Chapter Twenty-Five – Smoke, Secrets, and Sena

Volund leaned against the train station pillar, arms crossed. His coat was scorched at the hem, and his expression unreadable.

"This is where I get off, kid."

Liam blinked. "What? You're leaving now?"

"You've got Sena. She'll keep you alive—unless she kills you first."

Sena snorted.

Volund handed Liam a small envelope—sealed with red wax and marked with a curious sigil. "Don't open this until you're sure you want to know more."

"More about what?"

Volund winked, then turned and disappeared into the snow without another word.

Liam and Sena watched until he vanished.

Then, silence.

Only the crunch of snow underfoot.

After several paces, Liam turned to her. "So… what exactly do you do?"

Sena shrugged. "A little freelance this, a little international espionage that. Corporate sabotage, artifact recovery, some demon-hunting on Thursdays."

He raised a brow. "Demon-hunting?"

She grinned. "It keeps the cardio interesting."

"Sena, seriously. Why are people trying to kill me?"

Her expression turned guarded. "Because you're digging. And the thing you're digging for? It's not supposed to be found."

Liam pulled the book fragment from his coat pocket. "It's just a story."

She shook her head. "No. It's a map. A warning. And a truth someone buried very, very deep."

They arrived at a safehouse, a crumbling warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Inside, Sena lit a small fire in a steel drum.

"I met a man once," she said. "Deep in Mongolia. Said he found a ruin that bled light. Carvings older than history. He mentioned a name—Kael. Said it in a whisper like it might hear him."

Liam sat down slowly. "So Kael was real."

"Oh, he was real. Still might be."

That made Liam pause. "Still might be…? What does that mean?"

Sena tossed him a strange metal cube. "It means time doesn't move the same way for those who change it."

He turned the cube in his hands. It hummed faintly. Symbols shimmered.

"Is this… his?"

"No idea," she said. "But every time I've come near something linked to him, people have died. That cube killed two men in Prague. Just turned them off like a bad signal."

Liam stared at her. "And you kept it?"

She smirked. "Of course. It's part of the fun."

Lightning flashed outside the broken window.

Liam looked at the flickering shadows. "Sena… do you think Kael knew he'd be hunted?"

She didn't answer right away. Then softly: "I think Kael planned it."

He turned to her, eyes wide. "What if… what if we're not just discovering history? What if we're part of it?"

The lights flickered.

The cube pulsed in his palm.

Somewhere, far away, a voice whispered from the past:

"The future remembers the bold."

And Liam knew—this wasn't a story he was reading.

This was a story he was trapped in.

To be continued...