Lord of the realm-Chapter 244: Man had lost his way

The witches stopped, scanning the street. One of them raised her hand. The crystal at her throat pulsed brighter. She was channeling, using origin energy to enhance her senses. Looking for traces of their prey.

"Walk," Sofia said quietly.

"Don’t run. Not yet."

They walked past the vendors, past the old woman. Around a corner and onto a street lined with shuttered shops. Dane’s heart hammered in his chest.

He wanted to run.

Every fiber of his being screamed at him to run.

Sofia grabbed his arm, steadying him.

"Not yet," she repeated.

Behind them, one of the witches shouted. The words were indistinct, but the tone was clear. They’d been spotted.

"Now," Sofia said.

They ran.

The old quarter blurred around them. Dane pushed his aging body as hard as it would go, ignoring the pain in his knees and the burning in his lungs.

Sofia stayed beside him, adjusting her pace to match his. She could have left him behind easily, disappeared into the warren of alleys, and been safe in minutes.

But she didn’t.

The Origin Resistance looked after its own.

They turned left, then right, then left again. The streets twisted and doubled back on themselves in ways that made no logical sense. Buildings that should have been blocks apart stood side by side. The old quarter had its own geography, born from centuries of haphazard construction and reconstruction.

Behind them, the witches gave chase.

Dane could hear them now, their footfalls steady and relentless. They weren’t running at full speed. They didn’t need to. They had tracking abilities that made pursuit almost inevitable. All they had to do was follow the energy signature every human left behind, the faint traces of body heat and motion that lingered in the air for minutes after passage.

"The market," Dane gasped.

"Cut through the market."

Sofia nodded.

They burst onto Market Street, which even at this hour was still crowded with late shoppers and street vendors.

The night market was a Kharsen institution, a place where anything could be bought or sold if you knew who to ask and had the coin to pay.

Dane and Sofia plunged into the crowd.

People shouted as they pushed past.

A fruit cart toppled over, spilling apples across the cobblestones.

A vendor cursed at them.

But the crowd was thick enough to slow pursuit, and for a few precious seconds they gained ground.

Sofia’s mind worked fast. The witches would expect them to head for the docks or the industrial district, places where they could lose themselves among the late-shift workers.

Instead, she pulled Dane in the opposite direction, toward the residential blocks.

They ducked into a covered walkway between two apartment buildings. The passage was lined with trash bins and recycling containers. Sofia pulled Dane behind a large bin and put a finger to her lips.

They waited.

Footsteps echoed in the walkway. Slow and measured.

The witches weren’t hurrying now.

They were hunting.

A robed figure appeared at the entrance to the walkway. She stood there for a long moment, head turning from side to side. Her hand was raised, palm out, and her origin crystal pulsed with steady light.

Dane held his breath. His heart hammered so loud he was sure she could hear it.

The witch took a step forward.

Then another.

Sofia’s hand moved with blinding speed. She grabbed a glass bottle from the ground beside the bin and hurled it over the witch’s head, deeper into the walkway. The bottle shattered against the far wall with a crash.

The witch spun toward the sound and ran past their hiding spot.

Sofia grabbed Dane’s hand and pulled him back toward the entrance. They slipped out and into the street, moving quickly but quietly. Behind them, they heard the witch curse as she realized she’d been fooled.

"That won’t work twice," Dane panted.

"Don’t need it to," Sofia replied.

She led him through a series of turns that made Dane’s head spin. Left, right, through a courtyard, down a flight of stairs, through a basement passage that connected two buildings, up another flight of stairs, and out onto a street he didn’t recognize.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Edge of the warehouse district," Sofia said.

"Almost there."

They could still hear pursuit behind them, more distant now but persistent. The witches weren’t giving up.

They never did.

Sofia pulled Dane into a narrow gap between two buildings. This passage was even tighter than the first, barely wide enough for Dane’s shoulders. He had to turn sideways and shuffle through, his coat scraping against the walls.

They emerged into an alley behind a row of warehouses.

Most were dark and empty, their businesses long since moved to the modern industrial parks outside the city. But a few still showed signs of use. Loading docks with fresh tire marks. Security lights that actually worked.

Sofia led him past these to a building at the end of the row. It was four stories tall, built from red brick that had faded to dull brown over the decades. Every window was either broken or boarded up. The loading dock door hung at an angle, half off its tracks. A faded sign above the entrance read "Maeridian Textiles - Est. 1887."

"In here," Sofia said.

She pulled the loading dock door aside far enough for them to slip through. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Inside, the warehouse was dark and cavernous. Moonlight filtered through holes in the roof, creating pools of pale illumination surrounded by deep shadow.

The air smelled of dust and decay.

Sofia pulled a small flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on, keeping the beam pointed at the floor. She led Dane through the warehouse, weaving between old machinery and piles of rotting fabric. Their footsteps echoed in the vast space.

At the back of the warehouse, a metal staircase led to the upper floors.

Sofia tested it carefully before ascending. The stairs groaned but held.

They climbed to the third floor and entered what had once been an office space. Desks still stood against the walls, covered in decades of dust. Filing cabinets with their drawers hanging open. A calendar on the wall showing May 1974.