Faizan walked in darkness.

  An absolute void stretched in every direction, a tunnel of nothing, swallowing sound, scent, and time. Only pinprick of light in the impossible distance anchored him , cold and unwavering. He moved toward it, his footsteps making no sound on the non-existent ground. Then, the presence arrived.

  It did not step from the shadows; it coalesced behind him. A wave of profound, soul-deep dread washed forward, chilling the marrow in his bones. It was the same feeling from the cliff—a thirsty, draining aura that promised not death, but unmaking. The air grew heavy and dry. He didn’t look back. He ran.

  The light swelled, blinding him.Then his feet met hard, flat surface. The darkness vanished, replaced by a sky of endless, featureless white. He stood on the roof of a skyscraper, a sheer cliff of glass and steel that rose from nothing and ended in nothing. The city around him was a ghost of itself.

  The dread solidified behind him, a pressure against his back. He scanned for an escape, but his legs betrayed him. An unseen force turned him, marched him with slow, inevitable steps toward the precipice. As he teetered on the brink and fell, he saw a reflection in the mirrored surface of an identical tower across the void.

  It was not him.

  The face lacked the stark white streak that cut through his own dark hair. The young man looking back at him was handsome in a way that seemed strangely familiar yet entirely foreign. Strong features—a sharp jawline and high cheekbones now made hollow by exhaustion. Most unsettling: his eyes. Once likely bright, they were now a flat, weary brown—bloodshot and shadowed by deep bruises of sleeplessness, holding none of the depth of Faizan's own speckled blue.

  He appeared to be in his twenties. Thick, tousled brown hair: greasy and unkempt. A shadow of coarse stubble darkened his jaw. Skin pale, sickly. Dry, cracked lips parted slightly. Even in the stillness of the reflection, Faizan sensed a faint, perpetual tremor in the man's hands. He wore garments of a strange, sturdy make: a soft, moss-colored top pulled over another that was torn and stained, and dark, durable trousers caked with dirt. Expensive clothing, now ruined—violently torn open at the abdomen as if by a great beast, yet the skin beneath was mysteriously unmarked.

  Their gazes met. A spark of panicked, mutual recognition flashed—not of identity, but of situation. The man in the glass fell too.

  Then the reflection shifted.

  The skyscraper melted away, replaced by the familiar cliff above Firstdawn’s forest. The man in the glass closed his eyes as if he was in a stance. Faizan could only watch, a captive audience to the reflection.

  A silent force erupted from the man in the mirror. The world in the mirror didn’t explode; it warped. Trees bent inward like bows, the forest floor flowed like water toward a single point, and something faizan couldn't comprehend was shredded into swirling motes of dust. Then, with a snap that had no sound, everything reversed. The ground slammed back down, compacted and smooth. A perfect crater birthed from an implosion that reversed.

  The vision shattered. Faizan's fall ended as he plunged into ice-cold, black water.

  Suspended in the depths, the light gone, he was not alone. Before him, gaunt and terrible, floated the same crystalline beast. Its jagged, pulsating violet crystals cast a sickly, hungry light that bled into the black water. But its eyes… its eyes were fixed on him with a hateful, recognitive intelligence. It did not see a boy. It saw the source. The water around it grew heavy and thirsty, draining warmth and life. Its maw opened, not to bite, but to assimilate, to swallow the memory whole. The darkness rushed in—

  --

  Faizan awoke with a soundless shout trapped in his throat.

  He bolted upright, his breath sawing in and out, heart hammering against his ribs like a caged beast. His thick, espresso-brown hair was plastered to his forehead with cold sweat and the single white streak at his temple almost looked like it was glowing faintly in the grey light. The phantom sensations of the dream clung to him: a deep, pulling vertigo in the core of his stomach, as if he’d just dropped from a great height, and a cold, sickly tinge in the air of his room—the same ozone-and-decay echo of the crystalline beast. The old claw-wound on his back gave a dull, throbbing ache.

  Grey, pre-dawn light seeped through the window, painting his room in shades of gloom. It was a disaster. The window stood wide open, its shutter banging intermittently against the wall. His chair lay toppled on its side. Several books had been thrown from their shelf, splayed on the packed-earth floor like dead birds.

  Was the wind that strong? he thought, the question frail in his stunned mind.

  As if in answer, a violent gust shrieked through the window, whipping his hair and sending a loose page skittering across the floor. The chill was biting. He shoved his blankets aside, the dream’s terror transmuting into a sharp, immediate urgency. He crossed the room, his movements stiff, and fought the shutter against the gale before slamming the window closed. The sudden quiet startled him.

  He peered through the thick glass. Outside, the world had turned monochrome. The sky churned—charcoal and slate. Wind tore through the valley, bending trees and whipping up spirals of dust in the central yard.

