CHAPTER 189: ASSIGNMENT

Selindra’s lips curved faintly. Not quite a smile. Not mockery either. Just acknowledgment of the truth. Hunters like Varik built walls around themselves, secrecy, isolation, the illusion of control. But walls always had cracks. She had spent years learning where to look.

The path wound away from the main roads, through derelict blocks where half the buildings still bore scars of old breaches. Shadows draped the shattered walls, windows like hollow eyes. Most hunters avoided these places. Too much bad memory in the concrete.

Selindra didn’t flinch. Her eyes scanned corners, doorframes, rooftops. The wind shifted, carrying with it the faint metallic tang of mana residue. Strong. Recently disturbed.

She slowed, one hand brushing the hilt at her back.

Then she saw it, the bunker. To anyone else it would look like just another half-collapsed structure, swallowed by vines and rust. But Selindra knew better. Her gaze tracked the reinforced seams hidden beneath the decay, the faint shimmer where wards bent light unnaturally.

She stopped at the edge of the broken street, studying it in silence.

So this is where he keeps him.

Her thoughts flicked to the boy, Lucen. A puzzle wrapped in skin. Twenty-eight, by the registry. Barely cutting teeth in the world of hunters. And yet... wrong.

Everything about him wrong in a way she couldn’t name. The way he carried himself, the way mana seemed to pool around him without effort. It was subtle, enough that most wouldn’t notice. But Selindra had fought long enough, bled long enough, to feel the difference.

And Varik... Varik knew.

That was the piece that unsettled her most.

She exhaled slowly, the breath misting in the cold. "Alright," she murmured to the night. "Let’s see how you react."

Her boots made no sound as she crossed the street. Up close, the illusion was clearer: old brick didn’t reflect light like that, not when it should’ve been crumbling decades ago. Her fingers brushed the seam of the door, and a faint ripple pulsed outward, reacting to her presence.

Wards. Strong ones.

Selindra tilted her head, lips pressing together. She could force it. Burn enough mana, press hard enough, and the door would yield. But that wasn’t what she wanted. Bursting through would prove nothing except that she could.

What she wanted was to see how they responded.

So instead, she knocked. Three sharp raps, knuckles on steel disguised as rotting wood.

The sound carried in the still night. She waited.

For a moment, nothing.

Then, the faintest shift of air. Someone moving inside. Light, barely audible. Careful.

Selindra’s hand rested loosely near her hilt, posture relaxed but ready. Her pulse didn’t rise. She’d long ago taught her body to keep calm when others’ nerves began to fray.

The door creaked. Not fully open, just enough for a shadow to fill the frame.

Varik.

Of course.

His eyes met hers immediately, flat and unreadable as always. No surprise flickered across his face, no raised brow at finding her here. Just that same quiet weight, like a mountain that had chosen to notice you.

"Selindra," he said.

Her name sounded heavier in his mouth than anyone else’s.

She inclined her head slightly. "Varik."

Neither moved. The night pressed around them, cold and taut.

Finally, he shifted just enough to lean against the doorframe. "You’re not supposed to know about this place."

There it was. Not a question. A statement.

Selindra let a beat pass. Then: "And yet here I am."

For a flicker of a moment, there, and gone again, something sharpened in his gaze. Not anger. Not shock. Just calculation, edges grinding quietly behind stone.

"What do you want?" His voice was low, stripped down.

Selindra considered the door, the bunker behind it. She thought of Elira’s words, the weight behind the order. She thought of Lucen’s strange presence, the anomaly that tugged at every instinct she trusted.

And then she looked back at Varik, unblinking. "To come in."

The silence stretched again. The wards hummed faintly, recognizing her proximity, ready to flare at a command. She wondered if Varik would let them.

But then he stepped aside.

The door opened fully, revealing the bunker’s interior, spare, utilitarian, the kind of space where comfort was secondary to survival. Lights glowed dimly along the ceiling, painting everything in muted gold.

And there, half-turned from a table cluttered with notes and weapons, was Lucen.

He froze when he saw her. Not fear exactly. More like... irritation. Surprise, masked quickly by the smirk that seemed etched into his features.

"Well," he drawled, folding his arms. "Either the mail service has gotten real personal, or Varik forgot to mention we were expecting guests."

Selindra stepped inside, the door hissing shut behind her. Her eyes flicked between the two of them, Lucen’s guarded amusement, Varik’s stone wall.

