“This is unpleasant,” Aedran murmured, raking a hand through his hair in discomfort.

  Lyara still had one hand over her mouth, struggling not to vomit, as the forensics team entered the room. A few of them stifled a cry; most, however, stepped in without ceremony and began examining the scene.

  They collected samples from the blood and the candles, searching for any trace of Camellium. The rest of the group had already left the house—there was no need for them to remain facing the scene for long. Lyara, for her part, had stayed behind to keep Aedran company, though she was already beginning to regret it.

  Mark approached them, shaking his head to confirm there was no sign of Camellium. Aedran nodded, and the forensics team finally cut the ropes. There wasn’t much to investigate: when something like this happened in Veltraxis, there was only one possible explanation.

  They left the house still somewhat dazed. Even for Aedran, witnessing something like that was unusual. The sun was beginning to sink on the horizon; it had taken the forensics team several hours to arrive and confirm the scene. The sky was stained a deep, blinding orange.

  Elryn was sitting on the ground. She wasn’t crying or shaking uncontrollably, but her eyes were unfocused, lost in nothingness. Marreck returned to the group, wiping vomit from his face. Thaelen leaned against a wall, waiting for the pair to come out. Aoi paced back and forth, visibly tense.

  “Was there a mage?” the druid asked.

  Aedran looked at him with mild curiosity. He was surprisingly calm, barely fazed by the sight of an entire family taking their own lives.

  “No. The case was filed as an animal attack,” he confirmed.

  Aoi and Thaelen looked up, utterly confused. Elryn and Marreck, on the other hand, nodded with visible discomfort.

  “Shouldn’t we do something?” Lyara asked, shifting her sword at her side, trying to distract her mind. “Having something like that roaming the streets is a danger to the whole city—especially if it reaches the outer districts, where depression rates are higher.”

  “Not our problem. There’s nothing for us to do here,” Aedran replied, slipping back into his usual cynical tone. “The Dangerous Creatures Division will handle it.”

  Thaelen suddenly seemed to connect the dots. His eyes widened as he looked at the group, nervous.

  “But what is a creature like that doing in the middle of a city? And why are you treating it like it’s normal?” the Drynari asked, baffled.

  Aedran swept his gaze over the team and noticed that Aoi clearly had no idea what they were talking about.

  “Human stupidity,” he said flatly.

  Lyara growled at him, then turned to the two non-humans.

  “Nightmare devourers have become very common among middle-class families,” she explained, making an effort to be clear for Aoi’s sake. “There are so many of them, and they’re used so often, that every few months one becomes corrupted and turns into a dream devourer.”

  “Sorry… what are these devourers?” Aoi asked, bewildered.

  Thaelen narrowed his eyes.

  “I can’t believe it… you humans are unbelievably irresponsible…” the druid began to complain.

  Lyara couldn’t argue with that and refocused on Aoi.

  “Do you know about non-ethereal creatures?” she asked.

  “Yes. Beasts that don’t belong to this plane but slip into it—like my spiritual powers,” Aoi replied.

  Lyara nodded.

  “That’s one way to see it. To us, they’re formless beings that feed on vital energy. Devourers, specifically, consume dreams. The most common kind is the nightmare devourer—it limits itself to absorbing negative energy. Many families use them to cope with difficult situations. Lately, their use has increased…”

  She paused, clearly disturbed.

  “But sometimes they taste dreams and hopes. And once they do, they become addicted. They start draining them while their owners sleep. Those affected lose the will to live.”

  “Why do they become addicted?” Aoi asked. “It seems more logical for them to feed on negative energy.”

  “Because the energy of dreams is far more powerful,” Marreck replied, crossing his arms.

  Aoi tilted her head, still not quite understanding.

  “Think about it,” he continued. “There may be fewer dreams than negative thoughts, but each one is strong enough to make up for it. They’re the only thing keeping all of us from killing ourselves. Without dreams, there’s just…”

  “There’s no hope,” Elryn said quietly, lowering her gaze.

  Everyone looked at her for a moment, unsettled by her sudden intervention.

