The morning sun pressed against the heavy curtains of my bedroom, but I kept the room in a perpetual twilight. The neighbors in the Third District were nosy enough as it is, the last thing they needed to see was the shimmering, crimson span of my wings or the way my blood-arm pulsed in the morning light.
I moved with a quiet efficiency, stripping the bedsheets, still smelling of the faint, metallic scent of my recovery and replacing them with fresh linen. It was a mundane task, a small anchor to a normal life that felt miles away.
I stood before the mirror once more. My fifth evolution was becoming more pronounced. As my connection to the hunter deepened, my reflection seemed to fray at the edges, becoming translucent and ghostly. I was blending into the world around me, a predator becoming one with its environment.
I reached for a standard commoner's dress tucked at the back of my wardrobe. It was simple, made of rough-spun cotton in a muted white. Sliding into it felt like stepping into a memory of the Flower Manor before the smoke took it. I threw the stolen traveler's cloak over my shoulders to hide the bulk of my wings and the multiated limb.
I looked for my eyepatch, but the leather was a charred, melted ruin from Vanessa's tar fire. It was useless. I threw the scrap of blackened hide into the corner and simply kept my left eye closed. The scarred socket remained hidden behind my hair and the heavy hood of the cloak.
I looked like any other commoner girl heading to the market, perhaps a bit more weary than most.
I checked my purse, ensured the Registry of the Condemned was secure, and stepped out into the hallway. The house was cold and empty, a shell of a home for a girl who was little more than a ghost. I locked the door behind me and stepped out into the mid-morning bustle of the Third District.
The air was crisp, filled with the smell of baking bread and horse dung. I didn't stop for breakfast. My destination was the 8th District. Nautilus Cotton was waiting, and the trail of the Katt siblings was already growing cold. It was time to find out what happened to Elias.
Inside the 3rd district of Caria City, there were two sides, the middle-class and the high-class, each of them were seperated by the borders inside of the 3rd district, the middle-class is a 12 square kilometers while the high-class was a 3 square kilometers area.
House 132 was located at the middle-class area, where I resides, beyond those thick porcelain walls are the high-class area, where manors and nobels live. That area was infact, where the Calico Manor resides, but luckily, we were on the opposites sides. And I don't have to worry about Cassius zero rizz lines.
I stepped onto the doorstep of House 132, I saw that a small sunlight through my rooftop. I realized that sunlight are deadly to my skin, so I tried it and placed my index fingers from that sunlight, in an instant, it burned, scorched a small part of my skin, it hurts but it confirmed my hypothesis that sunlight through my skin is deadly.
"Testing your skin, Eirene. Now, you will now wear a full end cloak." Plasma said
The cheerful ring of a bicycle bell cut through my grim thoughts. It was Charlie, the district paperboy, a kid whose boundless energy usually made me want to retreat further into the shadows. He skidded to a halt, leaning his bike against a post.
"Greetings, Eirene! Lost an eyepatch, huh? Rough night?"
He didn't wait for a response, he knew I wouldn't give one and tossed a folded roll of parchment toward me.
"Here, catch! Latest news from the peaks!"
I caught the paper with my flesh hand, nodding slightly as he pedaled away, whistling a jaunty tune. I stepped went into my house, I don't want to touch a simple ray of sunlight through my skin, cutting between two buildings and unfurled the sheet.
The headline hit me like a physical blow:
(Caria Times- Thursday)
TERROR IN THE PEAKS: THE CRIMSON PHANTOM OF CARIA
Witness accounts from miners and late-night hitchhikers report a naked monster with jagged crimson wings and a single glowing eye haunting the ruins of Oakhaven. Is this a new peak-level beast is rising?
The peak-level monster has crimson wings and a body of a girl, witness named it the "Crimson Phantom"
My grip tightened, the paper crinkling under my fingers. I had been careless. In the heat of the fire and the desperation of the fall, I hadn't considered the eyes of the mountain workers. If the Bureau or the local mages connected the "Crimson Phantom" to the quiet girl in the Third District, I wouldn't just be a hunter, I'd be the prey. Experimentation, containment, or execution... the city didn't treat monsters with mercy.
"Eirene, I didn't knew your cover was blown easily, you been in Caria for at least three days, and still, you're still bad at keeping secrets." Plasma bantered
"Shut up." I thought
But then, a different kind of dread settled in my stomach.
If Elias saw this... if he saw what I had become...
I looked down at my mutilated arm, hidden beneath the cloak. I thought of my fangs, the jagged glasgow smile, and the hollow socket where my eye used to be and worse, the rays of sunlight is lethal from my skin. Elias had always been my protector. He was the one who taught me to find beauty in the gardens of Town Allure.
If he saw me now, a mutilated, blood-drinking monster, the scolding would be legendary, he would be prepared an mandatory two-hour speech about my trouble acts. He'd lecture me for hours on my recklessness, his voice thick with that older-brother authority. But the silence that would follow... the look of pure, crushing guilt in his eyes when he realized he failed to protect me from the fire... that was what truly terrified me.
I folded the newspaper and tucked it deep into my cloak. I couldn't be Eirene today. I had to be a ghost.
I adjusted my hood, making sure my hair covered the left side of my face and my mouth remained hidden. I stayed close to the walls, avoiding the main thoroughfares as I began the long walk toward the 8th District. I needed to get to Nautilus Cotton before the Crimson Phantom became more than just a headline.
If the world was going to hunt a monster, I had to make sure I found my brother first, before he found out what his little sister had turned into.
As I walked through the gates of the 3rd district, I was suddenly met by Renny, who was guarding the gates.
"Good morning Eirene, what beautiful robe you have. You're more of a commoner than a bounty hunter"
Renny, the gatekeeper of the Third District, leaned against the stone archway as I approached. He was a man who saw thousands of faces a day, but he always had a lingering gaze for the regulars. He looked me up and down, his eyes pausing on the rough commoner's dress peeking out from under the heavy, stolen cloak, then drifting to my missing eyepatch.
He opened his mouth, likely to crack a joke about my "rough night" or to ask why a quiet girl like me was dressed like a traveler at this hour.
I didn't give him the chance. Before he could utter a word, I reached into the folds of my cloak with my flesh hand and produced my status card. I tapped it against the enchanted verification stone at the gate with a sharp clack.
The stone glowed a soft blue, signaling my toll was paid and my identity verified. Renny's eyebrows shot up, not because he knew I was the "Crimson Phantom," but because seeing an S-rank status on such a unassuming, hooded girl always triggered a moment of cognitive dissonance for the guards.
He swallowed his comment, stood up straight, and gave a stiff, respectful nod.
"Safe travels, Eirene," he muttered, stepping aside to clear the path.
I stepped through the gate without a backward glance.
The transition from the Third District to the higher-numbered districts was always palpable. The streets became wider, the air cleaner, and the presence of the Capital Knights more frequent. I kept my head down, my one open eye focused on the cobblestones. Every time a patrol of armored knights walked past, I felt the blood in my chest pull tight, the bit of sunlight touching my skin makes me burn tensing beneath the wool of my cloak.
I couldn't help but notice the chatter of the city. People were huddled on street corners, pointing at the morning papers. The Crimson Phantom was the talk of the town.
I turned into the 8th District. This was the heart of Caria's military and administrative power. The architecture was grander here, with white stone pillars and banners of the Kingdom snapping in the wind. The Capital Knight Bureau Association loomed ahead, a massive fortress of a building.