CHAPTER 188: REPORT

She leaned back in her chair, gaze drifting toward the city lights outside her window. The Association sprawled beneath her, countless hunters and civilians relying on its strength, its rules. And within it, two names had begun to tangle together: Varik and this Lucen boy.

She had dossiers on both.

Varik’s file was thicker than most textbooks. History soaked in battlefields, sealed-class dungeons, military deployments. He had been indispensable, unstoppable, unshakable.

Lucen’s file was... thin. Too thin. Records inconsistent. Reports of strength that didn’t match the numbers. A tendency to be in places where the impossible kept happening. And now, Varik of all people was at his side.

She folded her hands together, resting her chin on the knuckles.

"Lucen," she murmured aloud. The name felt untested on her tongue.

The obsidian relay stone pulsed again. A second message, this one written not in code but in the raw pulse of Division Black’s unease.

Orders?

Elira smiled faintly, though no warmth touched it.

Orders. That was always the question. Watchers needed orders. Hunters needed orders. The world needed orders.

She closed her eyes, considering.

To tighten the net would provoke Varik. To pull back would hand him the board uncontested. To strike at Lucen directly was suicide; anyone the mountain chose to guard became untouchable.

No. The game had to be subtler than that.

She tapped her nail once against the stone. ’Maintain observation. Do not engage. Adjust positions.’

A pause. Then she added, with the faintest curl of a smile: ’And if Varik looks at you again, look back.’

—

The relay pulsed once. Elira’s voice spread through them like frost down a windowpane, calm, cold, unchallengeable.

Orders given.

Signal stowed the shard, her face unreadable. She tapped once against her thigh. Maintain. No retreat. If acknowledged again, engage visually.

The other four rippled acknowledgment through their silent codes.

For the first time in years, Division Black would not only watch. They would let themselves be seen.

—

Down the hall, Varik leaned against the cold wall of the bunker, eyes half-lidded, listening.

He didn’t need magic to know. He could feel it, the shift in the air, the way silence sharpened a fraction more, how the unseen threads pulled tighter instead of slackening.

Elira had answered.

And Division Black had listened.

He allowed himself a single breath of amusement, quiet and brief. So that was how she wanted to play.

Behind him, he could hear Lucen turning in his bunk, muttering something in his sleep, some half-formed word, sharp with frustration.

Varik straightened, footsteps soundless as he moved back toward the room. His hand brushed the hilt of his blade as he passed under a shadow where he knew, knew, someone watched.

For the briefest second, he let his eyes lift, not fast, not glaring. Just a steady, deliberate glance into the corner where no one was supposed to exist.

And when the shadow looked back, just for a flicker, Varik’s lips curved into the smallest, sharpest edge of a smile.

Then he walked on, leaving the watchers to choke on their own silence.

—

The obsidian relay dimmed, its last pulse fading into silence. Division Black was steady again, settled into obedience. For now.

Elira let her hands slide from the stone, fingers smoothing the papers before her as if to erase its presence from the moment. She hated leaving traces. In this building, in this chair, everything she did carried weight. A raised eyebrow could start a war. A pause too long could topple a guild.

But tonight required more than shadows and reports.

She pressed her fingertip against a crystal embedded in the desk, this one pale, not black. A summons stone. Its glow rippled outward, carrying her command through the tower’s veins.

A voice answered, polite but cautious. "Director Dane. Who shall I summon?"

Elira didn’t hesitate. "Selindra Kael."

There was a pause, the kind that meant surprise but never dared show it fully. "...At once."

The light winked out.

Elira stood, walking toward the glass wall of her office. The city stretched wide below, towers glittering like lances of ice, streets veined with golden light. Somewhere down there, Varik was playing guardian to his strange little companion. Somewhere down there, the watchers held their breath in shadows.

Selindra’s arrival would add the next layer to the board.

The door behind her hissed open.

"Director."

Her voice always arrived before she did, low, clear, touched by a faint accent that Elira could never quite place.

Selindra Kael stepped inside without hurry, the crimson trim of her coat cutting against the stark white of the Association’s hallways. Her hair, silver-blonde and braided to one side, caught the light like a blade edge. A sword hung at her back — a weapon she never unstrapped, even in meetings.

Elira turned slowly, offering the faintest of smiles. "Selindra. Thank you for coming so quickly."

The younger woman tilted her head, studying her with eyes the color of steel rain. "Summons at midnight aren’t usually for dinner invitations."

