YAN

  Yanick stirred awake in the dim light, his senses sluggish and his body weighed down, as though it had rebelled against him. The air brimmed with the sharp, earthy aroma of herbs, yet underneath it drifted a faint, sweet note—something softer, almost intimate. Lavender, perhaps? Or a fragrance more elusive, something that hinted at a human touch.

  Each breath burned like fire, and pain throbbed in his ribs and face, spreading through the body in relentless waves of heat. He tried to move, but a sharp spasm in his side forced him into a muffled groan, which echoed faintly off the walls.

  "Easy now," a soft, calm voice said nearby, unnervingly familiar, like he’d heard it before—in another life, perhaps. "Now’s not the time to play the hero."

  A figure emerged from the shadows. Her dark, curly hair fell over her shoulders, and her large, almost hypnotic eyes glimmered in the candlelight. For a moment, Yanick couldn’t tell if he was awake or dreaming.

  "It's you…" he croaked, throat dry and rough. "I saw you in a dream."

  She sat at the edge of the cot, her nearly symmetrical face leaning toward him with a mix of concern and amusement. There was something in her gaze that made the pain fade, if only for a moment.

  "It wasn’t a dream," she said softly. "I’ve been taking care of you for a few days now."

  "Days?" Yanick tried to sit up, wincing as his muscles loudly protested. Everything hurt, but the pain was manageable now—not enough to stop him.

  "You were pretty banged up. Lucky my brother showed up when he did."

  It all came flooding back. The mob, Club Guy, the beating. The laughing moon. This wasn’t a dream.

  "Your brother? The chef-assassin?"

  Her lips curled into a smile—gentle, but with a hint of mischievous humour that didn’t go unnoticed.

  "Chef-assassin," she echoed with a light laugh. "He’ll love that."

  Something stirred inside him at the sight of her smile, something deep and unfamiliar that had nothing to do with the lingering aches or exhaustion. It was… something more. Something that gnawed at him from the inside, waking up something long-buried. Something he needed. Something he missed, even though he’d never known it before.

  They sat in silence for a moment, the quiet between them weighted with meaning. Yanick’s heart pounded harder, as if his body knew something his mind hadn’t yet grasped.

  "Drink," she said, breaking the silence as she handed him a cup.

  Her fingers brushed against his, soft and delicate. That fleeting touch sent a shiver through him, a mix of surprise and something harder to ignore. Yanick sipped, feeling the cool liquid slide down his throat, momentarily soothing the fire there. But the true comfort wasn’t from the water.

  Their eyes met, holding longer than necessary. The world shrank to that single point—her deep, dark gaze and the quiet rhythm of her breath, closer than it needed to be.

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  "Thank you," he began, but she raised an eyebrow, cutting him off before he could finish.

  "No need."

  "I don’t mean the water, I mean…"

  "I know. Neither I nor my brother leave people to rot in the streets. We’re not that kind of people."

  Yanick handed the cup back to her, but as she reached for it, his hand lingered on hers. The warmth of her skin seeped into him, and in that moment, no pain mattered. All he could feel was her presence, undeniable and near.

  ***

  The silence was shattered by a different voice, cold and clipped.

  "I didn’t ask about your romances," the man interrupted, leaning in so close that Yanick could feel his breath on his face. "Focus on what you’ve been doing for Rayla"

  Yanick clenched his jaw, fighting back the irritation surging through him.

  "Ademund and Amaia brought me to their farm the same day," he began reluctantly, averting his gaze from the interrogator’s piercing stare. "I needed time to recover. Once I could move around, I started… exploring."

  "Exploring?" The interrogator’s tone dripped with sarcasm.

  "Discreetly asking questions," Yanick corrected, ignoring the man’s contempt. "I talked to the workers, the neighbour… about the Nordlings. And I explored the house."

  "Explored." The interrogator arched an eyebrow, his smirk mocking. "And what did you ‘explore,’ exactly?"

  "Ademund and Amaia spent most of their time in the city, running the tavern. They wouldn’t come back until well past midnight, sometimes even at dawn. I was bored. I didn’t even suspect… that their father was the one Rayla was after. That he was the monster…"

  The interrogator jerked back abruptly, as if stung.

  "Wait. So did you meet him or not? Don’t test my patience, Yanick."

  Yanick glanced at him sideways, waiting just a moment too long before answering.

  "In one of the rooms, I found some papers. In a desk drawer. The language… it was strange, incomprehensible, but…" He hesitated, recalling the details. "There was a symbol on them. The same symbol Nemeth and his armies used during the Great War."

  The interrogator’s face hardened.

  "Black Moon?"

  His tone shifted from cold to furious. Yanick could feel the tension in the man’s voice—the anger. This was an opening. If he played this right…

  There had to be a way out of here.

  "Black Moon?" the man repeated, louder this time. “That was the symbol you saw?”

  "Yes," Yanick confirmed quietly.

  The interrogator leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing further as though he were trying to see through Yanick, to uncover every secret he held.

  "Did you find out what those documents contained?"

  Yanick shook his head, though he knew far more than he wanted to admit.

  "The next day, I went with Ademund and Amaia to the city. I visited the port, to the place where I was supposed to report my progress."

  To be continued...

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