Raevyn's fingers traced the worn edges of the photograph Leo had left. It wasn't the subject that caught her eye—it was the message scrawled on the back.
A location.
A name.
Kairos Faelen.
Analyst. Tactician. Former servant of the Court of Mist. Now a man living so lavishly, even the High Lords occasionally whispered about his estate with envy.
Leo's handwriting was unmistakable—sharp, angled script that bled into the paper with purpose, always leaning just slightly forward as if impatient for the next word. He never wasted ink. No flourish. Just facts with a touch of command.
Her name. A location—his damn garden, buried inside his estate. And at the bottom, like a signature carved in steel: Kairos Faelen.
Every fiber in her body screamed not to go.
Not to take the place of the only person who ever gave her warmth in a world that otherwise felt like frostbite.
Raevyn's lips curled back in a snarl. She wanted—needed—to break something. Smash a vase, rip through the hedges, scream until the silence cracked. She needed something to smother the ache burning beneath her ribs but after a moment of shaking with rage, she made herself breathe. In. Out. In again.
"Anger causes unspoken disasters," her mother used to say, usually right after Raevyn had bloodied someone's nose at school. Even as a youngling, her temper was like a curse she couldn't shake.
Whenever she dragged herself back to Virell Manor after another outburst, the maids would eye her like she was some feral creature—mud-smeared uniform, untucked shirt, leaves in her hair like she'd wrestled a forest and maybe won.
She couldn't help the snort that escaped her now. Her parents mortified, had once hired a governess to "refine" her after that incident with the frogs, a spoon, and the High Queen of the Falls. (No one ever talked about it. Probably because the Queen still flinched whenever someone said "ribbit.")
Despite the ache and the fury twisting inside her, Raevyn made a decision.
She'd meet Kairos. But it would be on her terms.
No groveling. No apologies. No damn crown pulling Raevyn by the throat.
She dressed with deliberate flair: black trousers slit at the sides with charm-stitched embroidery, her usual cropped jacket of deep maroon leather, and the ever-present iron dagger holstered against her hip like an old friend. The hilt glinted as she walked, daring anyone to test her. Her fire red hair, braided and coiled high, glittered with a single charm pin—a protection ward that pulsed faintly.
The ride to the Faelen estate was long. It led through the winding elevation lanes of the Upper Ring—past crystalline skyscrapers and glinting solar-panel lights, past the press of light traffic and drones humming above. She descended from the hover cab into a tunnel that opened to the private holdings beyond the public eye, The noise of the city faded behind her—like someone had turned the volume down on reality. Even light behaved differently here. Shadows were deeper.
Kairos's estate lay carved into the obsidian cliffs overlooking the Silver Vein River—Rumored to have been the first river to be created into existence in Aritos—a place of black-glass walls, slanted towers, and low-burning dusklights that never flickered. A sprawling mansion veined with runic lines, glittering faintly with protective enchantments. Each step through the gated archway triggered a gentle shimmer of old magic, pressing briefly against Raevyn's skin as if searching for weakness.
An automaton greeted her—sleek, humanoid, with opal-paned joints and a face smoothed into permanent calm. Its amber eyes flickered with recognition as it extended a hand, silently motioning her to follow. It was beautiful in the cold, mechanical way of the old Court machines. Perfect posture. Fluid movement. Danger hidden in elegance.
She passed through echoing halls where portraits moved subtly within their frames, eyes following her with curious malice. Velvet drapery masked steel-reinforced walls. Even luxury in Faelen's world was a trap.
The garden came next.
Tucked far behind the estate like something meant to be forgotten—or hidden—it wasn't the kind of place you stumbled into. You had to want to find it.
The path leading in was narrow, almost claustrophobic, hemmed in by columns that coiled like ancient, petrified vines. Every step felt watched. Blue mushrooms pulsed softly at the base of the walls, glowing just enough to cast long, shifting shadows that made you double-take.
And then—without warning—it opened up.
Space, at last. Wide and quiet, like the world holding its breath.
The garden spread out in spirals like it had been grown from a whispered spell. Flowers bloomed in deep blacks and violets, strange and unnatural, arranged in swirling patterns that looked more like sigils than landscaping. The kind of flowers you weren't sure were meant to be touched.
At the edge of the clearing, tall hedges rose high, sculpted into massive shapes—the Seven Heraldic Beasts, their leafy forms frozen mid-snarl or wings-outstretched. They loomed like they were waiting for a command.
In the center stood a pergola, bone-white and spindly, the beams curved in a way that looked more skeletal than architectural. Underneath it sat a single table—no seams, no joints, just one massive block of marble shaped into cold elegance. Not a place for tea and sunshine. More like… a meeting ground. Or an altar.
Kairos sat there already, posture faultless, typing away on his communicator.
"You're late," he said without looking up.
"You're predictable," she said, dropping into the chair opposite him and propping her boots on the table beside his. "Didn't want to seem too eager."
He looked up then, eyes unreadable. The photo had done him no justice. His face was angular, precise, a weapon in disguise.
"You're as flippant as ever."
"And you're still in love with hearing yourself talk." Raevyn says with an eye roll "Shall we skip to the part where you tell me something important?"
Kairos growled in response to the barb.
"The Murder seems quite strange." He said finally.
"No shit, Captain Obvious," Raevyn sang, a voice dipped in acid.
"You're not taking this seriously."
"Two fae children dead in one night, and someone wants to open a door to the Void?" Her sarcasm faltered slightly. That part didn't make sense.
