The city had the decency to be quiet for once.
The afternoon wore on, and the city beyond her window glowed with the slow burn of a golden hour. Raevyn, too restless to remain cooped up in her apartment of velvet lounges, sun-drenched balconies, and imported wine she rarely drank stepped outside.
Though she'd left the Court a decade ago, the luxury never quite left her. Her home perched on the edges of the Sapphire District, where everything in her home shimmered just a bit too brightly, smelled faintly of lavender and candle smoke.
And yet she wandered into the Lower Ring.
It wasn't where someone like her was expected to be—not anymore. But Raevyn had never cared for expectations.
Late afternoon sunlight poured like molten gold across the rooftops, softening the jagged skyline of the Lower Ring into something almost gentle. But Raevyn didn't trust it. The silence felt too rehearsed, too careful—like the world was holding its breath and waiting to see who flinched first.
The Lower Ring wasn't just the underbelly of the city. It was its bones. Cracked, weathered, and ancient beneath the polish of the upper courts. The streets here had been built and rebuilt over centuries, until no one remembered which layer was the original. Doors opened into other doors. Alleyways turned to stairwells with no end. The buildings were a chaotic patchwork of crumbling stone, twisted iron balconies, and glowing glyphs barely strong enough to keep the dark out.
It smelled of brine and burnt sage. Of rust, smoke, and the scent of magic too long left to rot. Most people avoided it after dark—too many whispers, too many things that didn't quite stay where they were put. But Raevyn had always preferred it here. Even when she'd belonged to the Court, she found excuses to wander the Ring. It was the only place in the city that felt honest. The danger was upfront. Nothing pretended to be clean.
She didn't dress for walks, not like most. No flowers in her hair, no linen skirts. Just worn black pants tucked into her boots and a jacket two decades out of style. At her hip, always visible, always intentional, was her old iron dagger. Its hilt was wrapped in frayed blue leather, runes etched along the blade so deep they had bled through into the tang. It wasn't a keepsake. It was a promise.
The streets wound like veins through the Lower Ring—narrow, shadowed, steeped in memory. Raevyn walked them like she'd never left, even if most of the faces now were strangers. No one dared stop her. Not with that look in her eyes. Not with the dagger flashing at her side like a threat spoken in a language everyone knew but never said aloud.
She tried not to think.
About the folder on her table.
About the scent of ash and salt.
About the children.
She just walked.
Until the world changed.
It started slow—like the wind had forgotten how to breathe. The golden haze dimmed, not as if the sun had vanished, but like something had crawled over it. The shadows thickened. Stretched.
Then came the feeling. The dread.
It wasn't fear exactly. It was recognition.
Raevyn stopped at the mouth of an alley—a narrow corridor of cracked stone and iron grates. A place the sun never quite touched. Her fingers hovered near the dagger on her hip.
Something moved.
Not footsteps. Not rustling.
It was as though the air itself recoiled from whatever was coalescing in the dark.
A long, thin limb emerged first—jointed in too many places, bending in a way that mocked biology. Then another. The creature dragged itself forward, not walking, but bleeding out of the cracks in the stone, ribs like open blades, face smooth and blank and screaming.
A Voidborne.
A fresh one. Born from something recent. Something loud.
It hissed—not sound, but sensation. Guilt and grief curdled into noise.
Raevyn didn't scream. Didn't hesitate.
She drew the dagger in one smooth motion, her movements precise, measured, elegant in a way only battle-scarred instinct could be. There was no flair. No wasted breath. Just economy and sharp violence.
The creature lunged, shadowy limbs slicing through the air.
She dropped low, pivoted on one foot, and slashed upward. The blade bit into its flank, searing iron against nightmare. The wraith shrieked—its form faltering like static.
Raevyn exhaled once.
Then struck again.
Her style wasn't flashy. She didn't fight like a warrior. She fought like someone who had learned to survive through ten years of regret and exact memory. No movement duplicated. Each step a question the creature didn't know how to answer.
The dagger flashed, runes glowing faint blue with each impact. The creature bled smoke, its form collapsing into chunks of air that didn't belong here.
It made one last attempt—leaping high, claws stretched wide—
—but Raevyn moved first.
A roll. A slash across its chest. A final jab straight into its center.
The creature convulsed, then shattered into a cloud of dark vapor, which swirled once and disappeared into nothing.
Silence returned, too fast. Too obedient.
Raevyn stood, breathing hard, one shallow cut along her forearm. Her dagger hummed softly as if satisfied. She pressed her fingers to the wound and watched the glyphs on the blade pulse once, sealing it.
A whisper brushed her mind—not words, but pressure. A pull.
She stared into the alley where the wraith had died.
She wiped the blade clean and slid it back into its sheath.
"Next time," she muttered to the wind, "bring friends."
But even as she walked away, the chill in her spine said: they already had.