Cold air greeted her the moment they stepped into Black Quill’s waiting room. It slipped under her collar and through her sleeves, raising a fine tremor across her arms. The place felt sterile in a way that reminded her of a clinic. Quiet, restrained, walls too smooth, too grey, the kind of air that warned you not to speak above a murmur.

  Caustic walked ahead without waiting, cutting a clean path through the room. He tapped a panel beside the inner door, it hissed open like a restrained exhale. A sharper draft spilled out, colder still, brushing her face with a faint chemical bite.

  Why was it this cold? This wasn’t the building’s temperature. This was set, calibrated on purpose. For what, she couldn’t tell.

  Thin strands of bright orange hung across the frame like a curtain. Strings of liquid light, perfectly spaced, glowing just enough to make her eyes tense.

  Writ’s jaw locked.

  So this was what Kion had run from. The droplets that clung and chased even when he vanished, stubborn enough to follow invisible footsteps?

  Or... was she wrong? Was this something else entirely?

  Because the smell drifting from it wasn’t blood, but paint. Fresh, acrid, still active.

  Her palm curled. The memory of blood still clung there. The execution, the heat of it, a phantom smear she wanted to wipe away but didn’t dare touch.

  She forced her voice to stay level. “I’ll wait here.”

  Caustic didn’t even look back to check her expression. “No. Inside,” he said. Gentle, but immovable as stone. “It’s harmless.”

  She tipped her chin at the doorframe, at the glowing strands. “Then explain what that is.”

  “Easier to show you.” He raised his voice, scanning the desks beyond the threshold. “Effy! Some help here?”

  A woman pushed back her chair with a dramatic groan. “Me again? I really should petition to switch desks.” Still, she rose and sauntered to the doorway, stepping through the orange strings as though they were nothing more than laundry lines.

  The moment she passed through, the paint clung to her.Stretching across her skin and uniform in glowing strokes, mapping the shape of her face, every fold in her clothing, every wrinkle.

  For an instant she looked dipped in molten amber, a walking sketch of herself in neon. Then, as she fully crossed, the strands snapped back to their perfect grid as though untouched.

  Effy snapped her fingers. The paint peeled off her like dust shaken from a coat and shot back to the doorway in darting streaks.

  “Done,” she said, already turning away. “I’m going back to work.”

  The curtain brushed her again on her way in. Again, the paint clung, then released after a few seconds.

  “Thanks,” Caustic called.

  “Bring me lunch,” she shot back without stopping.

  “Sure. Later.”

  She flicked a hand behind her, dismissive.

  Only then did Caustic turn to Writ. “Your turn.”

  Writ stared at him, then at the glowing lines, then back. “Why don’t you demonstrate it? Why call someone else instead?”

  One of his eyebrows rose by the smallest degree. “In case you run.”

  Her stare sharpened, quick and sharp as a blade. His remained steady, unreadable, not even pretending it was a joke.

  Seconds stretched thin. No one moved.

  What was he doing? Why force her deeper into Black Quill’s core? Tiran had said the execution was the end. That should have been the final line, not this. Not whatever Caustic was drawing her toward now.

  She shifted her weight. Not stepping back, just resettling her stance. Caustic’s eyes followed even that tiny movement. The tension sat between them like a live wire pulled taut.

  Then he sighed, lifting the files in his hand.

  “All right. I admit it. The document drop-off was a ruse.” His voice stayed calm, but something under it dipped. “We need to talk. Inside. That’s why I brought you here.”

  “We can talk here.”

  “No. The air has ears out here.” He gestured toward the shimmering threshold, voice softer. “Inside. I know you’re tired. But please, let us talk.”

  His gaze flicked over her shoulder, checking something unseen. A clock, a doorway, an angle. Whatever it was, it made his expression shift.

  “This might be our last meeting,” he said quietly. “Unless you find me first later, which is unlikely. So there’s something I need to tell you.”

  He said it plain, but the beat that followed carried a strange, static weight. Like a breath held too long.

