Chapter 24
title: "Curse-Marked" wordCount: 2457
The curse-barrier tastes like copper and ash, and when I touch it my fingers come away blackened, the skin underneath already blistering.
I jerk back, cradling my hand against my chest. The black energy spreads across the doorframe like oil on water, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Through the window, Senna's still standing there, hands raised, mouth moving in words I can't hear but feel vibrating through the floorboards.
"Don't touch it again." Griz moves to the back door, tests the frame there with the tip of his boot. The leather smokes on contact. "Shit."
"Yeah." I scan the workshop, cataloging what I have. The forge is still hot from earlier work. Tools hang on their pegs. Half-finished projects clutter every surface. My father's gloves sit on the workbench where I left them this morning, and the sight of them makes something twist in my chest that I don't have time to examine.
The walls start to turn black.
Not just the doorframes now. The curse-energy spreads like frost across glass, creeping up from the floor in tendrils that branch and merge and branch again. Where it touches wood, the grain darkens. Where it touches metal, rust blooms instant and deep.
"How long?" Griz asks.
"Until what?"
"Until this whole place comes down."
I watch the black spread. Do the math. "Five minutes. Maybe less."
"Then we need to move." He grabs a hammer from the wall, tests its weight. "I'll break through the back wall. Wood's thinner there."
"Won't work." I point at where the curse-energy has already claimed half the back wall. "That stuff eats through everything. You hit it with that hammer, the hammer's gone."
"So what, we just wait to die?"
"No." I move to my workbench, start pulling out materials. Copper wire. Steel scraps. A chunk of untainted iron I've been saving. "We treat it like any other material."
Griz stares at me. "It's a curse, kid. Not a broken engine."
"Everything's material if you know how to look at it." My hands are already moving, sorting through components. The System interface flickers at the edge of my vision, but I ignore it. No time for notifications. "Here's the thing—my class lets me deconstruct stuff. Break it down to base components. Salvage what's useful."
"That's physical objects."
"Maybe." I grab my father's gloves, pull them on. The leather's worn soft from years of use, and for a second I can almost feel his hands inside them, guiding mine. "Or maybe the System doesn't care about the difference between physical and magical. Maybe it's all just... structure."
The black reaches the ceiling. Starts spreading across it like a stain.
"You're guessing," Griz says.
"Yeah."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then we die in about four minutes instead of five." I move to the nearest section of wall, where the curse-energy is thickest. Up close, it's not solid—it's layered, like sediment in rock. Patterns within patterns. "But I don't think I'm wrong."
I press my palm against the black.
Pain shoots up my arm, sharp and immediate, but I don't pull back. Instead, I focus. Let my Salvage Artificer senses extend into the curse-energy the same way they'd extend into a broken machine. Looking for the structure underneath. The way the pieces fit together.
And there—I feel it. Connections. Threads of power woven tight, but woven. Which means they can be unwoven.
I activate Deconstruct.
The System interface flares bright enough to make my eyes water, and for a second nothing happens. Then the curse-energy under my palm starts to... separate. Like watching oil and water divide. The black splits into component threads—some dark red, some sickly green, some the color of old bruises—and those threads start to fray.
"Holy shit," Griz breathes. "It's working."
"Not fast enough." Sweat runs down my temples. The Deconstruct ability pulls at something deep in my chest, like it's using more than just mana. "This is going to take—"
The building shudders.
Outside, Senna's hands come together in another sharp clap, and the curse-marks flare so bright they leave afterimages. The black energy surges, spreading faster now, and the section I've been deconstructing starts to rebuild itself.
"Faster would be good," Griz says.
"Working on it." I push harder, feeding more power into the Deconstruct ability. The threads fray faster, but so does the energy in my chest. My vision starts to blur at the edges. "Need you to do something for me."
"Name it."
"See that shelf?" I nod toward the far wall, where I keep my active projects. "Third shelf down. There's a blade. Unfinished. Wrapped in cloth."
"The one for the Blade Dancer?"
