Valerik awoke to a silence that did not belong. It was not the normal hush of night over a sleeping city, the kind that carried the distant sounds of wagons creaking, drunkards muttering, or dogs barking in alleyways.

  This silence pressed in, thick and deliberate, as if the night itself were holding its breath. It was heavy, wrong, and his body knew it before his thoughts could catch up. His senses prickled. Muscles coiled tight.

  He was upright in a heartbeat, every nerve alert, eyes snapping toward Dante’s bed.

  There, at the foot, a shadow moved. Small, precise, no wasted motion. A glint of metal caught the moonlight, a dagger angled with perfect intent toward the sleeping boy’s heart.

  Valerik did not think. He acted.

  The figure turned, body fluid as water, and slipped through the shutters without touching them. One moment she was framed against the faint moon glow, the next she was gone, vanished through solid wood as though the window were only smoke.

  Valerik did not hesitate. His own shadows stretched beneath him, thickened, and he stepped into them. The world tilted, and he was gone.

  Behind him, beside Dante, a second silhouette had appeared. It sat in the corner of the room, darker than the shadows around it, as though every other shadow bent inward to feed its form. Its eyes were white points, pinpricks of cold light that pierced the blackness. It did not move. It did not breathe. Yet it watched. It watched the intruder who fled, Valerik who pursued, the boy who slept unaware. It watched the room itself, patient and still.

  The city opened beneath Valerik as he emerged. Rooftops lay silver in the moonlight, chimneys jutting like jagged teeth, tiles glinting as though dipped in frost. From up here the streets were long shadows between veins of stone, alleys twisting like scars across the sleeping district.

  Ahead, she waited, her movements controlled, each step carrying the poise of training and the grace of long practice. A half-mask covered most of her face, leaving only her sharp eyes to glint with familiarity.

  She slipped into the shadows again. The world rippled around her. Reality folded, and she vanished.

  Valerik squinted, concern biting into his jaw, before letting himself fall deeper into the dark.

  The world warped. Streets blurred into pale sketches. Houses stretched like crude drawings scrawled across parchment. Reality inverted, black forms outlined in glowing lines of white. Air thickened as if underwater, yet every motion came too easily.

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  Time slowed. His heartbeats stretched, hollow drumbeats echoing in a cavern.

  Here, in the shadows of reality, he could run like a whisper. He was a ghost, a smear of intent across the rooftops. Each step carried him faster than wind, faster than thought, weightless, almost dreamlike.

  And there she was, standing still in this warped place.

  “Oh good, you have not lost your touch,” she said, her voice low and mocking. Here in the shadow realm it echoed oddly, hanging too long in the air, as if the void itself repeated her words.

  Her daggers flared black. Then she moved, a blur of steel and shadow.

  Valerik blocked with his own just in time. Their blades clashed, sound sharp but stretched thin, as if it had traveled a long distance to reach them.

  "You know this trick, how?" Valerik hissed through clenched teeth. Their daggers locked, the vibration running down to his wrists, making his scars ache.

  She smiled beneath her mask, though he could feel it more than see it. "Of course. We share a teacher, after all."

  She stepped back, letting the void light ripple over her features. He caught a clearer look. Dark grey skin, blackened eyes without sclera, ears pointed sharp beyond the curtain of ebony hair. A familiar shape he had once known, now changed, hardened.

  He pushed forward, weight straining, age cutting through his limbs. "So you are still playing his games after all this time."

  "Games?" she teased, gliding sideways with effortless grace. "I call it practice. You could use some."

  Valerik’s dagger swung in a lethal arc, aimed for the ribs. It struck nothing. She slid half her body out of the shadowed realm, into reality, where his blade passed through harmlessly. The air tore around her like thin fabric, and she reappeared behind him.

  He stumbled, then ripped himself back into reality as well.

  Valerik whirled, steel flashing, just in time to catch her counter strike. Sparks danced bright under the moonlight, real sound crashing back into his ears.

  “Why are you here? Is exile not enough?” His voice was a growl, breath sharp in the cold night.

  She laughed, soft and pitying, the kind of laugh that cut deeper than a blade. “You think you are the only one who left?”

  “Then who sent you?” His patience frayed thin as wire. “Answer me.”

  “Rise has eyes everywhere. If you behave, I may put in a good word.”

  He scowled, jaw tight, shoulders rigid with old fury. "I have buried enough bodies for a throne that never cared for us. I will not serve again."

  "Rise Eternal is not a throne," she purred. "It is survival. It is power. You have lost a step, old wolf, but we could make you sharp again."

  He spat into the night, the sound wet against tile. "No."

  Her grin widened beneath the mask, though her eyes carried nothing warm. "Suit yourself." She slid her dagger back into its sheath with a hiss and stepped away. "But if you change your mind, we will be watching."

  His chest heaved. “Why are you here? Why Dante?” The question tore from him raw, sharper than his blade.

  She tilted her head, her form half-sinking into the shadows once more. “Have you not noticed? We did. He reeks of our Teacher’s pet.”

  The words hit colder than her steel.

  Then she was gone, stepping fully into the shadows. Her laughter bled through the void, high and thin, carrying far too long on the air. It lingered after her presence vanished, strands of sound that clung to his ears like smoke.

  Valerik stood alone on the rooftop, muscles taut, every scar along his body burning like fire beneath his skin. The city stretched below, asleep and unaware, its peace fragile as glass. The moon caught in broken tiles and scattered rooftops, each glint like a distant star he could never reach.

  He forced his gaze back to the window of the room he had left. Inside, Dante still slept, curled against the sheets, breathing steady. The boy was untouched. But the corner of the room still held something else. That silhouette of pitch black. It had not moved an inch. White eyes stared, unwavering. Patient. Waiting.

  Valerik turned away, unwilling to let his gaze linger.

  The rooftops stretched endlessly, their shadows long and still. The silence from before had returned, but heavier, a silence that seemed to know him. The world had grown more dangerous while he slept. He did not yet understand how far the reach of these enemies spread, or how deeply Dante was tangled in it.

  But he knew this. Old wounds had been torn open, and the city beneath him was only the beginning.