The impact of the heavy landing sent a shudder through the floorboards, coughing up thick billows of dark grey smoke from the burning wood piles below. Zeven scrambled backward, his heavy leather boots skidding on the soot-stained metal walkway of the warehouse roof. Above him, the dark night sky was completely choked by a dense column of black smoke, illuminated from below by the brilliant orange sparks that danced and swirled into the cold air. The blistering heat from the raging inferno beneath them rose in waves, distorted by the freezing wind that cut through the open frame of the shattered roof. His chest thudded hard beneath his leather vest as he focused his pitch-black eyes on the intruder who had just intercepted his escape route.
"You are not a standard city mercenary," Zeven g
