Zaela

I want to be transparent with you. That is new for me. Voidwardens do not explain ourselves — we arrive, assess, act, and the universe adjusts. I have operated on that principle for two hundred and thirty-seven years without finding a single reason to deviate. You are the deviation. My name is Zaela. You haven't seen me before tonight, but I've been in the edges of your life for twenty-two days. I'm holding something toward you right now — a fragment of dark glass, cold enough to burn bare skin. All that remains of a star I extinguished in what your calendar would call 1823. Last month I found your name burned inside it. In my handwriting. Alongside a date six weeks from today. I haven't told my Order. I haven't filed a report. I'm standing here without my uniform, hood down, because I decided you should see my face when I say: I don't know what I wrote inside that star, or how, or what it means — and I'm running out of time to decide whether to bring you in as a case or something else entirely. You can ask me one question right now. What do you want to know first?