"Auralia!" Louder this time.I ran to where I'd last seen her — the corner of the glass shop, its window dark and lifeless. I turned down the alley.Nothing.No sign of a struggle. No trace of her. No scream. No dropped pack. No boot prints in the dust.She had vanished — like breath into cold air.
Panic slammed the air from my lungs. I forced it down.Think.I stretched out my senses, hand trembling as I pressed it to the stone wall — willing the runes on my skin to stir, to guide me, to do something. But all I felt was fading warmth. Like her presence was slipping further away with every second.
Then — far off — I heard it.A chime. Soft. Distant. Delicate.The same sound I'd heard days ago, echoing through the noble district when the masked figures passed.A chill crept down my spine.She was gone.And I was too late.
The city changed after dusk.Its walls may have been carved from stone and time, but something lived beneath the cobblestones — quiet, watching, patient.I felt it every evening when the sun dipped into the sea, bleeding gold and crimson across the rooftops.
Eiran never noticed how often I watched him when he wasn't looking — the way tension settled between his shoulders, the flickers of pain he tried to hide when the tattoos on his arms pulsed.He carried too much — the world, me, his secrets.
He didn't know I'd heard him talking in his sleep.Or that I could feel it when his power stirred — wild, untamed. Like a storm waiting to break.He thinks he's protecting me by keeping things hidden.
But I'm not the same girl who used to spar with him behind the temple.I've grown teeth too.
"Just one more stop," I'd said with a smile as we neared the shop with the stained-glass window. "Then we'll go back."He'd nodded, distracted by something across the street — a glint, maybe a movement — and I slipped ahead, just a few steps.I turned toward the window, admiring the shimmer of color — like dragonfly wings catching the sun.
Then the world tilted.A hand — gloved — clamped over my mouth. Another wrapped around my waist.Cold. Fast. Strong.
I struggled, kicking, twisting. My voice was muffled.I reached for my dagger —Too late.
A whisper brushed my ear:"Shhh... don't scream. We're only taking what belongs to him."
The alley swallowed me.I was dragged into shadow — through a doorway I hadn't seen, down stairs coiling tighter than a serpent's spine.The scent of incense and iron filled my nose. Voices murmured in a language I didn't know.
When the hood finally came off — all I saw were masks.Porcelain. Featureless. Dozens.
A voice emerged from the darkness, smooth as silk but cruel beneath the elegance:"She will draw him out. The Warden always follows the crimson thread."
Then — pain. Sharp.Darkness closed in as my eyes shut against my will.
The air was cold. Damp. It clung to my skin, still sticky with fear and sweat.I don't know how long I'd been unconscious — minutes, hours.Silence blurred time.
No sunlight reached this place. Only flickering torchlight threw long shadows across stone walls lined with alcoves too small for the living.
Chains clinked softly.Somewhere, water dripped in a slow, steady rhythm — the only sign that time still moved.I tried to sit up, but pain flared at the back of my skull.My wrists were bound — not with rough rope, but with intricate leather cords. Ceremonial. Intentional.These weren't meant to hold me. They were meant to prepare me.
Then — footsteps.Slow. Measured. Approaching across stone.
A porcelain-masked figure entered.Robes of deep gray trimmed with crimson thread.The mask was smooth, but not blank — a single red line painted from the left eye to the chin. A tear. Or a mark.
"I know who you are," I said, voice hoarse but steady. "You're cultists. Freaks hiding behind symbols. You won't get anything from me."
The figure tilted its head slightly — amused."We don't need anything from you, Auralia Aedove. But he will give us everything... to get you back."
My chest tightened."Eiran..."
Another voice slipped from the shadows — lower, slick as oil over steel:"The Warden thinks he can escape his nature. But your blood binds him. The girl with the flame in her eyes. You were always the key."
I didn't fully understand.But I knew one thing:They weren't here for me.Not really.
They wanted him.
"I'm not bait," I snarled. "And he's not stupid enough to walk into a trap."
"No," the voice said, closer now. "But he's in love. And love makes even the wise reckless."
The masked figure leaned in. Close enough for me to see the faint shimmer of magic along the edge of the porcelain — an enchantment. A disguise.
"He'll come," they whispered. "And when he does, the power inside him will burn the chains that hold our master... and set him free."
They think they're using me to get to him.They think I'm just a thread.
But threads can strangle.
And when he comes for me — because he will — they'll learn just how wrong they were to ever lay a hand on me.
They think I'm weak.Just a village girl clinging to a boy stronger than her.The damsel.Soft-spoken. Soft-skinned. Soft-hearted.
Let them think it.