The streets of Duskmere swallowed her whole.

  Adelaide ran, her breath coming in short gasps, her heart slamming against her ribs. The city was a maze, its narrow alleys twisting in on themselves, pathways leading nowhere or somewhere worse. But she knew these streets. She was raised on them, a childhood carved from hardship and only saved by the safeguarding of the wardens. She had patrolled them herself as a Veilwarden, hunted murderers and plague bearers alike in them, protected these streets from those who would do its citizen's harm.

  Now, she was the one being hunted.

  She could still feel Priya’s eyes on her, the weight of her hesitation, the way her fingers had trembled ever so slightly around the dagger’s hilt. Not from fear of Adelaide. But for her. It broke her heart, just another ache added to the collection.

  Adelaide did not have the luxury of hesitating. The luxury of processing the multitude of emotions flooding her senses. Not now. Not when everything in her body felt so wrong, screamed that something was wrong.

  Her boots splashed through shallow puddles, the filth of the city seeping into the fabric, soaking and spreading its way up through her socks underneath. The further she went, the worse the stench became. Rot and blood, mingling with the acrid bite of smoke.

  Duskmere, the capital city of Vorrengarde, was a city of contrasts. It was the largest hub for trade for thousands of miles, its port drawing in trade, commerce, and employment for many. Merchants and craftsmen flooded to the city, finding work, contracts, and valuable goods easily. Prosperity came with its own kind of security, and citizens benefited from such a large number of wardens calling it home themselves, providing their magical services, potions, healings, and protections that smaller villages nearby often lacked.

  The city’s libraries and academies made it a haven for scholars and wizards, a place where knowledge flourished and wild adventures began. Here, Adelaide had always blended in, her ancestry just another thread in the city’s vast tapestry of races, cultures, and professions.

  Yet the same things that made Duskmere thrive also threatened to crush it, and ask Adelaide raced through the streets now, she knew the city she loved was suffocating beneath the boot of some evil still unnamed. Overpopulation. Poverty. Corruption. All had possibly played a role in this disaster and, at the least, had helped it thrive. She had felt these things herself growing up here, the sharp divide between nobility and those left to rot in the slums. Her parents murdered. She and her brother abandoned, forced to claw their way through the streets before fate, of the wardens, intervened. Duskmere was filled with beggars and thieves, those who slipped through the cracks just as she once had.

  But the Veilwardens always fought for this city. They held the line. They shielded the weak, the sick, the downtrodden, the forgotten. Duskmere had been on the edge of collapse before, but this was something else.

  This was death.

  She skidded to a stop near the abandoned Blackhaven market square, her chest heaving. The stalls were overturned, goods left to rot. It was clear the infection had spread faster than even the wardens had feared, than what she had realized while hidden behind the protection of the infirmary. Doors of houses and businesses alike surrounding the square were bolted shut, runes of protection scratched hastily into the wood. Some of these runes, she knew, people believed would protect from evil, enemies, or sickness. None of them did anything. They held no magic, no actual power besides that of mistaken belief. Some houses were burned outright, fire oblivious to the runes, charred skeletons of buildings standing as silent tombs for those still trapped inside.

  The city was dying.

  And she had survived something, it began to appear, that no one else had.

  She pressed a hand to her arm, feeling the smooth, unbroken skin beneath her torn sleeve. Her body was still thrumming with something unnatural, a pulse beneath her flesh that was not hers. It had carried her through the fight with Priya, guiding her hands, twisting her muscles into something unfamiliar.

  It had whispered to her.

  And the voice still lingered.

  A shiver crawled up her spine. She had spent years fighting against the things that existed beyond the Veil. She knew the signs of possession, of corruption. It did not matter that she still felt mostly like herself. This was still how it started, wasn’t it? A slow unraveling.

  The moment she felt the pull, the moment the hunger started—

  No.

  Adelaide clenched her jaw, shaking the thought away. There had to be another explanation. There had to be.

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  The sound of movement cut through her thoughts.

  She turned sharply, scanning the shadows of the alleyway behind her. Something was there. Watching.

  Not Priya, she realized. Too large of a shape and not nearly as careful with its movements.

  Something else.

  Adelaide exhaled slowly, centering herself. Her dagger was still at her hip, the familiar weight reassuring. But steel was not her only weapon. If she had to, she could call upon the Veil, drawing from the unseen threads that separated life from death. She had used Veilcraft in battle before, had spent years reinforcing wards, mending wounds, and severing corruption from the bodies of those afflicted. She had used it to kill.

