Chapter 15 - The Shadows Bite Back
1053 Words
The silence in Ravyn's hideout was thick, almost suffocating. Since the last successful ambush on the Vultures' convoy, things had been quiet. Too quiet.
Ravyn stood before the cracked mirror in her quarters, studying her reflection like it held secrets she hadn't yet unlocked. Her bruises from earlier fights were beginning to fade, but they remained as symbols of her rise. She turned away from the glass as a knock echoed against the steel door.
Nyra entered. "Ravyn, we've got a problem."
Her tone was different—tight with unease.
"Speak."
"Kael, Dez, and Riko... They're gone. Snuck out last night. Took weapons and intel with them."
Ravyn’s eyes narrowed. She had suspected disloyalty, but she’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this so soon. "Get the rest of the crew. Lock down the base. No one leaves."
They couldn't find them, after having fruitless searches for two days, they gave up and Ravyn prepared for the worst. Whatever happens, she would embrace it and fight her way out and that she is sure of.
---
That same morning, Madam Orella stood before a table surrounded by her top lieutenants. Her lips were curved in a cruel smile.
"You say she’s dangerous," Orella mused, slicing an apple with a dagger. "But she’s still just a girl. One who got lucky."
"She’s not just lucky," Selene said from the corner, arms folded. "She’s Zaria. I knew her. She doesn’t break the way normal girls do."
Orella’s smile faded. "Then we punish her the way we punish monsters. Bring her to me."
Selene nodded. "Already in motion."
---
It was late at night when it happened. Ravyn was returning alone from a secret meeting with one of the Black Tusk smugglers when she noticed something off in the air. No chirps, no steps. Just silence.
Then came the sting—a dart to her neck.
She fought to stay conscious, but the world spun until it went black.
After a while, she opened her eyes to see Madam Orella's mocking face, “ Just a chicken who thinks she can rise to become a phoenix without any preparation.” She stopped talking and observed Ravyn's face, when she was greeted by an unfathomable gaze, she smirked and looked at her with a victorious gaze;“Welcome back to where you belong.”
And with a chuckle, she left the room.
..........
Ravyn's world was blood and silence.
After Madam Orella's men caught her off-guard, Ravyn endured days of brutal punishment. Shackled and stripped of her weapons, she was whipped, starved, and humiliated—all to break her spirit. But they had underestimated the girl who had clawed her way out of hell once before. Their mistake was thinking the chains made her weak.
She never screamed. Not once.
They kept her in a dim, mold-infested cell, guarded by a rotation of thugs who grew increasingly uneasy with her eerie calm. One night, during a poorly managed switch, Ravyn used a shard of rusted metal she had hidden in her heel to slit a guard's throat. She vanished into the shadows before the alarm rang.
She didn't return to the Ash Blades.
Instead, she vanished from Velmara’s streets. No one saw her. No one heard from her. Madam Orella’s agent who had tracked her last reported she died from blood loss while escaping. It was a lie, but it suited Orella’s ego.
The news of Ravyn’s “death” spread fast.
Whispers spread through alleyways and neon clubs. Velmara’s underworld mourned or celebrated, depending on allegiance. The Ash Blades reeled. Nyra tried to hold the gang together, but doubt seeped through every c***k. Kael, Dez, and Riko—who had secretly betrayed Ravyn by tipping off Orella about her route—spoke in hushed tones, pretending grief while celebrating in private.
Lucien heard the news too. Sitting in his penthouse, wine untouched, he stared at the holographic image of Ravyn displayed on his table. Her face, fierce and unreadable, flickered with static.
“So that’s it?” he muttered. “After all that fire… you just vanished?”
He turned away from the screen. For the first time in years, disappointment carved lines into his perfect features. A silent storm churned in his chest.
Weeks passed.
Then came the bodies.
Kael was the first. His body was found in the Ash Blades' weapons room—throat slit, chest carved with the words: ‘I remember.’ Dez was next—burned and stuffed into an abandoned vehicle, his gang mark sliced from his arm. Riko’s head was found in a box at the Vultures' checkpoint with a single raven feather inside.
No one saw who did it. No one heard a thing. But the message was clear: Ravyn wasn’t dead.
Nyra, in disbelief, visited the training grounds one night and found three crimson feathers nailed to the wooden target board where Ravyn used to train alone.
Whispers began again.
“She’s alive.”
“She’s watching us.”
“She became the ghost they feared.”
At Madam Orella’s compound, an urgent message was delivered—a wooden box containing a hand with Orella’s own ring that had been stolen years ago. Inside was a short note: “You thought you broke me. You forgot I was born in the dark.”
Orella crushed the note in her fist, fury trembling in her bones. “She dares mock me.”
“She’s just one girl,” Selene said calmly.
“She’s a plague,” Orella snapped. “And I let her live.”
In the underworld, no one had seen Ravyn. No images. No sightings. Only death.
Lucien leaned against the glass walls of his suite, watching the city breathe beneath him. His eyes were cold, unreadable.
He picked up the raven feather Nyra had secretly sent him.
“You’re not done yet,” he whispered.
Somewhere in the ruins of an old train yard, Ravyn sharpened her blades in the dark. Her hands were scarred, her body leaner, stronger.
They thought they’d buried her.
But she had just begun digging them all up.
They thought that she was still the naive Zaria from two years ago.
What they didn't know was that Zaria was burnt in the fire and from the ashes rose Ravyn, the nightmare of Velmara.
- Writer
