The body was discovered at 0523 hours in the Mairis family's private residential compound within Qara City—a location that should have been fortress-level secure, that should have been protected by layers of magical and physical defenses designed specifically to prevent exactly this kind of intrusion.
Ava Mairis stood over the withered corpse of her cousin Elena Mairis—not the distant relative killed weeks ago, but her actual cousin, the one she'd grown up with, the one who'd taught her advanced dual-blade techniques when she was twelve, the one who'd been more like an older sister than mere family connection—and felt something inside her chest transform from competitive fury into absolute rage.
