XAREN'S POV
The rain doesn't stop. It drills steadily into the leaves overhead, falls down my collar, slides across the back of my neck. I should move. The chill is settling deep into my bones. But I stay rooted by the pond, staring at the place where my reflection used to be before the ripples swallowed it.
Bess Donald. A name I shouldn't know. A person I should never have noticed.
But I see her.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her scanning files, pacing rooms, asking the kind of questions we stopped asking generations ago. She reminds me of Darren—not in appearance, but in principle. In courage. And maybe in foolishness.
The prophecy was supposed to be our guide. A promise that the veil would hold, so long as certain sacrifices were made. But what if we misunderstood it? What if we twisted it to justify what we wanted it to say?
Darren's death. The mission. My crossing.
What if I got it wrong?
"Still brooding, brother?"
Thane's voice is warm and irreverent, a strange comfort in the misty cold. I turn just slightly, enough to see his lanky frame stepping between two trees, hands stuffed in the pockets of his soaked tunic.
"You're going to catch a fever," he says, crouching beside me.
"I won't."
"I'm serious. Mum says you've been acting strange again. And Nella swears she saw you talking to a shadow."
I grunt. "Nella sees a lot of things."
"She's not wrong."
We both look toward the path where the Seer disappeared. The silence stretches between us until it becomes a conversation of its own.
Thane breaks it. "You're thinking about the human you killed."
I flinch. He doesn't apologize.
"I had to," I say, automatically. Then softer: "I thought I had to."
"Does it matter now?"
"Yes." The word leaves my mouth like a broken tooth. "It matters if I killed the wrong person."
Thane picks up a smooth stone from the mud and skips it across the pond. One, two, three skips before it vanishes into the dark water. He doesn't look at me when he says, "The Seer always says truth can't hide forever. Maybe this is the part where you stop running from it."
The rain slows to a drizzle. The trees quiet.
I stand. My legs are stiff, but my mind is finally moving.
If the Triads ordered the mission, I never questioned it. But that's the problem, isn't it? I was raised on prophecy, discipline, and silence. We were taught to protect the veil at any cost. No questions. No doubts and apparently I don't know the full prophecy or whoever is behind its interpretation. Also, the ruling Triads don't know about my crossing.
I leave the pond behind, Thane following, and make my way toward the Sanctum. The Seer might not want to give me answers but someone else will.
*****
The archives are buried beneath the Temple of the Triads, off-limits to anyone below Elder rank. Which means breaking in won't just be frowned upon, it'll mark me as a traitor.
Maybe I already am.
I wait until after moonset, when the guards change rotation. I know the pattern. I watched it as a child while Father attended council meetings. He used to let me sit in the halls and pretend I was a Triad myself. Back then, the world seemed simple. I wonder if he knew it was a lie even then.
The back entrance is cloaked by climbing ivy. I peel it aside, press my palm against the embedded sigil, and mutter the unlocking phrase I shouldn't remember but do.
The stone gives way.
Inside, the air is dry and preserved with old magic trick. Scrolls line the walls, glowing faintly with wards. I move quickly, fingers brushing past centuries of secrets until I find the one I need:
**D.H. – Threat Assessment, Order 1179**
Darren Hill.
The file is thin. Too thin. My stomach tightens.
I unroll the scroll. The summary is vague, mentions his work on dimensional resonance, theoretical bridging technology, concerns raised by "outer-watch operatives." That's it. No detail. No signature authorizing the mission.
No name.
Someone scrubbed this.
I check the seal on the back. It's imperfect. Faintly distorted.
Forged.
Footsteps echo behind me.
I spin, pulse leaping.
It's the Seer.
She doesn't look surprised to find me here.
"You shouldn't be reading that," she says, but there's no heat in her voice.
"I killed a man," I say, "and you let me by allowing me to cross."
She steps closer. "It was your decision, not mine to control."
"Someone left me a message same as the one in this scroll" I wave the scroll at her.
Initially, I thought Father left me this message based on the prophecy but I now realize someone orchestrated the whole kill Darren Hill incident.
Someone with a different motive and power of some kind.
THE WORLD OF GOLDILOCKS
BESS' POV
The file on Darren Hill sits on my desk like it knows something I don't.
It's late, past midnight and the only light in my apartment is from the desk lamp, casting long shadows across my legal pads, highlighters, and the untouched cup of coffee that's gone cold hours ago.
I flip through the file again. I've already read it twice, but something still feels off. According to the report, Darren was a tech innovator working on some kind of bridging technology. What exactly it did? No one's sure. Most of the notes were vague, big promises, world-changing potential, but very little substance.
His lab notes are missing. Not "misplaced", gone. His apartment was broken into two days before his death. No valuables stolen. Just hard drives.
I reach for my phone just as it buzzes.
**Cynthia.**
I answer. "Hey."
"Hey. So I dug into Steve Howard's family like you asked. It's a little weird."
"Weird how?"
"Well, his father's records are almost non-existent. Like, barely-there nonexistent. There's a birth certificate, a couple of tax returns from twenty years ago, but that's it. No job history. No social media. Not even a high school diploma on file. It's like he appeared out of nowhere."
"Could he have changed his name?"
"I checked aliases. Nothing flagged. But get this, he was listed as a contractor for a closed government lab in the late nineties."
I sit up straighter. "Which one?"
"Classified. Name redacted on the record I pulled, but it's the same place Darren Hill worked before he went independent."
My heart skips.
"That's not all," Cynthia continues. "Steve's dad supposedly died when Steve was six. No official death certificate. Just... gone."
"And no one followed up?"
"I don't know. That part's buried deep."
I press my fingers against my temple. "Send me everything you found. Tonight."
"Already did. You should also know, Steve has a childhood photo with Darren Hill."
That freezes me.
"What?"
"Yeah. It's faint, in the background of a community science fair. Darren's at the judges' table. Steve's just a kid, holding a robot made out of soda cans."
I hang up without saying goodbye. I'm already pulling up my email. Cynthia's file is there, along with the photo. I enlarge it.
And there they are.
Steve Howard, maybe seven or eight years old, beaming like he's just reinvented gravity. Darren Hill in the background, looking older than I expected. Sharper, more serious. His eyes are on the robot.
I lean back in my chair.
This isn't just a case. This is a loop. A knot of people and secrets and lies that goes back decades.
And somehow, it's all coming undone now.
I glance out my window. It's raining. Not hard but steady. Like it's trying to drown something too stubborn to stay buried.
What if Darren Hill wasn't the inventor of a threat?
What if he was the gatekeeper to something real?
A soft knock startles me.
I pause.
I feel someone pacing in front of my door.
I move to the door, heart racing. I check the peephole.
No one.
I open the door slowly.
Nothing on the hallway floor, no envelope, no package.
But there is something etched faintly into the wood of my door.
A symbol. Circular, strange. Almost glowing faintly in the dark.
I trace my finger over it. It's warm.
What the hell?
The symbol flickers once and vanishes.
I don't sleep that night.