Book One – Chapter 14

Focused on her sharpened perception and relentless pace, Midnight barely acknowledged the sparse travellers or wandering beasts she passed. Yet, as she approached a flock of slender avians nesting in a fissure carved into the sheer mountainside, a memory surged unbidden to her awareness. The hunt for the fiator. Her failure was vivid, disruptive, a flaw in her flow that she could not ignore. Midnight halted the stream of her movement. Her pride pulled her back.

The avians, larger than those she had encountered before, clung to the narrow cracks in the cliff face, some two hundred meters below the Snowtrail. Their perch was a sanctuary carved into the steep rock, impossible to reach for any common beast but a daringly exceptional climber.

Instinct urged her to maintain compact, a single, focused form. But reason dictated otherwise. Midnight allowed her essence to uncoil, a slow and deliberate unravelling. She had not forgotten how the fiator had sensed her — how she had failed to remain unnoticed. She understood she needed to refine her approach; stealth was not merely concealment but integration. She needed to become imperceptible.

Midnight avoided the directness that had betrayed her presence to the fiator before. Instead of reaching out with a tendril of darkness, she let her essence seep into the surrounding darkness. Her essence wove itself into T̰́̇ͦ̀è̸̷̸̬̤̗̊_̸̵̰̦̗̒͜ȟ̗̍ͤa̶͉͉͍̭̰̅̀̈͜ͅȓ̶̶̛̦͇͙̟̈̿͒ͮ͑̋̚͡u̟͖͔̖̙͙͆̄̿ͩͧ̃̽̓̈̌̀͟͞n’s shroud, diffusing like mist settling into the veil. She felt that the darkness welcomed her. With infinite care, she closed her presence around a lone male perched slightly apart from the others. He seemed unaware of her approach, his movements calm, his essence steady. Midnight crept closer, until she encircled him from all sides. It was an act of precision that gave her a sense of satisfaction: not in the outcome, but in the perfect execution of her approach.