  Silence stretched. A brittle eye-lock. Neither of them blinking.

  This was going nowhere.

  Writ exhaled through her nose. “You first. I’m not running away.”

  Caustic didn’t argue. He stepped through the orange curtain. The strands curled around him instantly, wrapping him in bright coils before peeling away and snapping back into perfect alignment. He walked a few steps into the office and waited, half-turned toward her.

  “Go on.”

  She inhaled slowly, grounding herself. Then stepped.

  The paint met her skin like a soft pressure. Tingling lines sliding across her arms, her neck, even her eyelids when she reflexively closed them. It felt like being submerged in warm static, all weight and no substance. Then, just as quickly, the sensation released.

  Her skin was clean when she opened her eyes.

  “Told you,” Caustic murmured. “Harmless.”

  She gave a simple nod.

  He pointed to a sofa tucked into the corner. “Wait there.”

  Writ crossed the room, choosing the far edge of the cushion, posture straight, hands folded loosely in her lap. Visible, nonthreatening.

  Caustic closed the door behind them and disappeared into another room.

  While waiting, she scanned the space. The office was enormous, larger than Tiran’s entire space put together. Dozens of desks stretched across the floor, half of them buzzing with clerks. Papers sat in precarious stacks. Pens scratched. Whispered conversations drifted in and out, clipped to the rhythm of work.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Caustic returned carrying a small device. Smooth, dark, unmarked. He set it on the table beside her and tapped it. A faint dome shimmered into existence, curving around them. The outside noise muffled instantly, dissolving into a soft, indistinct hum.

  A sound barrier.

  “Why force me through the curtain if you have this?” she asked. “We could talk safely out there.”

  “Because the only way to detect if someone followed us is by watching who crosses that door.”

  Followed.

  Her stomach tightened. Kion. They were worried he might return. They’d prepared something specifically for him.

  “Any other questions before I start?” Caustic asked.

  “None.”

  “If you do have any, ask.”

  She nodded.

  He studied her longer. His thumb tapped once against the device, a tiny tell. This wasn’t the clean analyst stare from the assessment. Something unsettled threaded through it, the same undercurrent she’d glimpsed in her room.

  He shifted, folding his hands. “First thing you should know, your assessment is already concluded. That’s the only reason this conversation is permitted.”

  A beat. Deliberate. “This isn’t an extension of it. Not a concealed follow-up.”

  His eyes lingered a fraction too long. “And nothing from this gets reported.” A tilt of his head. “This is casual talk. Are we clear?”

  The phrasing hit her like a cold pinprick. Kion’s question, word for word. He wanted to see if she would flinch. She didn’t.

  Writ breathed once through her nose, smoothing out the tension in her jaw before speaking. “Why tell me that?”

  His jaw moved once, tight, like he hated the answer. “Because I’m worried you might have been sabotaged.”

  She held his stare. “Sabotaged?”

  “This is only my speculation,” Caustic said. “Mine alone. Not Black Quill’s. I’m not here to press you for answers, you don’t owe me any. I just need you to hear this.”

  “I’m listening.”

  He leaned back slightly, foot tapping against the floor. A quiet, restless beat. “We sent your notebook to our contact in Eidryn, the one from Tenzurah.”

  Writ crossed her arms, tucking her hands beneath the fabric. Hiding any twitch.

  “They confirmed it,” Caustic continued. “Trace illusion magic, not human in origin. Not even adjacent. The mana signature doesn’t align with any known human casting. It’s fundamentally different.”

  He paused, then added, more carefully, “They compared it against relics in their archives. Artifacts believed to be made by non-human, magical beings. The match wasn’t exact. But the category was.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly.

  It was the corridor’s magic. The webbed illusion. Confirmed, finally, not hers.

  “And?” she asked.

  “I’m worried something followed you from the ruin.”

  She let out a short, incredulous breath. “How did you come to that?”

