THE GOLDEN-EYED CROW

The ledger burned in Draven's grip.

Cassian's name.

Not just an ally—a patron. The Black Serpents moved his drugs, silenced his enemies, carved his mark into the city's underbelly.

Draven's blackened veins pulsed with understanding.

This was why he'd been reborn here.

A flutter of wings.

In the rafters, a crow watched him—unnaturally still. Its eyes gleamed gold.

Draven's dagger flashed.

The crow dodged, cawing mockingly as it soared through a broken window.

Toward the palace district.

Draven staggered into a flooded sewer tunnel, his body burning.

Every kill had fed the thing inside him. Now it writhed, demanding more.

He tore off his shirt.

Black veins spread like roots from his heart. His muscles twitched, fibers rearranging.

"Give in," the voice hissed.

Draven slammed his fist into the stone wall.

Cracks spiderwebbed outward.

Control. He needed control.

A splash echoed ahead.

Three figures emerged from the gloom—Black Serpent scouts, blades drawn.

"Boss said you'd come this way," one sneered.

Draven smiled.

Perfect.

The first scout died mid-swing.

Draven's fingers speared through his throat, ripping out the spine.

The second screamed—

A backhand crushed his skull.

The third ran.

Draven leapt, clearing ten feet in a single bound. His hand closed around the man's head—

Slammed him face-first into the sewer wall.

Teeth shattered. The scout gurgled, "P-please—"

Draven twisted.

Neck snapped.

Silence.

His veins darkened further.

High above the slums, in a tower of black glass, a woman in silver robes lowered her hand from a scrying pool.

The image of Draven's massacre faded.

"Interesting," murmured Lady Sylas, spymaster to the crown.

The golden-eyed crow perched on her shoulder.

"A weapon… or a threat?"

Her fingers traced the pool's edge. Ripples formed, revealing Cassian Veyne laughing at a banquet, wine cup raised.

"Let's find out."

Draven emerged from the sewers near the merchant district.

A child tugged his sleeve.

"M-mister…" A girl, no older than eight, trembling. "A man gave me silver. Said to give you this."

She pressed a folded note into his palm and fled.

Draven unfolded it.

Two words:

"STOP DIGGING."

A shadow moved atop a nearby roof.

Archers.

A dozen crossbows aimed at his heart.

The crossbow bolt exploded against Draven's chest—not into blood, but into splinters.

The archers froze.

Draven looked down. Where the bolt had struck, his skin rippled black, hardening like forged iron before fading back to flesh.

"They cannot kill us," the voice purred.

The rooftop archers nocked new bolts with shaking hands.

Draven moved.

Bodies rained from the rooftops.

The last archer screamed as Draven hauled him down by the ankle, slamming him onto the cobblestones.

"Who sent you?" Draven growled.

The man spat blood. "Go to hell—"

Draven's thumb pressed into his eye socket.

"Already been."

A chime cut through the gurgling screams.

Draven turned.

At the alley's end stood a woman in silver robes, her face hidden by a veil of living shadow. The golden-eyed crow perched on her shoulder.

"Draven Veyne," she said. "Or what's left of him."

Lady Sylas's tower reeked of magic.

Draven's bones vibrated as he crossed the threshold, his black veins writhing in response to the wards.

"You're hunting Cassian," Sylas said, pouring wine she didn't offer him. "A noble goal. But you're a hammer swinging at shadows."

She flicked her hand. The shadows coalesced into a map of the city—dots of light marking Black Serpent safehouses, Cassian's guard rotations, even the secret tunnels beneath the palace.

Draven's pulse thundered. "Why help me?"

Sylas smiled. "Because Cassian's new allies frighten me. And you..." Her crow cawed. "You're already damned."

The spymaster pressed a dagger into Draven's palm.

"Your body is changing. But you're still thinking like a man."

She sliced his forearm open.

Blood dripped—then stopped. The wound sealed in seconds, leaving only a black scar.

"Every kill makes you stronger," she whispered. "But each time you heal... something human burns away."

Draven clenched his fist. The bones beneath his skin protruded for a heartbeat—sharp.

"Good."

Sylas led him to a iron door etched with runes.

"Cassian's pet mage crafted this. A wraith bound in silver. Unkillable."

The door screamed open.

Something lurched in the darkness—a figure of liquid moonlight, its hands ending in blades.

"Survive until dawn," Sylas said, sealing him in.

The wraith attacked.

Draven grinned.

Molten silver dripped from Draven's jaws as the tower guards stumbled back in horror.

The wraith's arm crumbled to ash between his teeth.

Lady Sylas said nothing—but her crow shrieked, its golden eyes reflecting the thing Draven was becoming.

"You swallowed its essence," she murmured. "That should have killed you."

Draven spat silver onto the floor. It hissed through the stone.

"I'm hard to kill."

His tongue forked as he spoke.

Just for a second.

Sylas led him to a black mirror.

"Cassian's banquet is tonight. You'll go as Captain Dain Veyne—his long-lost cousin."

She pressed a skin-mask into his hands. The dead man's face rippled, still warm from whatever dark magic preserved it.

Draven flinched.

Dain had been real. A loyalist. A man he'd known.

"You hesitate?" Sylas mocked. "After eating a wraith?"

Draven slammed the mask against his face.

It screamed as it fused to his flesh.

The Grand Hall blazed with light.

Draven—now "Dain"—smiled as Cassian embraced him. His brother's scent flooded his nose: bergamot and poison.

"Twenty years, cousin!" Cassian laughed, wine sloshing. "Where have you been?"

Draven's new face smiled.

"Hell."

Beneath the mask, his real jaw unhinged, teeth lengthening. He swallowed the impulse to bite here, now, in front of them all—

A hand clamped his arm.

"You're sweating, Captain," murmured a woman in sapphire silks—Lady Taria, Cassian's wife. Her eyes glowed faintly violet. "Perhaps some air?"

The moonlit garden reeked of night-blooming roses.

Lady Taria slammed Draven against a marble pillar, her delicate fingers crushing his windpipe.

"I know what you are," she hissed. "The thing Sylas dug up."

Violet fire swirled in her pupils.

Draven laughed, his true voice slithering out.

"Then you know you can't stop me."

His tongue lashed out—too long, too sharp—and pierced her wrist.

She recoiled, but not fast enough.

A drop of her blood hit his tongue.

Power detonated through him.

Memories not his own:

A child's corpse in a gilded crib.

Cassian weeping over it—then smiling as violet fire consumed the tiny body.

Lady Taria chanting, her belly swelling unnaturally fast beneath her robes.

Draven wrenched free.

"You're not his wife," he rasped. "You're his ally. His sorceress."

Taria's face rippled, revealing scales beneath.

"And you," she whispered, "are the failed experiment that got away."