The villa was silent.
It was well past midnight. The Capital's distant noise had faded to a dull hum beyond the Competitor Village walls.
Maeve was asleep in her room, while Emric and Renna had crashed hours ago after celebrating until their bodies gave out. Lyra was in the room next to Holden's, leaving her door slightly open, a habit she'd developed since the dome incident.
Holden lay on his bed. He wasn't asleep but his eyes were closed.
His mind was racing, replaying everything from the meeting with the Lyra's parents.
His 10,000x multiplier ran quietly in the background, processing ambient sounds, monitoring air currents and tracking the heartbeat of the guard stationed outside the villa.
But tonight, it saw nothing.
No warning. No anomaly.
The artifact the assassin carried was called a Void Walker's Mantle. A legendary tool from the Age of Shadows, woven from threads of null-space.