  “A storm is coming,” he whispered. In the dark glass, his reflection stared back—ghost-pale. The galaxy-swirl of silver in his blue eyes disappeared into the gloom, leaving them deep, still pools.

  As he turned to right the fallen chair, he noticed something was missing. His small, smooth river-stone paperweight, which always sat on the corner of his desk, was gone. It rested three paces away, not on the floor, but embedded lightly in the far wall’s plaster. A fine web of cracks surrounded it. He stared, a hollow confusion opening in his gut. He pried it free, the stone cool in his hand, and looked from it to the wall, to the window. The wind. It had to have been the wind.

  ---

  To the east of Firstdawn, over the jagged teeth of the mountains, dark, heavy clouds rolled forward like a silent, predatory tide. They swallowed the pale light of dawn, casting the forest into deep twilight. The wind heralded them—a relentless force that surged into the village. It rattled shutters with impatient fists, stirred the dry earth of the main lane into stinging clouds, and moaned through the cracks in the old storehouse walls.

  ---

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  The Guild carriage was a sturdy, enclosed thing of lacquered wood and brass fittings, but it felt like a rolling prison to Daghfal Rī?x?ār. He sat across from the Investigation Division manager, trying to ignore how the man’s piercing Siberian iris blue eyes catalogued every twitch of his fat fingers. Only the rumble of wheels and the growing howl of the wind broke the silence.

  Through the window, the distant silver thread of the waterfall came into view, then the village itself—a handful of dark, sturdy shapes huddled against the overwhelming green and the even more overwhelming grey of the sky. The cluster of low, rammed-earth homes with their steep, shingled roofs seemed to grow from the clearing itself, a natural outcrop of resilience against the brewing storm.

  Daghfal cleared his throat, his voice unnaturally high. “Sir, shouldn’t we… consider turning back? Return when the weather is more… accommodating? This is getting intense.”

  Zahid Siavash didn’t turn his head. His gaze remained fixed on Firstdawn, analytical and detached. “We have committed the resources and the time. Turning back now would be an inefficient waste of both.” He finally glanced at Daghfal, his eyes doing a swift, dismissive sweep from the strained emerald green velvet of his waistcoat to his sweating brow. “Plus, Manager Rī?x?ār, nature is good for the health. The air out here is… clarifying.”

  A beat of heavy silence filled the carriage.

  “Don't call me sir.” Zahid said, his tone flat, offering no camaraderie. “We hold the same managerial rank, after all.”

  Daghfal forced a wobbly nod, a servile smile plastered on his face. Same rank, but different division, he screamed internally. Hell if I can disrespect you. The name echoed in his skull like a curse: Zahid Siavash. You bastard.

  The rest of the journey passed in a silence thick enough to choke on, filled only by the storm’s preamble and the frantic drum of Daghfal’s own pulse.

  ---

  As the carriage wheels crunched onto the stony path of Firstdawn’s outskirts, Zahid's perspective shifted. He saw a site, not a home. His mind, a finely-tuned instrument for assessment, began its cold catalog.

  The village: a puppet to the elements. Dark, low sky pressed down. Wind whipped in capricious gusts, stirring up dust-devils in the central yard one moment and falling to an eerie, charged stillness the next. The air smelled of ozone and wet earth.

  His gaze mapped it instantly. An ancient, sprawling Chinár tree and a wide stone well with a wooden winch marked the central hub—ground around it worn smooth by generations. The most prominent house anchoring it stood slightly larger, with a defined, shaded aivan porch. Walls of thick rammed-earth. Small windows shuttered against the weather. The village leader's home. A smaller hut nearby had bunches of drying herbs lashed to its eaves. The healer's, it seemed. One dwelling at the eastern treeline stood like a sentinel, functional and watchful, a worn weapon rack outside its door. A hunter's. Another at the western edge had an untended garden and closed shutters. Someone sick lives there. The larger storehouse, a barn-like structure of timber and river stone, stood apart. It could make a fine place for private meetings.

  The People were gathered, as a rough semicircle around the well. Not a welcoming party. They stood on the hard-packed earth, the wind plucking at their simple, woolen kurtas and headscarves. The air carried not just ozone, but the faint, enduring scents of woodsmoke, dried herbs, and the packed earth of their homes—the smell of a life built in place.

  A defensive assembly. Postures rigid with tension. Faces etched with a mixture of fear, simmering anger, and a deep, exhausted resolve. They had been waiting.

  At the heart of them stood Kamran Darius. The report said stricken, bedridden. The man before him stood on his feet, leaning on a walking stick, but his posture held like a weathered oak—bent by the storm, but unbroken. Zahid marked the distinction immediately. The stick served as a tool for stability, not a crutch of helplessness. Weakened, but not broken.

