The sky didn't just change color; it changed weight. The air grew heavy, smelling of ozone and the metallic tang of dried blood. Kiron scrambled up the jagged rock face, his fingers raw and bleeding, pulling himself onto the ledge where Taz stood paralyzed.
The Executioner's Guard didn't descend like warriors; they fell like predators. There were six of them, mounted on Wing-Harrowers—creatures that looked like a cross between a vulture and a nightmare, with skin the color of bruised plums and eyes that leaked a faint, ghostly smoke. The riders were encased in Sun-Glass armor, a material so polished it reflected the terror on the boys' faces with mocking clarity.
"Taz, the vents! Move!" Kiron hissed, shoving his friend toward a rusted iron grate partially hidden by overgrown sky-moss.
"I can't... my legs..." Taz stammered. His eyes were locked on the lead rider, whose golden spear was beginning to hum with Caelum, the divine energy of the Tainted Gods.
The lead Guard tilted his head, his helmeted gaze locking onto Kiron. A voice, cold and echoing as if spoken from the bottom of a well, vibrated through the air.
"The resonance is faint... but it is here. The seed that fell from the Koda District."
Kiron's heart skipped a beat. Koda. The name from his nightmares. He didn't have time to process the shock. The Guard raised his spear, and a bolt of white-hot light hissed through the air.
"Down!" Kiron tackled Taz just as the bolt slammed into the rock behind them. The explosion showered them in stone splinters and heat. The ledge they had been standing on seconds ago was gone, vaporized into white dust.
They tumbled into the dark, narrow opening of the ventilation shaft, sliding down a chute of cold, slick metal. Above them, the screech of the Harrowers echoed through the vents, a sound like metal scraping on bone.