  Aoi nodded. Thaelen did too. To both of them, the idea of living alongside creatures that could become so dangerous was madness. But for the people of Veltraxis, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Aedran sighed and started to walk away.

  “Come on. Drinks are on me today. There’s nothing else for us to do here.”

  Lyara opened her mouth to protest; she couldn’t believe they were really going to abandon the scene. Before she could say anything, however, she was cut off by the sharp, synchronized sound of footsteps.

  Everyone turned at once.

  As darkness settled over the street, white armor gleamed like pearls. The holy knights advanced with steady steps, carrying ceremonial spears that looked nearly impossible to wield in actual combat. Behind them, a group of faithful in white silk robes scattered rose petals across the ground as they walked.

  Leading the religious procession was a man of about sixty, moving slowly with his hands clasped, offering blessings to those who passed nearby. Some bowed their heads in gratitude; others ignored him or flashed obscene gestures while clutching the medallion of the Celestial Church.

  The man lifted his gaze and fixed his attention on Aedran.

  A chill ran down Thaelen’s spine as he took a closer look. The man’s hair was dyed a flawless white, like fresh snow; his skin was so pale it seemed to glow faintly in the night. But the most disturbing feature was his eyes: there were no pupils, no irises—only an expanse of absolute white, faintly shaded where his gaze was directed.

  “Who is that?” Aoi asked uneasily, as the faithful passed her by, glaring at her with undisguised contempt.

  The procession stopped directly in front of Aedran, who pressed his lips together.

  “Just my luck… of course it had to be the Church of the White Child,” Aedran muttered, looking down at the priest before him with disdain. The man barely reached his jaw, yet his presence felt as imposing as that of a Gramorgian.

  “The pleasure is mine, Aedran,” the priest replied. “Have you given any thought to our proposal?”

  “Yes. I read a copy every time I go to the bathroom, right before I wipe myself with it,” Aedran shot back flatly.

  “I see your sense of humor is still as lacking as ever. If the White Child were to hear you—” the pastor said, shaking his head as if scolding a child.

  “The day I see him, I’m sure he’ll hear me,” Aedran replied, narrowing his eyes. “What do you and your cult want here?”

  “What an ugly word. Don’t forget that we are the true followers of God’s word,” the priest retorted.

  His followers erupted into a cry of approval. Lyara stepped forward, uneasy at their presence, but the faithful snarled at her like animals when they saw her approach.

  “Easy, my children,” the priest continued. “We have not come to fight—not even against a woman who belongs to those bourgeois pagans. And to answer your question, Aedran, we have come to tend to the souls of the damned.”

  Aedran raised an eyebrow, not fully understanding. He glanced at the forensics team, who had just stepped outside; they looked just as confused.

  “This was an attack by a dream devourer. The Church of the White Child has nothing to do with it… unless—”

  “Yes, my son,” the priest interrupted.

  Aedran gagged at the word son, but the priest ignored his reaction.

  “Although it has yet to be confirmed whether it was a devourer, it could also have been a cult. In any case, we have come to guide the souls close to the family, so they may understand that this is the result of not serving our god: allowing oneself to be dragged into vice and excess, instead of following the guidance of our savior.”

  “Savior of what?” Aedran snapped. “You’re not even the religion of this city. You have no right to speak here.”

  He took a step toward the priest. Instantly, two guards lowered their spears, aiming them at Aedran, who didn’t avert his gaze for a single second. Lyara noticed it wasn’t just irritation—his eyes trembled with restrained fury.

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  “That is precisely the problem,” the priest said. “This city has allowed itself to be guided by the heretical and complacent religion of the Celestial Church.”

  “At least the celestials actually exist,” Aedran spat.

  A collective gasp of outrage rippled through the priest’s followers. Some tried to surge forward, but the father raised a hand to stop them. The guards tightened their grip; the spearheads grazed Aedran’s neck, yet he remained utterly unmoved.

  “You still have a sharp tongue, even when your life hangs by a thread,” the priest added, watching him warily.