  The carriage halted. The wind, as if on cue, dropped away completely, leaving a vacuum of silence heavier than any noise. In that suspended moment, Zahid’s cool blue eyes locked with Kamran’s steady grey gaze across the dusty space.

  A single, fat drop of rain struck the carriage roof with a sound like a falling stone.

  A second followed, then a third—pattering against the carriage roof in slow, ominous rhythm. It broke the silent standoff. Zahid Siavash opened the carriage door and stepped down into the dust, the fine silver piping on his grey vest the only clean thing in the gloomy yard. Daghfal Rī?x?ār heaved himself out behind him, immediately fussing with his velvet waistcoat as if the very air of Firstdawn soiled it.

  Kamran met them in the common room of his house—the de facto meeting hall. The space was warm and close, lit by a low fire and a single oil lamp, the air scented with woodsmoke and dried lemon. Thick, hand-woven kilims covered the packed-earth floor. Kamran sat on a low cushion behind a sturdy wooden maktab, his walking stick leaning against the wall within reach. Hassan stood at his shoulder, a silent sentinel. Aliya waited in the corner, her healer’s shawl drawn tight, observing.

  Zahid took the offered cushion opposite Kamran with a nod, his piercing blue eyes performing a swift, dispassionate inventory of the room: the hearth, the built-in shelves, the doorways. Daghfal eyed the cushion with barely concealed distaste before lowering himself onto it, his bulk making the simple seating seem suddenly absurd.

  “Manager Rī?x?ār,” Kamran began, his voice a low, coarse gravel. “And your colleague. You arrive in poor weather.”

  Daghfal manufactured a smile that didn’t reach his small, cunning eyes. “Village Head Darius. Always a… pleasure. One must admire your people’s fortitude, living so robustly with the elements.” He said it as if naming a failing. “But let us not dwell on discomfort. We are here on official Guild business, prompted by your… vigorous hazard report. A wise move, truly.”

  "Permit me to introduce Manager Zahid Siavash of the Investigation Division," Daghfal said, with a gesture with more presentation than respect. "He is the field authority for this inquiry. My role, as your assigned Frontier Manager, is to facilitate the necessary legal and logistical framework."

  He spoke with the polished, condescending cadence of a man used to being the sole conduit to power, each word subtly reinforcing the gulf between the polished city and the rustic village. Kamran listened, his grey eyes steady. From the corner of his vision, he saw Zahid sit perfectly still, his gaze fixed on Daghfal. The investigator gave a single, almost imperceptible shake of his head—a minute gesture of contempt for the performance.

  Daghfal produced a sealed scroll from a leather tube, laying it on the maktab with a soft thump. “The Investigation Division, in its wisdom, has chosen to act. All that remains is the formalization. This contract,” he said, tapping the parchment, “authorizes their investigation into the cited phenomenon, outlines the village’s obligations to provide access and quarters, and establishes the Guild’s sole jurisdiction over all findings. In return," he said, his tone implying a generous afterthought, "the village will receive a standard facilitation fee. Coin for cooperation. It is the… cleanest path."

  He let the word hang in the firelit air as he sat back, expecting gratitude, expecting the swift press of a thumb into wax.

  Kamran let the silence stretch, filled only by the growing patter of rain on the clay-tile roof. He leaned forward slowly, the movement causing a faint ache in his channel-burned arms. He placed his hand flat on the scroll, the parchment cool under his palm. He saw Daghfal’s posture ease slightly, the man’s focus shifting to where he assumed Kamran’s mark would go.

  Instead, Kamran pushed the contract aside, off the edge of the table and onto the kilim, as if clearing space for more important work.

  He looked up, meeting Daghfal’s confused eyes directly, allowing a sliver of the focused pressure he used on the hunt—the aspect of Power—to harden his gaze. Daghfal flinched, a bead of sweat tracing a new path through his pomade.

  “I have one request,” Kamran said, his voice leaving no room for negotiation. “Before any talk of contracts or jurisdiction. You will conduct a thorough analysis of our Siphons. Every last one. Here. Now.”

  From his cushion, Zahid watched the entire exchange without a blink. He saw the calculation in Kamran’s eyes, the deliberate theater of touching then discarding the contract. The leader’s weakened body belied by an unbroken will. A backbone, he thought, a spark of genuine interest cutting through his clinical detachment. This isn’t a desperate plea. It’s a counter-attack. He’s using our own protocol as a lever. His gaze shifted to Daghfal’s stunned, sweating face. Well, Manager Rī?x?ār? You need their cooperation. What will you do now?

  Oh, Zahid mused, the faintest ghost of a thought. This might be more fun than I anticipated.