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The eye was still there when Evira looked down.
Not metaphorical. Not imagination. An actual eye, yellow and slit like a cat's, blinking up from the bottom of the brass tray. Right where her blood had pooled.
She shoved the tray back across the desk before the recruiter could see. Too hard. It skidded, tipped, and her blood spilled across the intake form in a thin red line. The recruiter—some bored guy with ink stains on his collar—didn't even look up.
"Barracks Three," he said. "Report to Drake in the morning. Six sharp. Miss it and you're out."
Evira grabbed her new guild tag and got out of there.
The courtyard was full of men. Big ones. The kind who looked like they ate protein and breaking stuff for breakfast. She kept her shoulders wide, her stride long, her chin down just enough that the cap shadowed her face. The binder under her shirt was already digging into her ribs. She had six months of this ahead of her. Maybe less if she could rack up enough bounty.
She didn't let herself think about Felix's face in that photo.
Barracks Three smelled like sweat, boot leather, and something burnt. She got a bunk in the corner. Nobody cared. New guys showed up every week. Most of them washed out in the first hunt.
She shoved her pack under the bed and sat down. Her hand was still bleeding a little where they'd pricked her finger. She wrapped it in a rag and squeezed.
That eye had looked at her.
She'd heard the stories, same as everyone. Hunters didn't mess with blood magic. That was summoner shit. Illegal for thirty years. The guild had shut down the last of the old academies before she was born. Anyone caught with a bloodmark got executed. No trial.
Evira wiped her hand on her pants and lay back. She had one job. Keep her head down. Earn the bounty. Get Felix out.
Don't bleed on anything.
---
Drake was exactly the kind of hardass she'd expected.
Tall. Scarred. The kind of face that didn't smile unless something was dying. He stood in the training yard at six in the morning with his arms crossed, watching twenty new recruits try not to piss themselves.
"Most of you won't make it," he said. "That's fine. Means the rest of you might survive your first real hunt."
He walked the line. Stopped in front of a guy who looked like he bench-pressed carriages for fun. "You. What's your weapon?"
"Greatsword, sir."
"You'll be dead in three seconds. Next."
He moved on. Stopped in front of Evira.
She kept her eyes forward. Kept her breathing steady. She'd practiced this. Low voice. Flat tone. No nerves.
"Kern," Drake said, reading her tag. "Weapon?"
"Knife," she said. "And crossbow."
His eyes narrowed. "You any good?"
"Good enough."
He stared at her for three long seconds. She didn't blink.
Finally he moved on.
She let out a breath.
---
The first hunt was supposed to be easy.
They called it a "shakedown run." A low-level riftspawn nest outside the city. The kind of thing a halfway competent crew could clear in an hour. Drake took eight of them. Evira kept to the middle of the pack.
The nest was in an old mill. The walls were black with scorch marks. The air smelled like sulfur and rot.
"Stay in pairs," Drake said. "Don't chase anything into the dark. Don't touch the eggs. And if you see a rift opening, you back up and you call me. Clear?"
Everyone nodded.
They went in.
The first riftspawn came out of the walls. Small ones, about the size of dogs, all teeth and claws and too many joints. Evira stayed behind a guy named Carver. He had a spear. She had her crossbow up and ready.
She didn't need it.
Carver was good. Fast. He put the first two down clean. Evira reloaded and scanned the shadows.
That's when she heard the scream.
One of the rookies—a kid with red hair and a face full of freckles—had gone ahead. Alone. There was something on top of him. Bigger than the others. Its back was ridged with bone, and its mouth was open wide enough to bite his head off.
Drake was on the other side of the room.
Evira moved without thinking.
She sprinted, dropped to her knees, slid under the thing's belly and came up with her knife out. She buried it in the soft spot under its jaw. It shrieked. Thrashed. Its claw caught her across the forearm and she felt her skin split open.
Blood hit the floor.
A lot of it.
The kid scrambled back. The riftspawn collapsed. Evira pulled her knife free and pressed her other hand against the wound.
Too late.
The blood on the ground was already moving.
It pooled. Spread. And then it started to glow.
"Shit," she whispered.
The air above the blood split open.
Not a rift. Not like the ones she'd seen in the guild textbooks. This was smaller. Sharper. The edges were clean, like something had cut reality with a scalpel. And on the other side—
Something was looking at her.
"Kern!" Drake's voice. Close now. "Get back!"
She couldn't move.
The thing on the other side leaned closer. She couldn't see it clearly. Just shapes. Wings, maybe. Or arms. Too many of them. And eyes. So many eyes.
And then it spoke.
"Evira."
Her real name.
The name nobody here knew.
Her heart stopped.
"Evira," it said again. The voice was wrong. Too many layers. Like a dozen people talking at once. "You opened the door."
"I didn't—" she started.
The rift pulsed.
And a claw came through.
Black. Slick. Too long. It moved fast, faster than she could track, and it reached straight for her chest.
Straight for her heart.
Someone slammed into her from the side. She hit the ground hard. The claw missed her by inches and carved a trench in the stone floor.
Drake was on top of her.
"Stay down," he said.
He rolled off, came up with a blade in each hand—short swords, etched with runes that glowed white-hot. He stepped between her and the rift.
The claw pulled back. Tried again. Drake met it head-on. His blades bit into the black flesh and the thing screamed. The sound rattled her teeth.
The rift shuddered.
"Close it!" Drake shouted. "Kern, close it now!"
She didn't know how.
She looked down at her arm. Blood was still running down her wrist, dripping onto the stone. The rift pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
Oh.
She clamped her hand over the wound. Squeezed. The blood stopped.
The rift flickered.
The claw lashed out one more time. Drake caught it on both blades and twisted. Something snapped. The thing on the other side shrieked again, and then the claw jerked back through the rift.
The split in the air wavered. Shrank.
And then it snapped shut.
Silence.
Evira sat there on the floor, breathing hard, her hand slick with blood. The kid with the freckles was staring at her. So was Carver. So was everyone else in the room.
Drake turned around. He looked at her. Then at the floor where the rift had been. Then at her bleeding arm.
His face didn't change.
"Barracks," he said. "Now. Everyone else, finish the sweep."
He grabbed her by the collar and hauled her to her feet.
She didn't resist. Couldn't. Her legs were shaking.
He dragged her out of the mill, into the daylight, and didn't let go until they were fifty feet clear.
Then he shoved her against the wall and got in her face.
"What the hell was that?"
She didn't answer.
"That wasn't a riftspawn," he said. "That was a summoning. And you're the one who opened it."
"I didn't mean to—"
"I don't care what you meant." His voice was flat. Cold. "You just pulled something through with your blood. That makes you a summoner. And summoners get executed."
Her stomach dropped.
"I'm not—"
"You are." He let her go. Stepped back. "And if anyone else saw what I just saw, you'd already be dead."
She pressed her back against the wall. Her arm was still bleeding. She could feel it soaking through the rag she'd wrapped around it.
"Please," she said. "I need this job. My brother—"
"I don't care about your brother."
He turned away. Looked back at the mill.
"But I care about what you just opened," he said quietly. "Because thirty years ago, my partner opened one just like it. And then she disappeared."
He looked at her again.
"You're going to help me find her," he said. "Or I turn you in. Your choice."
Evira opened her mouth. Closed it.
Before she could answer, the air behind Drake split open.
Another rift. Bigger this time.
And the black claw came through again.
Faster.
Straight for her heart.