  But it was not something done without consequence. It was not an easy decision to make, to draw power from the Veil. The Veil was not just a boundary. It was alive. A sentient force that dictated the natural order of life and death. To protect its followers, the citizens of Vorrengarde, it granted its blessings without consequence.

  But when its power was turned toward harm, the Veil was not always merciful.

  The shadows shifted again. A flicker of movement. Then—

  A voice.

  Low. Unfamiliar. “You shouldn’t be alive.”

  Adelaide’s grip on her dagger tightened. “And yet, here I am.”

  Silence. Then the figure stepped forward, into the faint light of a broken lantern.

  His hood shadowed most of his face, but the flickering light revealed sharp angles, cheekbones cut like glass, a strong jawline dusted with stubble. His eyes, dark and unreadable, carried a hollowness she recognized too well. His clothes were practical, worn from travel, dark fabrics reinforced with layers meant for protection rather than warmth. And he was armed, a dagger at his hip, another blade strapped to his thigh. But, she realized, he had not reached for them. Not yet.

  He was clearly not a warden. Not a healer.

  But not a common scavenger, either.

  Adelaide took a step back, muscles tensed. The movement pulled her long black hair, part of it now matted to the back of her head, over her shoulder, the strands catching briefly on the rough fabric of her torn sleeve.

  “Who are you?”

  The man tilted his head slightly, considering her. “Someone who’s been looking for you.”

  Her pulse quickened. “Why?”

  A ghost of a smile. “Because you shouldn’t be alive.”

  She did not appreciate hearing those words twice in a such a short time frame.

  “I don’t know what I am,” she admitted, her voice tight. “But if you’re here to put me down, I think you’re going to have to get in line.”

  The man’s gaze flickered to her arm, the torn fabric of her sleeve. He didn’t recoil. His face did not reveal he felt any fear in the moment. Instead, he seemed… intrigued. “You’re not dead,” he said. “You’re not one of them. But you have not been left untouched, either.”

  Adelaide swallowed. “Do you know what happened to me?”

  A pause. Then, a quiet nod. “I know someone who might.”

  Hope flared, fragile and desperate. “Who?”

  “The one who created this sickness in the first place.”

  Her breath caught. “That’s impossible. The Veil itself—”

  “Is breaking,” the man interrupted. His voice was calm, but there was something sharp beneath it. “You already know that.”

  Adelaide felt cold. She did. She had seen the signs. The creatures that had slipped through, even months before this illness began. The way magic itself had begun to twist.

  This sickness...

  She had spent years fighting to hold the Veil together, binding wounds, sealing fractures, keeping the balance.

  What was going on? What did the Veil have to do with all of this?

  Adelaide inhaled slowly, then took a step forward, fingers curling around the hilt of her dagger. “If you know something, tell me.”

  The man didn’t flinch at the steel in her voice or at the obvious potential threat of her drawing her weapon. “Not here.” He turned his head slightly, listening.

  Adelaide followed his gaze. The alley was too quiet. The kind of silence that was not empty, but waiting.

  Then she felt it, and her decision to follow this stranger was made. It was a ripple in the air, the telltale shift of something crossing the Veil.

  Followed immediately by a deep, wet breath.

  Adelaide whipped around. At the mouth of the alley, something moved, just beyond the reach of the lantern light. The shape of a man, but wrong. Bones bending where they shouldn’t, mirroring the odd movements of the marionette man not so long ago. A wheezing rattle from a chest that no longer needed air.

  Her stomach turned.

  “They followed your scent,” the man murmured. “More will come.”

  Adelaide’s heartbeat hammered against her ribs. She knew she had to move. The longer she stayed, the more of them would gather.

  The man was already moving, stepping backward into the shadows. “Come with me if you want answers.”

  Adelaide hesitated. There was no reason to trust him—no reason to believe in anything he was offering. What a ridiculous line. Come with me if you want answers. She wanted to kick herself for even taking a step toward the stranger. If her brother, Dorian, were here, he would be the first to pull her back, to stop her from doing something reckless. He would laugh at her, his voice deep and calming. She could hear it now “Don’t do things I would do Adelaide. Don’t follow strange men into dark alleyways”.

  But Dorian wasn’t here. She realized now that she had not seen or heard from him since everything started. Days or even weeks ago now. The thought of him, the one person who always had her back, was like an ache in her chest.

  Was he still alive? She couldn’t shake the question. Was he out there somewhere, fighting to survive, waiting for her to find him? The doubt gnawed at her, but she shoved it aside. She couldn’t afford to think about that now. Not with this man in front of her, offering something. Offering answers. She was not sure if she could trust him, but she had no other choice but to take that step forward.

  Her fingers tightened around her dagger. Then she followed him into the dark.