The heavy iron door of Brant's cell didn't stay locked for long. Moments after King Kabil's silk robes stopped rustling against the stone, the corridor erupted. It wasn't the sound of order; it was the sound of a slaughterhouse.
The 'Pit of No Return' breathed. It smelled of salt, ancient decay, and now—fresh iron-scented blood. This was the bowels of Syzespol, a place where the King's law was a joke and the only thing that mattered was the strength of one's grip on a rusted blade.
"Open it! Open the Star-Child's cage!" a voice roared, thick with years of swallowed rage and the gravel of the mines.
The cell door shrieked as it was kicked off its rusted hinges by a boot reinforced with scrap metal. Two guards of the Iron Order tried to level their black-iron spears, their faces pale behind their visors. They were the King's elite, but down here, they were outnumbered and out-hated. Out of the swirling gloom of the main hall, a pack of prisoners lunged. They didn't look like men anymore; they were shadows with teeth, their skin gray from lack of sunlight and their eyes wide with a manic, murderous joy.
They wielded 'Pit-teeth'—jagged shards of obsidian lashed to bone handles with strips of human leather. One guard's scream was cut short as a shard found the soft meat of his throat, the black stone drinking his life before he could even draw his dagger. The prisoners didn't just want to escape; they wanted to tear the world down, piece by piece, starting with those who wore the King's crest. In the red-tinted chaos, the guards were dragged into the dark, their boots drumming a frantic, dying beat against the cold stone floor.
Brant watched from the corner, his chains rattling like dry bones. The impact of his fall from the Scorched Sky had left his body shattered, but his spirit was a different story. His divine radiance was flickering, a dying blue candle in a gale-force wind, yet every time a drop of guard's blood hit the floor, his veins pulsed with a faint, electric hum. He was a god in a gutter, watching the monsters of this world feed on each other.
"Leave the dogs to the rats," a woman's voice cut through the snarling and the wet sounds of the struggle.
Zora stepped into the cell, stepping over the twitching body of a fallen soldier without a second glance. She was wire-thin, her skin stained with coal dust and old scars, balancing a dagger carved from a human femur. Her eyes were sharp, calculating, and devoid of any mercy. Behind her loomed Murok.
Murok was a mountain of a man, a titan of the pits whose chest was a scarred map of Kabil's cruelty. He had spent twenty years in the dark, and it had turned his heart into a stone. He swung a heavy, rusted chain, the jagged anchor-stone at the end whistling a song of death as it cut through the thick air.
"So this is the Star-Child," Murok rumbled, his voice like grinding tectonic plates. He stepped closer, the heat radiating from Brant's skin making the sweat on Murok's brow sizzle. "The King thinks you are a god sent to save him. The priests think you are a curse sent to burn us. But me? I think you're just more meat for the Pit. And I'm very, very hungry."
Murok raised the obsidian flail, his massive muscles bunching as he prepared to crush Brant's skull into the bedrock. Brant looked up, his electric blue eyes meeting Murok's hollow gaze. He didn't blink. He didn't beg. He simply waited for the end, or the beginning.
As Murok swung the obsidian flail, the air seemed to scream in anticipation. But the blow never landed. A sudden, piercing whistle echoed through the stone chamber, a sound so sharp it made the prisoners' ears bleed. Murok froze, his weapon inches from Brant's forehead.
In the doorway stood Bibi Jane. She looked like a heap of old rags until you saw her eyes—milky, white orbs that seemed to reflect a world no one else could see. She held a staff made of twisted driftwood, topped with the skull of a crow that still had feathers clinging to its beak.
"Stand down, you wallowing pig," Jane hissed, her voice a dry rattle.
Murok snarled, spit flying from his cracked lips. "Get out of here, old witch! This one is mine. I'll see what color a god's blood is before the Iron Order comes back for us."
"You'll see nothing but the inside of a grave if you touch him," Jane countered, stepping into the cell. She didn't fear Murok's size. She knew things he couldn't imagine. "Look at the walls, Murok. Look at the stones you've lived in for twenty years. They are weeping."
Murok looked. To his horror, the black stones were indeed sweating a thick, oily substance. It wasn't water; it was the 'Shadow-Sweat' of Syzespol, a sign that the city's ancient foundation was reacting to the presence of the Star-Fallen.
"The boy is a catalyst," Jane whispered, her voice softening as she knelt beside Brant. Her hands, gnarled like the roots of a dying oak, reached out. "He isn't meat. He is the fuse. And the Great Gate is the bomb."
Brant groaned as Jane's fingers brushed his scorched skin. A spark of blue electricity jumped from his shoulder to her hand, singeing the air. Jane didn't flinch. Instead, she pulled a small leather pouch from her belt and sprinkled a fine, silver powder over his wounds.
"Eat this, Star-Child," she commanded, forcing a bitter, glowing root into his mouth. "It will bind your soul to this earth for a little longer. You aren't allowed to die yet. Not until you've opened what Kabil has closed."
Brant coughed, the silver powder tasting like ozone and ancient dust. He felt a cold fire spreading through his veins, dulling the agony of his broken ribs but heightening his senses. He could hear the hearts of everyone in the room—Murok's heavy, thumping rhythm; Zora's quick, bird-like pulse; and Jane's slow, almost non-existent heartbeat.
