Serin Windstep had been running for forty-three minutes.

Her lungs were on fire. Every breath tasted like blood and smoke. The rooftops of Castor’s End blurred beneath her boots—thatch and slate and rotting timbers that sometimes held her weight and sometimes didn’t.

Behind her, three hunters. Professional killers hired by someone with enough coin to want her dead. They’d been chasing her since she’d blown the mission, since the mark had spotted her, since everything had gone catastrophically wrong.

Serin hit the edge of a roof at full sprint and jumped. Fifteen feet of open air. She triggered Gust Step mid-leap—spent two Momentum Dice—and the air beneath her feet solidified for just a heartbeat. Enough to push off. Enough to clear the gap.

She landed on the opposite roof. Rolled. Came up running.

Her Momentum Dice pool was at four. She needed to keep moving to generate more. Needed speed, needed flow, needed to stay ahead of the hunters long enough—

Crossbow bolt. It whipped past her ear, close enough to feel the wind of it.

---

She reached another gap. Too wide this time. No way to clear it. She looked down—three stories to the cobblestones. Looked back—hunters closing, crossbows raised.

She jumped anyway. Triggered Cyclone Step—burned three Momentum Dice in one desperate burst. The air around her spiraled, caught her, spun her in a tight corkscrew. She wasn’t flying. She was redirecting, using her own momentum to change vectors mid-fall.

One Momentum Die left.

The hunters weren’t sprinting anymore. Just following. Patient. Waiting for her to collapse.

Serin reached a roof that overlooked the old market district. Below, the city burned. The “distraction” she’d set to cover her escape—a few small fires that were supposed to buy her time—had gotten out of control. Three buildings were ablaze.

She’d done that. Accidentally. People were probably dying down there.

No time for guilt. The hunters crested the roof behind her. Serin turned. Drew her saber. Tried to trigger Blade Tempo. Nothing happened. Empty. She was just a woman with a sword now. Tired. Bleeding. About to die.

The lead hunter advanced. He’d seen her techniques fail. “Nowhere left to run, little bird.”

Serin lunged. Pure desperation. He parried easily, stepped inside her guard, and drove his pommel into her ribs. The impact folded her. His boot caught her in the side. She rolled with it, came up coughing blood. Broken rib. Maybe two.

---

Then something hit the hunter from behind. Some fool had jumped from an adjacent building, crashed into him, sent them both sprawling. Serin didn’t waste the opening. She forced herself up and ran.

She made it three buildings over before her knee gave out completely. She collapsed behind a chimney stack, pressed her hand to the broken ribs, and tried not to scream.

A figure dropped over the roof’s edge. Young, maybe twenty, with the kind of face that said “street rat” louder than words.

“You’re the Galewarden?” the kid asked.

“Message from the Thieves’ Council. They want their cut of tonight’s disaster.” The kid grinned. “Also, they said to tell you: next time you burn down half the market district, give them a heads-up.”

Serin started laughing. Couldn’t help it. Laughing hurt—god, it hurt—but she couldn’t stop.

Somehow, they made it to a safe house. Serin collapsed on a cot, looked at her empty Momentum Dice pool, and made a promise to herself:

Never again. Never burn through everything. Always keep one die in reserve.

It was a good promise.

She knew she’d break it the next time things went wrong. That’s just how it went, when you lived and fought at the storm’s edge.