Page 3

THREE

LUCIEN

S he knew he was there.

Lucien stood half-submerged in the mist curling along the alley rooftop, one knee balanced on the rusted metal frame of a forgotten billboard.

The city below was all peeling paint and flickering lights—Grayridge, the last gutter before the Veil swallowed the map.

The place where the rules thinned out and the monsters got bold.

She walked like she belonged here. Like the cracked pavement recognized her tread. Like the ghosts in the fog had learned to step aside.

But she knew .

Lucien had seen it. In the way she’d paused yesterday—just a second too long at the vendor stall with the bone charms. How she’d shifted her weight subtly, not out of fear, but calculation. Her hand had slipped toward her coat like she was checking a weapon, and her eyes… Goddess, her eyes .

They didn’t just glance. They searched .

And then, she looked right at the rooftop where he crouched, even though he was wrapped in shadow, his breath stilled, his pulse dropped low like they taught him in the early years.

No glamour should’ve pierced that. No human should’ve known.

But she did. His mother had been right.

Evryn Hale had the old blood.

Lucien shifted his weight and leapt silently across the gap between buildings. The shadows followed him like obedient dogs, clinging to his heels, cloaking him from the waking world. He landed with the grace of a falling leaf on the edge of a brick outcropping, eyes locked on her moving form below.

She wasn’t panicking.

She wasn’t running.

That... intrigued him.

Most marks either fled, fought, or pissed themselves the moment they felt him near.

But this one?

This one simply kept walking.

Lucien’s lips twisted into a grim smile.

Dangerous. Not just because of her bloodline—but because of what she stirred in him. A flicker of interest. A sliver of respect. A spark of… something warmer he wasn’t accustomed to.

No.

He shut that thought down like a door slammed in the dark.

She was a target. An anomaly. A threat.

He was following her, not killing her. And that alone told a story he didn’t want to examine too closely. For now, he told himself it was because she was too unpredictable to just pounce. But, he knew that that was a lie.

Lucien slid into a lower perch just as Evryn entered the fringe of the outer zone, where the market ended and the real wild began.

This close to the Veil, things got messy.

Rules bled like wounds here. Half-shifted things prowled the alleys.

Desperate people with dead eyes sold secrets for sips of glamoured wine.

And she walked through it like it didn’t touch her.

He crouched near the edge of a half-collapsed fire escape, watching.

Then he heard it, the unmistakable click of blades.

Three shifters slunk out of the haze, their forms barely humanoid. Unmarked rogues, wearing their desperation like armor. Patchy fur, elongated limbs, teeth too long to be human but too dull to be panther. Failed turns, maybe. Castoffs.

Their eyes gleamed with feral intent.

Lucien tensed.

He didn’t move. He was trained for this. To wait. To study.

Evryn stopped walking.

She said nothing. Didn’t scream. Didn’t shake.

One of them stepped closer.

Lucien shifted his position, ready to intervene if she faltered—but curious. So curious. And though, he knew that he should let them take care of her for him.

She moved. She was fast.

The first thug lunged, knife flashing. She spun, sidestepped, and drove her boot into his knee. The sound of cartilage crunching echoed in the narrow space. The second came from behind, but Evryn dropped low, sweeping his legs and sending him into the trash-strewn wall.

The third hesitated.

Lucien could see it—the flicker in Evryn’s eyes, the way her head tilted just a degree to the left. She wasn’t reacting. She was reading them.

She saw . She knew where the strikes would land before they even came.

That wasn’t instinct. That was Sight.

Evryn Hale wasn’t guessing her way through a back-alley brawl.

She was hunting.

The last rogue ran.

Lucien remained still.

Evryn stood over the downed shifter, breathing hard, her fists clenched. Blood trickled from a split on her lip, but her stance was proud. Defiant. Radiant with raw, untrained power.

She didn’t finish the fight with a flourish or threat. She just looked up .

Straight at him.

He knew it.

She couldn’t see him—not fully—but she felt him again.

And this time, her lips curled at the edges. Not a smile. Not quite. But close.

Lucien’s chest burned in a place he didn’t remember having left open.

She wasn’t afraid.

And he …he didn’t want to kill her.

Lucien retreated into the upper reaches of Grayridge just as the sun began to bleed through the fog. The color didn’t warm the streets. It just made the rust glow a little more.

He entered the hollow of a building long since gutted by fire, where ash still clung to the walls like mourning shrouds. His breath was measured. Controlled.

He had decisions to make.

She was Sighted. Powerful. More than connected to a forgotten bloodline that shouldn’t exist.

The Queen’s orders were clear, kill her.

No trial. No questioning. No hesitation.

Lucien stared at his gloved hands. The same hands that had taken lives for less than whispers. He had slit the throat of a nobleman’s daughter because she might have known too much. Poisoned a warlock child with tears still drying on his cheeks.

But this girl? Evryn Hale?

Something in him refused.

She didn’t scream when she should’ve. Didn’t run when she could’ve. Didn’t break when blood was drawn.

Lucien felt it in the marrow of his bones—this wasn’t just another assignment. This was the beginning of something. Something far more dangerous than rebellion or prophecy.

It was the beginning of choice.

And choice was the one thing he was never supposed to have.