"I have chosen." Giovanni's decration tore through the silent room. Torchlight flickered, and the sewers seemed to hold their breath along with Kael's.

  Beneath the stone table, Kael clenched his knees until they hurt. Giovanni had to accept. For his family... for him. He closed his eyes, only to reopen at the first sylble of the answer.

  "We slept with an eye open back in Harrow's shelter—together. We stole and killed for The Broken Chain—together. We built a family in the sewers and tried to resist Garrick's new order—together." Giovanni lifted his sagging temple with a trembling finger, gazing at Tonio and Riccardo with his sunken eyes. In their depths bzed a fme re-ignited from the ashes of not the survivor, but the man beneath his monstrous appearance.

  He smmed his hand on the table, rising from his seat. "We survived experimentation and rot together. But it is not together that we'll die. I'll pave the path. If death gives you even the slightest clue to get rid of your truths, I'll consider it worth it. This is my answer. This is my choice. And it's final. I'm breaking my fucking anchor today!"

  Kael unclenched his fists, almost wrenching them overhead with a "Great!" However, Tonio's tearful protests turned this victory bitter in his mouth.

  "No! No die!"

  Riccardo gripped Tonio's shoulder, forcing him to turn. He shook his head with a shuddering breath coming out of his blistered lips. "Our time's running low, Tonio. Let us try one st time." He brought Giovanni closer, hugging both of them. "I won't let you die for nothing, brother. We'll get something out of it. You hear me? One way or another."

  "I know I can't stop your empty head from doing it." A tear trailed down Giovanni's pinched nose. "I-I..."

  "Don't worry. The d." Riccardo smiled softly at Kael. "We're not helping you for free. Swear on Kraghor's name that you'll do everything to help. If you give up or renounce, may the god of the frozen peace smite you with a future in which you'll never find a pce to rest, a house to return to, and a family you'll miss."

  "An oath to Kraghor means nothing to me. I don't believe in him, in Morvana, in Kythra, or any other bastard who looks down on my suffering from his divine realm." Kael sighed. "But I swear on my name. I thought that loyalty didn't exist in the slums, that money was all that mattered, all that we were worth. You showed me that some people were still human."

  For a moment, Riccardo studied Kael's solemn face. Then, he ughed as he pointed at their monstrous faces. "Hear that? He calls us humans while bspheming the gods. Hahaha! You've got balls, d. I'll give you that. What's your name?"

  "Kael."

  Nodding, Riccardo exchanged a gnce with Giovanni, who nodded back. "Well, Kael. You're right. Fuck Kraghor, who never answered my prayers. I hope trusting you won't be a mistake."

  "It won't..." Kael whispered. That was how the slums worked. Someone always profited from people's deaths. The faster he cut down his inappropriate guilt, the faster he'd progress. It was just... He barely knew them, but his mom would have surely liked this trio.

  He passed his hand over his face in resigned determination. "When do we start?"

  Giovanni rubbed Tonio, repeating that they would be fine before he answered. "Now. Not here. I'll die on the ruins of what we've built. Nowhere else. Also..." His back straightened as he lifted a defiant fist in front of his smirk. "I can't go off without a petty revenge, right?"

  "What do you—"

  "I'll tell you ter." Waving to follow him, he interrupted Kael and stumbled in the sewer tunnel that sprawled in the burial pit's way.

  Riccardo picked up the torch, and Kael followed in the dimly lit tunnel. During most of the journey, Giovanni and Riccardo appeased Tonio, but the rat-man never stopped asking why while crying.

  Eventually, he fell silent when they passed by broken pipes jutting out of water more viscous than sludge. Kael noticed the glint in Tonio's red eyes, as if his mind grappled to remember things it couldn't process anymore.

  Giovanni leaned closer, whispering. "Our test project from twenty years ago. Some of our brothers and sisters tried to develop a device to purify water. Before they could, Garrick destroyed our world. Their research... He monopolises them along with fresh water."

  Kael heaved heavily. Nothing new. Everyone knew Garrick controlled water, food, lodging, and good supplies. Yet, learning what he did here made Kael's hate for the man sear his blood.

  That bastard built everything he owns on the graveyard of other people's hopes.

  The deeper he went, the more certain he was. Upturned soil covered broken fields dug on the sides of the sewers. Root farms, Giovanni told him with a mournful smile.

