Dawn didn’t break gently.It bled into the sky, red and bruised, like the sun knew what was coming.The city rose in silence. Street vendors setting up stalls. Commuters dragging themselves into trains. Neon signs flickering out as daylight took over. None of them knew that underneath this ordinary morning, war was waking.Luca stood on the rooftop of an old parking garage overlooking District Twelve — the financial quarter where The Order of the Veil hid behind glass and corporate smiles.Beside him, Kai leaned against a rusted air duct, arms crossed, jaw tight. Mira sat on the ledge, one leg dangling, the other bent, her fingers tapping slow patterns on her knee. The wind pushed her hair back, exposing the small scar at her temple — a mark from a life before all this, a life that felt like another lifetime entirely.Below them, the building they watched was a tall structure of tinted windows and clean steel edges. It looked harmless. Polished. Respectable.It was a lie.“The Order c

The rain had turned the city into a reflection of itself — a trembling, half-drowned mirage caught between lightning and memory. From the rooftop of Saint Lazarus Tower, I could see everything I had ever loved, and everything I had ever ruined. Neon bled into the puddles like veins, carrying the heartbeat of a city that never forgave, only forgot.The tower loomed beneath me — a spine of glass and stone jutting into a bruised sky. Each floor below hummed with the low murmur of machines and the scent of fear. I could feel it through my boots — the pulse of old magic buried deep in the structure. This place was never just a building. It was a tomb with a pulse.Somewhere below, my pack moved through the storm. Shadows among shadows. I could smell them — sweat, steel, wet fur. Some of them were afraid. Some were hungry. And a few, the ones I had trained myself, were silent as ghosts. I had taught them well once. Then I betrayed them all, or they betrayed me. The memory still came in piec

The city never really wakes — it just shifts between shades of insomnia. By the time I left the bridge, the streets had started breathing again. Steam rose from the gutters, neon signs blinked back to life, and the air smelled of metal and cheap salvation.I kept my hands in my pockets, trying not to stare at the mark burning under my sleeve. The sigil pulsed in rhythm with the city’s heartbeat — slow, deliberate, like it was syncing to something far bigger than me. Every time it throbbed, I caught flashes behind my eyes: silver corridors, chanting voices, the feeling of being watched through glass thicker than air.Whatever Cassian had done before the tower fell, it hadn’t died with him. It had followed me.And if I was carrying a piece of that curse, I needed to know what kind of weapon I’d become.I headed south through the industrial sector — a skeleton maze of warehouses and floodlit yards that smelled of oil, smoke, and forgotten wages. The Order always hid their filth behind or

The city moved obliviously beneath them. From his office on the fifty-second floor, Ethan Cross could see everything: the neat grid of streets, the morning traffic, the corporate towers standing like monuments to ambition. On the surface, order. Beneath it, rot.He didn’t need reports to feel it. The poison had spread further overnight. Claire Novak had been a distraction, a test. Now the network was showing itself in subtler forms: untraceable memos, minor discrepancies in procurement, delays in shipments that should have been seamless. The Order of the Veil was patient. Ruthless. Invisible.Tessa entered the room, her steps deliberate, almost silent. Her eyes scanned the monitors, then slid to Ethan. She didn’t speak — she never did when observation was more important than words.“They’ve infiltrated the financial wing,” she finally said, her voice low, precise. “Two new transfers. Both approved internally. Both routed to shell accounts.”Ethan’s jaw tightened. He moved to the neare

The morning light was thin and gray, seeping through the glass walls of Cross Global Holdings like a weak attempt at hope. Inside, Ethan Cross moved with silent precision, surveying the aftermath of last night’s purge. One mole eliminated. Several more under scrutiny. But the slow poison did not rest. It had only just begun to spread its hidden tendrils deeper into his empire.Tessa was at the control panel, tracing subtle anomalies, her expression unreadable. Every movement, every calculation, every adjustment was made with the accuracy of a machine. Yet she was not a machine — she anticipated, adapted, predicted. That combination made her dangerous. And necessary.“They’ve hidden something,” she said finally, voice low, deliberate. “Not another mole — yet. Something deeper. I can feel the fractures in their network.”Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “Show me.”She highlighted a chain of internal communications, emails, and digital transfers. Subtle, almost invisible alterations. Accounts redi