The cuffs hissed where they touched his skin.
Steam curled off the metal, faint and steady.
"Why'd you do it, kid?"
He didn't answer.
The officer stood in front of him, visor dripping rain. Behind the mirror of glass, Alain saw only his own reflection. Wet gray hair plastered to his face, soot streaking down his jaw.
His knees sank into the mud until he could feel the gravel biting through his trousers. The adrenaline had already worn off. Every part of his body hurt.
People were gone now. Only helmets and broken glass remained. The quiet after a raid was always worse than the noise.
The forge was halfway caved in. Henrick's anvil lay in the mud. Somewhere behind the line of helmets, someone was crying.
"Was it worth it?" the officer asked, in the middle of writing something on his notepad.
Alain's laugh came out more like a breath, "Dunno, I didn't check the price."
The officer studied him another moment, "Next time, maybe don't play hero."
Alain turned his head, enough to meet the reflection of his own eyes in the visor. They were still glowing a faint gold.
"Didn't mean to play anything."
The man exhaled through his nose, a sigh buried under static. Then he gestured to the others.
Boots splashed through the puddles. Hands gripped Alain's shoulders, dragging him upright.
"Do a pat down, he might have hidden weapons," the officer sighed.
Another pair of gloves brushed down his coat and pockets. They found the usual—wire, soot, charred stub of a chisel.
One of them paused, turning the blackened metal between his fingers.
"He's a forge rat," the senior officer murmured.
The younger one didn't answer. His hands slowed, searching with less pressure now, careful around the burn marks on Alain's wrists.
Most people stopped roughing him up when they realized he worked metal. Blacksmiths were valued in the slums. Everyone needed some kind of weapon to survive down here after all.
When he reached the inside pocket, his glove came away streaked with blood.
He froze. "Sir—"
"Leave it," the older man said, "Not under our jurisdiction."
Rain filled the silence that followed. It struck armor, stone, skin—everything except the leading officer's voice, which had gone soft.
"Should've been born somewhere better," he muttered, almost to himself.
Alain lifted his head at that, eyes unfocused. For a heartbeat, the officer looked at him. The grime, ash, and tired defiance, whatever it was it made the officer look away.
The younger one finished the search and stepped back.
"Nothing dangerous," he said.
The leading officer scribbled something in his notepad again.
"Almost done, check his Concept Rune and Insight Level."
The younger officer knelt beside Alain, pulling a small brass scanner from his belt. It whirred to life, projecting faint amber light across the rain.
"Left first," the senior said, scribbling in his notepad.
The device passed over Alain's bare hand. Symbols flared faintly under his skin like coals pulsing in a fireplace.
< — Kenaz
"Grade One. Fire Rune." The younger officer's voice was steady, but his throat bobbed as he spoke.
Why were they even checking this? If I'd known how bothersome this would be, I would've declined Heinrick from the start.
Should've known it was a scam when the old man said it'd let me control fire.
Even through the rain, the senior officer's voice could be heard clearly. "Right, what about his Insight Level?"
"Insight… first stage, Echo."
He remembered something about this—a few years back, when Julie taught a class on Runes at the orphanage. One rune per hand, nine stages of something they called Insight. The more you 'understood' your rune, the stronger it got.
Or that's what people said, anyway.
Alain had never felt any of that. He only knew that when he pushed his will into the mark, the metal melted faster.
"Figures, he did put up a lot of trouble for being an Echo, though."
"Right hand," the senior ordered.
Alain's head perked up. Realizing he might've been too obvious, he tried a poker face.
"You think I have a second one? Most in this swamp don't even have one!"
The older officer didn't answer. His gaze flicked to the soaked glove, fabric scorched into the seams of Alain's skin.
The younger officer froze. "Sir— he's wearing a glove."
The senior officer waved his hand dismissively. The younger one crouched again, scanner trembling slightly in his hands. The amber light buzzed to life, its hum too bright against the quiet rain.
Alain's pulse climbed with every second of it. The sound set his teeth on edge.
He shifted, instinctively curling his fingers as the beam drifted closer.
The light touched the glove.
Something snapped.
The scanner burst into sparks; a roar of mechanical noise followed. The younger officer hit the ground hard, arm smoking where the light had touched him.
Alain jerked upright, eyes wide and wild, the cuffs glowing red as the rain flashed to steam.
The senior officer lunged, pinning him down, knee grinding into his spine. "Easy! Stand down!"
The command barely reached him. The words came through water, distorted, distant.
Heat surged beneath his ribs. His body arched against the officer's grip. The cuffs screamed against his wrists, metal bending.
"Hold him!" someone shouted.
Alain gasped. Gold flooded the edges of his vision until the world blurred into light. Steam rolled across the street, curling around the white armor like breath from a furnace.
The Rune beneath the glove throbbed once. The fabric split. Lines of gold light crawled up his forearm like veins of molten glass.
Heat clawed up his arm, spreading beneath his skin until it felt as if his bones had been filled with liquid fire.
The officer above him shouted something, but the words broke apart—half drowned by rain, half buried under the roar rising in Alain's chest.
The world seemed to slow; color drained from everything but the gold bleeding through his skin.
He tried to breathe, but the air caught in his throat. Someone screamed for a suppressant. The sound barely reached him.
But he felt as if he could do anything, even breaking through the flimsy cuffs was not an issue. He tried the thought, with a light tug, the cuffs snapped in half like a cheap children's toy.
The officers pressed down on him, shouting words he couldn't hear. Their weight felt distant, weightless, as if his body had stopped belonging to him. He could've easily shrugged them off.
Even if the outside had been a distraction, Alain still couldn't shake the feeling of build-up in his chest.
Pressure built, coiling tighter with every heartbeat. The gold crawling beneath his skin throbbed brighter, veins of light pushing against his flesh, demanding to be let out.
The sound of rain vanished. The only thing left was that hollow ringing in his ears.
And then, he exhaled.
Air rushed from his lungs with a force that was not his own. The release ripped through the street like a thunderbolt had struck. A force exploded outward, gold and violent, bending light and air alike.
The officers flew backward, weightless for an instant before crashing into the walls and cobblestones.
Alain slowly got to his feet, brushing the dirt off his clothes. When the haze cleared, only he was left standing.
The street was a ruin of puddles and smoke. The cuffs lay scattered in melted fragments. The others did not move.
He stared at his trembling hands…
He hadn't meant to do that. He hadn't meant to do any of it.
The rain poured even harder now, heavy and cold, hissing where it touched the ground. He looked at the fallen officers, motionless shapes half-buried in steam, and felt nothing but a hollow pit.
What did I…? I…I need to get out of here. Where…
He remembered what his best friend Lia said whenever he was troubled. To always find her so they could figure it out together. It was stupid advice, really — but it always worked.
"Lia…"
The rain blurred everything into shifting streaks as he walked toward the slums— the place she'd said she would take the orphanage kids if anything ever happened.
A sudden sound cut through the air like a knife. It was the sound of sirens, and they were getting closer.