"Yeah. Grab it. And the untainted materials next to it."
Griz moves fast for a big man. He's back in seconds, the wrapped blade in one hand and a small box of materials in the other. "Got them. Now what?"
"Now we run." The curse-energy under my palm finally gives way, leaving a gap about two feet wide. Not much, but enough. "Through there. Fast."
"What about you?"
"Right behind you." I'm not. The Deconstruct ability is still active, still pulling at that thing in my chest, and if I stop now the gap will close before we're both through. "Go."
Griz looks at me. At the gap. Back at me.
"I said go!"
He goes.
I count to three, watching him squeeze through the gap, and then I cut the power to Deconstruct and throw myself after him. The curse-energy snaps back like a rubber band, black tendrils reaching for my legs, and I feel one of them brush my boot before I'm through and rolling on the ground outside and Griz is hauling me to my feet.
"You good?"
"No." My chest feels hollow. Empty. Like I've been running for hours. "But I'm alive."
"For now." Griz points.
Senna's walking toward us. Not running. Walking. Like she has all the time in the world. Behind her, the workshop's walls are completely black now, the curse-energy so thick it looks solid. The building groans, timbers shifting.
"You're more resourceful than I expected," Senna calls. She's maybe thirty feet away now. Close enough that I can see the curse-marks on her hands still glowing faint red. "Thorne said you were just a crafter. Didn't mention you could deconstruct active curses."
"Thorne." The name sits bitter on my tongue. "He's paying you."
"Obviously." She stops about fifteen feet out. Comfortable distance. Not close enough for me to rush her, not far enough that she can't hit us with another curse. "Did you think this was personal? I don't even know you."
"Then why?"
"Because he's paying me a lot of money to make you disappear." She tilts her head, studying me like I'm a specimen under glass. "You really don't understand, do you? What you represent?"
"Enlighten me."
"Power without risk." Her lip curls. "You sit in your workshop, safe behind your walls, and you craft weapons for people who actually fight. Who actually bleed. You profit from their danger while risking nothing yourself."
"That's not—"
"Thorne believes the System should reward those who face death directly. Not parasites who hide behind their skills." She raises her hands again, and the curse-marks start to glow brighter. "He's not wrong."
Griz steps forward, putting himself between me and Senna. "Kid's done more for this city than you ever will."
"Has he?" Senna's smile doesn't reach her eyes. "Or has he just enabled others to do the work while he collects the rewards?"
"You don't know anything about me," I say.
"I know enough." Her hands move in a complex pattern, and the air between us starts to shimmer. "I know you refused the Architect's offer. I know you're running out of time. And I know that after today, you won't have a workshop to hide in anymore."
She brings her hands together.
The workshop explodes.
Not fire—curse-energy. The black erupts outward in a wave that levels the building in seconds, reducing wood and metal to splinters and slag. The force of it knocks me off my feet, sends me tumbling backward with Griz's weight on top of me, and when I look up there's nothing left but rubble and smoke and the skeletal remains of my forge, still glowing red in the wreckage.
Everything. Gone.
My tools. My projects. The workbench where my father taught me to true an edge. The corner where I'd slept on late nights when I couldn't bear to go home. Five years of work, of building something that was mine, reduced to ash in seconds.
I try to stand. Can't. My legs won't work right.
"Easy." Griz's hand on my shoulder, steadying me. "Don't look at it."
But I can't look away. The smoke rises in a column that'll be visible for blocks. Already I can hear sirens. Enforcers responding to the explosion. And somewhere in that crowd of gathering onlookers, Senna's disappearing, melting into the chaos she created.
"We need to move," Griz says. "Before the enforcers get here and start asking questions we can't answer."
"My workshop—"
"Is gone. I'm sorry, kid. But we stay here, we're next."
He's right. I know he's right. But my body won't cooperate, won't stop staring at the ruins of everything I've built.
Griz hauls me to my feet. Shoves the wrapped blade into my hands. "You still have this. And you still have your skills. That's more than some people get."