  Aedran let out a mocking laugh and grabbed one of the spears with such force it nearly snapped. The guards said nothing; they simply pressed the weapon harder against his throat.

  “Die?” Aedran asked, as a thin line of blood began to slide down his skin. “I could kill you and your zombies before the last ray of sunlight fades.”

  The priest held his gaze. The tension became unbearable; everyone present waited for the next move.

  Then Lyara suddenly slipped between the guards and shoved Aedran back with a couple of firm pushes.

  “Well,” she said with a smile, “it’s always a pleasure to talk to a religious leader and have a calm, civilized discussion about beliefs, isn’t it?”

  Aedran looked at her, bewildered, but she silenced him with a single glance and turned back to the group.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary for a bourgeois woman,” the priest sneered. “Running away from conflict. Your family built its fortune by letting others fight for them.”

  The faithful laughed. Lyara came to a dead stop and returned their mockery with a razor-sharp stare.

  “I’m not running,” she replied. “I’m just preventing you from getting yourselves killed. But if you’re really craving a beating, I’ll gladly smash your head against the ground.”

  The chill that ran through the priest was immediate. Aedran, meanwhile, stared at her in surprise.

  Elryn watched the situation nervously, noticing how the religious group seemed to be struggling to restrain their frustration, already gripping a couple of heavy objects.

  “You know the religion of the White Child talks a lot about racial tolerance, right?” Marreck remarked as he sat down beside her.

  “Aedran isn’t very patient or tolerant either,” Elryn replied.

  “But at least he doesn’t preach it.”

  Thaelen let out a dry chuckle and readied his bow, just in case. The two groups stared each other down for nearly twenty minutes, without a word spoken or a single move made. They stood rigid, coiled with tension. Some people heading out to buy something or returning from the bars turned back the moment they felt that invisible pressure, as if the air itself were about to shatter.

  Until Mark stepped out of the house and took in the scene.

  He glanced at the forensics team waiting outside; they shrugged uncomfortably. The squad leader sighed, tucked the necklace bearing the symbol of the Celestial Church beneath his clothes, and approached Aedran.

  “Hey, we need to talk,” Mark said, avoiding the suspicious stares. “According to the records, two children lived in this house.”

  “And?” Aedran asked, turning toward him.

  “Did you see either of them hanging?” the forensics officer asked, tilting his head.

  Lyara and Aedran stared at him, stunned.

  “And then the people call me rude.”

  “The point is, the children aren’t in the house,” Mark continued.

  Aedran thought for a moment. The priest raised an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement glinting in his white eyes.

  “A dream devourer takes longer to drain children,” Aedran deduced. “You know—because of the whole innocence thing. It probably abducted them to keep feeding until it finds another victim.”

  “They do that?” Lyara asked, trying to recall if she had ever heard something like that before.

  “This one’s been active for weeks,” Mark replied, running a hand through his hair. “We usually hunt them down within days, because of the risk they pose to other devourers. We don’t know how they behave after being active that long.”

  Lyara nodded, visibly unsettled. She looked at Aedran and noticed that his expression had shifted—just slightly, but enough.

  The priest’s restrained laughter cut through the moment. He watched them with an unsettling calm. Aedran looked up, confused at first, then his face hardened.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” the priest said. “We’ll find them and give them a home in our church’s orphanage. It’s a girl and a boy, correct?”

  The expectant tone made Aedran’s stomach churn with visceral disgust. Lyara looked at him, confused.

  “Change of plans,” the unit leader declared. “We’re hunting a dream devourer.”

  They moved through the dark streets of Veltraxis, leaping from building to building. Their shift should have ended long ago, but given the circumstances—and Aedran’s direct order—they were going to be working overtime.

  Aedran knew the night was their best chance to find the devourer. It would be desperate for a new source of sustenance before the children’s minds were completely emptied. The group moved swiftly across rooftops of stone and concrete.

  They stopped in the commercial district of the Third Circle, a wide stone plaza dominated by a fountain the size of a house. Aedran paused in front of the statue atop it. The grayish marble conveyed nothing in particular—except for the eyes: two embedded rubies that glowed faintly, and the unmistakable sword of humanity’s hero, Lodtrack.

