The fog moves like it’s thinking.
It shifts in slow sheets between shattered arches and half-buried market stalls, swallowing angles, rewriting distance. Mirror-glass embedded in the ground catches the violet dusk and throws it back in fractured slivers—my face, Ren’s silhouette, Kaien’s shoulders—split into versions that look the same until you stare too long.
Then they look like they’re smiling when you’re not.
The Crown runners stand in a loose line ahead of Ren, masks angled toward me like they’re listening for my heartbeat.
Ren stays in the mist on purpose.
He wants the uncertainty. He wants the pressure in my lungs.
And it works, because my body recognizes him the way it recognizes a loaded weapon across a room—every muscle tight, every breath controlled, every piece of me scan