  “First: your notebook. You didn’t know the magic was there. You tried to proof it yourself. You didn’t hide anything.” He paused. “Second: the bruises.”

  Writ’s shoulders stiffened.

  “You seemed genuinely surprised they were there,” he continued gently. “You said you didn’t remember how you got them. That nothing hurt except the sore on your neck. You said Caedern only choked you. He confirmed the same. Neither of you claimed the other wounds.”

  He let that settle.

  “But the marks were real. And extensive. Especially the one on your back.”

  He folded his fingers together, stopping his foot’s rhythm. “Both incidents happened during your assessment. Both extended your evaluation. Neither helped you. Not with how you reacted.”

  He drew a slow breath, gaze flicking to the orange grid and back.

  “So... there’s something we have to consider.”

  “What if the wounds were illusion too?” he said softly. “A sophisticated one, lifelike to the touch. Placed on you by the same presence that tampered with your notebook.”

  Writ kept her expression steady. “That theory again.”

  “I know,” Caustic sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It sounds absurd. I barely believe myself. But—”

  He stopped.

  “Actually...” Caustic’s voice cooled. “A few days ago, we had an intruder. Small, half a meter at most. Completely invisible. Undetectable even to our highest wards.”

  His jaw tightened. “He behaved like someone studying us. Asking procedural questions. Watching how we reacted. It felt... engineered.”

  Silence sharpened between them. Accusation without shape, but it hung all the same.

  Connected to you?

  Writ froze.

  Inside, something lurched. Sharp and breathless. But on the surface she only blinked once, slow, controlled. Her heartbeat clawed upward, her face didn’t move.

  They hadn’t seen him. Not clearly. But they’d felt the disturbance he left behind, enough to trace its center of gravity back to her.

  “The intruder appeared right after I visited your room,” Caustic added. “And the bruises surfaced right after Caedern visited yours.”

  He met her eyes. She locked her expression tighter.

  “That’s why I’m concerned,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if you have contact with him. At this point it doesn’t matter. We can’t prove it. And we’re not marking you for another assessment. The Black Quill has already chosen not to pursue him.”

  Relief flickered. Thin, fleeting, carefully hidden behind her lowered lashes. Kion would be safe.

  “But if you do have contact with...” he searched for the right shape of the word, “...whatever he is, be careful. He played this cleanly. Too cleanly. We tried to catch him on our turf, and we failed.”

  Writ’s gaze drifted toward the orange stripes. The strands glimmered faintly, as if listening.

  Caustic hesitated. Not long, but long enough for Writ to notice.

  “There was… one other inconsistency,” he said at last.

  Her eyes stayed on him. Waiting.

  “You elicited a response from someone who hadn’t spoken before.”

  A pause. His gaze sharpened, searching her face for something, anything.

  Writ’s brow creased faintly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Caustic studied her in silence. The tapping of his foot resumed, once, then stopped.

  “That’s what I can’t tell,” he said quietly. “Whether you genuinely didn’t know... or whether you’re very good at appearing that way.”

  The air between them tightened, pressure settling low and steady, like something unsaid pressing outward. Writ became acutely aware of her own stillness, of how carefully she was holding herself together beneath his stare. The room felt narrower, the orange grid too bright at the edge of her vision.

  Caustic’s jaw worked once. Whatever conclusion he’d been circling, he didn’t seem satisfied with it. His fingers shifted, as if resisting the urge to reach for something. To record, to flag, to formalize the thought.

  He didn’t.

  “Never mind,” he said, finally. “That line of thought isn’t actionable.

  He leaned back, expression closing like a door.

  The moment passed. Whatever edge had crept into his voice folded away, replaced by something safer. Casual, just as he’d said.

  “You don’t have to trust me,” Caustic said softly. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Just... consider what I said. Please.”

  His warning lingered in the air long after he fell silent.

  Writ couldn’t quite tell what the last comment had been circling. It sat there, unresolved, like a question she didn’t yet have the context to answer.

