Prologue

**Beneath his wings**

Some men lived to be remembered.

Valkyrie Xanthe Riven lived to be forgotten.

He did not leave traces.

Not in photographs, not in files, not even in the fading memory of strangers who brushed shoulders with him on crowded streets. He was smoke. He was silence.

Thirty-six years of life, and most of those years stolen from the world. He had no permanent home, only safehouses scattered like ashes. No friends, no family. He existed in fragments: a hooded figure here, a forged signature there, a voice on a disposable phone that went dead after three words.

But the powerful knew him — not his face, not his name, but his work.

Every few weeks, their world shook because of him. A secret deal surfaced. A corrupt officer exposed. A politician’s smile torn apart by a document that leaked at the worst possible moment. Files, recordings, photographs — neat, clean, undeniable.

And when the chaos began, Valkyrie was already gone.

They called him many names in whispers: the Ghost, the Phantom, the Shadow. None were accurate. Valkyrie had no interest in being called anything.

He did not care for justice. He did not care for revenge.

What he cared for was truth. Clean. Unedited. Released into hands that pretended they discovered it themselves.

That was enough.

He moved cities like other men changed clothes. Never more than a month in one place. He memorized exits, lived under false names, kept his back to walls and his eyes to reflections. He trusted no one, not even himself when he was tired.

And he was tired tonight.

The storm had been following him since dusk. Rain tapped like fingers against glass, whispered against rooftops, turned the pavement into mirrors that reflected blue and red lights from far-off sirens.

Valkyrie walked through it, his hood low, coat heavy with water. In his pocket rested a small memory card — silver, thin, sharp-edged. To anyone else it would mean nothing. To him, it was weight heavier than lead. On it were names, accounts, transfers, faces blurred but damning. Enough to topple men who thought themselves untouchable.

It was not the first card he carried. It would not be the last.

But it was the most dangerous one yet.

He should have gone straight to the safehouse. He should have hidden the card, sent the files, vanished. That was his rhythm, his law. Break it, and everything fell apart.

But fatigue pushed against his skull, pressing him to stop. Just for a moment. Just long enough to breathe.

And so, when he saw the glow of a small café sign through the rain, he made the mistake of stepping inside.

Anfisa Ivanovna had no storms to chase, no shadows to vanish into. Her life was simple, almost invisible.

She was twenty-three and alone in the world. Orphaned young, she had grown used to silence in rooms that should have held voices. She worked in a narrow café with peeling paint and cheap lights, her days filled with dishes, cloths, trays, and coins too few to count as wages.

Her dreams were not large. She did not dream of palaces or riches. She dreamed of a roof that did not leak, food that did not run out, a night where she could sleep without worrying if tomorrow would demand too much.

People often looked past her. A face in the background. A name spoken only when someone needed an order filled.

She had learned not to expect more.

And yet, fate has a cruel sense of timing.

Sometimes it selects the ones least prepared.

On a night when the storm outside would not end, and the café was nearly empty, a man in a hooded coat walked in and sat by the window. She did not notice him at first. None of them did. He ordered little, spoke less, eyes hidden in shadow. He looked like anyone and no one.

But on the table he left behind, among coins and bills, lay something small.

Something silver.

Something that should never have left his hand.

Anfisa bent to wipe the table clean. Her fingers brushed against it. She lifted it, turned it once in the light, lips whispering a question to herself. What’s this?

That was the moment everything changed.

A moment that would bind her life to his in ways neither of them could escape.

For Valkyrie, it was the first mistake he had made in years. A single drop in the storm.

For Anfisa, it was the beginning of a world she did not know existed.

She would not be allowed to walk away from it.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

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