Dawn arrived without fanfare.
The festival fires had burned down to pale embers. The city, once wrapped in celebration, now looked like it had survived a siege—littered stalls, overturned carts, drunken nobility stumbling home through streets still echoing with half-hearted laughter.
Kael Renjou didn't notice any of it.
He stood at the edge of a grand courtyard, cloaked in silence as guards cleared a perimeter around the body. The estate belonged to Lord Makoto Arinaga, a man known more for his vanity than his political weight. Or at least, he had been.
Now he lay on cold stone, silk robes soaked through with bloodless sweat.
Kael crouched beside him, gloved fingers brushing over pale skin.
Still warm.
Exactly like the other one.
The physician from the local watch stammered beside him, "We found him here maybe an hour after sunrise. No signs of struggle, no poison in the air. Just—just dead."
"Same as Lord Isamu," Kael muttered. "Did anyone see him last night?"
"Witnesses place him at the festival," the watchman said quickly, pulling out a small notepad. "He left early. Told his guards he wasn't feeling well. Ordered them not to follow."
Of course he did.
Kael frowned, gaze moving across the corpse's wrist. There it was again—the same twisted symbol burned faintly into the skin. Not a tattoo. Not scar tissue. Something else. The same alchemical mark that Rin Soryu had noticed just hours ago.
The thought of her made his jaw clench.
He didn't trust her. Not entirely. But she'd seen the mark. She'd said something was wrong before the assassin arrived. And then she'd run.
But she'd taken something with her.
A letter. Or a page of notes. Something she thought was important enough to risk being hunted for.
He rose to his feet. "Cover the body. I want it moved to the eastern chamber for examination. No priests. No ceremonial rites. Not yet."
"Sir?" the watchman blinked.
"This man's soul isn't at peace. If what I think is happening is true, his soul may not even be gone."
He didn't wait for a reply. His coat snapped behind him as he strode toward the gate, expression like carved stone.
Two nobles. Both dead within twenty-four hours. Both warm. Both marked.
Something ancient had been set in motion—and Rin Soryu might be the only person with answers.
---
Across the city, Rin awoke from shallow, dreamless sleep to find sunlight filtering through her curtains.
She sat up, blinking against the light.
The letter was still on her desk, folded now, sealed within the pages of her research journal. She had barely slept. Her thoughts had kept circling the same questions: What did the mark mean? What was the ritual hinted at in the letter? And—most pressing—who had come to her door last night?
She hadn't dared move until the footsteps faded completely.
Whoever it was, they hadn't broken in. But they'd wanted her to know that she was being watched. Perhaps hunted.
She rose slowly, moving toward her washbasin and splashing cold water on her face. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror—dark circles under sharp eyes, hair still half-bound. She looked more ghost than apothecary.
There wasn't time to rest. Answers didn't wait for sleep.
A knock at the door made her spin, heart pounding.
Once. Twice.
The same rhythm as last night.
But this time, a voice followed.
"Rin Soryu. Open up."
Kael.
She hesitated a moment, then opened the door, bracing herself.
He looked the same—sharp coat, blade at his hip, eyes that never quite softened.
He didn't wait to be invited in. "Another noble's dead. Same mark. Same warmth. No wounds. He was at the festival too."
Rin folded her arms. "And you're here because...?"
"I need your help. You said you'd seen the mark before. You were right. It's not a coincidence anymore."
"I said it looked wrong," she corrected. "I never claimed—"
"Save it," he cut her off. "You took something from the scene last night. A letter. I need to see it."
Her fingers twitched. "If I had it, why would I trust you with it?"
"Because more people will die if you don't."
She met his gaze evenly. "And if I hand it over, what then? You disappear with it? You silence me to protect the empire?"
Kael didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, quietly, "If I wanted to silence you, you'd already be gone."
It wasn't a threat. Not exactly.
It was a truth. Cold, but honest.
Rin exhaled through her nose, stepped aside, and gestured toward the desk. "Fine. But I'm coming with you. If we're examining that second corpse, I want to see it too."
"You're not trained for—"
"I'm the one who noticed the mark before you," she interrupted. "I've studied more alchemical symbology than half the imperial medics combined. I'm not asking your permission, Renjou."
There was a pause.
Then Kael gave a single nod. "Ten minutes. Pack what you need."
She didn't thank him.
But as she gathered her gloves, her tools, and her journal, her mind raced ahead. Two bodies meant a pattern. And patterns could be unraveled.
Even ones tied to death.
---
Thirty minutes later, they stood in the eastern examination chamber beneath the old watchtower—a place far from the eyes of imperial court.
The second noble's body had been placed on the stone table, his silk robes peeled back to expose the bare wrist. The mark was clearer now.
Rin leaned over it, magnifying glass in hand.
Kael watched her carefully, noting the precision in her movements, the steady rhythm of her breath.
"I've never seen this combination of glyphs," she said finally. "But this..." she pointed to the spiral. "It's a common base for transformation circles. And this outer ring—see the broken lines? That's a delay rune. Not for attack. For containment."
Kael raised a brow. "You're saying this is a trap?"
"I'm saying it's not just decorative. This was meant to hold something in. Or... hold something back."
She turned to the noble's chest, gloved fingers pressing gently against the skin. "Still warm. Hours later. No sign of decomposition."
"Like the first."
She nodded. "And if the letter is right... this might not be the last."
Kael's jaw tightened.
"Then we find who's leaving these marks," he said. "And we stop them before someone else dies."
Rin looked at him. "That's not going to be so easy."
"Why not?"
"Because these marks... they're not just alchemy," she whispered. "They're forbidden. And if someone's reviving them now... they must have been hidden for centuries."
---