Devon exhaled slowly before delivering his report. "He vanished." Thessian's gaze shifted toward him immediately, focusing with intensity. "Unable to track him anywhere," Devon continued, frustration evident in his tone. "No records. No movement through neighboring territories. No confirmed sightings." A pause followed while he considered how to phrase the strangeness of it. "Almost like he disappeared before we even started looking."
Silence settled heavily again, the kind that suggested Thessian was already thinking several moves ahead, already considering implications that others had not yet reached. Because men did not vanish that cleanly without reason. And after everything uncovered beneath Blackmoor's surface—after torture chambers and replica programs and systematic deception—nothing about Nyla's origins felt simple anymore.
