Moon-pale sunlight filtered through the violet storm clouds as Kio Valaryn crouched on the jagged parapet of a half-collapsed watchtower, her cloak snapping like a wounded banner in the gale. Far below, the city of Veyl sprawled in broken tiers—ash-gray rooftops, smoldering market stalls, plazas spider-webbed with Rift-cracks that oozed sour-white fog. Somewhere in that labyrinth the Regent's soldiers would already be sweeping for her trail.
But Kio tasted new power on the wind.
Shadow Pounce.The skill coiled beneath her skin like a second pulse, ready to hurl her across rooftops in a single, silent heartbeat. She flexed her fingers, and darkness bled up her nail beds, an inky mist that obeyed thought.
Behind her, Vaun—the Abyss-Wolf King—perched as easily as any gargoyle, enormous body half-dissolved into flickering shadow. The riftlight that rimmed his horns guttered, then steadied, as if adjusting to the calmer air above the slums.
"Regent Caelis's palace is that way." Kio pointed with one shackled wrist toward the distant citadel: a needle of black marble ringed by shattered spires. "I know secret access tunnels beneath the eastern wing. If we move at dawn's first bell, we can—"
Vaun's massive head turned, crimson eyes narrowing. "You're bleeding."
Only then did she feel the warm trickle down her ribs where splinters had torn through her shirt. Adrenaline had numbed it. Now pain arrived like rent due.
"It's nothing," she said, bracing as the world dipped; Vaun shuffled closer on the parapet's narrow spine until one clawed finger brushed the wound. Heat—not burning, but electric—pulsed from his talon through the torn fabric, and the bleeding stopped. Flesh knit, leaving only a thin pink line. The Nexus mark over her sternum flashed in silent acknowledgment.
"Shadow sovereigns do not leave their claimed hearts to bleed," Vaun rumbled.
Kio tried—and failed—to hide the way that word claimed sent a shiver through her exhausted frame. It tasted too close to belonging. She'd spent years trusting no one but the knives hidden in her boots; now a creature carved from night spoke to her like she was something fragile and his.
She shoved the thought down. Mission first.
"Thank you," she said, rolling her shoulders. Pain receded. "That makes infiltration easier."
Vaun's ears flicked, catching distant clangs—search parties assembling. "Armies hunt. Your human stride is slow. Use your new legs."
Kio glanced at the yawning alley below. Thirty feet. Broken glass. Jagged rebar. In the past she'd have rappelled with grappling hooks. Now the dark inside her muscles hummed, urging movement.
"Show me."
The wolf-king chuckled—a sound like gravel sliding. "Feel the thread. Trust the pull."
Kio inhaled until her ribs pressed leather tight. On instinct she pushed her weight forward and—
—vanished.
A blink of black wind carried her across the chasm. She reappeared on a crumbling chimney stack, knees bent, cloak fluttering. No sound. No displaced rubble. Just the echo of a heartbeat half a street behind.
She exhaled, grinning despite the chaos. "Storms take me… that's better than wings."
Vaun flowed after her, a tide of shadow stitching itself solid as he landed. Tiles cracked beneath his bulk, but magic muffled the crash. He lowered his head until they were eye-level.
"Your heart roared louder than any battlefield. I followed that roar." He spoke quietly, as if confessing a secret. "It will guide you wherever you choose—rooftops or thrones."
Kio studied the monster's obsidian horns, the shifting fractal stars buried in his mane, and wondered who'd been lonelier: the spy who'd never trusted love, or the sovereign who'd never known consent. The thought scalded.
"Then let's follow it to a new target."
Three leaps later, they perched on the soot-grimed roof of an abandoned observatory dome. The storm clouds thinned above, revealing a slice of dawn-blue sky. Kio scanned the skyline, cataloguing changes: guild halls collapsed, water towers emptied, the once-bright merchant district charred black by Rift fire. But in the western quarter she spotted a lone iron lamppost still burning steady emerald, its flame shielded by a cunning wind-cowl.
She smiled. "Someone kept the signal alive."
"Signal?"
"Green-fire lamps were my network's dead-drop markers." Her voice warmed despite the chill. "If one burns after curfew, it's a call to gather."
Vaun snorted. "Your pack."
"Spies, thieves, couriers—good people in a bad trade." Her gaze lingered on the burning lamp. "If any survived the purges, they'll meet me at the Old Quarry tunnels. And we'll need them. Regent Caelis has half the city under martial law."
The sovereign lowered himself until the tower's roof groaned. "Your threads and mine can weave a snare Caelis won't escape."
Kio nodded—but a pulse beneath her Nexus brand prickled, a warning of deeper schemes. "First we need information. The Regent's bunker is shielded with Null-sigils—magic dead zones. Even your claws will dull there. We gather intel tonight, strike at sunrise."
"Agreed." Vaun's red gaze drifted south toward the Rift-scar glowing on the horizon. "Sooner, the next sovereign awakens. Overload will return if we delay."
She swallowed. The system's earlier timer—87 seconds to brain-fry—still haunted her nerves. Until she bound seven sovereigns, any gap between bonds risked meltdown. They needed speed and precision.
"Then let's not waste the dark."
***
Moonlight had long fled by the time Kio descended into the quarry's mouth. Vaun stayed hidden among ruined archways above—his size would spook allies as easily as foes.
She crept along a rusted rail track, the hum of Shadow Pounce ready to yank her into darkness if a sentry appeared. The tunnel widened into a vault where stalactites of concrete hung like teeth. Echoes dripped. Rats squeaked.
A single lantern burned low beside a crate stack. Two silhouettes huddled: a wiry man with braided beard and a broad-shouldered woman in patchwork armor. At Kio's soft footstep they spun, blades drawn—until green-flame lamplight kissed her face.
