The safehouse door was barred from the inside. That was all Aeris needed to see. Rhea hadn't even finished with her count of the guards, but the message was already clear.Three long days on the road had finally brought the trio to Millbrook Ferry, a tight mass of houses and muggy streets huddled on a river bend. Imperial grain barges clustered on the docks, coughing up their cargo for the capital. Rhea’s intel had been dead on, third house past the tanner’s yard, blue shutters, a cloth merchant who kept to herself. Ophelia Rask. The next name on a list that started with Cedric Vane’s bloody corpse, still cooling in a collapsed ritual chamber just a week before.“She’s already spooked,” Rhea muttered, crouching beside Aeris in the deep shadow of a grain cart. “Look at the windows.”Aeris checked, sure enough, the place seemed almost hermetically sealed. The evening air was warm, but every shutter had been yanked closed, and those faint glimmers of ward-light tracing the sills weren’t l

Torchlight burst into the tunnel from both ends at once. Aeris felt his heart sink. The hard truth washed through him, they’d walked right into the trap Rhea had been dreading.“Split formation!” someone shouted from the west. Water splashed under heavy boots. “Nobody gets past this tunnel alive!”Rhea just gritted her teeth, already drawing her bow as she moved in front of the others. “There’s no splitting. We’re boxed in.” She didn’t sound scared, just certain, and she barely looked back. “Aeris,”“I know.” His voice didn’t shake, but inside, he felt the demon stir, that second heartbeat quickening, hunger sliding right up against his nerves, eager now in a way that scared him. It came so easily these days, the divide between him and it thinning every time real danger pressed in.He shoved Alba toward the nearest wall, a hand to her shoulder. “Both of you. Stay behind me, don’t argue. No matter what.”Then the first soldiers ran into view, six of them, slate armor and torches glinti

Two days into their journey, Aeris spotted the outskirts of Hallow’s Bend and immediately noticed something off. No violet banners draped over the village gates, no crowds milling around expecting imperial attention. People here just kept to themselves. Farmers carted produce across a dusty market square, kids wove between stalls playing games, none of them aware that deep in the province’s records, someone in this place had been marked six years ago as expendable should the Empire’s favorite ever falter.“We got here first, at least,” Rhea said, her gaze fixed on the market with the kind of sharp focus you’d expect on a battlefield, not a peaceful morning. She was calculating angles, not admiring scenery. “If Thorne’s ritual crew was still gathering after we left Millbrook Ferry, there’s no way they made better time than us.”Rask, quieter, shrugged. “Depends if they needed much prep. Partial-match rituals don’t require half a dozen mages and all the ceremony. If they use brute force

The front door didn’t just break. It blew apart in a burst of splinters and pale blue mage-fire, and Aeris threw himself over Elsie and Alba as burning bits scattered through the mill's front room.“MOVE!” Rhea shouted, her voice cutting through the chaos. She’d already grabbed the miller and his wife, dragging them toward the back. “Aeris, get the girls out! I’ve got the entry!”No time for questions. He scooped up Elsie, ignoring her small, terrified protest, kept his other arm around Alba, and barrelled toward the back door, just as the first imperial soldier forced his way in over the wreckage.Behind him, Rhea’s bow sang twice, two arrows, quick and sharp. A soldier screamed, then nothing.They crashed into the mill yard, sudden cold night air stinging after the fire and smoke. Aeris set Elsie down long enough to look her over, she was scared, eyes huge and wild, but not hurt.“Keep moving,” he told Alba, pressing Elsie’s hand into hers. “Get her to the tree line. I'll,”He didn’

Elsie’s mother reached them first, pushing through the quiet crowd, desperate but not afraid. She pulled Elsie into her arms, her hands trembling as she checked her over. “My daughter,” she kept saying, barely believing Elsie was safe. She turned to Aeris, voice cracking, tears finally falling now that the danger had passed. “You saved my daughter.”Aeris was still catching his breath, a hint of black smoke curling from new-healed burns on his shoulders. “We tried to,” he said softly. “I’m sorry about your home.”“The mill can be rebuilt.” The woman clutched her daughter tighter. “Elsie can’t.”The crowd just stared, silent as stones. Aeris felt every gaze pressed against him, some with fear, plain and sharp, others with something messier. Doubt, maybe. Or maybe they were trying to put words to the question burning in their minds: what do you call a boy who fights like a demon just to save a child from monsters dressed as kings?The miller pushed his way through next. He looked exhaus