Chapter 3 The Invitation

The rain had stopped by morning, leaving the city glazed in silver. It was quiet, too quiet, as if the storm had taken with it the last traces of normalcy.

I hadn't slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him , that stranger with the gaze that felt like a memory I shouldn't have.

When I arrived at the archive later that night, something was wrong. The security lights flickered, and the smell of rain still clung to the marble corridors. My assistant, Nora, was nowhere to be found, and on my desk sat a single envelope.

It was old-fashioned, sealed with deep crimson wax stamped with a crest ,a serpent coiled around a rose. My breath caught. That symbol hadn't been seen for centuries.

With trembling fingers, I broke the seal.

To the Keeper of Shadows, Some knowledge cannot be contained forever.

Midnight will bring you to me. Do not resist what already belongs to you.

A.D.

A.D. Two initials. Two words that meant nothing - and everything.

I should have thrown the letter away. Reported it. Pretended none of this was happening. But curiosity... or maybe something deeper, something darker, whispered otherwise.

At exactly midnight, I found myself standing in front of an unfamiliar building at the edge of the city. It was an abandoned theater, its faded marquee glowing faintly under the moonlight. The

air inside was cold, thick with the scent of dust and history.

And then I heard it , footsteps, slow and certain, echoing through the dark.

He appeared from the shadows as though he'd been carved out of them. Same piercing eyes. Same quiet confidence. The same aura of danger wrapped in elegance.

"You came," he said, his voice low but clear.

"You invited me," I replied, my heartbeat far too loud in the silence.

He smiled faintly. "You could have refused."

"I thought about it."

"And yet, here you are."

He stepped closer, the distance between us vanishing like mist.

"Who are you?" I asked. "Someone who has watched the world change a thousand times," he said, studying me as though my face held a secret he'd been searching for. "And someone who doesn't believe in coincidences."

"I don't either," I whispered.

"Good," he said, eyes gleaming. "Then you understand. Nothing that happens next is by accident."

He extended his hand. Cold. Strong. Commanding.

And without fully understanding why... I took it.

That was the moment the world began to unravel.