Seo Rin didn't sleep.
Even hours after the alley, the city's glow still pulsed in her mind—alongside the memory of his eyes. Dark. Focused. Not kind, but not cruel either. Dangerous in a way that made her breath catch, but not from fear.
She stood by the window of her apartment, arms folded, phone untouched on the table behind her. Rain tapped against the glass like a quiet warning.
Who was he?
She pressed her fingers to her lips. Someone who owes you a debt. The words echoed again, more haunting than the scream that started it all.
His name… he hadn't given it. No ID, no questions, and yet somehow, she'd let him walk her home. Not inside. Just far enough to make sure she was safe.
Safe from what?
She turned away from the window and reached for her necklace—an old chain she never took off. Her mother had given it to her when she was a child. Just a silver pendant with a strange, curved symbol no one could ever identify.
But tonight, under the streetlight… he'd looked at it like it meant something.
And for the first time in her life, she wondered if it did.
Khael watched the city from the rooftop.
Neon lights blurred below, the hum of the streets far beneath him. His coat billowed in the wind, and his grip tightened around the old book in his hands—The Record of the Veil. A text banned in the palace, buried under generations of lies.
He hadn't opened it in years. But after tonight, he didn't have a choice.
Seo Rin.
Her name was scrawled in the margins. Not hers exactly, but a bloodline traced back to the Oracles. The women who once guarded the spiritual contract that bound Althareyah's throne.
Women like her were thought extinct.
If the Shadows had orders to silence her, it meant one thing—she wasn't just a threat to the curse. She was a key.
Or a weapon.
He closed the book.
He didn't trust fate, and he didn't believe in coincidences. Someone wanted her dead. Which meant someone still feared the truth.
And if the truth was what he thought it was—then everything was already in motion.
The next day, Seo Rin's life returned to normal.
Almost.
She went to work. She smiled at customers. She poured drinks, took orders, and ignored the tremble in her hands. But the sense of being watched wouldn't go away.
Every shadow stretched longer. Every silence rang louder.
And then he appeared again.
Not in a dream. Not a memory.
In the café. Right in front of her.
Khael.
He didn't say her name. Just placed a book on the counter. Her pendant's symbol was engraved on the cover.
"You need to see this," he said quietly. "After your shift."
She hesitated. But something inside her—a pull she didn't understand—nodded before she could speak.
He turned and walked out, vanishing into the crowd.
And Seo Rin stared after him, heart pounding.
Whatever this was… it had already begun.