Elira’s smile deepened a fraction. "No. Not dinner."

Selindra walked closer, her boots silent on the polished stone. She didn’t sit. She rarely did. Standing kept her balanced, ready, an instinct bred by battle and suspicion alike.

Elira liked that about her. Hunters who sat too easily were hunters who forgot where the blades came from.

"You’ve been near Varik recently," Elira said, her tone deceptively casual.

Selindra’s eyes narrowed slightly. "If you already know, why ask?"

"Because I want to hear your impression." Elira turned back to the cityscape, hands folded loosely behind her back. "Reports only tell me numbers. I prefer to know the texture of things."

Selindra let the silence hang. When she spoke, her words were measured, precise. "He’s... unchanged. Still the immovable wall everyone else pretends to be."

"And the boy?"

Selindra didn’t answer immediately. Elira could almost feel her calculating.

Finally: "Odd."

Elira allowed herself a quiet laugh. "Odd. You’ll forgive me, Selindra, but that’s not much of a report."

Selindra’s gaze sharpened. "Because there isn’t much I can explain. Level twenty-eight. Too weak to be useful, too stubborn to vanish. Yet he fights like someone twice his level. More. It’s not natural."

’No,’ Elira thought. ’It isn’t.’

Aloud, she said, "And Varik keeps him close."

"Yes." Selindra’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Closer than anyone else."

Elira turned fully then, walking back toward her desk. She studied Selindra openly, letting silence press until the younger woman shifted ever so slightly, a half-breath faster, like steel bowing under weight.

"You think he’s protecting him," Elira said.

Selindra’s mouth twitched. Not denial. Not confirmation. Just a flicker of tension.

Elira leaned her palms against the desk. "Then tell me why."

Selindra’s hand brushed against her sword hilt unconsciously, a nervous tic, though she’d never call it that. "I don’t know."

"Not knowing isn’t acceptable," Elira said softly. Her words weren’t harsh, but they filled the air with iron anyway. "When a mountain like Varik shields a stranger, we don’t wonder. We find out. Do you understand?"

Selindra’s gaze flicked away, just for a second, toward the glass and the sprawl of the city beyond. "...Yes, Director."

Elira straightened again, smoothing her expression into something almost warm. "Good. Then I’ll give you the chance to find out. You’re going to stay close to him. Watch the boy. Not as a shadow, that’s Division Black’s work. But as a... colleague. A peer. Something Varik won’t swat away."

Selindra blinked, surprise cracking her composure just briefly. "You want me to join them."

"I want you to accompany them." Elira’s voice curved on the word, careful and deliberate. "Varik tolerates you more than most. He won’t see you as an enemy. Not yet."

Selindra frowned. "And if he does?"

Elira’s smile returned, thin as a knife. "Then I suppose you’ll learn how long you can stand against him before breaking."

The younger woman stiffened. For a moment, Elira thought she might argue, Selindra wasn’t afraid of her, not like the others. But then Selindra’s eyes lowered, her voice flat.

"When do I leave?"

"Tomorrow." Elira sat again, already reaching for her pen. "Varik will find himself at another dungeon gate soon enough. You’ll be there when he does. Observe. Report. And if you can, test the boy. Subtly."

Selindra turned to go. Her braid shifted across her shoulder like a whip, silver flashing in the office light.

"Selindra," Elira said quietly.

The hunter paused at the door, glancing back.

Elira’s smile this time was almost genuine. "Don’t underestimate him. Either of them."

Selindra held her gaze for a beat. Then she left, the door whispering shut behind her.

Alone again, Elira tapped the pen against paper, thoughts spinning like blades.

Varik had declared himself aware of Division Black. The boy was an anomaly wrapped in secrets. Selindra would walk into their shadow, carrying both suspicion and loyalty.

The game was widening.

And Elira Dane always played to win.

—

The city’s streets had a way of swallowing sound after midnight. Not silence, silence was impossible here, but a layered hush, where every echo of footsteps or rumble of distant engines felt magnified in the absence of daylight chaos.

Selindra Kael walked alone, her coat collar pulled high against the wind. The sword on her back drew looks even at this hour, but no one dared approach. Hunters had a presence that ordinary people recognized instinctively. Predators knew predators.

Her boots clicked against the pavement, measured, unhurried. She didn’t need a map. The directions had been memorized long ago, buried in a corner of her mind until Elira’s summons unearthed them again.

’He thinks it’s hidden. He thinks it’s untouched.’