  Then, wrecked shacks began to fnk the walls, small but made from thick stones. On a couple, holed draperies fluttered with their passage. Rodents had gnawed at them, and Kael believed they were of warm colors before the sewers' contamination repainted them a scaly dark.

  Giovanni raised his hand as they reached the st one. All Kael could see ahead was a dark wall.

  Everyone halted, and he scratched the back of his head. "About my revenge... Look, Kael, I didn't know about anchors and truths before you came, and I know even less about the rest."

  "So do I." Kael spread his palms.

  "Yes. We're fumbling in the dark. But what you told us made me think about a thing or two. You know about the harvest festival, right?"

  Kael frowned. "I used it to escape in the sewers, so yes."

  "We're already at that time of the year... Anyway, priests descend to conduct the festival. We used to call their truths miracles when they spread their gods' words in the streets. Enforcers raided the slums often, too." Giovanni's voice was firm, as if he had finally understood something.

  "I've never seen an enforcer."

  "Garrick must have cut a deal with them. It doesn't matter. I suspect they came to purge heretics who self-anchored truths. And if I'm right, they must have methods to locate them." Giovanni leaned toward Kael, his good hand finding his shoulder.

  "Yet in twenty years, not a single priest or enforcer ever came. Do you know what it means?"

  Kael began to shrug, but paused mid-movement. His eyes widened. "That either you're wrong, or... that they can hide. Or is it because we're underground?"

  "Might be because their methods can't reach us, but somehow, I can't imagine the priests from eight different churches and temples walk right over the monstrosity Garrick built without feeling it for twenty years. No, Kael. Garrick has a way to hide."

  Giovanni pressed a melted finger against Kael's chest. "And you'll steal it."

  "Steal what? No... what's the monstrosity Garrick has been building? Where are we going?" An icy shiver ran down Kael's spine as he stepped back.

  "Now that you talk about it," Riccardo approached, his eyes narrowed into slits. "They did set up pipes running everywhere. They leave from the same building. Do you think..."

  "I do." Giovanni nodded. "Whatever they use is in our previous home... in the quartermaster's office. My pn is simple. Kael, you wait outside while we go in. Riccardo, you keep Tonio calm. Don't let him interfere. I want the two of you to appear unreted to the chaos I'll cause, nothing violent, just enough curses to make the thugs focus on me. Kael, you slip in once they do and reach for the quartermaster's building. Don't let them catch you and get that thing out. If you can't, you destroy it. Are we good? I'll destroy my anchor the moment you're safe."

  "Yes," Riccardo nodded.

  "No, wait!" Kael's voice rose in pitch. "It's too dangerous—"

  "Too te. You already swore to help us, and that's part of the deal. Or you can stand out and miss the moment I break my anchor. Riccardo won't share shit with you."

  "I swore to help you with your truths, not risk my life for a revenge that won't even make Garrick blink for a year." With a snarl, Kael turned.

  Enter some underground experimental facilities to steal under the noses of Garrick's thugs, who, by the way, knew about truths, with likely a couple of them having one anchored? It was madness, an utterly foolish, suicidal pn. After all, to enjoy the clues he'd get from Giovanni's sacrifice, he needed to be alive.

  However, Giovanni didn't try to convince or coerce him. He simply picked up a rock from the ruins and pocketed it. "If death is my only path forward, yours is to steal that thing. I know what's inside, I know priests will go after you at the next harvest festival without it. I know you'll die when Garrick begins to move. But I understand. Leave the sewers, d. Enjoy the time you have left with your family above."

  "Shit..." Kael clenched his jaw. Priests would indeed get him if Garrick didn't first. He needed a method to hide himself. As for the rest... "You still haven't told me what's inside."

  "Why would I when you'll see it soon enough? Now, quit wasting time. You know as much as I do that you have no choice."

  "I don't." Kael hissed. "But who will help your brothers if I die?"

  "Don't die for the both of us, then. You'll thank me ter when you think about me, trust me." With a loud chuckle, Giovanni hammered on the dark wall.

  "Open up, you zy pieces of rat shits. It's us, the three magnificent brothers, here to resupply after years."

  Cursing, Kael pressed himself behind a ruined piece of the st shack, just as a loud mechanical sound reverberated. Cogs spun, and the dark wall slowly parted.