The city reeked of rain, smoke, and blood.
I'd wrapped myself in rags stolen from a washer's line, dirt smeared across my skin until the mirror no longer recognized me. In the mortal quarter, among the noise of market carts and coughing beggars, I was no one — just another starving face beneath a tattered hood.
No one looked twice.
That was the point.
Two months since the bond had died.
Two months since I'd felt his pulse in mine.
Two months since my name had become a curse.
Every Nightwalker within the reach of Marcus's law hunted me now. The bounty painted across the tavern walls called me The Shadow Saint. The irony made me sick.
I lived in the cracks between lives — sleeping in abandoned cellars, feeding when I had to. Mortals whispered of me like a ghost. Some even prayed to me, leaving blood offerings in cups beside their windows.
If they only knew what they were feeding.
Tonight, I slipped through the alleyways of Valenport, a city that once glowed with trade and laughter. Now it was hollowed out — a husk of light buried under fear. The Nightwatch patrolled every gate, searching for rebels and runaways. The rain turned the cobblestones black, and the air itself trembled with the weight of curfews.
I should've been moving south, toward the mountains where rumor said Seraphina's warband gathered. But something kept me here — something smaller, pettier.
The city smelled like the place where I'd died once before.
And lately, death had begun to whisper like an old friend.
...
By midnight, the rain had stopped. I found refuge beneath a broken archway, an old shrine to gods long forgotten. The mortals left flowers here, even now, though the stone faces had long been eaten away by time.
I stared at the offerings: bread crusts, wilted petals, a small copper coin.
My stomach twisted, not from hunger of blood but memory.
I remembered the feel of bread between my hands — real bread, warm and heavy, stolen from a baker's window the night my life had ended.
My hands shook as I reached out, tracing the curve of the stone. And then the memory swallowed me whole.
The shadows can make me see clearly now:
...
I was fifteen.
Hunger had teeth.
The city had been colder then — not in air, but in kindness. Orphans like me rotted in gutters, invisible to the nobles who passed in their carriages. I'd learned to live on scraps: stolen apples, crusts from tavern bins, the pity of strangers too drunk to care.
That night, I'd stolen a loaf.
I could still feel the crust tearing against my teeth, still hear the baker's shout when he saw me run. I remember the pounding of boots — guards chasing through narrow alleys slick with filth.
I remember the corner I turned too late.
The wall I hit.
The blades drawn in the dark.
"Thief," one had hissed. "We'll teach you what that costs."
I was small. Thin. But I fought like a starving animal. It didn't matter. One blow sent me sprawling, blood in my mouth, fear choking me.
And then — shadow.
It poured from the mouth of the alley like smoke, swallowing the torchlight, wrapping around the guards' throats. The screams that followed were brief — wet and final.
When silence came again, he stood there.
Him.
Tall, dark, impossibly still, eyes like the void between stars. He wore black that didn't reflect light, a coat that smelled faintly of storm and iron.
"You shouldn't be here," he'd said.
I'd spat blood, shaking. "I live here."
He tilted his head, almost amused. "No. You survive here. There's a difference."
I'd tried to run, but the shadows had blocked the way. His gaze caught me mid-motion, and for the first time, someone looked at me not as filth — but as possibility.
"You stole bread to live," he said. "But you could take more. You could take everything."
"Why?" I'd whispered.
His hand had brushed my cheek, cold and impossibly gentle. "Because hunger is truth."
And then his fangs had pierced my throat.
...
The pain had been indescribable.
Every nerve burned, every vein filled with darkness. The world went silent, then exploded into sound—heartbeat, whisper, wind.
When I woke, the world had color again. Too much of it. The scent of blood was everywhere. My throat burned with a need I didn't understand. He had been there, kneeling beside me, offering his wrist.
"Drink," he'd said. "And remember what it means to want."
I drank.
And the girl who'd starved in the street died with her last breath.
The hunger that filled me after wasn't the same kind I'd known. It was sharp, radiant, and terrifying.
But that was another story. One I wasn't ready to face yet.
...
I blinked, the memory fading like smoke. My hands were clenched around the stone of the shrine, knuckles white. The copper coin beneath my palm had melted, scorched black by the power that now pulsed in my veins.
So much for peace.
The shadows were restless tonight—twisting, whispering. They'd always grown stronger when I remembered him.
I stood and stepped out into the street again. Mortals huddled in doorways, whispering as I passed. A child peeked out from behind a barrel, eyes wide.
"Saint Aria?" she asked.
I froze. The name struck like a blade.
I knelt. "Who told you that?"
"My mother," she said shyly. "She said the Saint hides in the rain. That you save people from the Nightwatch."
I almost laughed. The truth was filthier. I saved no one. I only killed slower.
But the girl smiled at me — and for a second, something inside me cracked open.
Maybe it was the part that remembered being hungry. Being small. Being seen.
"Go home," I whispered. "Forget me."
When I stood again, the girl was gone. Only the rain remained, carrying the scent of ash from the northern quarter — where the Nightwalkers had started another purge.
Marcus's dogs never slept.
...
By dawn, I'd reached the upper terrace of the city — the merchant quarter. Smoke rose from the riverfront, painting the sky orange. I climbed the bell tower where I used to hide as a mortal thief.
From up here, I could see the whole city — every flashes of torchlight, every shadow of a patrol.
It looked like a heart slowly bleeding out.
I thought of Liam. Of the bond's silence. Of the way the world seemed emptier now that his heartbeat no longer hummed through me. I'd tried to hate him for it, but hate was a luxury I didn't have the strength for.
The wind shifted. Beneath it, faint — so faint I almost missed it — came the sound of a voice.
"…he walks again…"
A whisper, carried on rumor, somewhere below.
The words froze my breath.
They spoke of a man reborn in fire, a hunter who burned his enemies without touching them. The mortals called him The Embered Prince.
The name clawed at my ribs.
"Liam," I whispered.
For a long time, I stood there, unmoving, staring north toward the borderlands where the sky burned red.
If he truly lived… if Seraphina had him…
Then the war had already begun.
...
When the sun rose, pale and cold, I left the tower behind. The streets shimmered with dew, the world quiet in that strange half-light before dawn.
I walked to the river's edge — the same river that had carried us apart — and dipped my hand into the water. The cold bit into my skin, sharp as glass.
I remembered another night, another river, another fall.
I whispered, not to him this time, but to the ghosts that followed us both.
To hunger is to live. But to love is to burn.
Maybe the shadows had been right.
But I was done burning for others.
If Liam lived, I would find him.
If Seraphina had him, I would tear her world apart to take him back.
And if Marcus still hunted me, I would stop running.
I looked up at the first light of dawn — weak, thin, but real — and felt something shift inside me.
The girl who had once stolen bread to live still lived somewhere deep in the dark.
She wasn't gone. She was waiting.
Waiting to take everything.