POV: Zaire
The Combat & Operations Division, known internally as COD, didn't hum like other floors in Elysium. It didn't buzz with activity. It didn't breathe.
It pulsed—slow, steady, relentless. Like a heartbeat under armored skin.
The walls were dressed in matte black paneling broken by brushed steel lines—hard angles, no curves, no softness. The floor didn't creak, it absorbed. Light fixtures were surgical in their precision, casting illumination in exact measured rectangles, cool enough to bleach out warmth but not cold enough to be sterile. Zaire had approved the temperature range down to the decimal.
Noise wasn't outlawed here. It just didn't survive long.
Everything ran on quiet discipline. Hands spoke in gesture-based commands, comms relayed clipped responses, and screens changed displays the moment they were no longer useful. Everything on this floor operated like it had been rehearsed a thousand times—because it had.
No chaos. No improvisation. Not here.
Zaire moved through the division like a storm that had already passed. Staff didn't scatter—they adjusted. Conversations ended. Posture corrected. Not out of fear, not entirely, but out of respect so deep it made people smaller in his presence. He didn't carry authority.
He was authority.
To those outside the division, he was rumor—a myth wrapped in silence and knives. But here, among the ones who called this place home, he was the reason they came home at all.
He heard quiet murmurs among the staff when they think he's far enough he cant hear,
"He's the guy who doesn't talk unless it's to tell you where you're bleeding."
"Once saw him walk three miles with a broken leg just so medics could focus on someone else."
"He remembers what time your shift ends better than your own mom. Doesn't say it. Just shows up with protein bars."
"Only person I'd trust to drag my body out of hell—and probably would scowl the whole way doing it."
Zaire turned a corner, the steel-capped heel of his boots clicking once—just once—against the reinforced tile. Even his footsteps were disciplined.
He didn't need to bark orders. Everything about his presence said: stay focused.
His eyes swept over the logistics bay. A dozen consoles ran diagnostics across field missions, training rotations, weapon calibrations, incident probabilities, enchantment decay curves.
Nothing flickered. Nothing buzzed. Zaire had ordered all magical feeds to mute audio. If something screamed, it meant someone had failed.
He paused briefly at a holotable where tactical paths intersected.
A kelpie officer caught his eye. She gave a subtle nod—confirmation of the updated patrol syncs. Zaire returned the nod with a single tap of his finger against the tabletop. The command moved. The system updated. The operation shifted by half a degree.
A junior analyst passed too close and dropped her data slate with a sharp clack against the black floor.
Time stopped.
The girl's expression stiffened into silent panic. Around her, others braced—waiting for reprimand.
Zaire stepped forward. Calm. Mechanical.
He crouched. Picked up the slate. Held it out to her without a word.
The analyst reached for it with a trembling hand. "Th-Thank you, Commander."
Zaire didn't acknowledge the thanks. He just stared at the screen.
"Your buffer log's desynced by ten seconds," he said, his voice clipped and without bite. "Fix it before you start recalibrations, or you'll misalign all the scry-points for 07-B."
"Yes, sir," she said, scrambling back to her seat like someone had cut strings.
She didn't look up again for the rest of the shift—and tripled her output.
Zaire kept walking.
By a diagnostics station, a young mage—new—rubbed at the side of his head while staring down an uncooperative enchantment core. Eyes slightly bloodshot, jaw tight. A tension headache. Mana overload.
Zaire said nothing.
He stopped beside the console, pulled a sealed silver packet from inside his coat, and dropped it soundlessly next to the man's left elbow.
Headache suppressants. Fast-acting. Medical-grade.
The mage looked up, startled.
Zaire didn't even pause. "Notify me if symptoms worsen. I won't have you collapse over numbers."
Then he was gone again.
To Zaire, these were not kindnesses. They were operational necessities. Weak staff slowed missions. Dead staff created paperwork. Pain made mistakes. He eliminated all three the moment he saw them.
But to the people who worked beneath him—who had grown up in the hallways of Elysium under Silas's guardianship—Zaire was more than just the Division Head.
He was the steady hand in the storm.
A shifter lieutenant muttered to a coworker behind a partition, "I dropped a spellcore once. Thought he'd fry me alive. Instead? Just handed me gloves. Haven't screwed up since."
"He fixed my shield ward after hours. Didn't say a word."
"He's terrifying."
"He's why I stayed in this job."
None of it reached Zaire's ears.
And if it did?
He would've ignored it anyway.
---
The door to Zaire's inner office opened with a low hydraulic hiss — and in walked the man who, by all rights, should've looked retired by now.
Captain Marek Calder.
Mid-50s, silver at the temples, eyes sharp with too many years and far too few regrets. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, revealing old burn scars and the glint of a concealed rune-banded wrist guard. He carried a tablet under one arm and a thermal mug that read "Old Wolves Bite Harder".
Zaire didn't look up. "You're late."
Marek dropped into the chair opposite him. "You're welcome."
His voice still held that northern lilt — charming when it wanted to be, dangerous when it needed to be.
"You skipped breakfast again," Marek said, unbothered. "And the lunch tray I sent got returned untouched. I ought to report you for abuse. Of yourself."
"I'm working."
"Not if you fall over mid-threat like last time. Remember that? Tactical briefing? Collapsed like a Victorian widow. It was tragic."
Zaire allowed a slow blink. "And yet I recovered. Unfortunately."
Marek smirked. "Silas raised you to be sharp, not suicidal."
Zaire said nothing.
Then Marek leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice low and playful: "So… a succubus, huh?"
Zaire looked up. Flat. Icy.
Marek raised both palms, placating. "Hey, I'm not judging. Just saying — if she eats souls, maybe don't offer yours so fast. You're running low on backup ones."
Zaire exhaled through his nose. "It's not like that."
