The city didn't sleep that night.
A low hum lingered in the air, like the world itself was holding its breath. Streetlights flickered in slow, uneven rhythms, and the fog that rolled in from the river moved too deliberately—curling, pausing, watching.
Ari felt it first.
He sat upright in bed, heart pounding, sweat cold on his back. The dream had ended too abruptly—no images, no sound—just a crushing sense of wrongness.
Something was coming.
Across the hall, Mika was already awake.
She stood by the window, curtains drawn just enough to let her see the street below. Her reflection stared back at her, eyes glowing faintly silver in the dark.
"Do you feel it?" she asked quietly when Ari stepped beside her.
He nodded. "Yeah. Like the air's heavier."
Below them, a stray dog whimpered and ran, tail tucked, vanishing into the fog.
That's when the floorboards creaked.
Not from age.
From weight.
Kael Ryven stood in the doorway, already dressed—long dark coat, gloves fitted tight, boots laced. His presence alone seemed to push the shadows back.
"You're both awake," he said calmly.
It wasn't a question.
Mika swallowed. "Is it another rift?"
Kael's eyes shifted, pupils narrowing just slightly. "No."
That answer scared Ari more than if he'd said yes.
"This," Kael continued, "is a hunter."
They gathered in the living room, the lights off. Kael stood in the center, one hand resting casually at his side—where Ari knew invisible weapons slept.
"Listen carefully," Kael said. "What's moving through the city tonight isn't a monster. It's not a beast. It's a person who crossed too many thresholds and forgot how to come back."
Mika frowned. "Like… a rogue?"
"Yes. A former high-rank hunter. Someone who learned how to feed on rift energy directly."
Ari's stomach tightened. "That's possible?"
"It's forbidden," Kael replied. "And lethal—to everyone else."
He raised his hand, and the air shimmered.
A faint projection bloomed above his palm: a human silhouette, fractured with veins of dark light running through its body.
"This is what happens when discipline collapses," Kael said. "Power stops being a tool and becomes a hunger."
The silhouette twitched.
Mika clenched her fists. "Why come here?"
Kael lowered his hand.
"Because," he said, "this city sits on a sealed convergence point."
The room went silent.
Ari's voice came out rough. "You sealed it."
"Yes."
"When?"
Kael looked at them—really looked at them.
"Before you were born."
They weren't supposed to follow him.
They knew that.
But when Kael stepped into the fog and vanished between one breath and the next, neither Ari nor Mika could stay behind.
They moved together across rooftops, Mika guiding them with uncanny precision, Ari feeling the pulse of energy beneath the concrete like a second heartbeat.
They found Kael standing in the center of an abandoned plaza.
Opposite him stood a man.
Once human.
His body was lean, stretched unnaturally tall, eyes glowing a sickly violet. Black energy leaked from cracks in his skin like smoke from broken stone.
"Kael Ryven," the man rasped. "The ghost who retired."
Kael didn't move. "You shouldn't be here, Darius."
Darius laughed—a sharp, broken sound. "You don't get to tell me where I belong. Not after you walked away."
"I didn't walk away," Kael said. "I stopped."
"That's the same thing," Darius snapped. "While the rest of us kept bleeding."
The ground trembled as Darius raised his hand. Energy surged, warping the air.
Ari felt it then—the pressure, the killing intent.
Kael stepped forward.
And the world slowed.
Time didn't stop.
It yielded.
Kael moved through the distorted air, coat fluttering like a shadow torn loose. His eyes burned—not red, not gold, but something deeper. Something older.
He didn't strike.
He erased the space between them.
Darius screamed as Kael's hand closed around his chest—not piercing skin, but gripping the energy core beneath it.
"This ends now," Kael said quietly.
Darius struggled, power flaring wildly. "You can't—!"
Kael twisted his wrist.
The dark energy shattered like glass.
The shockwave rippled outward, shattering windows, cracking stone—but stopping dead inches from where Ari and Mika hid.
Darius collapsed, unconscious, his body finally human again.
Kael exhaled slowly.
Only then did the fog begin to lift.
Later, as dawn bled pale gold into the sky, Kael stood on the rooftop with Ari and Mika beside him.
"You weren't supposed to see that," he said.
Ari met his gaze. "We're already in this."
Mika nodded. "Whether you want us to be or not."
Kael was silent for a long moment.
Then he placed a hand on each of their shoulders.
"Then it's time," he said, "that I stop protecting you from the world—"
His grip tightened, steady and warm.
"And start teaching you how to survive it."
Far below, something ancient shifted beneath the city.
And the sealed convergence point…
stirred.