The air in the Unsounded didn't just smell of decay; it tasted of static, ozone, and shattered glass.
Corvin Anvil-Born adjusted the heavy bronze respirator over his mouth. The twin filters hissed, struggling to purify the toxic atmosphere. Here, deep in the forgotten bowels of the Cogwork Alliance, the fossilized bone of the dead Titan beneath them was rotting. It shed a luminescent, azure dust that drifted through the stagnant air like radioactive snow. Breathe it in for an hour unprotected, and your lungs would slowly, agonizingly turn to jagged amethyst.
Corvin was a Silencer, the elite executioner cast of the Synod, and he belonged to the shadows. His long, black trench coat was heavily reinforced with spun-steel thread, and his gloved hand rested on the silver hilt of his Attuned blade.
His target was close. He could feel the wrongness in the air—a heavy, discordant vibration that rattled his teeth.
"Control, this is Hound-Actual," Corvin muttered into his throat-mic. "I have crossed the perimeter into Sector Four. Resonance levels are spiking. May the Iron Saints guide my blade."
"Yeah. Sure they will," he whispered, cutting the feed.
He rounded a corner into a cavernous shaft. In the center stood the Echo—a towering statue of jagged violet crystal, once human, now a frozen monument of agony. From its throat emanated a grinding whisper of a thousand voices speaking backward.
Corvin drew his blade. The steel hummed, vibrating at a frequency designed to shatter Titan-glass.
Clang.
A wrench fell nearby. Corvin pivoted. A boy—Kael—stood there, a scavenger clutching a bag of copper, his eyes wide with terror.
The Echo shrieked. It lunged with a crystal scythe-arm.
"Kid, get down!"
Corvin couldn't reach them in time. He reached deep into his chest, finding a hidden, heretical well of power, and pulled. He was a Shaper. A ripple of invisible force exploded, creating a kinetic wall that deflected the strike.
Corvin swung his Attuned blade, decapitating the Echo in a flash of silver light. The monster detonated into ash.
"Do you have any idea how stupid it is—"
A tectonic groan interrupted him. The floor, weakened by the clash, shattered. A geyser of pure, liquid Resonance erupted from the abyss below. It was a tidal wave of blue fire that should have turned them to stone instantly.
But the pain never came.
Corvin opened his eyes to find them suspended in mid-air. Kael was glowing. His bare flesh was absorbing the lethal blue light, swirling it around his fingers.
Then, a voice shattered Corvin's mind. A trillion voices in unison:
...WE ARE AWAKE... WE ARE BROKEN...
Above them, sirens wailed. The Purifiers were coming.
...HEAR US... the voice commanded, as the debris beneath them began to violently plummet into the abyss.