TALIA*
The dream wouldn't let me go.
It clung to my skin like static as I stood in the kitchen, pouring coffee I didn't want. My hands were steady, but my insides felt like they were unraveling thread by thread.
Cara looked up from her tablet. "You didn't sleep well."
I didn't bother lying. "Weird dream."
Caleb wandered in moments later, already half-dressed in his training gear. The early morning light cut across his face, but it didn't hide the tension clinging to him. He'd been distant ever since the abandoned safe house mission. Since we found the scattered markings burned into the floor.
Since I saw him pocket that strange black sigil.
But I was too tangled in my own nightmare to pry.
"What kind of dream?" Cara asked, pouring a second cup for herself.
I hesitated. "There was… a desert. Empty. Then it wasn't. There was a woman standing in front of me, she looked like me but older, stronger. She said something I couldn't hear. And then everything went dark."
I left out the part where I felt like I knew her. That she felt like… home. Like grief and joy wrapped into one.
"You sure it wasn't just stress?" Cara offered gently.
"Maybe." I wasn't convinced.
"We should tell Mom," Caleb said, his voice too careful.
"No," I said immediately. "She'd turn this into another excuse to monitor me. I'm fine."
I wasn't. But that didn't matter.
---
Later that evening, I returned home from "The Pale Lantern" the bar Cara and I had chosen for my cover.
It was more exhausting than I expected. The patrons were mostly humans, drunk on ego and escapism, but a few were something else. Their eyes too sharp. Their smiles too perfect.
Demons. Low-level. Opportunists. But one of them had looked at me too long.
I tried to shake it off as I stood under the shower, steam curling around me. I couldn't stop thinking about the woman in my dream. The look in her eyes, sadness wrapped in resolve. She felt like a part of me I hadn't yet unlocked.
The steam fogged the mirror, but I could still see my own reflection.
For a moment, it wasn't just me.
It was her. A gasp escaped my lips.
I blink and she was gone.
"What the hell". I thought
---
Kael*
I stood alone at the edge of the old bridge overlooking the lower realm. The Oathshard pulsed against my chest beneath my tunic.
The Council had not wasted time. Within a day of my claim, they summoned me to the infernal chamber, where stone breathed secrets and shadows were always listening.
Veyros sat at the center of it all, flanked by Renka, Syros, and Zho. Saelis, ever the weasel, lingered just behind his father's chair.
"You want the title back," Veyros said, fingers steepled. "Then earn it."
"Name your conditions," I said coldly.
He smiled, slow and coiled. "Three tasks. Do them, and the Court will recognize your claim."
He rose, voice echoing like a spell.
"First - surrender Vaelith. His visions, his mind, his madness, we want them. The Court will decide how to use him."
A burn flared in my chest, but I gave a shallow nod.
"Second - retrieve the Shard of Nyros. From the Sanctuary of Ash."
The room shifted. Even Syros blinked. Renka's smile was thin.
The Shard was buried in one of the oldest ruins of demonkind, guarded by cursed spirits and broken time. Wards would shred most intruders. No map led to the center. No soul had returned whole.
"You do enjoy making things difficult," I muttered.
"Only for those worthy," Renka said.
"And the third?" I asked.
Veyros sat again. "That will be revealed once you reclaim your place."
Unspoken meaning filled the pause... Once we've shackled you again.
"Agreed," I said.
Let them think they held the reins. Let them believe I was theirs again.
I would take their trials.
And I would reshape the Court when I returned.
---
The moment I whispered her name, the air shimmered.
Vaelith emerged from the tear in reality, his eyes distant, tracking something I couldn't see.
"Did you find anything?"
Vaelith tilted his head, twitching. "Dreams are always hungry. Hers is no exception."
"And?"
"A woman who was once power and pain. A mirror of herself. The Void stirs in her blood. But time is tangled. It tries to shield her."
His voice grew hollow. "She remembers... in fragments. Tanya breathes behind her eyes."
I felt it then, truth like fire.
"She saw Tanya?"
Vaelith nodded once. "Not clearly. But enough to Stir something."
That was dangerous. If her powers awakened before she understood them, if the Court sensed her potential too soon, she'd be hunted. Not just by demons, but by the hunters who raised her.
"Is she stable?"
Vaelith's laugh was dry and haunted. "Are you?"
Fair enough.
"Keep watching her. But don't interfere. Not yet."
He bowed mockingly. "The Void watches back."
---
Caleb*
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The sigil I found still burned a quiet heat in my desk drawer. I'd scanned it with everything I could find, infrared, electromagnetic, spectral. It wasn't just demonic.
It was old. Pre-Council.
And worse, when I touched it tonight, just to see if anything had changed… I heard something.
A whisper.
I pulled away immediately.
I needed to tell Talia. But she was already dealing with the dream. With her job. With Mom.
I'd wait.
Just a little longer.