"Is it?" The words come out hollow. "What good are skills without tools? Without materials? Without a place to work?"
"You'll figure it out." He starts pulling me away from the wreckage, toward the alley that'll take us away from the gathering crowd. "You always do."
We make it maybe half a block before I have to stop. Have to lean against a wall and just breathe, because my chest still feels empty from the Deconstruct ability and my hands are shaking and I can still smell the smoke.
"I need to tell you something," Griz says.
"Not now."
"Yeah, now." He leans against the wall next to me, and in the dim light of the alley I can see every scar on his face, every line that speaks of years I don't know about. "You asked me once why I'm Unmarked. Why I never took a class."
"Griz—"
"I was offered one. During the integration. Necromancer." He says the word like it tastes bad. "Rare class. Powerful. The System said I had an affinity for death magic, whatever the hell that means."
I look at him. Really look at him. "You turned it down."
"Not at first." His jaw works. "I took it. Thought I was lucky. Thought I'd hit the jackpot, you know? Rare class, strong abilities. I was going to be somebody."
The sirens are getting closer. We should move. But I don't interrupt.
"My wife took a class too. Shadowmancer. Also rare. Also powerful." His hands curl into fists. "And for a while, it was good. We were good. We worked together, cleared dungeons, made a name for ourselves. But the Necromancer class... it changes you. Makes you see death differently. Makes you comfortable with it in ways you shouldn't be."
"What happened?"
"She started hearing voices. The shadows talking to her, she said. Telling her things. Secrets." He closes his eyes. "I didn't notice at first. Too busy with my own class, my own power. By the time I realized something was wrong, she was too far gone. The Shadowmancer class had gotten into her head, twisted her up inside until she wasn't my wife anymore. Just... something wearing her face."
The hollow feeling in my chest gets worse. "Griz, you don't have to—"
"She tried to kill me. Said the shadows told her I was holding her back. That she needed to be free of attachments to reach her full potential." His voice is flat now. Empty. "So I killed her first. Put her down like a rabid dog, because that's what she'd become. And then I went to the System and I told it to take my class back. Strip it away. I didn't care about the cost."
"That's why you're Unmarked."
"That's why I'm Unmarked." He opens his eyes, looks at me. "Some power isn't worth the cost, kid. Some choices you can't take back. You refused the Architect's offer, and maybe that makes you weaker in the short term. But it also means you're still you. Still human. That's worth more than any class."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't know if there's anything to say.
The System interface flickers at the edge of my vision. A notification I've been ignoring. I pull it up, expecting another message from the Architect. Another offer I'll have to refuse.
But it's not from the Architect.
It's from Kess.
And it's not text. It's a voice message, her words tumbling over each other in that way she has when she's excited or scared or both: "Remy, I know this sounds crazy, but I found something, and you need to hear this, like right now, because I know where your father is, I know where they're keeping him, and I can get you in but you have to come alone, meet me at the old safezone checkpoint in one hour, and I mean alone because if Thorne finds out I'm helping you he'll kill him tonight, he'll actually do it, so please just trust me on this and come alone and—"
The message cuts off.
I check the timestamp.
Three minutes ago.
"Kid?" Griz is watching me. "What is it?"
I look at the ruins of my workshop. At the wrapped blade in my hands. At the countdown timer still burning in my mind—forty-five hours, twenty-three minutes—and I think about my father, who I haven't seen in five years, who might be alive, who might be waiting.
"I have to go," I say.
"Go where?"
But I'm already moving, already running, the blade clutched tight in my hands and Kess's voice echoing in my head and behind me Griz is shouting something but I can't hear it over the sound of my boots on pavement and my heart in my throat and the single thought burning through everything else: my father is alive, my father is alive, my father is—
The old safezone checkpoint looms ahead, its walls dark and empty, and I'm still three blocks away when I see the figure waiting in the shadows and I run faster, pushing my exhausted body harder, because I have fifty-seven minutes left and if I'm late, if I don't make it in time—
The figure steps into the light.
It's not Kess.