Chapter 8 — A Stranger With No Name
Aelinne didn't go looking for trouble.
Trouble found her anyway.
The border settlement was restless tonight — louder, rougher, drunker. Torches flared violently in the wind, shadows stretching long across stone and dirt as merchants shut their stalls and soldiers drank themselves blind.
She moved through it quietly, hood up, power sealed, senses duller than she hated.
Then she felt it.
Not fear.
Not magic.
Authority.
A man stood near the mouth of a narrow street, blocking half the passage without meaning to. Dark hair. Lean muscle under leather. Still as stone, as if the world moved around him instead of through him.
His eyes slid to her when she drew closer.
Green.
Empty.
He looked at her the way one looks at a passing inconvenience.
"Don't wander alone," he said flatly. "Girls disappear here."
Aelinne stiffened. "And you're the one who decides that?"
"No." His gaze swept her once, brief and dismissive. "The world does."
She exhaled through her nose. "Then I'll take my chances."
She moved to pass him.
He stepped into her path without urgency.
"What's your name?"
The question was not curiosity.
It was control.
"Elin," she said instantly.
He nodded once, already disinterested.
She hesitated, then asked, "And yours?"
He didn't answer.
She waited.
Nothing.
"So you question strangers but won't offer your own?" she pressed.
Slowly, lazily, his eyes returned to her face.
"Names create attachments," he said. "I don't keep those."
"That sounds like avoidance."
"That sounds like survival."
A beat passed.
"Draviel," he added finally. "A name I won't be using long."
Aelinne frowned. "That's… unsettling."
"Good."
He shifted aside, giving her a clear path.
Dismissed.
She should have walked away.
She didn't.
"You speak like a soldier," she said instead. "And carry yourself like someone used to command."
He tilted his head slightly, studying her the way one inspects a blade.
"You speak like someone who doesn't know when to stop talking."
Her jaw tightened.
"That's rude."
"That's honest."
The words landed sharp and final.
For a moment, something in the air tightened — not magic, not threat — just two forces testing space.
Then Kael looked past her.
Bored.
"You should go, Elin," he said. "You don't belong in streets like this."
"And you do?" she challenged.
"I don't belong anywhere," he replied calmly. "That's the difference."
A chill slid through her.
She stepped back slowly, eyes never leaving his face.
"Goodbye Draviel "
He didn't answer.
By the time she turned away, he was already gone.
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