The Guild Hall never slept.
Long after the initiates had been dismissed to their quarters, its corridors pulsed with muted life. Candles flickered in high sconces, their light swallowed by stone walls etched with centuries of scars. Voices murmured behind closed doors, papers shuffled, pens scratched.
The hunters thought their trials ended at dusk. But the Guild's true hunt always began in the dark.
---
In the chamber of records, Master Cael sat alone at a wide table of obsidian. His cloak, trimmed in crimson thread, pooled around him like a shadow made solid. He read with patience, though his eyes moved faster than any man's should.
Before him lay a sheet of parchment that hadn't existed an hour ago. Words burned into it with arcane fire, fading from ember-red to dull black.
> [Mission Complete – Dusk Hunt]
Survivors: 11 of 15
Losses: 4 (Initiates & Bonds severed)
Target Classification: Adjusted B+
Supervisor Remarks: Deviation acceptable. Patterns observed.
Cael's lips pressed thin. He lifted his pen. The quill tip shone with faint light, its ink drawn from the blood of oathbearers long dead. He began to write:
> Subject: Ethan Veyra.
Observation: Displayed unanticipated leadership under duress. Instinctively commanded peers, and they obeyed.
Bond Synchronization: 56% (recorded).
Risk: Elevated. Potential vector for dissent.
Recommendation: Closer observation. Test escalation in controlled increments.
He paused, considering the boy's name written in curling script. Ethan Veyra. The survivor from the village burned years ago. The one whose beast had not been summoned—it had been born from chains.
A rarity. A danger. A possibility.
Cael set the pen down.
"You've taken note of him too," a voice said from the shadows.
---
From the darkness at the far end of the chamber, a woman stepped forward. Tall, robed in silver, her mask shaped like a fox's face. Lady Seris, one of the Twelve Overseers. Her presence carried a sharpness that turned air cold.
Cael inclined his head only slightly. "The Guild takes note of all."
"Not like this one," Seris replied. She approached the table, gloved fingers brushing across the parchment. Her voice was silk drawn over steel. "He didn't break. He led. That isn't what we designed these trials to cultivate."
"Perhaps," Cael said evenly. "But sometimes what grows in ash is stronger than what grows in light."
Seris's mask tilted, eyes unreadable. "Or more dangerous."
---
Silence stretched. The Guild was a place of rules, of chains wound around every soul within it. Yet even among the Masters, there were games of power—subtle as whispers, sharp as blades.
Finally, Seris spoke again.
"The Corrupted Direhorns. That was no accident. Someone wanted a bloodbath."
Cael did not answer immediately. He traced a finger across the edge of the parchment, as if the words themselves might bleed truth.
"Accidents," he said softly, "do not exist within the Guild. Only arrangements."
Her fox mask turned toward him fully now. "Then whose arrangement was this?"
Cael looked past her, to the wall where the Guild's great seal was carved—a hunter's chain coiling around a sun. His voice dropped lower.
"One above our rank."
That, at least, silenced her.
---
Elsewhere in the hall, Ethan paced. Sleep eluded him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw horns gleaming green in the dusk, the flash of claws, the momentary terror of initiates cut down beside him.
Shadowfang lay curled by the door, golden eyes open, unblinking. Watching. Always watching.
Ethan clenched his fists. His hand still bore faint tremors from channeling too much resonance. The notification burned in his mind—Supervisor Report Pending.
Someone had been there. Someone had seen.
He thought of the Guild Master's eyes on him. Of the way others had followed his commands without hesitation. He hadn't meant to lead. He hadn't wanted to. But in the moment, when everything bled and screamed, the words had simply come.
And they had listened.
Now he feared the Guild had listened too.
---
In the chamber of records, Cael rolled the parchment and sealed it with crimson wax. He handed it to a waiting courier—an initiate with no eyes, only hollow sockets filled with silver threads. The boy bowed, silent, and vanished into the hall's endless dark.
When the door closed, Seris remained.
"You could have marked him for elimination," she said. "One line of ink, and his chain would tighten until nothing was left."
Cael leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. "And waste potential that comes once in a generation? No. The Guild does not discard weapons before we know what they can cut."
Seris's voice sharpened. "Weapons cut both ways."
"Indeed." Cael's gaze hardened. "And that is why we must hold the hilt, not the blade."
The two stood in silence, the air between them heavy with truths unspoken.
---
Morning broke over Guild City, pale and thin. Bells tolled, not for mourning but for discipline. The survivors of the hunt gathered in the training square, their beasts restless beside them.
Ethan stood among them, Shadowfang at his side, both marked by fresh scars. Whispers traveled between initiates, but none spoke to him directly. Some looked with gratitude. Others with resentment. Lyra's gaze lingered longest of all—half a challenge, half a promise.
The Guild Master ascended the dais. His cloak was black as a crow's wing, his eyes the color of old iron.
"You have seen dusk," he said. His voice carried, cold and steady. "You will see dawn. You have bled. You will bleed again. This is the way of the oath."
No mention of the dead. No honor for the fallen. Only the reminder that chains bound them tighter with every breath.
Ethan felt the weight of it pressing deeper into his skin.
---
Later, in the training yards, Shadowfang prowled as Ethan drilled, sweat dripping from his brow. Every strike of his blade felt heavier than the last, not from fatigue but from memory. The Direhorn's eyes haunted him still.
A whisper brushed his ear as he paused to drink from the well.
"You shouldn't stand out so much."
Ethan turned. Lyra leaned against a pillar, serpent draped lazily around her shoulders. Its tongue flickered, tasting the air between them.
"Stand out?" Ethan asked, voice low.
She smirked. "You gave orders. They listened. The Guild noticed. That's dangerous."
His jaw tightened. "I didn't ask them to follow."
"Doesn't matter," she said. "They did. And now eyes are on you. Eyes that don't blink."
Shadowfang growled, fire sparking faintly across his fur. Lyra's serpent only hissed in reply.
She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If you want to live, Ethan Veyra, learn this: In the Guild, survival isn't about strength. It's about knowing who watches… and why."
Then she turned and walked away, serpent coiling tighter around her.
Ethan stood still, the words sinking like poison.
Who watched.
Why.
And in the distance, unseen by either of them, Cael observed from the shadowed archway, his cloak drawn close. His quill scratched silently against fresh parchment.
The hunt, it seemed, had only begun.
---
Chapter End.
---