The market was always alive at twilight.
Lanterns swayed from ropes strung across crooked wooden stalls, their glass bellies glowing with trapped fireflies. The scent of spiced bread and roasted lamb mingled with smoke from braziers, while peddlers shouted over one another in a chorus of promises and lies.
Elira moved through the press of bodies with her hood low, one hand resting against the dagger at her belt. She hated the market—the noise, the chaos, the way men's eyes lingered too long when they thought her unaware. But this was the only place she could gather whispers, and whispers were the only thing that kept her alive.
Tonight, the whispers spoke of the Elixir.
"Purple as twilight," croaked an old woman to a wide-eyed merchant's son. "One drop can mend the broken, another can burn the soul to ash."
"Bah," another vendor scoffed. "Just stories to sell trinkets. The Elixir hasn't been seen in an age."
But Elira listened closely, because stories were never just stories.
She slipped between stalls of polished gems and cages of rare birds until she found the apothecary's tent. Its canvas was dyed deep indigo, stitched with silver thread in the shapes of constellations. Inside, the air was thick with incense—clove, myrrh, and something sharper, something almost metallic.
"You're late," rasped the apothecary without turning. He was a man of indeterminate years, with hair the color of snow and eyes like wet coal.
"I had to lose a tail," Elira replied coolly, throwing her hood back. Her auburn hair tumbled loose, catching the lanternlight.
The apothecary chuckled. "Still playing spy, little raven? One day, your games will catch up with you."
She ignored the remark and placed a coin on the counter. "Tell me what you know of the Purple Elixir."
The apothecary's smile faded. He glanced around the empty tent, as though shadows might be listening. "Why chase a myth?"
"Because myths keep coming back to life," Elira said softly. "And when they do, they leave bodies behind."
For a long moment, the only sound was the drip of some potion simmering in a copper cauldron. Finally, the man leaned close.
"They say the Elixir is bound to a lineage. A girl born beneath a comet, blood touched by moonfire. Find her, and you find the Elixir."
Elira's stomach tightened. She had been born the night the sky rained silver fire.
Before she could respond, the flap of the tent stirred. A tall figure entered, the shadows bending around him as if reluctant to let go. His cloak was travel-worn, his boots caked with dust, but there was a power in the way he carried himself, as though the air itself obeyed his presence.
Elira froze. She didn't know him, yet something in her bones whispered danger.
The apothecary straightened uneasily. "You shouldn't be here," he muttered.
The stranger ignored him and turned his gaze on Elira. His eyes were the color of storm clouds, sharp and unyielding, and when they met hers, the market's clamor seemed to fall away.
"You're asking the wrong questions," he said in a voice low and steady. "The Elixir isn't something you find. It finds you."
Elira's fingers tightened around the dagger beneath her cloak. She had survived this long by trusting her instincts, and every instinct told her the man before her was a storm wrapped in human skin.
"I don't recall inviting you into my conversation," she said evenly, though her pulse raced.
The stranger tilted his head, studying her as though she were a puzzle. "And yet, here we are."
The apothecary shifted uneasily, his gnarled hands brushing over jars of dried herbs as if searching for courage. "Leave, both of you," he whispered. "The Elixir's name should not be spoken under these stars."
But Elira ignored him. She stepped closer to the stranger, refusing to let her fear show. "You said the Elixir finds me. What does that mean?"
The man's gaze flicked briefly to the apothecary, then back to her. "It means you're already entangled, whether you realize it or not." His voice was soft, but it carried the weight of prophecy.
A shiver coursed down her spine. She hated riddles, hated being toyed with. "Then perhaps you'll explain yourself before I decide to remove that tongue of yours."
Instead of bristling, the stranger gave the faintest smile, one corner of his mouth tugging upward. "Fiery. I should have expected that."
Something in his tone made her skin prickle—familiarity, as though he had been expecting her.
The apothecary finally slammed his hand on the counter, rattling bottles and breaking the spell between them. "Enough! You'll bring doom on this tent. Elira, take your coin and leave. And you—" he glared at the man—"if you value your cursed life, you'll vanish before the wrong ears hear your voice."
But outside, the market was no longer its usual roar of merchants and laughter. A hush had fallen, broken only by the flutter of wings.
Elira felt it before she saw them. A pulse in the air, sharp and cold, like iron sliding against bone.
Shadows moved through the crowd.
Figures cloaked in obsidian armor, their faces hidden behind masks etched with runes, were cutting through the stalls with merciless precision. The King's Hunters.
Her blood ran cold.
The Hunters never entered the market without purpose. They hunted those who carried magic the crown had deemed "too dangerous." And tonight, it seemed, their eyes were fixed on the apothecary's tent.
"Damn it," Elira hissed. She reached for her dagger, her heart pounding in her throat.
The stranger didn't move, didn't flinch, though the Hunters drew nearer. He only looked at her and said, "If you want to live, follow me."
Elira hesitated. She never followed anyone. But the Hunters were seconds away, and she had no intention of dying tonight.
"Fine," she spat. "Lead the way, storm-eyes."
And for the first time in years, she placed her fate in someone else's hands.
The stranger moved with unnerving calm, sweeping back the flap of the tent as if the Hunters weren't closing in like wolves. Elira followed, her hand still gripping her dagger, every nerve alight.
