Chapter 2

My name is Vaelira.

Maereth says it like it’s a loaded weapon. Slow. Careful. As if the wrong emphasis might get us both killed. Most people never hear it. Names have weight, and mine carries enough history to collapse a small kingdom.

Tonight, it stays mine.

Vireholt exhales just before dawn—when the vampires retreat, the wolves pretend they’re human again, and everyone else thanks whatever gods they believe in for surviving another night. I move with the shift, slipping through back streets and half-broken stairwells toward the place Maereth generously calls a sanctuary.

It’s a hole. A well-warded, opinionated hole.

I shut the door behind me and light a cigarette before my boots are even off. The smoke curls up, bitter and grounding, cutting through the copper tang still clinging to my senses.

Maereth hates when I smoke.

That alone makes it worth it.

I drag in slowly, let the burn settle my nerves, and glance at the cracked mirror over the wash basin. My reflection looks like it always does—like it’s daring someone to comment.

Dark hair, long and wild, falling down my back like I lost a fight with a brush and gave up. Skin pale, but not corpse-pale. One eye red as old wine. One gold like molten coin. No glamour tonight. I don’t have the energy for lies.

I bare my teeth at myself—just enough to check. Not full fangs. Not human either.

“Still terrifying,” I mutter. “Consistency is important.”

I stub the cigarette out, wash the blood from my hands, and try not to think about the man who didn’t make it.

Maereth is on the floor, of course. Cross-legged, surrounded by chalk sigils, bones, and bits of magic that hum like they’re gossiping about us. Her blind eye points nowhere. Her good one tracks me without her head moving.

I light another cigarette and lean against the wall. She scowls at the smoke curling toward her ceiling.

“One day,” she says, “that habit will kill you.”

“Promise?”

Her gaze sharpens. “You used your strength last night.”

I shrug. “It was either that or let a half-shift redecorate an alley with organs.”

Silence. Thick. Familiar.

She goes back to her chalk, muttering words that make my skin prickle. I watch smoke coil around her wards, half-expecting them to complain.

When she finishes, she sits back on her heels and looks at me like she’s deciding how much truth I can handle.

“It’s starting,” she says.

I take a drag. “If this is another apocalypse, I want advance notice. I have plans.”

“Rumors,” she continues. “Movement in the Night Court. A prince consolidating power. Packs fighting over succession.”

I flick ash into a cracked dish. “Sounds like a regular Tuesday.”

“Old treaties are being discussed,” she adds.

That earns her my full attention.

“Why now?”

“Because,” Maereth says quietly, “the world is very bad at forgetting.”

I exhale smoke toward the ceiling. “That’s its problem.”

Her mouth curves, just barely. “You’re not invisible anymore, Vaelira.”

“I never was,” I say. “I was just quiet.”

Later, when Maereth finally sleeps—or pretends to—I lie back on the narrow bed, smoke drifting toward the wards humming overhead. The city breathes beneath us, ignorant and loud.

Vaelira.

The name settles into me like an old scar. I don’t know who named me first. Maybe Maereth. Maybe something older that took one look at me and decided I needed a warning label.

Names attract attention.

I close my eyes, letting my senses stretch just enough to taste the edges of the night. Somewhere far beyond Vireholt, something powerful shifts.

Not calling.

Not yet.

I smile and take one last drag before stubbing the cigarette out.

“Relax,” I murmured to the dark. “I’m not ready for you either.”