Zayn didn't run. He moved with precision instead—long strides that devoured distance, coat snapping behind him like a torn banner. To mortal eyes, he was a blur. To him, it felt unbearably slow. Running implied panic. Panic implied uncertainty, and this was neither. This was control honed to a blade. calculation sharpened by fear that he refused to name.
He would have teleported. The thought pressed against him insistently. One step through space. One fracture through distance, and he would be at Sterling's door before the next breath left the slums. He didn't. Teleportation required surrendering to instinct. And instinct, in this moment, was tangled in something far more dangerous than fear.
The pull in his chest tightened again—no longer vague, no longer directional in the abstract. It was too specific. Sterling. His jaw locked. He refused to name why the idea of arriving too late made something ancient and violent shift beneath his ribs. He had felt battle fury. He had felt wrath. He had felt grief. This was none of those things. This was—
Zayn cut the thought cleanly in half. Sterling was in his home—supposedly resting.
If the figure in the slums had discovered the human's significance—if he had perceived what Zayn himself had deliberately refused to see—then this wasn't a distraction. It was a move, and the destruction it would cause wouldn't be theatrical. It would be intimate. Deliberate. Cruel.
Zayn knew that kind of destruction too well. He had once unleashed it himself.
Stone fractured faintly beneath his step as he turned another corner, the wind tearing at his cloak. Slummers parted instinctively, sensing something predatory without knowing why.
The ringing from the dragon-targeted gas persisted in the back of his skull. It dulled his senses by a fraction. A fraction was unacceptable. And it was irrelevant. The shallow cut in his shoulder had already sealed. Pain was irrelevant. Injury was irrelevant.
Time wasn't.
The pull tightened again—sharp. Demanding.
And for the first time in millennia, calculations alone didn't steady him.
He wasn't moving fast enough.
***
Luca lay sprawled across his couch, whose price he'd forgotten—too many numbers for his eyes. If not for this job, he'd never be able to afford such an apartment. In fact, Zayn had insisted he live here without giving him much of a choice.
Luca hated resting. He didn't need this break. He didn't ask for it. It implied that he wasn't competent enough because he couldn't do his work right, being forced to take a day off. All because he couldn't hide his physical state well enough. All because his friends wouldn't listen to him when he told them he was fine. All because of Zayn.
Luca frowned. Thinking about Zayn even outside of work. He needed to put some distance between himself and Zayn. Even if he didn't want to. It was necessary.
If he had kept his distance, he wouldn't be at home right now.
Zayn thinks that he can manipulate Luca into doing everything he wants. And Luca hated that he'd always give in, because Zayn's intentions weren't bad. At least he thought so.
Luca shook his head—he should be thinking more positively. Ever since he started suffering these foreign symptoms, he has felt snappier. He was never snappy. He hated himself for that. And he hoped it hadn't affected too much of his kindness or brightness. Even when he's unwell, he'd still like to spread his kindness in case anyone needs it. Sometimes the smallest gesture can make someone's day.
He couldn't do this anymore—this resting thing was difficult, and it was a waste of time.
Ever since Zayn's last visit, he hadn't worn those blue silk pyjamas. He felt silly in the onesie he had chosen. But it was cute. That was all that mattered.
Luca moved to his workroom, sitting at his desk with his pen tucked behind his ear.
The now-recovered half-burnt file lay open beneath the glow of his night lamp as Luca stared at it. Its contents were in fact written in a foreign language, but Luca had recognized a word on it when he was back at the scene. Which meant he had learned this language—in a case where the suspect didn't speak his language. Working at TSL had also given him the necessity of learning numerous languages. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been as competent at work. Crimes often happened with the magical beings, who all had their own native tongues. And a good criminal was always secretive, never documenting crucial information in widely spoken languages. They wrote them in their native tongues, and their accomplices all understood. Lucky for Luca, that wasn't a hurdle. He would decipher the file and its contents and make a translated copy.
Luca leaned back slightly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The symptoms had eased since earlier—no dizziness, no sharp pressure in his chest. Only a residual warmth under his skin that he had chosen to ignore.
"Chosen" being the operative word.
His lamp flickered ever so subtly once. Luca caught it in his peripheral vision. He glanced at it, sighing.
"Must be cheap wiring. It's okay, I'll read in the dark if I need to," he muttered to himself.
His eyes returned to the file. The brand on the elf's photograph stared back at him—neck exposed, the sigil etched into flesh with deliberate precision. Luca had memorized the geometry by now. The way the petals fanned out. The stem. It was beautiful—but cruel.
The artifact next to him hummed. Soft. Barely perceptible.
Luca stilled. He hadn't brought the artifact with him—or he had subconsciously.
The sound stopped. Luca scrunched up his eyebrows, with concern filling him from head to toe.
