The Eclipse Sovereign's Pet

The frost beast snorted, its heavy breath bursting through the gray fog like steam from a broken pipe.

Rhea pressed her spine flat against the freezing dirt behind a rusted truck. Her fingers were so numb she couldn't even feel the metal casing she was tugging on.

Come on, she thought, her teeth grinding together. Move, you ugly bastard. Just walk away.

The beast took two heavy steps forward. Its translucent claws scraped against the ice with a sound like nails on glass. It paused, sniffing the air, its glowing blue skin pulsing in the dim light of the Ash Zone.

Rhea held her breath until her lungs burned.

Finally, the creature turned its heavy head and slunk off down the alley, following the faint smell of old blood.

Rhea let out a slow, silent sigh. "Thank god."

She didn't waste a second. She dropped to her knees and reached back under the truck frame, grabbing the metal cell wedged under the rear axle.

"Work with me, you piece of junk..." she muttered, yanking on the casing.

Snap.

The rusted truck frame groaned. The front axle gave way, and a jagged iron beam slammed straight down onto her right wrist.

"Damn it!" Rhea gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth to muffle the yell.

Pain flared up her arm, sharp and hot. She yanked back, but her leather glove was caught in the pinch-point. She was pinned tight.

Worse, the sound of screeching iron echoed down the narrow alleyway.

From two streets over, a low, guttural growl answered.

"Great," Rhea spat under her breath, staring up at the gray fog. "Fantastic timing."

The heavy footsteps came back, fast and erratic. The beast was sprinting now.

Rhea pulled at her wrist again, but the beam didn't budge. She reached for her belt knife, but the angle was dead wrong. She couldn't cut the glove without slicing her own tendons.

Fine. Have it your way.

Rhea closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the freezing, ash-choked air.

Deep inside her chest, beneath the hunger and the cold, the black ink in her blood answered. It sloshed through her veins like liquid ice, hot and poisonous all at once.

She opened her eyes. The dark magic flooded out.

Black smoke oozed from her trapped palm, crawling up the iron beam like living acid. The rusted metal hissed, crumbling into fine gray powder in less than two seconds.

Rhea snatched her hand back, grabbed the heavy heat cell, and threw herself to the side.

CRASH.

A pair of translucent jaws snapped shut right where her skull had been a second ago. The frost beast skidded across the icy pavement, its pale skin glowing angrily as it whipped around to face her.

"Missed," Rhea panted, scrambling onto her feet.

The beast snarled, crouching low to lunge again.

Rhea didn't wait. She flicked her right hand forward. Three razor-thin needles made of pure, solidified shadow shot from her fingertips. They cut through the fog, driving straight into the creature’s glowing blue eyes.

The beast shrieked—a high, glass-shattering sound—and collapsed onto its side. Black shadow-rot spread across its body in seconds, dissolving its flesh into a pile of gray ash.

Rhea stood there for a second, her chest heaving, the black smoke slowly fading from her fingers. Her head throbbed. Using shadow magic always left a nasty, metallic taste on her tongue, like she’d been sucking on old copper coins.

"Too loud," she whispered to herself, looking around the fog. "Way too loud."

She shoved the warm, heavy heat cell inside her oversized jacket, zipped it up to her chin, and ran.

Ten minutes later, Rhea kicked open the iron grate at the bottom of a ruined alley in Sector 9.

She slid down the filthy concrete steps into the dark cellar, slamming the heavy iron door behind her and dropping the bolt into place.

"Rhea?" A small, trembling voice called out from the corner.

"It's me, Maya. It's just me."

In the dim corner of the basement, nine-year-old Maya was curled up under three moth-eaten blankets next to a cold iron stove. Her small face was pale, her lips tinted a faint, terrifying shade of blue.

Rhea dropped her scarf, her heart aching at the sight. She rushed over and fell to her knees in front of the stove.

"Did you find anything?" Maya asked softly, her voice raspy from the chill. "The air got really cold an hour ago..."

