The further I walked, the less the city felt like mine.
Past the inner gates, the streets began to twist in on themselves—narrow corridors where light bent wrong, and the air carried the taste of dust and iron. The stones were different here, darker, older. They pulsed out of rhythm with me, resisting my heartbeat like a body rejecting a foreign pulse.
I could feel it—the dissonance.
The city didn't want me here.
The threads beneath my skin coiled tighter, sensing hostility. The silver lines on my wrists flickered, dimming for the first time since the crown had accepted me.
"Show me," I murmured.
The ground trembled. The fog ahead thickened, pressing in like a wall. For a heartbeat, I saw movement within it—a silhouette slithering between the shadows, too fast, too low to be human.
I stepped forward. The air cracked.
Something shrieked behind me, a sound not born of lungs but of stone. The street itself split open, veins of light flashing through the cracks as a shape began to rise—a statue, one of the city's guardians, animated by something that wasn't mine.
Its head turned with a sound like grinding gears, face expressionless, eyes hollow. The weapon it held shimmered faintly, forged from the same silver water I commanded.
But it didn't bow.
When it moved, the force nearly knocked me back. Its blade came down in a single, heavy swing that cleaved through cobblestone. I caught it with both hands, threads flaring, forcing the strike to a stop.
Silver met silver—our powers clashing, the ground rippling under our feet.
"I am your heir," I said through clenched teeth.
The statue didn't respond. It pressed harder, blade to blade, until sparks of liquid light rained between us. The city was testing me—trying to see if I was worthy to carry its heart.
With a cry, I released my restraint. The threads burst from my shoulders and chest, wrapping around the statue in waves of molten light. They constricted, pulling, bending, forcing the shape to collapse back into the ground.
When the light faded, only fragments remained—melted metal and scorched stone.
My chest heaved. The pulse steadied again, faint but resolute.
I pressed a hand to the street. "If you resist, I'll listen. But if you test me, I will answer."
The cobblestones cooled under my palm. The air shifted—acknowledging me, perhaps even conceding.
Still, I could sense others further ahead.
The old city didn't yield all at once.
I looked down the narrow road that wound into the mist. It pulsed faintly with the same silver veins, but this time, they didn't align with my rhythm. They followed another.
Someone—or something—still held sway here.
And if I wanted the city to be whole, I'd have to face what claimed those streets before me.