All Chapters of The magic within : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Night weighed heavy over Caer Vallis, a city of marble towers and shadowed alleys. The nobles called it the jewel of the realm. For Killian Vael, it was a coffin he hadn’t climbed out of yet. He kept to the edges of the streets, cloak drawn tight, every step careful not to echo. It had been nearly ten years since his parents were slaughtered — butchered like cattle for their blood, sold and bottled by nobles who knew what the Vael line was worth. He’d survived only because he had been too young, too small, and too fast to catch. But survival had never been the same as living. Tonight, he’d decided it wasn’t enough to run. Tonight, he’d decided to take. House Averre’s manor glittered like a palace of white stone and golden glass. Behind its carved gates, torches lit a courtyard where silk-draped nobles sipped wine and boasted of their conquests. Their laughter carried like knives in the cold air. Killian slipped through the servants’ entrance, the stink of spiced meats and bur

The tunnels shook with the first impact.It wasn’t just boots this time — it was hammers, striking the outer doors in slow, bone-vibrating rhythm.Harlow’s voice cut through the din.“Positions! Seal the lower gates. Snipers to the balconies. Nobody dies clean — make them earn every drop they spill.”The guild scattered into motion, shadows twisting into fighters, thieves, and killers.Killian stood where she’d left him, fingers still curled around the vial in his pocket. The silver bolt in his shoulder throbbed, but it was the sound of the Wardens’ approach that sent something darker humming in his blood.A figure slipped to his side — a thin man with pale hair tied in a knot, two curved daggers in his belt.“You know how to fight, Vael?” he asked, teeth flashing in a grin that didn’t touch his eyes.“I get by,” Killian said.“Good. Because if you freeze, I’ll slit you myself before the Wardens do.” The man vanished into the fray before Killian could answer.The first breach

The summons led Killian through a part of the tunnels he hadn’t yet seen — deeper, narrower passages that stank of damp earth and rusting iron. The torchlight here was weak, the shadows thicker.Harlow was waiting in a long chamber lined with wooden crates and dripping pipes. She stood at the far end, bent over a crude map spread across a barrel. The pale-haired dagger fighter was beside her, tapping a finger on the parchment.“You’re late,” Harlow said without looking up.“I was bleeding,” Killian replied.“That’s not a reason in my tunnels,” she said flatly. “It’s a resource.”She gestured to the map. “You’re going out tonight. The Wardens’ siege drew attention, and we lost a shipment. You’re going to get it back.”“What kind of shipment?” Killian asked.“Blood. Bottled and ready for transport. Worth more than you are alive. Which means I’m sending you with Carter.”The pale-haired fighter grinned, though his eyes stayed cold. “Try not to slow me down, Vael.”The job was simp

The first sound was faint.A whisper of steel brushing stone, so soft Killian thought it might’ve been his imagination.Then it came again — deliberate this time. The distinct clink of chain links shifting, followed by the scrape of boots on damp floor.The guild’s main chamber went still.Harlow stopped mid-sentence, her pale eyes narrowing.Carter Benton didn’t hesitate — he was already gliding toward the far tunnel, daggers reversed in his hands.“Stay here,” Harlow said to Killian without looking at him.Her tone made it sound like an order.Killian treated it like a challenge.The noise was moving deeper, toward the north service tunnels — a part of the guild’s warren rarely used, except for smuggling runs too risky for main routes. The walls here were tighter, the stone wet enough to shine in the torchlight.Killian kept low, avoiding the center of the path. His own steps made almost no sound; the tunnels had taught him how to move like water.But ahead…A flicker of movement.A

The heartbeat was wrong.Too loud, too steady — a drumbeat meant for something larger than a man.Killian stepped back as the shadows in the breach warped, as if the stone itself wanted to recoil from what was coming.The first thing through was a hand.It was pale, almost translucent, but stretched too long, the fingers jointed in places they shouldn’t be. Veins glowed faint red beneath the skin, pulsing with every thud of that monstrous heart.Then it pulled the rest of itself into the light.It had once been human — the remnants were there in the face, in the way the mouth moved without sound — but now its body was stretched thin and bound in strips of blackened leather stitched directly into its flesh. A scent of burning silver rolled off it, clashing with the metallic tang of blood.“Bloodforged,” Carter’s voice came from somewhere behind him, tight with something that might have been fear. “Vorrow’s hounds.”The thing moved fast.Too fast.It blurred between fighters, cutting th