"I found something," Rhea said, pulling the heavy military-grade cell out of her coat. "I told you I wouldn't come back empty-handed, didn't I?"

Maya’s eyes went wide. "A green-strip core? Where did you get that?"

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to," Rhea chuckled lightly, jamming the cell into the iron stove’s intake slot.

CLANK.

The old stove groaned, its rusted gears grinding together. A second later, a brilliant golden light bloomed behind the iron grate. A thick wave of rich, glorious heat blasted out into the small room.

Maya gasped, leaning forward immediately to press her small, blue-tinted hands against the warm grill. "It's so hot..."

"Told you." Rhea sat down on the dusty floor beside her, pulling the small girl into her lap and wrapping her arms around her. "Military stock. This bad boy will keep this whole cellar warm for a full week."

Maya rested her head against Rhea’s shoulder, letting out a long, shuddering breath as the chill finally began to leave her small frame.

"Rhea?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"The sirens went off earlier," Maya whispered, her eyelids growing heavy. "Near the gate to the second ring. Everyone in the street was screaming."

Rhea’s hands tightened slightly around Maya’s waist. "Screaming about what?"

"They said the Sun Shield flickered," Maya said softly. "They said the golden light went dark for five whole seconds. I saw it from the grate, Rhea. The sky turned black."

Rhea stared into the glowing heart of the stove, her face setting into a hard line.

She knew what that meant. Everyone in the slums knew.

The Sun Citadel loomed over the entire ruined world—a massive, golden fortress built on top of the high cliffs. It ran on the Sun Core, an ancient relic that projected a giant dome of light over the city. That light was the only thing keeping the toxic Blight fog and the high-tier monsters from wiping out what was left of humanity.

And Sovereign Valerius was the core's anchor.

He was the golden prince. The untouchable god up on his high throne, born with pure Light magic. The entire world worshipped the ground he walked on because his power kept them alive.

If the shield flickered... it meant his light was failing.

"Don't listen to the people in the street," Rhea muttered, kissing the top of Maya's head. "They panic over everything."

"What if the Sovereign dies?" Maya asked, her voice barely a whisper. "What if the light goes out forever?"

"He's not going to die," Rhea said, though her own stomach twisted. "He likes his fancy crown too much to let the sky fall. He's fine."

"The traders from the upper ring say he looks like a star," Maya murmured, her eyes fluttering shut as the stove's heat wrapped around her like a blanket. "They say he's so bright you can't even look him in the eye..."

"He’s just a guy with a crown, Maya," Rhea whispered. "A rich guy who doesn't care if we freeze down here."

She waited in silence for twenty minutes, holding Maya until the little girl's breathing turned deep, slow, and steady.

Gently, Rhea laid her sister down on the thin cot, pulling the heavy blankets all the way up to her chin. She tucked the edges in tight so no cold air could leak through.

Once Maya was sound asleep, Rhea stood up and walked over to her own small bed in the corner.

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a flat, bronze keycard. It was scuffed and stained with old dirt, but the golden sun emblem printed on the front was still shiny. She’d lifted it off a dead Citadel guard near the waste pipes three days ago.

One heat cell was a temporary fix. In seven days, the cell would burn out, Maya would start coughing again, and Rhea would have to risk her neck all over again in the Ash Zone.

That wasn't a life. That was just waiting to die.

Up in the Citadel’s lower vaults, there were thousands of energy cores sitting in pristine metal crates. Enough power to light up the whole slum for a decade. The elites up there didn't even use them; they just hoarded them while kids like Maya froze in dark basements.

Rhea pulled her scarf back up over her nose, securing the strap of her hunting knife around her thigh. She checked her gloves, making sure her fingers were covered so no one could see the faint, dark shadow-veins pulsing under her skin.

She looked back at Maya one last time.

"Just a guy," Rhea muttered to the quiet room, her thumb tracing the edge of the stolen keycard. "And tonight, I'm taking what he doesn't need."

She slipped out the iron door, locking it from the outside, and vanished into the freezing fog.