THE MESSAGE FROM THE SKY
While the darkness of the Pit consumed the soul of the prison, far above, on the highest spire of the Inner Palace, Mzee Theron was engaged in a different kind of battle.
The wind howled against the stone balcony, carrying the scent of burning iron. The crimson sky was no longer just red; it was swirling with black clouds that looked like giant, bruised fingers reaching down to touch the city. Theron, the last of the Map-Makers, clutched a scroll of human-skin parchment. His eyes darted between the stars and the Great Gate.
"The alignment is wrong," Theron muttered, his voice trembling. "The Gate wasn't supposed to crack for another century. What did that boy bring with him?"
A soft flutter of wings interrupted his thoughts. A black pigeon, one of his 'Shadow-Messengers', landed on his shoulder. Its eyes were glowing with the same eerie red as the sky. Theron quickly untied the silver tube from its leg.
Inside was a single word, written in blood: "DESCEND."
"He's alive," a voice said behind him.
Theron turned to see Princess Elara. She was dressed in the armor of a common soldier, her royal silks hidden beneath a cloak of wolf-fur. In her hand, she held a crystal vial containing a swirling green liquid—the 'Essence of the First Sun'.
"My father will kill you for being here, Elara," Theron warned.
"My father is already dead inside," Elara snapped, her eyes flashing with a regal fire. "He has let the darkness of Syzespol rot his heart. He doesn't want to save the city; he wants to rule the ruins. If this stranger—this Brant—is the key, then I will turn the lock myself."
"The Pit is a slaughterhouse right now," Theron said, pointing toward the smoking vents of the prison. "The prisoners have risen. Vargas is barely holding the upper levels. If you go down there, you won't come back as a Princess. You'll come back as a ghost."
"Then I shall be a ghost that haunts King Kabil's dreams," Elara replied, her voice cold and determined. She whistled, and two more pigeons took flight from the balcony, heading toward the prison. One carried a map; the other carried a warning.
THE IRON AND THE EMBER
Back in the bowels of the Pit, the truce held by Bibi Jane's presence was beginning to fray. The silver powder she had dusted over Brant was working, but it was also drawing attention. The faint blue glow emanating from his skin began to illuminate the entire cell, casting long, dancing shadows of the prisoners against the weeping walls.
"The guards! They're coming back with the 'Iron-Hounds'!" Zora shouted from the corridor, her femur-dagger dripping with dark blood.
From the distance, a sound more terrifying than the clashing of swords emerged: the low, mechanical growl of the Iron-Hounds—monstrous beasts of brass and bone, fueled by the city's dark alchemy. King Kabil had invested centuries in creating these guardians specifically to suppress prison riots.
Murok cursed, his grip tightening on his obsidian flail. "Jane, if your Star-Child doesn't wake up now, we're all going to be shredded into bait!"
Bibi Jane didn't blink. She grabbed Brant by his iron collar, her face inches from his. "Listen to me, boy from the sky. Syzespol is a prison built on a lie. The Great Gate doesn't just keep things out; it holds the soul of this world in. If you don't fight, the dark will consume us all."
Brant's chest heaved. The bitter root Jane had forced down his throat was burning in his stomach like a miniature sun. He felt the iron shackles around his wrists begin to vibrate. The mountain-iron, forged to be unbreakable, was starting to glow a dull, angry orange.
"I... I can't... control it..." Brant rasped, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together.
"Don't control it," Jane whispered, her milky eyes wide with anticipation. "Let it out."
Suddenly, the first Iron-Hound burst into the room. It was a nightmare of gears and muscle, its eyes glowing with a sickly yellow light. It lunged at Murok, its metallic jaws snapping. Murok swung his flail, but the beast swatted it aside like a toy.
THE PULSE OF THE DESCENDANT
At that moment, Brant let out a scream that shook the very foundations of the Pit.
It wasn't a scream of pain, but of release. A massive wave of blue kinetic energy—the Star-Pulse—exploded from his body. The iron shackles didn't just break; they shattered into a thousand molten fragments. The shockwave hit the Iron-Hound mid-air, melting its brass casing and sending its internal gears flying like shrapnel.
Murok and the other prisoners were thrown against the walls, gasping for air as the oxygen in the room was momentarily sucked into the vacuum of Brant's power.
The cell was silent for a heartbeat. Brant stood in the center of the room, his tattered clothes smoking, his fair skin now traced with glowing blue veins that looked like lightning trapped under his flesh. He looked at his hands, then at Bibi Jane.
"The pigeon..." Brant said, his voice now clear and resonant. "I heard the pigeon."
Jane smiled, showing her few remaining teeth. "Good. Then you know where to go."
Above them, the second black pigeon from Elara arrived, fluttering through the chaos and dropping a small, heavy key into Jane's lap. It was the 'Key of the Sub-Levels', a gift from the Princess herself.
"Vargas is waiting at the lower drainage pipes," Jane said, handing the key to Murok. "Take him. If the Iron Order catches you, don't let them take him alive. A dead god is better than a god in Kabil's hands."
Murok looked at Brant, no longer seeing "meat," but a weapon of mass destruction. He nodded solemnly. "Come on, Star-Child. Let's see if you can run as fast as you can fall."
As they began their frantic escape through the labyrinthine tunnels of the Pit, the crimson sky above Syzespol let out a thunderous crack. The first piece of the Great Gate fell, and a cold, ancient wind began to blow through the streets. The descent was no longer a prophecy; it was a reality.