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The Stillness in the City

slvale_whispers
7
chs / week
The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 7 chs / week.
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Synopsis
The city is not what it seems. By day, it looks like a decaying modern metropolis, filled with noise, neon lights, and forgotten people. But beneath the surface, ancient magic stirs. Avery Quinn is what they call a Null—a human immune to magic in a world ruled by it. She’s invisible to spells, untouched by enchantments, and hunted by beings who see her as a threat to the balance. Sloane Bennett is something else entirely. A fae-blooded mage in exile, she’s hiding from her court, her past, and the growing war between realms. Her magic is unstable—wild and dangerous—but it’s drawn to Avery, who grounds her in a way no one else ever has. When a magical assassination goes wrong and Avery saves Sloane’s life, the two are bound by a life-thread, an ancient tie that forces them to stay close—or suffer the unraveling of body and soul. But the closer they get, the more they realize the city is changing. Something is awakening in its shadows—something old, powerful, and hungry. Together, they must uncover the truth about Avery’s immunity, the origins of Sloane’s fractured power, and the reason their souls were tied by magic in the first place. And along the way—against all logic, bloodlines, and magical law— they fall in love.
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Chapter 1 - Prologue

There was a time when the city never slept. Wrenhaven pulsed with life—crowded markets, neon-lit rooftops, trains that roared through midnight, laughter echoing in narrow streets. But that was before the stillness came.

Before the clocks stopped in the heart of the city. Before magic returned—not as wonder, but as warning.

No one knows the exact moment it happened. Maybe it began with the birds vanishing from the skies. Or the way certain doors stopped opening, as though they'd forgotten they ever could. Some say it started when the cathedral bells rang thirteen times at dusk. Others swear it was when a girl walked into the center of Bellrose Square and never came out.

Averie Quinn remembers none of this.

She remembers the silence afterward.

The city she lives in now is a half-forgotten thing—part shadow, part myth. Its skyline glows with dying lights. Its alleyways hold too many secrets. The ordinary laws of nature bend in quiet corners, and no one dares to ask why.

She works in that silence. Beneath it. Through it. Delivering things that should not exist—keys to forgotten rooms, spells written in vanished languages, memories sealed in glass. Her clients are strange. Her life, stranger. But she doesn't flinch anymore.

Then one night, she hears a name whispered in a voice she forgot she missed.

Sloane Bennett.

A name buried by time. A girl she once loved. A life that never had the chance to unfold.

And the city stirs again.

Doors creak open that were never meant to move. The stillness deepens. And in the ruins of old magic and unfinished love, something ancient awakens.

Wrenhaven is no longer sleeping.

And neither is she.