Raevyn kicked Leo out with a smile and a wave. Literally.
"Thanks for the coffee, closure, and a mild existential crisis. Be sure to let the door hit you on the way out."
He hesitated at the threshold.
"Rae—"
"Don't. I've got enough ghosts in here without you auditioning to be one."
The wards pulsed as he stepped back into the night.
She stood at the door for a moment longer than she meant to, hand resting against the frame like it might hold her up. Then she turned, slammed it shut, and the wards flared into place with a muted hum.
She stood still for a second, knuckles white around the doorframe. Then she swore under her breath and turned around.
The apartment felt too full, like Leo had dragged a storm in with him and left the air heavy with ghosts. Her chest tightened. She was still gripping the coffee cup he'd brought. She hurled it across the room. It hit the wall with a dull thunk, coffee sloshing down like blood.
A sound burst from her throat—half sob, half scream. She staggered to the bathroom, yanked open the mirror cabinet, and fumbled for the small hand mirror hidden in the back. Her fingers trembled as she twisted to catch sight of her back.
The scar was still there.
A savage, jagged twist of ruined skin that started at her left shoulder blade and curved downward like a claw mark from the gods themselves. It was raised and pink and old, and yet she swore she could still feel it pulsing sometimes. A reminder of the Void's touch. Of how close she'd come to being nothing.
She dropped the mirror, clutching the sink like it might hold her together. Her knees buckled. She slid to the floor.
Tears tracked down her cheeks before she noticed they were falling.
Her breath came fast. Ragged. Too loud in the silence. Her body remembered even if her mind tried to forget—the pain, the betrayal, the absolute certainty that she was going to die alone in that dark.
And Leo.
Always Leo.
"You chose him," her mother had spat when she returned bloodied and broken. "You let him into your heart and this is what it bought you."
Raevyn pressed her forehead to the cold tile floor. She stayed like that until her breath evened.
Then she stood.
She returned to the living room like a ghost haunting her own life. The folder still sat on the table like a curse waiting to be spoken aloud.
She sat down, pulled it open, and the scent of old magic and blood hit her in the face.
Inside were sketches. Photos. Autopsy notes. Symbols she hadn't seen since her training in the Royal Court's secret archives. Void glyphs fused with Fae linework. Rituals designed not just to destroy—but to rip open. To invite.
Memories rose like bile.
Her mother's voice, cold and regal: "You are the bridge between Courts, Raevyn. Between Light and Dark. Don't forget what that means."
Her father's smile, fierce with pride as he handed her her first blade: "Not every monster is born. Some are made. Sometimes we have to be the ones who make them bleed."
Leo—foolish, reckless Leo—kissing her with blood on his collar and defiance in his bones: "You and I, Rae, we were never meant for peace."
Her hands clenched around the folder.
She hadn't just walked away from the Court of Mist. She'd walked away from legacy. From destiny. From a war she couldn't win and a world that never stopped asking for more.
But the door was opening again.
And no one else knew how to close it.
She closed the folder slowly, pressing her palm against the seal like a promise.
She didn't cry. Didn't scream.
She just stared at the wall where the coffee still dripped like blood.
And then, finally, she whispered to the empty room:
"One last time. Then I disappear for good."
The Void stirred.
And Raevyn... answered.
The afternoon shine did nothing to cut through the shadows that clung to her apartment. It wasn't just the closed curtains or the dust-choked air. It was the presence of knowing—the burden of truth unfolding itself again.
Raevyn sat hunched over the low table, ink staining her fingers as she scribbled furiously into the journal she pulled from the shelf.
Half-finished cups of coffee littered the floor around her. Pages fluttered with her hastily written notes, diagrams, and spell translations—Void glyphs paired beside ancient Fae warding circles, each one annotated with ink-stained questions.
She chewed the end of her quill, reading back her latest entry:
The Void is not simply a place. It is a mirror. A forge. A wound. It takes what we feel in our darkest moments and sculpts it into something with teeth.
She paused, eyes flickering to the folded parchment Leo had left behind. The Voidmark on its seal pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. A reminder that the doorway wasn't hypothetical.
It was real. Open. Hungry.
Her mind swirled with memory—of wars whispered through court halls, of her mother's cold voice during strategy councils, of her father's hand gripping hers too tightly as he warned her never to "touch the shadow beneath the glamour."
Back then, she'd been a girl in silver and silk, pretending her crown didn't weigh down her bones.
Now?
She dipped her pen again.
Theories emerge: Each child marked was born under specific celestial alignments—planar echoes. Void-sensitive bloodlines. That's not random. It's ritualistic targeting. Someone is choosing.
Raevyn set the pen down. Her fingers were trembling again.
She pushed away from the table and stood, stretching her stiff muscles. Her gaze fell to the cracked mirror hanging lopsided by her bookshelf. Not vanity—utility. She studied her reflection.
Unbraided hair. Sleepless eyes. Scar faintly visible where her robe had slipped from her shoulder. That mark had once ended her—cut her out of the Courts, out of Leo, out of herself.
And now?
It was the beginning again.