KAEL
I find her at dusk.
Not because she is difficult to track, but because I choose to remain unseen.
I watch from the edge of a roofline where the stone has cracked and sunk with age. Below me, the town itself folds inward as evening approaches. Shutters close, smoke lifts from chimneys and lanterns stutter to life, their light weak and uneven.
She moves effortlessly through the shadows as if she belongs.
That’s the first problem.
The Light Court’s file described her as unremarkable. Another soul tainted by shadows, deemed untrained and low risk. A presence to be observed, captured and contained. Nothing more.
My grip tightens on the stone as my gaze remains fixed.
She steps out of a narrow shop with a bundle tucked beneath her arm. Her coat is thin, mud lining the hem, and the frayed satchel at her side looks heavy with goods. The wind catches a loose strand of her hair and she pushes it back without breaking a stride.
She pauses at the edge of the street, scanning the thinning crowd. Her eyes linger a fraction too long on the darker alleys, as if she expects something to be there.
I catalogue her movements the way I was trained to catalogue threats.
Height. Gait. Awareness. Tells.
There’s no limp, no injury. Her shoulders are set, not hunched, and her hands are bare despite the cold.
Work rough hands tainted black. Interesting.
Although her coat hangs off her, she doesn’t look fragile. My eye flinches, a subtle ripple on a surface I’ve worked so hard to keep placid. I don’t know why this detail annoys me, but it does.
The order was clear.
Observe.
Confirm.
Contain if necessary.
Containment is not my speciality. I’m not a ward, not a keeper.
I’m a blade.
She turns down a narrow alley behind the main street covered in lanterns. The crowd thins, the lanternlight growing sparse the further away she walks through the tight streets smelling of damp stone and ash.
This is where my gaze sharpens—watching for how she behaves when she is alone.
I don’t have enough information yet to intervene, so instead I jump from rooftop to rooftop, following her measured steps.
Keeping a distance like this would be absurd for an ordinary man, but it's effortless for me.
Working within the shadows all these years has allowed me to become familiar within their presence.
She walks quickly, but doesn’t look back.
That should reassure me. But it doesn’t.
There’s something off about her presence. Not magic—at least not like my own, or the kind that I’ve studied. Just a subtle pressure in the air, like standing too close to a storm that hasn’t broken yet.
I don’t like things I can’t classify.
She stops at a green door half-hidden behind hanging laundry and taps a rhythm with her free hand.
She doesn’t have to wait long before the door opens, an older female voice greeting her like a familiar friend. They exchange a few words I can’t hear before the girl slips inside and the door closes.
I make light work of jumping off one of the tin roofs and slip into an alley, my eyes fixated on the paint-chipped door as if the wood might betray her.
I don’t move closer, instead I melt further into the shadows, slowing my heartbeat so only a faint whisper of breath releases into the night.
Patience comes as a prerequisite hunting people like her.
And patience I have in abundance.