The market was in chaos. Stalls overturned, merchants scattered, and the Hunters cut through the fray with ruthless precision. Their black armor drank the light, their swords gleaming with a sickly violet sheen—the mark of spellforged steel.
Elira cursed under her breath. "There's too many."
The stranger didn't answer. Instead, he seized her wrist and pulled her down a narrow alley between two crumbling stone walls. His grip was firm but not cruel, his strides purposeful. He moved as though he knew every crooked passage of the city by heart.
"Do you make a habit of dragging women into dark alleys?" Elira snapped, jerking against his hold.
"Only the ones who'd be dead without me," he said dryly.
Her mouth tightened, but she said nothing. It was true—without him, she might already have been cornered. And yet the admission only irritated her more.
They wound through the maze of backstreets until the clamor of the market grew faint. Still, the pulse of magic told her the Hunters hadn't given up. They would search every corner until they found their quarry.
Finally, the stranger pushed open a warped wooden door and ushered her inside. The room was small and dim, its only furnishings a table, two chairs, and a shelf cluttered with old maps. Dust clung to the air.
"Not much of a safehouse," Elira muttered, brushing her hair back from her face.
"It's temporary," he replied, shutting the door behind them.
For the first time since the market, he looked at her properly. His storm-gray eyes swept over her as though searching for something—confirmation, perhaps, or recognition.
"You're not just anyone," he said quietly.
Elira stiffened. "You don't know a damn thing about me."
"On the contrary." He stepped closer, and though he didn't touch her, the air between them seemed to hum. "You were born the night the comet split the sky. You've hidden it well, but power always leaves its scent."
Her pulse faltered. Very few knew of her birth. Fewer still dared to speak of it.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her dagger flashing into her hand.
He didn't flinch at the blade. "Someone who's been searching for you."
The silence stretched. Outside, faint shouts echoed in the distance—the Hunters sweeping the district.
Elira's grip on the dagger tightened. She hated feeling cornered. She hated feeling seen. But above all, she hated the strange flicker in her chest, the pull she felt toward this man whose name she didn't even know.
"Tell me why," she said finally, her voice low and sharp. "And speak quickly, before I decide I'd rather take my chances with the Hunters."
The corner of his mouth lifted in the faintest smile.
"Because, Elira," he said, speaking her name like he had carried it for years, "you are the key to the Purple Elixir."
Elira's breath caught in her throat.
The words were absurd. Impossible. Dangerous. And yet—deep in her bones, she knew they carried truth.
"The key?" she repeated, her dagger still poised between them. "You speak like I'm an object to be unlocked, a tool to be used. I don't belong to your stories."
The stranger's gaze never wavered. "You belong to yourself. But whether you like it or not, the Elixir is tied to your bloodline. That's why the Hunters came tonight. They've already scented you."
Her heart stumbled. She had spent years keeping her secret buried—her strange affinity with shadows, the way moonlight sometimes bent when she walked through it. She had dismissed it as fragments of her imagination, as cursed inheritance from a mother she barely remembered.
But the Hunters didn't chase ghosts.
"How do you know this?" she asked, suspicion wrapping tight around her ribs.
"Because I've been hunting the Elixir for longer than you've been alive," he said. "And every trail, every fragment of lore, every dying whisper led here. To you."
Elira laughed, sharp and bitter. "So I'm to believe a cloaked stranger who bursts into a tent, ruins my night, and drags me through half the city? Forgive me if I'm not swooning in gratitude."
He arched a brow, unbothered by her bite. "Gratitude isn't necessary. Survival is."
The room fell silent but for the faint shouts outside. Elira weighed her choices—the dagger in her hand, the Hunters' shadows drawing closer, and the unsettling certainty that this man spoke truth she had always feared.
Finally, she lowered the blade, though she didn't sheath it. "Fine. Suppose I am what you say. What then?"
"Then," he said, his voice dropping into something dark and steady, "you'll need me. Because the Elixir doesn't just grant power. It consumes. And without someone who understands it, it will devour you whole."
Her mouth went dry.
For years, she had lived on the edge of survival—quick hands, sharp tongue, hidden scars. But this was different. This was a noose tightening around her throat, woven from fate itself.
She hated him for saying it. She hated herself more for believing it.
"And what exactly do you gain from helping me?" she asked.
His expression flickered, unreadable. "Redemption."
Before she could press further, a heavy thud shook the door. The Hunters had tracked them.
Elira's dagger snapped back into position, her body coiled. The stranger drew a curved blade from beneath his cloak, its steel etched with runes that shimmered faintly in the candlelight.
"Stay behind me," he ordered.
Elira bristled. "I don't take orders."
"Then stay alive," he countered.
The door shuddered again, splinters cracking. Shadows spilled through the gaps.
Elira tightened her grip on the dagger, her heart thundering in her ears. She had survived every storm life had thrown at her, and she wasn't about to die in some dust-choked hideout beside a man who thought he knew her fate.
"Fine," she whispered, a fierce spark igniting in her chest. "But if you betray me, storm-eyes, I'll carve your heart out myself."
The stranger's mouth curved into the faintest, almost amused smile.
"Deal."
The door burst open.