Marek cocked his head. "No?"
Zaire didn't explain. He didn't owe the world, or Marek, his reasoning.
But still — a flicker.
A brief, vivid recall of Kaiden's words the night before:
"Im reacting like a civilian on his first high."
"You're suggesting she manipulated you?"
"I'm saying we're acting like someone who doesn't realize when he's being affected."
Zaire had dismissed it. Had told Kaiden to focus on intel and leave the dramatics to someone else.
But… the feeling hadn't left. And it wasn't allure. It wasn't manipulation. It was something subtler. Older.
A memory trying to pull him toward the surface.
---
As Marek leaned back with a grin, something else flickered.
His eyes passed over a shelf — just briefly.
One of the relics there: a carved obsidian wolf pendant on a steel chain. Slightly worn, burnished at the edges.
Marek had given it to Zaire. Years ago.
A birthday neither of them acknowledged aloud.
The old soldier's smile twitched — not with warmth. With hesitation.
It lasted a second. Then the grin returned, perfectly in place. The charming Captain. The ever-steady second-in-command.
The moment passed like it had never been.
---
Marek handed over a data scroll. "Kaiden's blackout logs. Full sync this time."
Zaire read through the arcane-coded timestamps, leylines, pulse drifts. His mind processed faster than the glyphs could load.
"No leyline rupture. No null-magic tremor. Not even a lunar phase sync," he muttered.
"Which means?"
"It's not natural. And it's not reported. But it's happening."
Marek rubbed his chin. "Three-point-five seconds, same time each location?"
Zaire nodded once.
"That's surgical," Marek said. "Someone's hijacking visibility. Masking movement?"
"Possibly."
"Then we've got a breach. And it's walking through our damn house."
The Strategic Oversight Chamber of Elysium HQ was a sanctum of black marble and layered magical shielding. Wards shimmered faintly over the walls, interwoven with gold-leaf runic seals that looked decorative but could level a continent if triggered.
The oval table was massive — long enough to seat twenty. Once, each chair had been filled with representatives from the supernatural factions that helped build Elysium's foundation.
Now?
Zaire sat at the far end.
Not the head. Never the head.
But the fulcrum — the unshakable center everyone calculated around.
Eighteen seats were filled.
Four were non-human.
The rest: human executives, elected officials, "invested interests" with slick suits and smiles that didn't reach their eyes.
Zaire watched them speak in polished tones about resource allocation and public contract bidding — not a word about the missing.
The screen behind the table displayed projected growth charts and stabilization matrices.
Not a single entry marked the loss.
His eyes drifted to the empty seat beside him. Once belonging to a banshee commander who'd held down Elysium's Eastern field base for nine years.
Gone now. Quietly replaced.
"This table used to feel like balance," Zaire thought. "Now it's a siege in slow motion."
When he did speak — only once — it was about protocol redundancies in magical security loops. The room nodded. The motion passed. The room shifted course.
No one questioned him.
They trusted him.
Zaire didn't return the favor.
At the far end of the table, a man in a navy suit smiled at him.
Not just politely. Knowingly.
Like he was already winning the game he started.
Zaire didn't blink. Didn't move.
But the tip of his pen snapped from how tight he was gripping it.
---
Back in the Office
Zaire sealed the door. Lights dimmed.
The holoscreen flared.
He opened a hidden file — one buried behind six layers of authorization.
Label:
Elysium Internal | Missing Operatives Tracker
The screen shimmered with names.
Rows. Divisions. Time of last contact. Badge ID. Field team links. Personality notes.
Many names had been highlighted with a low-red glow. Still no trace.
He scrolled.
A soft ping echoed.
One new name added itself to the bottom — flagged in yellow.
Zaire tapped it in manually.
The name blinked. Then settled into the list.
"I built this place to protect them. So why are they vanishing under my watch?"
He stared at the screen. Not moving. Not breathing.
Then closed the file.
---
The Elevator
He left late.
Later than usual.
The garage lights cast long, sharp shadows on the concrete. No echo. Just the hiss of motion-sensitive lighting as he moved toward his car.
He stopped halfway.
Looked sharply to the right.
Nothing.
But the hairs on his arms stood upright.
Instinct. That same bone-deep weight that had saved his life more times than he could count.
He didn't chase it.
Didn't ignore it either.
He simply memorized how it felt — what it smelled like, how it moved.
I'll log it later. He always did.
He slid into his car, activated the arcane locks, and pulled out in silence.
---
At the residential tower, he caught the elevator door just before it shut.
Stepped inside.
It was crowded.
Not the usual half-dozen exhausted execs or spell engineers.
No. This was… interesting.
The elevator was already packed — but not in the way Zaire expected.
A tall, golden-skinned angel stood near the back, posture straight as a spear. Wings barely restrained by a glamor field, he radiated calm and quiet judgement. His presence smelled faintly of myrrh and something older — like time itself had been burned into incense.
Beside him leaned a green-haired fae male, younger-looking but not inexperienced. His hair was tied loosely at the nape, and his moss-colored eyes tracked the floor numbers without urgency. He had the kind of quiet grace that made noise feel unnecessary — a presence like still water and worn forest paths. Even his aura was subdued, like warmth kept behind glass. He held a paper bag from a bakery in one hand. It was folded with neat care.
Then—
A lean, willowy snake shifter, tall as a tower and twice as unreadable. His long, snowy-white hair was tied into a braid woven with silver string. He clutched a bouquet of black-rose hybrids so dark they looked like glass dipped in ink. The scent off them was a mix of forbidden incense and mild toxicity.
The card read, in flawless calligraphy:
"To the chaos goddess upstairs. I come bearing bribes."
Zaire's eyes moved to the floor panel.
Only one button was lit.
26
He exhaled once, slow. "I should've taken the stairs."