I saw Valen kill a man. Up close. He didn’t flinch. And neither did I.
The old woman’s whisper kept the words with me like an unshakable scent.
“He’s death wrapped in silk. Leave now.”
Valen’s blacked-out SUV prowled through a city still scrubbed clean by early rain, tires hissing through puddles. I rode beside him in a silence so complete my own breath sounded obscene. Streetlamps smeared gold across his profile like a warning. He drove with the economy of practiced violence,small, efficient movements. I watched the muscle of his jaw work and wondered which version of him would show up when we stopped.
He broke the quiet with a question that had nothing to do with anything.
“You ever see the ocean in a storm?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“It swallows things,” he said softly. “Beautiful
