Syra's POV
"I miss Yan."
The words came out as a whisper. Fifth time today. Maybe sixth. I'd stopped counting around noon.
Three days since I'd left for Fers Domain. Three days too long.
I sat in a café that smelled like burnt coffee and someone's cheap perfume, pretending to read a mission brief on my tablet. The words blurred together no matter how many times I forced my eyes across the same paragraph. Seventeen unawakened citizens missing, no bodies, no witnesses, no pattern the local authorities could identify. The Hunter's Association had sent me because I was "meticulous" and "thorough," which would have been flattering if I could actually focus on the case instead of checking my phone every ten minutes for messages that never came.