He exhaled slowly through his nose and reached for his tablet to cross-reference the sigil against older criminal exile records. As his fingers brushed the screen, static rippled across it.
A distortion.
The image of the brand shifted for half a second. The lines…moved.
Luca blinked. The screen turned normal. His jaw tightened.
"I might really be tired," he decided. He hadn't slept in days. A cold sweat dripped down his forehead, making him feel out of breath all of a sudden.
He flexed his hand absently and paused.
Something shifted beneath the surface of his wrist. He frowned, trying to shake it off.
It wasn't visible. Not fully. Just a faint discoloration under his skin, branching before fading. His pulse quickened. The artifact hummed again. Longer this time.
"Artifact, please make peace with me. I'm tired…" he murmured.
The air in the apartment felt heavier, rippling and pressing him down. Like a ferocious wave of wind had entered unauthorized.
"All my windows are closed," he thought.
Luca straightened in his chair, running a hand through his hair in frustration. He just wanted to work.
The lamp flickered again—twice in rapid succession—and the light bent oddly across the desk, shadows stretching in the wrong direction for a fraction of a second. The image with the sigil altered slightly—not physically, but the ink appeared darker and thicker. As though the sigil were soaking in something unseen.
Luca rubbed his eyes, thinking this was all an illusion from him missing so much sleep. A pressure built behind Luca's sternum, an impossibly uncomfortable feeling. He inhaled sharply. The sensation wasn't caused by something external. It wasn't the artifact. It was something deep inside of him. And it was answering something. That much he could admit.
The memory of the branded elf flashed in his mind, vivid and intrusive. The charred edges of the photograph. The raw flesh around the mark.
For a split second, images overlapped with his own reflection in the darkened tablet screen that had suddenly shut off. It was the same placement, the same petals. Then it was gone.
Luca pushed back from his chair abruptly, chair legs scraping against the floor. His heart was beating too fast. His curtains lifted without wind. The glasses in his kitchen cabinets trembled in a foreign melody. His lamp, the lights dimmed. Not flickering anymore, but lowering as if something in the room were drawing power inward.
"The artifact?" Luca thought, his head spinning. He pressed a hand to his chest, and heat radiated outward from beneath his chest. It didn't burn, but the sensation was travelling—tracing lines within him. He felt all of it, possibly beginning to panic. It was as if something had been planted there long before he had known to look for it. He didn't know what was happening to him or his apartment. His breaths came in sharp hitches, uneven in every way.
"Smile," he whispered to himself.
The artifact pulsed in perfect rhythm with the thing beneath his skin, like the beat of a forbidden song.
It pulsed once.
Twice.
Then, the pull snapped taut inside him. He keeled over. It felt gut-wrenching and brutal. Like something was being reeled out of him. It wasn't outward—it was inward. Like a hook catching.
Luca's knees buckled. He caught himself on the edge of the desk, vision blurring at the edges and his head pounding. The apartment felt smaller—too small—though it was spacious.
The air felt too dense to inhale properly as he struggled to breathe. One name flashed in his mind. He didn't want to feel like this anymore. He had to get help and tell someone about it. He wasn't alone, like his mother had told him. But he was.
He dropped to his knees, palm flat against the floor as the air pressure surged upward through his spine.
The sigil from the photograph burned behind his eyelids. And somewhere deep in his chest something bloomed.
***
The pull snapped. Not tightened. Snapped.
Zayn stopped midstep atop a rooftop ledge. The city seemed to lurch around him as the sensation in his chest shifted from direction to resistance. His eyes sharpened, as silver as a blade's shine. The tether was no longer leading him forward. It was bracing against him. "Sterling," he thought.
The air around him distorted once—subtle but violent—like heat rising from stone. The idea of teleportation pressed at him again.
This time, he didn't deny it. This wasn't giving in to instinct—he was merely making a critical decision for the best outcome possible.
With a wave of his hand, a portal appeared. Dark purple with the magic in it swirling around gracefully like it had been waiting for this. Zayn stepped in. The fracture through space was silent but absolute. He was engulfed in the void of it for half a second. With one breath he stood above the city. With the next, he stood in the corridor outside the Lush Syrov Apartment Complex. A beautiful sight it was—meant for the wealthy.
The overhead lights flickered in a staggered rhythm as if reacting to his presence. The building hummed faintly, pipes rattling within the walls.
Zayn didn't move immediately; he stayed still. Observing. He listened—not with his ears, but with mana.
The ringing from the dragon-targeted gas was still there, faint but irritating. He shoved past it, filtering the noise with practiced force. He snapped his head to the side—there. Inside. Two pulses. One was familiar, the other—
His jaw tightened. The door. He was sensing too much supernatural energy to be considered safe, and something was wrong with his human. He reached for the handle. The metal bent slightly beneath his fingers before he consciously moderated his strength. The lock clicked once in protest and then surrendered with a mute snap. The wood split along its frame without an explosion, without a spectacle.
