Cursed Causality

The air in Lethis tasted like rust and rot. Kael Vritra leaned against the splintered doorframe of the *Blackened Quill*, a tavern sagging under the weight of its own decay, and watched the street with eyes the color of clotting blood. Rain slashed sideways through the city's jagged skyline, pooling in the cracks between cobblestones stained by things he didn't care to name. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled—not for prayer, but for curfew. War had made timekeepers of the desperate.

"Another round," he called over his shoulder, tossing a chipped silver coin onto the bar. The barkeep, a gaunt man with a scar where his left ear should've been, eyed the money like it might bite him.

"You've had enough, demonkin," the man muttered, though his hands shook as he poured the sour wine.

Kael's smile was a blade. "Careful. You'll hurt my feelings."

He didn't need the drink. He needed the noise, the stink of unwashed bodies, the way the tavern's din drowned out the whispers only he could hear—the hum of the world's *threads*, taut and trembling, waiting to be plucked. Most days, he ignored them. Today, they itched beneath his skin like a promise.

The door slammed open. Three soldiers in the cobalt-and-silver of the Lethian Guard staggered in, armor dented, faces streaked with ash. Kael didn't turn, but he felt their gazes snag on him. *Crimson eyes. Shadowspawn.*

"You." The tallest soldier's voice dripped with holy venom. "The mercenary who let the Dockside garrison burn."

Kael swirled his wine. "They didn't pay me to die prettily."

The soldier's sword scraped free. "You'll die ugly, then."

---

Chaos, Kael had learned, was a dance.

He sidestepped the first swing, the blade grazing his ribs as he pivoted. The second soldier lunged, but Kael was already moving, his body a shadow slipping between strikes. He didn't draw his own dagger. Not yet.

It was the third soldier who made the mistake.

The man lunged, overeager, and Kael caught his wrist, twisting until bone snapped. The soldier screamed, but the sound dissolved into a wet gurgle as Kael drove the man's own knife into his throat. Hot blood sprayed the bar.

That's when he felt it—a *tug*.

A thread.

It shimmered at the edge of his vision, gossamer-thin, spooling from the dying soldier's chest to the tavern door. Kael froze. He'd seen threads before, flickering at the corners of reality, but never so clear. Never so *loud*.

*Pull it*, something hissed in his skull—a voice like smoke and serrated steel. His demonic blood, restless.

The remaining soldiers charged.

Kael reached.

---

The world *unfolded*.

The thread snapped taut, and suddenly he wasn't in the tavern. He was *everywhere*.

He saw the barkeep's knife, hidden beneath the counter. Saw the rotten beam overhead, groaning under the weight of a pigeon's nest. Saw the second soldier's boot, laces frayed, about to slip on a puddle of wine—

*There.*

Kael flicked the thread.

The barkeep's knife flew into his hand. The beam cracked. The soldier stumbled.

And then—

---

Later, they'd say it was an accident. A tavern brawl turned massacre. A collapsed roof, a fire sparked by a kicked brazier, twenty-three souls swallowed by flame and splintered wood.

But Kael remembered.

He remembered the threads, hundreds of them, erupting like spider silk from every body, every blade, every breath. He'd pulled, and the world *obeyed*. Blood became kindling. Fear became fuel.

When the screaming stopped, he stood alone in the rubble, his hands trembling, his skin seared with black sigils that hadn't been there before. They coiled up his arms like chains.

"Impressive," came a voice like oiled gears.

A woman stood in the ashes, untouched by the carnage. Her robes were the gray of tomb dust, her eyes twin voids. A silver key hung at her throat—the mark of the *Infernal Cartography*.

"You've been busy, Vritra," she said. "We have a job for you."

Kael spat blood. "I don't work for specters."

"Oh, but you will." She smiled, and her teeth were needles. "After all, you've just murdered an Ordos Tempus informant. The celestials do so love their… retribution."

She nodded to the rubble. Beneath a charred beam lay the barkeep's corpse, his chest branded with a sigil Kael recognized—the Ordos' hourglass eye.

*Fuck.*

The woman pressed a parchment into his burned hand. On it, a name: *Elyra Voss, Celestial Envoy*.

"Kill her," she said, "and the Cartography will make your… indiscretions disappear."

Kael stared at the smoking ruins of his life. The threads still hummed, hungry.

He laughed.

"Fine. But I want double."

---

Above the city, unnoticed, a lone raven watched. Its eyes were not a bird's eyes.

They were the color of storm clouds, and they burned with celestial fire.