"And you tell him" Elin said, voice calm enough to be terrifying.

"To break the contract."

She didn't stay much after she said it.

Elin straightened, released Raizen's hand like it had only ever been a tool, and turned away with the sphere already steady in her hand. The fog engulfed her silhouette as she moved away.

Raizen stood there with the knife in his palm, feeling its light weight and the absurdity of the instruction weighing on his shoulders.

Spy.

You will not be seen.

Wait for the red threads.

Then tell the dying ruler of Ukai to break a contract Raizen didn't even fully understand.

Elin reached the dragon and vaulted up with a smoothness that made it look easy. The beast shifted under her, light shining a bit brighter beneath scales, but it didn't move or rise yet. It just waited patiently for Elin's next command.

Elin glanced back over her shoulder.

Her expression wasn't soft. But it wasn't distant, either. Now, it was her usual, wild calm, the kind that made her danger feel casual.

"Stay alive, Raizen!" she shouted, like she was shouting to someone across a market street instead of leaving him behind in a fog-wrapped city.

Then she lifted the crystal sphere slightly, as if showing it off to him for a heartbeat, and leaned forward.

The dragon's four wings unfurled.

The air shifted, heavy with the promise of movement.

Atman stepped up beside Raizen, his presence sudden and solid. He watched Elin and the dragon the way a man watched a storm cloud that might either pass or swallow everything.

Under his breath, so low Raizen almost didn't hear it, he muttered, "Please. Please make it."

Raizen's eyes flicked to him. The whisper sounded too human for the man Atman pretended to be most of the time.

Then Atman exhaled and spoke normally, tone settling back into that controlled, wannabe-funny Ukai authority, though the edge had softened.

"Soo… Must be wild" he said, looking at Raizen instead of the dragon now. "Living through all of that in a single day."

Raizen didn't answer immediately because he didn't know what "all of that" even meant anymore. The day had stopped being a line and turned into a pile of moments stacked wrong.

Atman's gaze shifted, quick, assessing. He looked tired.

"I still don't know how you met her" he continued, voice quieter. "Or what you two did these hours." His mouth twitched, almost a grim smile. "But a lot happened. And I… I treated you badly. For a Neoshiman Royal Scholar, at least."

Raizen blinked once, surprised by the plainness of it. It didn't a formal apology. Just a man admitting he'd been a bum.

"It's fine" Raizen said automatically, and then realized he meant it more than he expected. "I'm kind of used to being treated like an outsider."

Atman huffed, the sound between a laugh and a dramatic sigh. "See, that's your problem-"

Before Raizen could add anything, the dragon pushed off.

The platform shook under the force. Fog rolled, tore and then swirled back in, swallowing the view again in messy waves. For a moment, Raizen saw Elin framed against the dark haze, one hand steady on the sphere, the other gripping the dragon like she ruled the sky. Well, she technically did.

Then the dragon rose, and the shape disappeared upward, becoming only a shadow with wings beating through fog, the sound fading quickly.

Raizen stared into the empty space where she'd been because he didn't really know what to do. But then, motion caught the edge of his eyes.

Atman planted his feet.

Raizen felt the shift before he saw it. The air around Atman thickened, as if the fog itself was listening. Dark-blue smoke began to coil around both of Atman's arms, not rising lazily like mist, but winding with careful purpose, tightening and layering like ropes being braided.

Atman lifted his arms slowly.

His eyes closed, and his jaw clenched hard enough that the muscles stood out.

Raizen hesitated. "What are you doing?"

Atman grunted, as if talking made the effort heavier. The smoke around his hands intensified, twisting outward into the fog. It didn't just spread. It connected. It wove itself into the existing darkness like threads finding a loom.

"Enlarging it" Atman said.

Raizen frowned. "Enlarging what? The mist's already… Everywhere."

Atman opened one eye and looked at him like Raizen had asked why the clouds were grey. His Chasmis eye was shining brighter than Raizen has ever seen. Then Atman grinned, and the grin looked dumber than it should have looked.

"It isn't ten kilometers from here"

Raizen's mouth opened, then shut, then dropped again because he didn't really understand

"Wait-" he said slowly. "Ten kilometers!?"

Atman's grin widened like he enjoyed watching other people realize how ridiculous he could be.

Raizen turned in a slow circle, staring at the fog. It looked the same. It looked like thick, dark mist that began three steps from his feet and ended… Who knows where. There was no horizon. No edge. Just black haze and muffled silence.

"You're telling me this… This is going to cover ten kilometers?"

Atman's arms trembled slightly. The smoke thickened.

"Maybe more, dunno" he said through his teeth.

Raizen had seen power before. He'd seen Solomon's presence. He'd seen Kori move so fast it looked like teleportation. But Atman doing this felt different.

It felt… Administrative.

Like he was filing paperwork with the atmosphere and the atmosphere was obeying.

The fog visibly surged outward in waves, not faster in the way running was faster, but in the way a tide swallowed a shore. The darkness rolled through gaps between branches, down bridges, into open air, and the tree-city vanished behind it in a steady, expanding blur.

Atman's eyes flicked open. Sweat appeared at his temple.

"Don't get lost" Atman said, voice strained but amused. "If you fall off a bridge in this fog, I'm not diving after you."

Raizen gave him a look. "That's… Weirdly specific."

Atman's grin flashed again. "It's fair."

Then Raizen's ribs twinged, and he remembered something important.

He was supposed to be moving.

Not standing here watching someone cover the sky in darkness.

Elin's knife sat in his hand like a reminder. He glanced down at it, half expecting to see something, anything - a spark of red, a thread curling around the blade.

Nothing.

He stepped backward, quietly.

Somehow, he needed to do this.

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