The stables always smelled of piss and secrets.
Kael Veyne had cleaned them for most of his life, first as punishment, then as employment, and finally out of habit. He'd shovelled dung, soothed high-strung warhorses, and once scrubbed bits of a baron's wayward cousin from between the cobbles after the fool wandered out past curfew and met a Gloamkin. No one asked questions about the blood. The Crown liked its monsters quiet and its streets clean.
But tonight, the animals were restless.
Even the old destrier in Stall Twelve—the one half-blind and twice cursed—stomped nervously, shifting its weight like it sensed something coming. Kael tightened his grip on the wooden beam above the hayloft and glanced through the cracked stable window. Mist rolled in early. Again.
He felt it before he saw it.
That wrongness.
The Duskveil.
Not just fog. Mist with intent. It slid across the flagstones outside the stables like fingers probing for warmth. It didn't belong in this part of the city, not this soon after sundown. And not this thick.
Something had agitated it.
Or called it.
Kael dropped from the rafters soundlessly. Practice. Habit. Fear. He landed in a crouch between hay bales and rats, one hand instinctively brushing the medallion beneath his shirt—a flat disc of black iron etched with spider-scratch sigils. Cold to the touch, always. A reminder.
Tenebris.
His shadow moved wrong. Always had, ever since the binding. It didn't follow light. It followed him. Twitched when he was still. Pulled at the corners of his sight like it wanted out.
And lately... it had been stirring.
The creature wasn't a voice in his head, not exactly. More a presence. A second heartbeat pressed against his skin from the inside. Sometimes it whispered in emotion: hunger, caution, anger. But tonight—
Tonight it felt alert.
We should move.
The thought wasn't his. Not entirely.
Kael slipped between the stables and the outer wall, hugging shadows that welcomed him like old friends. In some places, he could feel the darkness pressing back against his skin, heavy and familiar. There was a warmth to it, like blood not yet spilled.
The courtyard was nearly empty. Just a few guards hunched near torches, faces downturned, unwilling to meet the mist's advance. Their blades were silvered—not to shine, but to hold enchantments. No one wanted to use steel on Gloamkin. It made the screaming last longer.
Kael passed behind them unnoticed.
The mist licked at his boots.
Not normal. Not wild. It's watching us. Tenebris pulsed in his ribs.
He slipped into the alley by the palace kitchens, intending to wait the veil out, when the presence shifted.
Not the shadow's.
Someone else's.
She stepped from the mist like she belonged to it. Cloaked in black, hood pulled low, her stride a whisper over wet stone. Kael pressed deeper into shadow, barely breathing.
She didn't look armed. Didn't need to. Her bearing screamed danger—not like a brawler or cutthroat, but like a scalpel. Precise. Controlled. Royal.
Whisperer, Kael guessed immediately.
One of the Crown's clandestine agents. Trained in memory weaving, silent spellwork, and—rumour said—emotion theft. You didn't see a Whisperer until they wanted you to. And if they were here, something was very wrong.
The woman paused mid-step.
Her head turned. Slowly.
Kael froze.
She shouldn't be able to see him. Not here. Not like this.
But her eyes—cool, pale, deliberate—met his exactly.
"Kael Veyne," she said, as if testing the shape of it.
Kael's stomach dropped.
No one called him that. Not the full name. Not unless they'd dug deep. Too deep.
He stepped out of the shadow, every muscle tensed, hand drifting toward the knife hidden under his coat.
"I'm not in the mood for games."
The woman's expression barely shifted. "Good. Neither am I."
She reached into her cloak and withdrew a wax-sealed parchment. The sigil stamped into it was unmistakable: a crown within a whispering mouth. No colours. No flourish. Just silence pressed into wax.
"By order of the Crown," she said. "You're being conscripted."
Kael didn't move.
"Into what?"
She didn't blink. "Into who."
Kael's gaze dropped to the letter. "You'll forgive me if I don't bow and thank the gods."
"Didn't expect you to," she said. "But you'll come. Because the Duskveil wants you. And you're running out of time to pretend you're just a stable rat."
She turned and walked away without checking to see if he followed.
The mist parted for her.
Tenebris purred—if such a thing could be said of a creature made from fear and memory. Kael felt its satisfaction, its hunger. It liked this.
He should've run.
He didn't.
Ten minutes later, Kael stood in the old servants' wing of the palace, where even rats hesitated. Cracked stone. No torches. Only glow-powder smeared in sigil wards near the doors. Holy ground, warded against corruption and illusion. The kind of place only three kinds of people entered: priests, corpses, or Whisperers.
The woman—she hadn't given a name—waited beside a worn iron door with no handle.
"You knew I'd follow," Kael said.
She raised a brow. "You wear shadows like skin, dodge patrols like breath, and haven't aged since the binding took. You're either stupidly brave or stupidly curious."
"Let's say both."
She smiled. Thin and brief. "Good. You'll need both."
She tapped the door. It groaned open.
Tenebris stirred again, a restless curl inside his ribs.
There is something deeper here. Old. Like me.
Kael stepped through the door.
And behind him, the Duskveil brushed the threshold.
And stopped.