In the gritty streets of Kallzara, a small wayside town where light barely touches the alleys, Revan Sorna survives by his wits—and by magic long forbidden. With the help of a shadowy tome found in forgotten ruins beneath the city, Revan can summon shadows to deceive and distract, but such power comes with a price: shadows cannot be created from nothing, and his own is lazy and stubborn, testing his patience at every turn.

Revan’s partner in crime, Cassie, is a clever con artist with a talent for ice magic and a convincing lost-girl act. Together, they make a perfect team, surviving by picking pockets, pulling cons, and running from those who would see their kind dead or worse.

Tonight’s target is an easy mark: a drunken sailor leaving The Golden Pig tavern. But when Revan’s swift theft is interrupted by a brutal punch, the simple job spirals into something far more dangerous—and far more personal.

As dark secrets from the ruins threaten to surface and enemies close in, Revan and Cassie must rely on their skills, their magic, and each other to survive. But in a town where shadow magic is heresy and trust is a currency rarer than gold, survival might just mean losing everything.

A post-Crown short storyCharacter Focus: Kael


One moment he'd stood in the fracture's heart beside the scholar — runes unraveling, the ritual collapsing — and the next, he was somewhere else:


A non-place.Not death. Not dream.Something in between.


The day he chose to leave the Accord, fists bloodied, voice raw.


The night he buried his twin blades beside the scholar's fire.


And the look in Revan's eyes, just before they both thought the end had come.


Through a faultline — a cracked mirror in the ley's edge, opened like a wound.


He clawed his way out in a valley where no one lived, where even ghosts didn't linger.


Kael had returned.But the world had moved on without him.


Instead, he walked — nameless — across quiet lands and ley-dimmed fields.


Broke up a child-fight in a Hollowroot tavern and left before they asked his name.


Burned fever from an old priest's blood without lifting a blade.


"No one important. Just someone who came back the wrong way."


In a secondhand market near the spine of the north, he saw it:The scholar's journal — or a copy of it, smuggled out, worn by time and reverence.


"For Kael, if you're not dead. I know you're too stubborn to be dead.""We remember. We wait. Come home if you're ready. If not... we'll meet you on the road."


Then, gently, tucked it into his cloak.


But that night, he whispered into the ley — quietly, like an apology.


Chapter 57 - The Man Who Didn’t Die