Caius Nightshade remembered fire.
Not warmth, but the kind that devoured everything. The kind that left the air thick with smoke and silence. He had been no older than seven when he stumbled alone through the ashes of a ruined village—its name long lost to time. His hands were burnt. His clothes torn. And on his back, etched in half-healed scars, was the mark.
A spiral carved into flesh.
e didn't know who had done it, or why. Only that no one came searching for him.
A wandering healer found him days later, delirious and fevered, hiding beneath the broken beams of a chapel. She took him to a monastery far north of Hollowmere. There, the monks gave him a name—Caius—and taught him to read and pray.
But he wasn't like the other boys. Sometimes, the candlelight flickered when he got too angry. Sometimes, when he dreamed, he spoke languages not his own. The older monks muttered behind doors that he was marked by shadow. Cursed.
By fourteen, he left.
And by fifteen, he'd learned to survive not with scripture—but with sleight of hand.
---
Ember Hollow was supposed to be just another stop.
Caius arrived with nothing but a threadbare cloak, a dull dagger, and a coin purse that rang too hollow. The village was small, mist-veiled, and not particularly interesting—save for the strange, distant bell that tolled at the wrong hours.
Still, it had a market.
And markets meant opportunity.
He moved like mist through the square, eyes scanning for distractions. An old trick: find the richest-looking mark, then look for the loneliest. The distracted ones. The ones who forgot to guard their coin.
Caius nicked an apple from a fruit stall with one hand while flipping a silver button between his fingers with the other. Sleight-of-hand was his religion. Charm was his weapon. And most days, both worked like a charm.
Until he saw her.
---
She stood near a cart of herbs, head bent over a bundle of dried valerian root. Her white dress fluttered gently in the breeze, and her dark brown hair was braided simply down her back. She didn't look like anyone important. Just another village girl.
But something about her felt… out of place.
It was in the way she held herself—too alert for someone shopping for herbs. In the way her fingers brushed the leaves with more care than curiosity.
And in her eyes. Brown, yes—but haunted. Like she'd seen too much for her age, and carried every bit of it with her.
Caius couldn't explain why, but he found himself moving toward her.
He didn't need the coin. Not really. He just wanted to know if she would notice.
His fingers slipped toward the drawstring of her coin pouch—
"Not quite," she said, without even turning.
He froze.
She turned to face him slowly, one brow arched. "You were going for the purse, weren't you?"
Caius straightened, letting out a low whistle. "I usually don't get caught. Must be losing my touch."
Her expression didn't change. "Or I'm just not easy to fool."
There was no fear in her eyes. Just tiredness… and something else. Curiosity, maybe?
Caius cleared his throat, brushing off his cloak. "Caius," he offered, "Nightshade, if you like flair."
She stared at him. "That your real name?"
"Define real."
She shook her head, but the corner of her mouth twitched. "Isla."
"Pretty name," he said. "For a girl with thorns in her voice."
She glanced past him then, distracted by something—or someone. He turned to look but saw only a pair of town guards crossing the far end of the square.
When he turned back, she was already walking away.
No goodbye. No warning.
Just a name, left hanging in the air like a promise—or a curse.
---
That night, Caius sat alone atop the old smithy's roof, knees pulled to his chest, watching the stars shiver behind the mist.
He'd met a thousand people since leaving the monastery.
But none like her.
There was something wrong with this place. Something hidden beneath the fog and ash. The way the air thickened after sunset. The way the shadows whispered when no one else listened.
And now… there was Isla.
He reached into his satchel and pulled out the folded parchment he always kept at the bottom. It bore the same spiral as the one on his back—drawn in ink, not carved in flesh.
He ran a thumb over the symbol.
"Who are you really?" he whispered to the night. "And what did you see in me?"
Far off, a bell tolled thirteen.
And Caius didn't sleep.