To open a portal to a portal to the Void is hard but not impossible
Using children? That wasn't a method. It was a message.
"They aren't targeting just anyone," Kairos said, low. "They're going after nobles. Lords. High society. That have bloodlines connected to the Void."
"So the little pricks up there are worried their kin are next?" I cover a snort.
He didn't deign to reply. Instead, he placed a hand on the table's stone surface. "They're forming patterns. The breaches aren't random anymore. The Void creatures are structuring their appearances. Targeting bloodlines."
Raevyn's smile thinned all teeth and no warmth.
"Or someone's ordering them."
He froze.
The wind shifted.
It was subtle—just a ripple in the air, a wrongness brushing the edge of instinct. Not sound. Not sight. Sense. And Raevyn felt it like a blade pressed to the back of her neck.
Her pulse didn't spike from fear. It sharpened—from muscle memory. From training drilled into bone.
She stilled.
Then, the world slowed.
Her senses tightened into a tunnel—vision narrowing, breath quieting, even the air on her tongue turning metallic. A bitter taste. Like rust and magic. Something ugly.
She moved.
A dagger sliced through the illusion of peace—silent, fast, aimed straight for her skull. But her hand snapped up, catching the hilt mid-air. Fluid. Certain. Like it had always belonged there.
Her hand snapped up and caught the hilt mid-air.
The blade was wrong.
Too light to be steel. Too dark for moon-forged silver. It pulsed with shadow, cold sinking into her skin like regret. It smelled like oil and old blood—like something dredged from a forgotten battlefield and given purpose again.
Her grip tightened.
She knew this dagger. Knew its design. Knew the signature of the forge.
Shadow-born. Meant to vanish after doing its job. Meant to kill quickly.
It was meant for her.
She didn't flinch.
Didn't breathe.
Eyes scanned the stillness.
Nothing moved.
Then—
a soft thud. Behind the hedge.
One of the automaton servants—a humanoid model dressed in gold-stitched fae silks—staggered, a second dagger embedded in its right eye. It collapsed backward, steam hissing from its chest plate. Whirring softly, it fell to its knees as its runes dimmed out.
Kairos surged to his feet.
Raevyn, calm, examined the obsidian dagger in her grip. Etched along its hilt, in fine, whisper-thin text, were the words:
"Even severed bonds bleed."
She flipped it once in her hand, then laid it beside the untouched tea cup.
"Subtle," she muttered.
Kairos began muttering into his wrist rune. Alarm spells. Reinforcements. They were always too late.
Another sound—metal on stone. Raevyn stood, spinning to the location.
Behind one of the hedges, a shadow moved. She rushed toward it, iron dagger drawn, but as she turned the corner, there was only a body.
A man—young, fae, his neck torn open in a clean arc. Still warm.
He hadn't even had a chance to scream.
She stared.
Not at the blood. Not at the broken limbs.
At the calm on his face.
Another servant?
Or bait?
But why? The question hung heavy on Raevyn's mind.
Kairos was at her side now, whispering enchantments and scanning for energy trails. There were none. Whoever had done this was long gone—or never there to begin with.
Raevyn watched.
No emotion crossed her face.
Hours earlier, Leo had warned her:
"They're not just attacking anyone. It's specific. Targeted. Children are vanishing near ruptures. Entire bloodlines were erased. No survivors. No traces."
In the fae realms, children were sacred. In long-lived races like theirs, birth was rare and holy. Every child a miracle. Every child has a promise.
To destroy that was to declare war on the soul of their kind.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Raevyn knew the Void.
She'd studied it. Watched it take people. Quietly. Without fuss.
Voidspawn weren't much. Shapeless things were dumped into the Void like scraps. The Void itself ran alongside their world—close enough to touch if you were stupid or desperate. Like tangled cords. Or bad stitching.
Voidspawn weren't the problem.
Voidbornes were.
They were Voidspawns that had felt something. Fear. Grief. Rage. Whatever it took to twist them into more than what they were. Enough to crack the barrier and crawl out.
Voidbornes didn't just cross over. They forced their way in.
And it took willpower to do that. Real thought. Real purpose.
Which meant someone was helping them.
Lately, they'd been slipping through too easily. Too often.
Which meant one thing:
The attacks weren't random.
Someone was shaping them.
Someone was setting them loose.
And now, one of them had just tried to put a blade in her skull.
Someone wanted her dead.
And they weren't being subtle about it anymore
Kairos's voice tugged her back.
"They knew we'd meet here. The garden is fully warded—sealed with six layers of protection. This shouldn't be possible. Protected."
Raevyn's gaze stayed on the shadows.
"Then either your wards are a joke," she murmured, "or someone you trust talks too much."
He said nothing.
She walked, not rushed, toward the iron-edged gate that led back toward the estate.
"You're reckless," Kairos said behind her.
"I'm alive."
"You're bait."
Raevyn stopped. Turned. Her eyes narrowed, steady.
"Do you know what happens when you corner a predator, Faelen?"
His expression didn't change. "It fights."
She smiled. Thin. Icy.
She gave a sharp, thin smile. "No. It calculates. Then it kills."
She vanished into the shadowed halls. Her boots echoed against the marble.
Behind her, the garden shimmered with residual energy—wards flickering, the metal scent of blood and oil lingering in the air.
And elsewhere, in the quietest part of the Lower Ring, another scream rose and was swallowed whole by the night.