  Around them, the last market stalls were closing for the night, while food carts were beginning to open, preparing ingredients for drunkards spilling out of bars or heading home.

  Several government buildings stood nearby, but there was no sign of an active alert for a devourer in the area. The group exchanged looks as Aedran sat on the edge of the fountain, lost in thought.

  “So what are those ears of yours telling you, Thaelen?” the Gramorgian asked, half-joking.

  “Go to hell,” Thaelen growled. “I can’t hear a damn thing with these injuries.”

  He brushed his fingers over the bandages covering his ears. Lyara narrowed her eyes and gave his shoulder a couple of gentle pats.

  “Well, that’s a problem. It seems to be particularly elusive.”

  “Or we’re overestimating its intelligence,” Marreck said. “At the end of the day, it’s still an animal. Most likely it’ll satisfy its hunger with the children first before looking for more victims.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Aedran replied. “Otherwise, those kids are doomed.”

  Elryn hugged herself. The leader watched her for a moment; she hadn’t said a single word since they left the house.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Elryn looked up, uneasy.

  “I don’t feel safe here,” she admitted.

  To Aedran, she was never calm, so he was about to press her further when Aoi stepped between them. Aedran looked up, confused.

  “What she means,” Marreck began, “is that the nature of a dream devourer is far more dangerous than that of an ordinary creature. It doesn’t attack the body—it attacks the mind. If you’re susceptible to that kind of influence, you become the perfect prey.”

  Aedran sighed. In part, he was right. He thought it over for a few seconds, surprised by how quickly Elryn had assessed her own condition. She seemed far more aware of her mental state than he had expected.

  They stood there for a couple of minutes until the lamplighter emerged from the streets. He rode atop a lentigarra; the creature scraped the ground with its long claws while the man, using a nearly six-meter pole, lit the streetlamps one by one.

  The leader straightened up and stretched.

  “All right, it’s a problem,” he conceded, “but if we keep searching like this, we won’t find anything.”

  He pulled a pair of signal flares from his uniform.

  “Each of you has two. Aoi, stay with Elryn. Thaelen, you’re with Marreck. Those two are the most psychologically vulnerable, so they’ll serve as bait. If you spot the devourer, fire the flare immediately.”

  He turned to Thaelen.

  “You know how to kill a devourer, right?”

  Thaelen nodded, holding up his white-steel knife. Aedran returned the gesture.

  “And Aoi’s spiritual abilities, from what I understand, work against them as well.”

  “Yes. They’re the same type,” Elryn replied, to everyone’s surprise.

  Several gazes turned toward her.

  “I read about it recently,” she added. “Especially about devourers.”

  Aedran narrowed his eyes, turned away, and headed deeper into the city. Lyara immediately noticed he hadn’t given her any instructions, so she assumed she was free to go wherever she pleased.

  “Why the hell are you coming with me?” Aedran asked as they moved through the streets of Veltraxis.

  Even though it was well past midnight, the streets were still crowded: groups heading to bars or lost in supposedly philosophical debates fueled by cheap vodka and endless discussions about why women were so complicated.

  “I wanted to stay a bit closer,” Lyara admitted, greeting a nearby group with a polite smile.

  Aedran looked at her, puzzled, then snorted mockingly and kept walking.

  She didn’t fully understand him. If anyone needed emotional support, it was him. But knowing Aedran, he probably believed he was perfectly fine.

  She thought for a few seconds, searching for the right words, until she noticed a group of young people shouting carefree laughter. When they noticed her, they fell silent. Lyara expected insults, but one of them laughed and poured two drinks, offering them.

  Aedran took his without hesitation and drained it in a single gulp, handing the glass back. Lyara hesitated for a moment; maybe she had to play along if she wanted him to open up. She took the glass and drank as well, grimacing as the liquor burned her throat.

  “Who would’ve thought,” one of them joked. “Little Miss Valbourg drinking while on duty.”

