Ava Nyx hated the feeling of being watched.

  She’d learned to ignore it in Veilport—to pretend the ever-present surveillance drones and arcane sensors didn’t unnerve her, that the neon-lit streets weren’t filled with unseen eyes cataloguing her every move. But this was different. This wasn’t the city’s cold, calculated gaze. This was personal. Intimate. Like a phantom breath against her skin, like fingertips skimming just out of reach.

  She exhaled sharply, shoving the feeling aside as she stepped out of the alley. The damp air clung to her like second skin, thick with the scent of ozone and rain-slick pavement. Her comm-link crackled again, sharp and demanding.

  "Ava, report."

  She pressed two fingers to the device in her ear. "Target’s trail just went cold. But there was a… complication."

  "Define complication."

  A Shadowwalker. A man who had known her name, who had spoken of nightfall like it was a tangible thing, a coming storm she couldn’t yet see.

  "Unidentified interference," she said instead, voice flat. "I’ll need more time."

  A clipped pause. Then: "You have twenty-four hours. No extensions."

  The line went dead.

  Ava rolled her shoulders, suppressing the shiver winding up her spine. She should have known the Syndicate would be impatient. This wasn’t a routine job—whoever they were hunting was valuable. Dangerous. And she’d just walked into something much bigger than she’d been prepared for.

  The weight of unseen eyes still lingered as she moved through Veilport’s underbelly. Flickering holo-signs cast jagged streaks of colour across the rain-slick pavement, washing everything in electric hues of violet and blue. She kept her hands loose, her stride purposeful, but her pulse pounded too hard against her ribs.

  Her instincts screamed at her.

  She didn’t scare easily. Fear was something she’d learned to meld, to wield like a blade. But this wasn’t fear—it was something worse. A creeping certainty that something had shifted, that she was no longer the hunter in this equation.

  She needed answers. Fast.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  She found them in the back corner of a rusted-out warehouse, half-hidden behind the skeletal remains of old machinery and stacks of forgotten tech. The man she’d come to see lounged against a workbench, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

  "Nyx," he drawled, tapping ash from the cigarette between his fingers. "Long time."

  Ava crossed the space in three sharp strides, slamming her hands onto the workbench. "Cut the shit, Soren. I need information."

  Soren exhaled smoke, his sharp hazel eyes gleaming with amusement. "You always need something. What’s the job?"

  "Not a job. A person." She hesitated, then admitted, "A Shadowwalker. He knew my name."

  That wiped the amusement from his face. Soren sat up straighter, grinding the cigarette into a tray overflowing with half-burnt charms and melted wires. "Describe him."

  "Tall. Lean build. Voice like silk and broken glass. Gold eyes."

  Soren’s fingers twitched. "Shit."

  Ava narrowed her eyes. "Tell me."

  He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, exhaling hard. "There’s only one person who fits that description. Thorne."

  The name hit her like a knife to the ribs.

  She’d heard whispers of him before, woven into the dark alleys and backroom dealings of Veilport. Thorne was a ghost, a myth. A leader of the Unbound—the faction that had spent years undermining the city’s power structures, disrupting the balance between magic and control. If he’d sought her out, it wasn’t coincidence.

  Ava forced her voice to stay even. "Why would a ghost be interested in me?"

  Soren didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked over her, assessing. "Maybe you’re not just some tracker anymore, Nyx. Maybe you’re something more."

  "That’s not an answer."

  "It’s the only one I’ve got." His jaw tightened. "Thorne doesn’t play games. If he came to you, he wants something. And if I were you, I’d be very careful about what that means."

  Ava folded her arms, digging her nails into her skin, grounding herself. "You’re holding back."

  "Damn right I am." Soren’s voice was low, tense. "You don’t poke at things you don’t understand, Ava. And Thorne? He’s not just a name in the dark. He’s a war you don’t see coming."

  Her stomach twisted.

  Her mind raced, piecing together fragments of information, trying to find the pattern she had missed. The job. The trail going cold. The way Thorne had appeared—like he’d known she would be there, like he’d been waiting for her.

  It wasn’t a coincidence. It was a setup.

  And that meant she was already behind.

  Before she could respond, the lights above them flickered once—twice—then died completely. A heartbeat of silence. Then the shadows moved.

  Ava’s blade was in her hand before she’d fully registered the shift.

  Soren cursed, scrambling back. "What the hell—"

  "Quiet," she hissed.

  The darkness wasn’t just shifting—it was coalescing, solidifying into something more. Something alive.

  The temperature in the room dropped. The air turned thick, charged with something unnatural. Ava’s pulse roared in her ears as she strained to see through the blackness.

  A whisper brushed against her skin, close—too close.

  "You’ve been looking in all the wrong places, Ava."

  Her breath caught.

  Then, from the abyss, a figure stepped forward, the dim emergency glow catching gold in his eyes.

  Thorne.

  The unseen thread that had been pulling at her for days finally snapped taut.

  And this time, there was no turning back.

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