Page 3 of The Scars of War (Of Ruin and Fire #1)

The Watcher

It’s loud tonight. Not just the music, but everything.

The scrape of the chairs, the clink of the glasses, the shrill laugh of someone trying too hard to pretend they’re not afraid of the news blaring from the TVs above the bar.

The whole world’s cracking at the edges, and no one knows what to do except drink until their stupid fucking problems seem distant.

I’m moving fast. Pouring doubles, slinging bottles, pretending I don’t notice the way people are vibrating with something ugly under their skin. Dragana slides a tray past me with a wink. I smirk. She’s good at playing it cool. Me? I don’t have time for anything but actual control.

What I do notice is the quiet. It slips in like a change in pressure. It’s as if someone has flipped the switch on the room’s energy and rewired it from underneath .

The VIP booth—the one that’s always empty—isn’t empty anymore.

He’s here. Shadowed. Still. The glass is sitting untouched in front of him.

No entourage. No noise. Just… him . He doesn’t move.

Doesn’t even blink. He just watches me as I’m trying to figure out who the hell he is.

I narrow my eyes and say, “Who the hell is that?” Dragana leans in, setting a coaster down with more force than necessary.

“He’s no one.”

Annoyed at her lack of detail, I reply with a sarcastic tone. “Yeah, because a ‘no one’ would be sitting in the roped-off booth like he owns the building.”

She doesn’t laugh. That’s what gets my attention.

“That’s Riven, they call him a myth,” she says quietly. “Some say he’s the head of the Vescari syndicate. Others say he doesn’t exist at all until something bad’s about to happen.”

“Sounds like a bad movie pitch.”

Dragana glances over her shoulder, voice lower now.

“Lux…last time he showed up in this city, three bars burned to the ground within a week, and then a body sh owed up in the bay missing its tongue.” She walks away like she didn’t just drop a horror story in my lap.

I glance toward the booth again. He’s still watching.

A subtle third-party observer might have missed him entirely.

Nothing about his posture demanded attention.

Aside from the seasoned bartender, twitchy regulars, or the ones used to spotting trouble before it starts, no one else seemed to notice him.

Lucky for them, because he was impossible to unsee.

The air around him builds an unbearable pressure like a cold front crashing into the summer air.

The music changes. As it slows, I notice a strange beat pulses under the surface like a second heartbeat.

Suddenly, a man shouts, breaking my thoughts.

I turn just in time to see a guy in a cheap blazer shove his girlfriend.

Not hard, but it’s just enough to make the surrounding tables freeze.

She flinches. Her voice trembles. This fight is seconds from becoming something worse.

I’m already moving. “We don’t do that shit here,” I snap, sliding between them like I’ve done a hundred times before. My tone slices through the bar like a whip.

“Back. Up,” he sneers .

“You serious?”

“Dead serious.” This asshat decides to take a step toward me, his fist clenched when suddenly the lights start to flicker. Everything in the room goes still, like the oxygen is being sucked out of the room. I don’t even have to look to know he’s there.

He’s standing behind the man who has a clenched fist in the air and too much beer on his breath.

The pressure is so exact, so sudden, the man doesn’t even have a chance to scream before I register what I’m hearing—the dry, hollow crack of bone breaking clean.

He crumples to the ground, clutching his arm and howling like a wounded animal.

The crowd stands still, watching us. It’s like they’re under glass.

Like something ancient has wrapped the room in silence.

And the man now standing still above him? Calm. Unbothered.

He doesn’t say a word. Just turns toward me and stares with piercing eyes, and for the first time, I see his face. Why is it wrecking me?

Perfect in a way that feels wrong. Pale skin. Sharp jaw. Hair that is as dark as a fresh bruise and styled within an inch of perfection. The kind of beauty that hurts to look at. He is too sharp. Too clean. Too cold. It’s his eyes that hit me.

Eyes I’ve drawn. Eyes, I know.

Burning, piercing, impossible.

His gaze pins me like a blade to the wall. And then, before I can even breathe, let alone speak, he reaches up. His hand brushes a strand of hair from my face. Gentle. Deliberate. His fingers graze my temple, and everything in my body reacts like I’ve been hit with lightning.

Then—just like that—he’s gone.

The missing oxygen refills the room and the bar breathes again. Conversations restart. Someone laughs. The music swells. No one looks at the guy on the floor, or the man who dropped him. It’s like the moment never happened and I’m stuck here, frozen...

I saw him .

I felt him .

I still see those eyes, every time I shut my own, staring right through me like they belonged to me long before I ever knew they existed.

The rest of the shift is a blur. Dragana tries to ask what happened.

I wave her off. I don’t have the words, not yet.

Every time I close my eyes, I see that man’s face.

Those fucking eyes. The precision in his movements.

The way the crowd folded around him was like he’d always been there.

And the way he touched me. Like he had every right to.

I don’t remember walking home, but I know I’m inside my apartment again, drenched in rain and shaking with something that isn’t fear. This feeling is heavier. Like knowing a tornado is coming and there’s no time to get out of the way.

I drop my keys and lock the door behind me. The sketchbook’s waiting, still open on the couch like it knew I’d be back. I sit down, and for a long moment, I don’t move. I just stare at the eyes I drew days ago, the ones that match him exactly.

That’s not a coincidence.

That’s not imagination.

That’s a fucking problem.

I flip to the next page and find myself already sketching again, even though I don’t remember picking up the pencil. My hand moves without thought. Curves. Edges. That strange spiral. Again, and again. I draw the symbol until the page is full .

At the center, that downward blade. Inked harder than the rest. Pressed so deep the paper warps. I don’t know what it means. I feel it. It hums in my chest. Like a memory I haven’t lived yet. I toss the sketchbook onto the counter like it burned me. My hands won’t stop shaking.

I move to the window. Streetlights buzz below, slick pavement glinting under rain. A few drunk idiots yell across the street, their shenanigans waking the whole neighborhood.

Just another night in a city that’s too far gone to notice something’s wrong. I notice, I always have.

I reach for my phone. Type “Vescari” into the search bar.

Nothing that seems to matter, go figure.

A few hits about real estate and news stories about a supposed mafia or drug ring.

Nothing real. So, I’ll dig even deeper. Reverse image search one of the drawings from my sketchbook.

Still nothing. I’m about to give up as my phone glitches.

There are streaks of color appearing across the screen. It flickers static as my heart pounds.

“What the fuck!” I scream as the whole screen goes black.

I'm ready to toss my phone across the room when it suddenly returns to normal, leaving me staring at my lock screen in confusion.

Every instinct in my body is screaming at me, trying to tell me that something is wrong.

Then I hear it...a soft thump behind me. '

Not outside…inside…in my goddamn apartment.

I spin, fear slamming into my chest. The window is still shut.

The door is locked. But on the floor, lying just behind the coffee table, is a black envelope.

It has no stamp, no markings, just a crimson thread wrapped around its center.

The only other noticeable feature is the deeply pressed wax seal with that symbol I’ve been sketching…

the spiral, and the blade at its core. I don’t remember letting anyone in.

Someone WAS here. Someone got close enough to leave this inside my apartment… and without me realizing it.

The seal pulses under the hallway light. The crimson thread looks wet. And for the first time in years…I hesitate to touch something.