The storm hadn’t stopped.
Scarlet sat in the corner of the safehouse's war room, soaked to the bone, staring at nothing. Jasper patched up Kaydence’s wound in silence, his expression darker than the clouds outside.
“You need to rest,” Kaydence said gently, looking at her like she might break.
Scarlet didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Not yet.
Miro’s letter had rattled her more than she let on. It wasn’t the words—it was the handwriting. A match to old birthday cards. The kind a brother might send before he became a traitor.
“I saw someone,” Jasper said, interrupting the silence. “During the ambush. On the rooftops.”
Scarlet turned to him slowly. “Who?”
“I couldn’t get a clear visual. But she was wearing a white veil.”
Kaydence froze. “A veil?”
Scarlet’s blood turned to ice.
It was a symbol she hadn’t seen in years. Not since her real name still mattered. Not since she was Scarlet Veil, heir to a fallen throne.
Elsewhere – In the Shadows of Power
In the tallest suite of the Arclight Tower, the woman in the veil stood barefoot on the balcony, drinking white tea from a porcelain cup. Her fingers played with the engagement ring on her hand, spinning it like a coin.
“My love,” said a voice behind her.
She didn’t turn.
“You’re late,” she said coldly.
A man stepped from the shadows—tall, older, dressed in a three-piece suit lined with Kevlar. He was her fiancé. A ghost from another war.
“I take it Annora failed,” he said.
“She underestimated the pain she left behind.”
“Do you want me to send someone after Kaydence?”
“No,” she said, sipping her tea. “I want Seina Sallow to watch everyone she loves burn. And then—only then—will she remember who she really is.”
The man hesitated. “And Miro?”
She finally turned.
“Miro will come crawling back. They always do.”
She smiled.
But it was all teeth.
Scarlet dreamt in fragments that night. Blood on marble floors. A man screaming her name. A silver locket breaking in slow motion.
She woke up with her heart pounding and her fingers curled around a blade she didn’t remember grabbing.
Kaydence was already awake, sitting by the window, reading a file.
“What is it?” she asked, voice hoarse.
He turned the file around.
A surveillance photo. Grainy, but unmistakable.
The woman in the veil.
Scarlet exhaled. “She’s back.”
Kaydence nodded. “We need to leave. Tonight.”
“No,” Scarlet said. “We need to end it.”
Jasper stormed in. “We’ve got a situation.”
He tossed a burner phone onto the table. The screen was cracked. The message on it was short.
Miro’s been taken. Arclight Tower. Midnight. Come alone. Or he dies.
Kaydence ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a trap.”
“Of course it’s a trap,” Scarlet said. “But he’s still my blood.”
“We’re coming with you,” Jasper said.
Scarlet shook her head. “No. If I die, you two become ghosts. Take down Arclight from the outside. But I’m walking in alone.”
Kaydence clenched his fists. “I’m not losing you too.”
“You won’t.”
She looked at him for a long time. Then stepped close, kissed him once—soft, lingering.
“For luck,” she whispered.
Arclight Tower – Midnight
The tower was too quiet.
Security was absent. Lights dimmed. It was like walking into a mausoleum of glass and steel.
Scarlet wore black. No insignia. No past. Just a blade strapped to her thigh and a promise burning in her chest.
She reached the top floor and stepped into the penthouse.
Miro was there.
Tied to a chair.
Bloody, bruised, but breathing.
And beside him—the woman in the veil.
Scarlet’s breath caught. “You.”
The woman pulled off her veil.
And Scarlet saw her own face.
Almost.
Softer. Younger. Twisted by cosmetic surgery and bitterness.
“I’m your shadow,” she said.
“I don’t know you,” Scarlet said, voice shaking.
“You will. My name is Lys Veil. I’m your sister.”
Scarlet’s mind fractured.
“No. I don’t have—”
“She hid me,” Lys said, eyes wild.
“Our mother. Because I wasn’t perfect. Because I wasn’t you.”
She pulled out a locket—twin to the one in Scarlet’s memory.
“I was raised by the people who wanted you dead. And now, I’m going to take everything that was ever meant for you.”
She raised a gun.
But Miro moved first.
He kicked the table, sending it crashing into Lys. Scarlet lunged.
Gunfire. Screams. Blood.
When it ended—Lys was gone.
Just a smear of red leading to the fire escape.
Miro looked up at Scarlet, panting. “She’s not done.”
Scarlet knelt beside him. “Neither are we.” And in the distance, the tower burned.