  But the earlier warning... about the intruder, about the bruises, that one was clear enough.

  She let the rest slide.

  Kion mentioned it. He worked in Accord, but no one here had ever seen his true form. His fairy form. Not Caustic, not Black Quill. Maybe no one.

  He said he used his human form for work. Of course no one here recognized what he really was. He fit too cleanly into the cracks of human structure.

  No wonder his name never appeared in her briefings. No wonder no one asked her to confirm his involvement. No wonder they flinched at anything hinting at magical creatures.

  They didn’t know.

  “Promise me you’ll at least think about it,” Caustic said.

  Writ tilted her head slightly.

  Think about it. That was an easy promise.

  “Fine,” she said. “I will.”

  “Thank you.”

  Caustic didn’t speak right away. He gave her a moment. An opening, a quiet pocket of space where a question could have fit. She didn’t take it.

  He tapped the device. The dome collapsed, letting the ambient office noise bleed back in.

  “Let’s get you to the inn,” he said, rising.

  She stood. “All right.”

  They crossed the glowing curtain again. The paint brushed her skin, releasing quicker this time. Almost like it recognized her.

  They walked together toward the exit. Caustic leading, Writ a few steps behind.

  Whatever Caustic intended with this conversation, it was working. Her thoughts were already spiraling, edges fraying, doubt tightening its slow loops.

  Something had followed her from Tenzurah. She wasn’t sure she could deny that.

  But it wasn’t Kion.

  He’d found her before the ruins. Helped her, saved her. Without him, she wouldn’t have escaped those crushing walls alive.

  ...Or maybe she would have.

  The trap in the gallery wouldn’t have triggered in the first place if he hadn’t been there. No stone ceiling dropping. No floor giving way. No walls slamming shut.

  But without him, without the trap being sprung, she never would have found the vaults. Not Oathroot. Not the Bronze Concord.

  She would’ve walked out empty-handed. And that would have marked her a failure, a convenient one. A failure was easy to erase.

  Her fingers twitched at her side.

  The illusion in her notebook?

  That had to be the corridor’s doing. Its warped magic, its sensory tricks. Illusion answering illusion.

  There was no reason to suspect him. Kion never touched the notebook, and she never let it leave her side. The corridor had taken him too. Knocked him unconscious before she grabbed him. He’d had no opportunity.

  The unexplained bruises?

  A gap in her memory, nothing more. Accusing Caedern without proof would only tighten the noose. Even being right wouldn’t save her, his words carried more weight than hers ever could.

  Kion had seen what really happened last night. She would ask him. After this. The marks had to be Caedern’s doing. Not Kion’s.

  Kion had no reason to hurt her. No reason to interfere. No reason to choose her as a target.

  No reason at all.

  Or... did he?

  The thought stuck like a burr. Small, stubborn, impossible to shake.

  And every step after it felt just a little less certain.

  Storm and Mountain.

  (Ps. It’s claimed a spot in my head. Only after Writ's nod of approval, of course.)

  They gave him a name forged in fire: Stormbreaker. They gave him two legions and a crown of spears. They gave him the South to break.

  Alric Vaelgard did not refuse.

  For three years he bore the Empire's wrath like a yoke, silent and unyielding, bound by chains older than his birth. As the court demanded, he answered.

  Then came Khal-Drathir, the final city, the final command. And in its ruin, he made the choice that would unravel him.

  Now the ghost he denied death walks beside him to Valekyr, where the throne waits and the Seneschals have already begun circling.

  In an empire built on ash and gilded lies, one act of defiance may cost him everything.

  But carrying the weight of what he has done may cost him more.

  A dark epic of obedience, ruin, and hope.

  What to expect:

  - An epic dark fantasy with poetic prose and biblical influences

  - Atmospheric worldbuilding and supernatural dread

  - Slow-burn character dynamics built on guilt, hatred, and moral tension

  - Political intrigue and courtly scheming

  - A weekly chapter posted every Thursday at 2:00 A.M. UTC+1