Cold stone pressed against Aster’s cheek when she woke. Pain throbbed at her side, sharp and insistent. Her wrists were bound behind the back of a chair. Her head swam.

A single lantern swung from the ceiling, casting thin, wavering light across a narrow room with no windows.

Someone sat across from her.

“You’re awake,” the man said.

Aster blinked, focusing on the face she remembered from the tavern—the calm, gray-cloaked figure who had watched her chain-shot unfold with unsettling stillness.

He leaned back slightly, studying her. “Harder to catch than I expected.”

She straightened as best she could. “I don’t know who you think I am.”

A faint, humorless smile touched his lips. “Let’s not lie to each other.”

He opened a thin leather folder on the table. “You call yourself Aster. Clever enough for hiding among dockworkers.” He turned a page. “But that isn’t who you are.”

Her pulse quickened.

He flipped the folder toward her, revealing a sketched portrait—her face, younger, framed by Astravere jewelry.

Aster’s stomach dropped.

“Aurelia Astravere,” he said quietly. “The missing daughter of a very admired house.”

“You have no proof,” she said, voice strained.

“You’re right,” he replied calmly. “Not on that page.”

He tapped another document. “But enough to ruin you.”

Aster’s breath trembled.

“We have eyewitness accounts. Statements that you consorted with Dominion operatives. That you passed information across the ocean. That you fled Concordat oversight.” His voice softened. “And… that you were involved in the deaths of several Concordat soldiers.”

Aster flinched.

“It doesn’t matter what truly happened,” he added. “Only what can be believed.”

Her mind reeled. She had left home to keep herself from becoming part of their system. Now that system had found her anyway.

“Your parents,” the man said, watching her closely. “They’ve done much for the Concordat. Imagine the scandal if their golden heir—a symbol of loyalty—were exposed as a traitor.”

Aster closed her eyes. She had left their world because she disagreed with it. But she had never stopped being their daughter.

He folded the folder shut. “The Concordat will believe what we show them. But it doesn’t have to come to that.”

She forced herself to look at him. “What do you want?”

“Service,” he said. “Black Meridian. Covert operations. Precision work. You have… remarkable instincts.”

“And if I refuse?”

He spoke almost gently. “Then Aurelia Astravere dies a traitor. And House Astravere dies with her.”

Aster’s throat tightened. Pain burned down her side. She felt her own heartbeat like a drum in her chest.

“Fine,” she whispered.

“Good.”

The man rose and cut her bindings. She gasped as blood returned to her hands. Her wound flared sharply.

“You’ve lost quite a lot of blood,” he said. “You’ll need treatment.”

Two silent soldiers waited outside the door. They escorted her through a dim corridor until a heavier door opened to the night air.

She caught a brief glimpse of the sprawling city beyond—the white lights of Raven’s Bluff, the sea winds cold against her skin.

Inside the small adjoining chamber, a woman turned toward them—the faint silver shimmer of Aasimar heritage catching in the lamplight. Her expression was calm and gentle.

“Bring her here,” the woman said. “Set her down carefully.”

Aster sagged onto the stool, exhausted.

The woman knelt beside her, eyes warm. “You’re safe for the moment. My name is Mel.”

Aster didn’t know her yet.
Didn’t know that this healer would become one of the few steady lights in the shadows she was about to walk into.

All she knew was the pain in her side…
and the weight of a name she no longer owned.