A fast-moving streak of light carved across the pitch-black midnight sky.
From the ground below, it might have passed for a shooting star — if shooting stars corrected their trajectory, maintained altitude, and stubbornly refused to burn out.
Whatever the imagery suggested, this was no celestial phenomenon.
The craft was a Zephyr Drifter: a certified Tier 3 Imbued Device engineered for high-speed traversal, capable of exceeding 2,500 kilometres per hour while supporting up to five passengers. One of countless marvels born of the Path of Inscription, it required only a continuous infusion of Cosmic Energy to function — alongside a neuro-attuned control array that translated intent directly into direction.
Perched near the rear of the Drifter's octagonal platform, Arrin Valek kept his knees bent and his centre of gravity low, eyes fixed on the rushing void beneath them.
He didn't like flying.
Not like this.
Granted, the Drifter's layered safeguards — barrier field, gravitational anchor, and inertia-dampening wards — made being flung into the night statistically unlikely. Instinct, however, had never been impressed by statistics. One malfunction. One glyph fracture. That was all it would take to turn him into a distant smear on the ground below.
"Your output is slipping," a cool, dispassionate voice interrupted his spiralling thoughts.
The source was a woman with sharp, aristocratic features and a blade-thin frame. She stood at the front of the construct, gloved hands clasped behind her back, posture immaculate despite the velocity. Her eyes were closed — not in concentration, but impatience.
"I'm aware," Vieran replied beside her, his voice tight, breath carefully regulated. "My Gates are running thin."
"Then compensate," Salenne said. "We're already behind schedule."
No raised voice. No sharpness. Just commandment, and expectation.
Arrin swallowed and looked away.
He was the youngest among them, newly licensed by the Harmonia Vanguard. His primary Divination Art, Tellfract, was both broad in scope and precise enough in execution to be useful in almost any situation — and because competent, experienced Diviners were perpetually in short supply, here he was.
Vieran's jaw tightened, but his hands never faltered. The inscriptions beneath his boots flared a brighter turquoise as he forced more energy into the construct. The Drifter surged forward in response, acceleration sharp enough to churn Arrin's stomach.
He quickly adjusted his footing.
Odessa didn't bother.
She lounged near the centre of the platform, one boot casually hooked against a raised anchor node, expression unreadable. Her gaze drifted lazily across the horizon, pupils unfocused, fingers twirling a coil of blood-orange curls.
A Mentalist.
Arrin had never been this close to one before. So far, the experience was unsettling, to put it mildly. How was one supposed to act around someone who could unravel their entire existence on a whim?
No sooner had Vieran stopped complaining and poured more power into the inscriptions than the Drifter decelerated sharply.
Below them, a slum block emerged from the darkness — crooked wooden structures packed shoulder to shoulder, roofs patched with scrap metal and polymer sheeting. A normie neighbourhood. One of the poorest Arrin had ever seen.
"We're here," Salenne said, opening her hazel-brown eyes.
She guided them toward a single building, seemingly no different from the others. Still, Arrin felt his instincts prickle with unease. Once they were within range, the Drifter descended soundlessly, its barrier peeling away to admit the cold midnight air.
The smell hit him immediately.
Iron. Rot. And beneath it all, blood.
He braced himself for the worst, but the shack's interior exceeded even his grim expectations.
The floorboards were soaked through, dark and tacky beneath their boots. Broken furniture lay strewn about like debris after a storm.
Two figures occupied the centre of the cramped space.
One had been skewered clean through the heart. The other lay nearby, abdomen torn open, entrails glistening wetly in the gloom.
Arrin's breath hitched before he could stop it. "What the hell happened here?" he managed.
No one answered.
Salenne's gaze swept the room. "Where is it? I don't see it anywhere. You?"
"I don't see anything either," Vieran replied, irritation creeping into his tone. "No container. No residue trail whatsoever."
Salenne clicked her tongue softly. "Of course. It could never be that easy." She didn't elaborate. Instead, she turned to Arrin. "What are you waiting for?"
"R—right." He didn't hesitate further. This was what he was here for.
Arrin mentally activated Tellfract, layered analytic and temporal perceptions grafting into place. Fifteen seconds was all it took.
"Teenage male," he reported. "Non-Ascendant. Deceased. Cause of death: puncture wound to the heart. Time of death: approximately thirty minutes ago."
He shifted his focus.
"Mid-twenties female. Class 1 Ascendant. An Augmenter. Cause of death: severe blood loss, extensive organ damage—"
"That one's still alive," Odessa interrupted flatly.
Arrin stiffened. He checked the Augmenter again, pushing deeper this time.
There it was.
A pulse. Faint, erratic, but undeniable.
"She… is," he admitted, irritation and embarrassment flickering in equal measure. Mistakes like these reflected poorly on guild member reliability metrics. He could almost hear the formal reprimand waiting for him at HQ.
"Good." Salenne inclined her head slightly. "Then we're not leaving empty-handed. Vieran, you and the Diviner take the Class 1 back to the Drifter. Carefully — I don't want to hear any stories. Odessa and I will clean this place up. Wheels up in ten minutes."
"You heard her, Diviner," Vieran said, the title delivered with thinly veiled mockery. "Let's go."
As Vieran lifted the critically injured woman with effortless ease, Arrin hesitated.
His gaze drifted, unbidden, back to the boy.
He looked young. Very young. Close to Arrin's own age.
Something twisted uncomfortably in his chest.
"What about him?" Arrin asked before he could stop himself. Digging a suitable hole outside wouldn't take long, and Vieran clearly neither needed nor wanted his help with the woman.
Arrin wasn't usually this sentimental, nor did he make a habit of second-guessing orders. Still, even without Tellfract, it wasn't difficult to see that none of what had transpired here was the normie's fault.
Normie. Non-Ascendant. Null. Civilian. Pleb. Unpowered. Commoner. Mortal.
Different words for the same demographic.
As grim as it was to admit, the moment the Augmenter crossed that threshold, the boy's fate had already been sealed.
In his brief lapse of moral indulgence, however, Arrin had forgotten rule number one of private mercenary work: never question your employer.
Salenne looked at him.
Really looked at him.
The weight of her attention was immediate and crushing, like pressure at the ocean floor. Then she turned away.
"Leave him," she ordered. "He's just a dead normie. He has no value to us."
That was the end of it.
Arrin forced his feet to move, cursing himself. What had he been thinking? Misplaced compassion was a luxury he could no longer afford. This was the real world.
The Zephyr Drifter lifted off not long after, leaving the shack — and the body within — behind.
Unseen.
Unacknowledged.
Discarded.