun to call out something about food, her voice was lighter, but she cut herself short when she followed their gaze.
Across the screen, in letters bold and undeniable, the headline burned.
[DARIO KOSTA IS DEAD]