They just come for me.
I try to run.
It’s not graceful, and I trip on the uneven ground, nearly twisting my ankle, but instinct shoves me forward. Branches whip at my arms. The cold bites harder, and the fog becomes thicker and denser, making it hard to see a foot in front of me. My breath tears out of me in panicked gasps.
There’s no one out here. No one who knows where I am. Even if I scream, I'm too far away from everyone. The tether even feels faint, so I know Raiden isn’t close enough to help, if he even would.
Magic flares under my skin, but it doesn’t know what to do. It sparks wild and bright in my chest, then fizzles. I try again, dragging the power upward like I did in Combat Casting, but it slides sideways—wrong, untamed, useless.
The figure is faster. I hear them gaining.
I shove my hand out behind me, magic bursting blindly from my palm, but it hits nothing. Just explodes into light and vanishes into the fog. I don’t even hear them stumble.
A hard force slams into my back. I hit the ground with a cry, air knocked clean from my lungs. Pain slices up my ribs. My vision blurs. A black boot lands beside my face.
Then hands—rough and gloved—grab my arm, yanking me up. My feet scrape for traction. I can’t scream. My throat won’t cooperate.
They're going to kill me.
I see it in the mask—blank, cold, impersonal. A blade gleams in the dark.
And I can’t do anything.
I’m going to die here, in the dark, somewhere I don’t even recognize—as helpless as a normal human in a dark alley.
Something explodes out of the shadows. Not magic, but movement. Swift and silent and absolutely brutal.
My attacker is ripped away from me in a blur of black and silver. There’s a hiss of steel, the unmistakable crack of bone, and a grunt that doesn’t belong to me.
I hit the ground again, landing hard on my elbows, blinking against tears I hadn’t realized were there. The masked figure stumbles backward, only for a second, before a shadow splits away from the fog behind them and drives forward.
Kael.
His horns glint in the moonlight and black wings, reminiscent of a bat, unfurl behind him. No glamour this time. No lazy posture or detached smirk.
Just precision. Control. And rage, buried under it all like black ice.
He doesn’t speak or taunt my attacker. He’s silent and fast and lethal.
The attacker tries to counter, but Kael's already behind them. One strike to the back of the leg. A twist of the wrist. The masked figure crashes to the ground on their back, and Kael’s hand slams against their chest—magic flaring dark and smoky around his fingers. Pure shadow.
The figure convulses. Goes still.
Kael breathes once. Just once before he stands slowly. Then turns to me.
I can’t move. My limbs are locked, pulse erratic, breath coming in shallow bursts that barely register. My palms sting from where I hit the ground, but I barely feel it.
His boots crunch over the gravel as he crosses the space between us.
Slow. Unhurried. Like he already knows I’m not going anywhere.
His silhouette is inky and black against the fog. Horns curved like a crown. Wings half-spread behind him, the edges dragging through the fog as if the night itself makes room for him.
He stops in front of me, eyes glowing faintly in the dark—an unnatural reddish hue burning low behind his lashes.
“You’re always in danger,” he murmurs, “my little sunshine.”
The nickname curls around me like smoke. A tease. A warning. Its own sort of tether.
