She arrived in Antiva City just after dusk, her boots scuffed with road dust and her limbs aching from days of travel. The Crow safehouse took her in without question - no names, no greetings, just a place to sleep, resupply, and begin the work. She cleaned up, rested, checked her blades, took her coin. And then she went out into the city.
Before the recon, before the mission, first came the songs.
She hit the taverns one by one, staying to the shadows at first, listening, watching. Antiva City was a nest of lies and velvet smiles, gilded and grim in equal measure. But the bards were always honest, at least in the way they could be bought. She approached the younger ones first, eager, wide-eyed, happy to have a listener and even happier to have coin. Older ones took more convincing, but she had the gold for it. Not a fortune, but enough.
She gave them lyrics. A tune. Something soft, sad, but memorable. Not perfect, but it didn't need to be. The meaning wasn't in the melody. It was in the message. A daughter looking for her father. A song about longing, and loss, and blood. Always blood.
To the bards, it was just another commission from a love-struck girl with a secret pain. To the Crow agents in the room - should any be listening - it was nothing more than sad music meant to earn coin from the sympathetic.
But if he heard it… If Zevran heard it… He'd know. He'd know she was alive. That she remembered. That she was looking. That his little star hadn't been snuffed out.
She planted the song like a seed, paid the coin, and left no names. Never lingered after it was sung. A few of the bards were already planning their next route: south to Rialto, east to Llomerryn. West to Nevarra. With luck, it would spread.
And then she moved on. Back to her purpose. To the job. Reconnaissance first: the mark, the location, the guards, the schedules. All clean work. No one could say she wasn't pulling her weight. Her blades were sharp; her mind sharper. She would do what she came here to do.
But maybe, just maybe… Somewhere in the city, a song would find its way to the right ears. And a man with golden hair and mischief in his eyes would hear it. And know she hadn't forgotten him.
--
The roof tiles were warm beneath her, still holding the memory of the day's sun. Starling lay flat against the slope, chin resting on her folded arms, eyes fixed on the manor below. From here she had a perfect view of the rear courtyard and the guards who moved through it. Too many, but not impossible. She'd been watching for hours now, tracking their rhythm, how often they switched posts, when they paused to talk, when they looked bored. The shift changed ten minutes ago. That meant it was nearing midnight.
She didn't move. Just thought.
Zevran had always come back. She remembered that much. Through the blur of her early years, of firelight, strange cities, rough linen bedsheets, and her mother's laughter growing quieter and quieter, he was the constant. Gone sometimes, yes. But not for long. Never for long. He always returned with something: sweets, stories, sometimes blood on his sleeves and tension behind his grin. But he returned.
Even after her mother died. Especially after.
She reached up, brushing her fingertips along the gold hoop in her ear. It had dulled with time, scratched here and there, but it had never bent. Still perfect in its small, worn way. He'd given it to her after the funeral, his eyes a little red and his voice too steady.
"It was hers first," he'd told her. "Now it's yours. It suits you better anyway, mi estrellita."
His little star.
When Viago had asked if she had a favourite place, she hadn't lied. There wasn't a cliffside that mattered, no tavern, no sunlit field, no garden greenhouse. There'd never been a place. Only a person. Zevran had been her favourite place.
And somehow - somehow - she was going to find her way back to him.
She blinked, shifting her weight slightly to adjust her angle. A patrol walked past the eastern wall, too slow, their footfalls loud. Too complacent. Another note in her mental ledger. She'd build the pattern piece by piece, as always.
But her thoughts drifted again.
If he was out there - and she knew he was - he had to be in hiding. The Crows wanted him dead. If they found out she was looking, it would all fall apart. So she couldn't use letters and couldn't ask questions openly. Couldn't speak his name. She had to be clever. And very, very careful.
But she was his daughter. She had both in her bones.
Clever and careful. She'd learned early that the two weren't always the same. One could be quick and sharp and reckless. The other required patience, dull endurance, the art of invisibility. Zevran had taught her both, sometimes on purpose, sometimes just by being what he was.
And he was hunted. That made things harder.
He wouldn't leave a trail. Not a real one. Not a footprint, not a rumour with weight. Nothing that could be used to track him. Because people were tracking him. The same people she worked for. The same people who had also trained her. The same people who would slit her throat without hesitation if they suspected she'd even thought about reaching out to him.
So he'd be a ghost now. Not the loud, bragging assassin of old tales and drunken Crow gossip. Not the man she remembered sleeping beside the fire, his arm slung over his eyes as he listened to her humming, pretending not to smile. No. Zevran Arainai would be quiet now. He'd be cautious. A shadow, buried somewhere deep.
And she was going to find him anyway.
Starling stayed on the rooftop until dawn, legs stiff, eyelids heavy, muscles aching. She watched the guard patterns repeat and loop again, watched the sky bleed from navy into pale grey, then bloom with hints of gold. The streets began to stir below. A cart rattled by, and someone shouted at a dog. And still she didn't move. Not until the light got too clear and her silhouette too visible.
Only then did she creep down the side of the building, silent as a breeze, slipping into alleyways and cutting back toward the safehouse. Her limbs felt heavy, her head thick with sleep, but she'd done what she meant to do.
One more night of watching. One more piece of the puzzle.
She made it to the safehouse without incident, climbed the back stairs, and curled into the thin cot in her room, window cracked, her pack under her head, her boots beside the bed.
Finding Zevran would be hard. But it wouldn't stop her.
--
The wall was easier than it looked. Rough-hewn stone gave her fingers plenty of purchase, and the guards were as lazy as she remembered, one pausing every third circuit to smoke, the other too busy trying to flirt with the scullery maid in the alley. Pathetic. She didn't even have to crouch low; she just timed her ascent between glances.
The dog gave her a moment's pause, big and broad-chested with one ear that twitched at the sound of her landing. But she dropped a chunk of dried sausage from her pocket into the bushes and kept moving. It didn't even bark.
The second-floor window had a broken latch. She'd seen it last night, the angle imperfect, the gap barely visible to someone not looking. But she had been. She slid her dagger in and twisted. The window gave way with the softest pop. She was inside in seconds.
Cool air. No creaking floorboards. Well-maintained house. She kept her weight distributed evenly anyway, soft-stepping toward the bedroom like her bones had memorised the shape of silence.
They were both asleep.
The mark was a heavyset man with thick brows and a silver chain still around his neck. His wife lay curled beside him, one hand flopped over his chest like she trusted he'd still be breathing when she woke. Starling swallowed back the pang in her throat. She hated this part.
She moved in close. Close enough to see the slow flutter of his eyes beneath the lids. Close enough to smell wine and something greasy on his breath.
Then one swift movement. A blade angled just so. Quick. Deep. Precise. He didn't make a sound. Neither did his wife.
He slumped in the bed, head tilting slightly to the side like he'd simply shifted in sleep. But the blood would tell the truth soon. The sheets would soak through. She wondered if his wife would wake early and notice the warmth gone from her side. Or maybe she'd dream of him, roll toward him for comfort and find him cold.
Starling slipped the chain from his neck. Proof of death. She didn't linger. Back out the window. Down the wall. Through the shadows of a city still caught in its sleep. No dog, no guard, no sound.
Quick. Clean. Quiet. Just the way she liked it.