  “People are happy, and one drink won’t get me drunk,” Lyara replied as she returned the glass and walked away. “So it doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling Kaeldric for ten years,” Aedran laughed as they continued on.

  They explored alleys and districts where the city already seemed asleep. They found nothing out of the ordinary: a couple of urban lemurs, a few vagrants… they even crossed paths with a pair of common nightmare devourers.

  Lyara always felt a shiver when she saw them. They had a wolf-like silhouette, but no solidity—shadows that constantly warped, with two yellow points serving as eyes.

  She then remembered the religious group. Their guards had to be searching for the children as well, something Aedran wanted to avoid at all costs—though Lyara still couldn’t quite understand why.

  “They really are quite aggressive, aren’t they?” Lyara remarked, a little nervously. “The religious ones, I mean.”

  Aedran raised an eyebrow.

  “I suppose. It’s ironic how the so-called ‘loving’ religious types are often the first to throw stones when something doesn’t fit what they want.” Lyara paused for a moment. “They’re hypocrites.”

  “I didn’t think you hated hypocrites.”

  “Everyone hates them,” Aedran replied, “until they realize that we all are… at least a little.”

  “Everyone?”

  “I suppose there are exceptions… like you, sugar cake,” Aedran said with a sigh, gently tapping her nose. “There’s no such thing as a universal law, but it’s fairly common. Though… I still don’t know you well enough.”

  “But you seem to know them very well,” Lyara shot back. “And considering the kind of person you are, I didn’t expect you to care about the future of those children.”

  “I don’t care what happens to them,” Aedran answered flatly.

  Lyara tilted her head, confused, silently demanding an explanation. The gramorguian sighed.

  “I can’t fix their lives. They’ll have to fight for them on their own. But the Church of the White Child… that’s stealing their chance altogether,” he continued. “Did you see the guards? How they didn’t even react?” Lyara nodded. “They’re orphans adopted by the Church of the White Child. They put them through behavioral therapies until their minds break. What’s left are obedient bodies… basically lobotomized.”

  “Wait… are you serious?” Lyara asked, eyes wide with horror as she began scanning the streets more carefully. Aedran gave a slight nod. “That’s horrifying… how does the guard allow something like that?”

  “Normally, I don’t care,” Aedran admitted. “And I don’t like the Celestial Church’s orphanage approach either, but at least they give them a choice when they turn fifteen.”

  He ran his fingers along the wall, searching for traces of blood or residual energy. His expression dimmed slightly.

  “Besides, I’ve got a bad history with that bastard priest…”

  “What happened?”

  Aedran studied her for a few seconds, thoughtful, before replying curtly:

  “Not your problem. Focus on finding that dream eater.”

  Lyara frowned, irritated, but continued forward cautiously. As far as she knew, dream eaters took on a form slightly brighter than their counterparts, which should make them easier to spot. Easier, of course, if Veltraxis weren’t ridiculously huge.

  They had been walking through the city for nearly eight hours and had barely covered half of the Third Circle.

  Lyara sighed, bored. Aedran, meanwhile, kept scanning their surroundings, alert. The apprentice glanced at his armor with curiosity, wondering if tonight she would finally see Camellium technology in action.

  A faint dizziness hit her. Accepting that drink had been a bad idea; she hadn’t even gotten a straight answer out of Aedran. She shook her head, trying to steady herself.

  As they passed in front of a church, she looked up. It belonged to the Celestial Church, recognizable by the curved cross at its peak. According to doctrine, the Lady of the Storm—the most powerful of the celestials—bore that same cross marked upon her face. That was why it had been chosen as their symbol. Even so, no one had seen her in three hundred years.

  Beneath the cross, a clock read two in the morning.

  Lyara narrowed her eyes. The time window when dream eaters were usually active was about to pass. They had lost the night… or so she thought.

  Suddenly, a thunderous blast shattered the silence behind them.

  Both turned just in time to see a trail of glowing gunpowder streak into the sky.

  Aedran narrowed his eyes.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s get there before those White Child idiots do.”

  End of Chapter 13

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