"No guest," she said evenly. "Assignment."

Lucen’s brow arched. "Assignment?"

Varik’s jaw tightened, just barely. "From who?"

Selindra met his stare without flinching. "You know who."

Elira’s shadow hung between them, unspoken but undeniable.

The air in the bunker thickened.

Selindra let her hand fall away from her hilt, signaling calm. Her voice stayed steady. "I’m not here to fight you, Varik. Not unless you make it that way. I was told to observe. Nothing more."

Lucen’s smirk didn’t fade, but his eyes sharpened. ’Observe, huh? Pretty word for a leash.’

Varik said nothing. He just studied her, long, unbroken, the kind of gaze that weighed whether she was a threat worth acknowledging.

Finally, he moved toward the table, picking up a stray blade and setting it back with deliberate precision. "Then you’d better not get in the way."

Selindra inclined her head. "I won’t."

Lucen’s laugh was quiet, low. "This is going to be fun."

The bunker door sealed behind her, the wards locking once more.

Selindra Kael had stepped into their hidden world. And whether Varik liked it or not, she wasn’t leaving.

—

The hum of the warded lights above filled the silence, faint but constant, like a pulse that wouldn’t quit. The bunker had always been quiet, but with Selindra inside it felt smaller, air pressing in on the three of them.

Varik had taken the end of the long steel table, arms folded. Lucen leaned against the opposite wall, half in shadow, watching. Selindra stood for a while, scanning the room like she was cataloguing everything, exits, storage lockers, even the faint scratch marks in the floor where furniture had been dragged.

Finally, Varik broke the silence.

"Assignment," he said flatly. "Explain."

Selindra’s eyes flicked to him. She didn’t sit. She just unbuttoned her coat, sliding it off her shoulders with calm, deliberate motions, folding it over a chair. Every move seemed calculated, as if she knew Varik hated wasted energy.

"Elira wants a relic," she said simply.

Lucen snorted. "Of course she does. Bet she doesn’t even know what it does."

Selindra ignored him, her gaze still locked on Varik. "It’s surfaced in the northern reaches. A buried vault from the old era. The Association flagged traces of anomalous mana, stronger than crimson, bordering on abyssal. She wants it retrieved intact."

Varik’s jaw tightened. "What’s the catch?"

"There are already... other hunters on it," Selindra said. Her tone didn’t change, but her eyes narrowed slightly. "Unofficial. No registry signatures. Whoever they are, they’ve moved faster than the FHA. And if they get the relic first—"

"—they won’t hand it over," Lucen finished, pushing off the wall. He stretched lazily, but his eyes had sharpened in the low light. "So let me guess: Elira sends you here to make sure we play scavenger dogs while you keep notes on whether or not Varik and I bite the hand that feeds."

Selindra’s gaze flicked to him now, calm and cutting. "You talk too much."

"And you dodge too much," Lucen replied.

Varik’s hand lifted, palm down, and the room settled. His voice was steady, iron laid flat. "Where."

Selindra reached into her coat pocket and slid a small data slate onto the table. It flickered, projection casting a jagged landscape into the air above the steel. Icefields, broken by deep scars of black rock, the kind of terrain where sunlight never reached far enough. At the center of the projection, a symbol pulsed, faint, shifting, not quite holding shape.

Lucen squinted at it. "That thing looks like it’s trying to crawl out of the map."

"Abyssal markers," Selindra confirmed. "Old world design. Whatever’s inside that vault, it’s been sealed for centuries."

Varik studied the projection in silence. His eyes didn’t move much, but Lucen knew him well enough by now, calculation, weighing risk against inevitability. Finally, he said, "Escort or retrieval?"

"Retrieval."

"And if interference occurs?"

Selindra met his eyes evenly. "Elira authorized elimination."

The words hung. Cold. Heavy.

Lucen let out a low whistle. "Neat. So we’re officially hitmen with a treasure-hunting side gig."

"Don’t flatter yourself," Selindra said without turning. "You’re tagging along."

Lucen chuckled, low in his throat. "’Tagging along,’ huh. Cute."

But his smirk didn’t reach his eyes. Inside, his thoughts turned sharp.

’So Elira’s watching him that closely, huh? Sending her own to sit at our table like a hawk on a fence post. Not because of Varik. Because of me.’

He masked the thought with another smile, but Varik’s gaze flicked toward him like he’d heard it anyway.