Caius's Arc

Chapter 8 of 10

The scrapyard ended at a wall of rubble taller than Caius could reach. His companion guided him around it, describing heaps of concrete and steel that rose like frozen waves. The shard stayed warm in his paw, not burning. Beyond the wall, she said, the ground changed—packed dirt instead of metal, and ahead, the first structures. They walked another hundred yards before she stopped him. "There's a sign," she said. "Rusted metal, half-buried. Says 'Welcome to N—OR—The city that—sleeps.' Most of the letters are gone." Caius knelt and felt the ground ahead with his free paw. His fingers found concrete beneath the dirt, smooth and cracked. The shard pulsed once, then again, warmer now. Behind the sign, his companion described a tunnel entrance—wide enough for vehicles, dark inside, with mushrooms growing along the mouth. Red mushrooms, thick as his wrist. "There's something else," she said, her voice tight. "Pipes. Coming out of the ground beside the tunnel. Old metal, but they're leaking. Red liquid, pooling in the dirt." Caius moved closer, guided by her hand on his shoulder. The air smelled wrong—sweet and chemical, like rot mixed with something burned. He touched the ground near the pooled liquid and felt warmth seeping through the soil. The shard in his other paw burned hot enough to make him flinch. "This is it," he said. "The edge of Nor." The healer stepped forward, his voice steady despite the infection eating through him. "If the pipes are leaking now, they've been sealed before. Someone tried to bury this." Caius stood, the shard's heat spreading up his arm. He'd told them the answer was in the ruins. He hadn't expected to find the question written into the foundation. "We go through the tunnel," Caius said. His companion touched his arm. "The mushrooms are thick inside. If we brush them, spores might spread." Caius felt the weight of Oswin's patch in her pocket, the blood-stained fabric they'd found ahead of where he died. He'd promised not to leave anyone behind again. The healer coughed once, a wet sound. "I'm already infected," he said. "I'll go first and clear a path." Caius shook his head. "We go together. Single file. Call out every step." The shard pulsed in his paw, burning now, and he realized the machines weren't just watching—they were waiting. Whatever had been buried here wasn't meant to be rediscovered, but they'd found it anyway, and now there was no turning back.