They came with no trumpets.
No footsteps.
Only silence—too perfect to be natural.
Rael froze first, ears twitching, eyes narrowing. Jade sensed it a moment later: a shimmer in the trees, like breath caught in a throat. He touched Rael's arm. Too late.
Arrows rained like silver fangs.
Jade pulled Rael into a roll, time slowing in his mind. He could not stop it—not yet—but he bent it. Just enough to blur motion. Just enough to dodge.
They hit the snow, breath knocked from their lungs, hearts thundering like war drums.
From the woods emerged five cloaked hunters, their eyes glowing blue beneath mirror masks. Branded on their chest: the Sigil of the Veiled Crown. The prince's personal seekers.
"Ghost of Vael'Ryn," one of them rasped, "and the Ash-Ghost's Flame. By order of Sovereign Elian, you are condemned."
Rael spat. "Tell your prince he has a name like a bedsheet."
The leader raised a hand.
Jade stepped forward.
And the world shuddered.
Time twisted.
For a breathless moment, snowflakes froze mid-fall. Crows stilled mid-wing. The color bled from the world. Jade walked between seconds—his limit was ten heartbeats. But within them, he shattered their formation.
A knife to one neck.
A stone to another's temple.
A misstep forced on a third.
When time resumed, chaos did too.
Rael jumped into the fray, agile and angry, wielding nothing but stolen knives and desperate hope. They fought like wolves cornered in a blizzard—and somehow, they survived.
Panting. Bleeding. Alive.
Only one hunter escaped.
But he carried the mark of Jade's blade across his mask—and he would report.
Two Days Later
They reached the Hollowed Vale, a forgotten village tucked in a ravine, where exiled mystics once lived. The houses were bones of wood and prayer, the fields overgrown with violet moss.
A kind woman named Eda took them in. Scarred face. Missing eye. But kind.
"You two," she muttered, serving stew, "are not just running. You're being hunted like demons. Best to decide now: will you hide here forever... or strike back?"
Rael looked to Jade.
Jade didn't answer.
But in the frost-hung mirror behind Eda, his reflection shimmered—and for a flicker, Vael'Ryn loomed tall behind him.
Jade's silence was no longer weakness.
It was the whisper of vengeance being born.