The wind died down, replaced by a suffocating stillness that seemed to drain the very color from the night. These were not the manicured mages of the Council, nor the panicked students of Astralthorn. These figures moved with a predatory silence, their black robes shifting like oil on water.
"The debt?" I repeated, my voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through my limbs. I kicked the obsidian arrow loose from the stone, the dark metal pulsating with a cold, rhythmic throb that mirrored the shadow inside me. "I owe nothing to ghosts who hide in the periphery of history."
The leader tilted his head. Beneath his hood, his face was a pale, refined mask, his silver eyes fixed on me not with hate, but with the hollow hunger of a collector. "You misunderstand, Lucien Dreadmoor. The Dre
