{Two days before the gathering of shadows}
The rain fell in silver sheets, drowning the world in a relentless downpour. Maya Frey's boots splashed through the flooded streets of the northern town, Drachma. Her drenched raincoat clinging to her like a second skin. The house loomed ahead—a solitary structure at the edge of civilization, its windows dark, its walls weathered by time and neglect.
She stepped inside, water dripping from her sleeves as she hung the coat on the rusted hook by the door. The silence of the house was suffocating.
Alone again. Always alone.
Her fingers trembled—not from the cold, but from anticipation.
The basement door creaked open, revealing a dimly lit staircase. A faint green glow pulsed from below, casting eerie shadows on the walls.
Maya descended.
---
The air was thick with the sterile scent of chemicals and something darker—something living. At the center of the room stood a massive glass tube, filled with swirling green fluid. Inside, suspended in the viscous solution, floated her reason for breathing.
Her child.
Half-human, half-thing.
A being caught between two worlds, its tiny body frozen mid-transformation—scales rippled across its tiny chest, patchy and uneven. One eye—her eye, the same sharp green as hers—stared blankly ahead. The other was a slit-pupiled abomination, black as the void between stars. Its fingers ended in tiny, needle-like claws.
Maya pressed both hands against the glass, her breath fogging the surface. Her aura flared without thought, a spiral of green energy and wind that made the ground tremble. Count-rank power, raw and unchecked, and she didn't care.
"I will fix you," she whispered, her voice a blade of iron. "I will burn this world to ash if that's what it takes."
Then—
A giggle.
High-pitched. Childlike.
Her spine stiffened. Maya's head snapped up. Her aura detonated, the shockwave rattling the lab equipment, sending vials shattering to the floor. The walls cracked where her power licked at them.
"Hello."
The voice was sweet. Playful.
Maya whirled.
A little girl sat perched on a lab stool, swinging her legs like she was at a playground. She couldn't have been older than thirteen, dressed in a pristine white gown, gloves, and a wide-brimmed hat. An umbrella rested against her shoulder, though she was indoors.
The left side of her face bore the tattoo of the Hands of the Divine—a staring eye within a palm. On her right cheek, the number 8 was etched in delicate script.
Cute.
Terrifying.
Maya's snarl was inhuman. "Who the hell are you?"
The girl giggled. "Ohhh, a Count! How scary!"
Then—
BOOM.
The girl's presence unfolded—not as aura, but as sheer existential weight. The walls groaned. The floor buckled. The entire town outside trembled as if caught in an earthquake.
The glass tube fractured, a spiderweb of cracks racing up its surface.
Maya's heart stopped.
"NO!"
She was moving before she could think, her body a blur of Count-rank speed, her hands slamming against the tube to hold it together. Her aura surged, a torrent of green energy and wind wrapping around the glass, sealing the cracks with sheer, desperate will.
"Please," she begged, her voice breaking. "Please, don't—"
The pressure vanished instantly.
The girl—Nefertiti—smiled. "Oopsie."
Maya's breath came in ragged, heaving gasps. Her fingers trembled where they pressed against the tube. One wrong move, and her child would spill onto the floor, his half-formed lungs gasping for air he couldn't breathe.
She turned her head, slow, deliberate.
Her eyes burned.
"Touch him again," she whispered, "and I will peel the flesh from your bones while you still scream."
Nefertiti clapped her hands. "So protective! I like you!"
Then—
"Maya."
A familiar voice.
Her uncle, Lucian Frey, stepped out of the shadows, his silver hair gleaming in the green light. His expression was calm. Amused.
For a single, fleeting moment, hope flickered in her chest.
Then—
She saw it.
The way he stood beside Nefertiti. The way his hands rested at his sides, loose, unthreatening.
The way he smiled at the monster in the child's skin.
Her stomach turned to ice.
"What is this?"
Lucian sighed. "The future, Maya. Our future."
Her nails dug into her palms hard enough to draw blood. "Speak plainly."
"The Hands of the Divine are not terrorists. They are visionaries." His eyes gleamed. "The Great Lord has shown me what lies beyond this rotting world. A new dawn. A world where we—where House Frey—will stand above the ashes of the old regimes."
Maya's lips peeled back from her teeth. "You joined them."
"We are joining them," Lucian corrected. "All of us. Even you."
Nefertiti spun in the chair. "We want you to go back to Arachis! Be our little spy!"
Maya barked a laugh. "I was sacked. They'll never let me within a mile of that place."
Lucian waved a hand. "Winston is pragmatic. Give him something valuable, and he'll overlook... disagreements."
"What valuable thing?"
"Tell him House Frey has allied with the Hands," Nefertiti chirped. "Say you fled, seeking asylum because you refused to be part of it."
Maya's aura flickered, the pressure in the room spiking. "And why would I do that?"
Nefertiti tossed her a vial. Black liquid swirled inside, thick as blood.
"Because this will save your child."
Maya caught it. Her fingers trembled.
"What is it?"
"Hope," Lucian said.
She hesitated.
She looked at her child. At his twisted, half-formed body. At the pain in every mutated inch of him.
Her hands shook.
I failed you once.
Never again.
With a shuddering breath, she plunged the needle into the tube's injection port.
The liquid dispersed.
For a heartbeat—nothing.
Then—
The scales rippled. The black eye flickered, the pupil rounding, humanizing.
Maya's breath hitched. "Oh gods."
Nefertiti grinned. "And that's just the start." She leaned forward. "Do this one teeny thing for us, and we'll make him whole."
"What thing?"
Nefertiti tossed another vial—this one a sickly red.
"Feed this to Connor."
Maya froze.
"Connor?!" Her voice was a whip-crack. "Your own SON?!"
Lucian didn't flinch. "For the future. For the Great Lord's vision." His eyes burned. "For House Frey."
Nefertiti giggled. "It won't kill him! It'll just... change him."
Maya's hands shook.
Connor was family.
But her child was her child.
The silence stretched.
Then—
"Fine."
The word tasted like ash.
Nefertiti clapped. "Yay!"
Lucian placed a hand on Maya's shoulder. She wanted to break his fingers.
"Welcome to the winning side, niece."
She didn't respond.
As they left, the house groaned under the weight of her sin.
Alone, Maya pressed her forehead against the tube.
"Forgive me," she whispered—to Connor, to her child, to herself.
Outside, the rain fell harder.