He stepped inside, the fire in him burning.
The air hit him first. Dense. Pressurized. Wrong.
The curtains hung suspended midair as if frozen between breaths. The kitchen glasses vibrated faintly in an uneven melody, unwillingly. The lights were dim and lowered unnaturally, like something in the room was siphoning currents inward.
Zayn strode quickly through the hallway of Sterling's suite, feeling a faint pulse. It wasn't random. It was pulsing rhythmically, as if answering something.
Zayn turned the doorknob, stepping in. The artifact lay there, its glow unnaturally bright. The pulse was coming from it—and something else too. Someone else.
Zayn's gaze shifted downwards.
Sterling. On his knees. One hand was braced against the floor, the other clutching his own chest as if holding something in place. His breathing was shallow and uneven—like each inhale required negotiation.
Zayn's chest clenched, his heart acting up.
For half a second, he didn't move. Because he was assessing.
The air around Sterling shimmered faintly, distortion radiating outward from him in shallow waves. Zayn's finger twitched slightly. The sigil from the photograph that lay on Sterling's desk was no longer a memory or ink. It was under his skin. It was faint at first, branching out. Petal lines spread upward from his wrists, disappearing beneath the fabric toward his collarbone.
Zayn felt it then. The second pulse was there once again. Not foreign—not entirely. His own mana reacted to it sharply—like flint striking steel. Recognition of signature. Something ancient threaded through Sterling's body. Something that shouldn't exist.
"Sterling," the name left him. His voice was low, even, and controlled. But the sound carried weight.
Sterling's head lifted slightly at his voice, though his vision appeared unfocused. His lips parted as if to respond, but no words were formed. He had forced a weak smile, yet it didn't quite reach his eyes. He looked so small in that ridiculous penguin onesie. He was the sun when the rain poured, and he was the sun who shone upon the earth when the moon's reign was over.
The air around Luca rippled again, stronger this time. His honey-brown hair spilled over his eyes—as if attempting to protect him.
The artifact hummed louder.
Zayn crossed the distance in two strides and lowered himself to one knee in front of him, his cloak settling on the ground. He didn't hesitate. He anchored sterling in his lap, one hand supporting his neck and the other hovering once—briefly—over Sterling's chest. Then he pressed his palm flat against it. The contact detonated inward.
The sigil flared faintly beneath Sterling's skin, the lines illuminating just enough to confirm what Zayn had already felt.
The pull in his own chest snapped into alignment. Bond.
The pressure in the room increased sharply. Sterling shuddered, eyes fluttering weakly. The lights dimmed another degree, and the glass in the kitchen cracked along its surface in spiderweb fractures.
Zayn exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing his mana downward, stabilizing the field around them.
"Look at me," he whispered, a smidge of emotion hidden behind his composure. It wasn't a command; it was a directive.
Sterling's eyes struggled to focus. For a second, they sharpened—and Zayn saw something flicker behind them. Not possession—not yet. The seed was activating at an alarming pace. It wasn't extracting anything; it was rooting in him. It wasn't allowed to do that.
He grabbed hold of Sterling, fingers tightening instinctively against Sterling's shirt as he felt the energy attempt to anchor deeper. His chest pained him.
"No," he said quietly. It was a command. The word wasn't for Sterling but for whatever had threaded itself into him. The way Sterling looked up at him, unable to fully focus, stirred something deep within him. His light green eyes were void of their usual brightness. This was wrong in every way.
Zayn pushed his own mana forward—not violently, but precisely. He was trying to isolate the foreign current without harming the already weakened human. His mana roared like silver fire, engulfing them in its predatory dance. The moment his power touched the seed fully, it answered. The reaction was immediate and deliberate as the sigil brightened. And the second pulse synchronized completely with his own. Zayn went still, eyebrows furrowing.
That should have been impossible.
The mana signature wasn't random. It wasn't newly formed. It was familiar.
His expression didn't change, but something colder than fury settled behind his eyes. The scum hadn't only planted this but had calibrated it.
Sterling's breath faltered again, his body trembling as the internal hook tightened. His eyes began to falter, losing even more of their brightness.
Zayn adjusted his grip, one hand now steady at the back of Sterling's neck, anchoring him physically as well as magically. His silver gaze seeped into Luca's, never leaving his face. Anger burned under his skin—but he couldn't let it show. He controlled himself, and he would keep it that way.
"Stay with me," he said, lower this time, with everything he felt in his tone. He tapped Sterling's face lightly—he couldn't close his eyes. That was dangerous.
The apartment walls groaned softly as the pressure peaked. And beneath Zayn's palm, the seed bloomed wider.