"Ghostsworn?" the woman whispered, disbelief cracking her voice. "We thought Caelis flayed you by now."
Kio's old codename fluttered like a torn banner. "Not yet, Mara." She raised shackled wrists. "Though the night's young."
Bearded Jorvin sheathed his dagger and hugged her tight. "By all saints, we pinned riot posters for you." He shoved up a sleeve to reveal a stylized black wolf tattoo, fresh seams reddened. "Hope never dies, yeah?"
Wolf. The coincidence burned. Kio touched the ink gently, murmured thanks, then swept her gaze over the cavern. Perhaps a dozen more of her contacts lurked—some with fresh scars, most in ragged garb. Survivors.
She spoke quickly: the fabricated treason, the Regent's child experiments, the sovereign attack. She omitted the Nexus and Vaun's bond; no need to rattle allies with cosmic politics on first reunion.
Mara listened, jaw clenched. "We know Caelis enacted curfews around the Citadel Ring. He's storing Rift Shards for something called Project Dawnbringer. We couldn't get a courier inside."
"Project Dawnbringer," Kio repeated, rolling the phrase like poison on her tongue. "And the shard stockpile?"
"Regent moved them to the fortress cellars—but the lift runs only with a blood-coded signet." Jorvin pointed at a parchment map, circles scrawled in charcoal. "The signet stays chained to Caelis's wrist."
Kio's mind raced. Blood-coded sigils required living pulse to pass biometric gates. She could fake many things, but not a heartbeat identical to Caelis's.
Unless…
Her gaze flicked to the tunnel shadows where she felt Vaun waiting, thread taut as a violin string. Shadow Pounce could slip her past walls, but not null-sigils. She needed a distraction big enough to force Caelis out wearing that signet.
"Rift Shards burn if unleashed," she murmured. "If we trigger a containment breach at the south tower, safety protocol will drag Caelis to the war-room—with skull-key." She tapped the map. "We intercept en route."
Mara frowned. "That breach could collapse half the Citadel."
"That half belongs to tyrants," Kio said, voice flat.
Silence, then nods.
"Tell the wolves," Jorvin rasped. "We run tonight."
Kio broke from the meeting and climbed a spiral of rubble until she reached the open archway overlooking the moonlit quarry. Vaun stepped out of blackness, ears twitching.
"You hide the thread," he said. "Your pack doesn't feel it."
"They don't need nightmares in corporeal form right now." She shrugged. "People fear what they can't kill."
Vaun tilted his horned head. "Yet you do not fear me."
She exhaled, lips ghosting a bitter smile. "I fear failure more. And you… you're an asset." The words tasted wrong, too cold for what flared under her ribcage at his nearness.
Crimson eyes softened. "Assets do not heal your wounds without command."
Kio's cheeks warmed. "Fine. Ally. Better?"
"Thread-Mates." Vaun's gaze dropped to the faint thorn-sigil glowing between her collarbones. "In my realm, bonds are sung beneath moon-bone trees. Hearts speak, claws drink starlight. But this world cages every whisper behind stone."
She swallowed. The cavern's night air felt suddenly tight. "Here hearts lie and betray. Bonds are bargaining chips."
"Then let me be your first honest bargain." He took her hand—gentle, claws grazing knuckles. Despite leather gloves his touch sparked along the Nexus, tendrils of violet light weaving ghostly laces up her wrist. "I will hunt your enemies, guard your pack, share every shadow I own. Trade me one thing."
"What price?" Her voice was smoke.
"Trust." His thumb brushed the inside of her palm where pulse throbbed frantic. "Not eternal, just now."
Kio's throat tightened. She had learned trust once and watched it strangled under palace intrigue. But the abyss-wolf's promise vibrated with something older than oaths.
"Tonight," she whispered, interlacing her scarred fingers with his vast claw, "we trade. You carry me to the Citadel gates; I guide your fury to a just target. After dawn, we see if the bargain holds."
Vaun nodded, horn tips catching the rift-light. "Deal struck, Rift-Maiden."
Thunder rumbled somewhere above—distant yet warning.
***
Before the pack could finish sabotage plans, the Nexus brand across Kio's chest flared hot, as if the tattoo had turned to ember. Text ghosted her vision:
—UNBOUND SOVEREIGN MANIFEST: SOUTH-EAST QUADRANT, UNDERCITY—
THREAD INITIATION WINDOW: 03:59:45—
Pain stabbed her temples. She staggered; Vaun's arm steadied her.
"Another sovereign," she gasped. "Less than four hours away."
Mara and Jorvin looked up from the maps, eyes wide.
"We can't split forces now," Mara said. "Citadel breach or new terror—choose."
Kio clenched her jaw. Timer numbers bled urgency. If she ignored the sovereign, overload loomed. But abandon tonight's strike and Caelis would relocate by dawn.
Vaun's voice rumbled low. "We hunt the new sovereign. Caelis waits; shards wait. Your heart does not."
Kio shot him a glare—anger, fear, gratitude braided. "Fine. Jorvin, Mara, move sabotage to tomorrow night. Keep watch for Regent patrols."
She turned to Vaun. "Undercity is a maze. You know the corridors?"
"Only darkness. That's enough."
She nodded once and started to run—Shadow Pounce launching her over rail tracks, Vaun's stride booming behind. In the dim, torch-lit tunnels of Veyl they disappeared, chasing an unseen sovereign whose birth-cry rattled distant pipes like bones in a drum.
The city above slept uneasy, unaware that before dawn its skies would split anew—and that a spy with thorn-lit veins would stake her fragile life on one more consensual thread in the loom of apocalypse.