The last drop of blood clung stubbornly to the iron blade.
With a slow, deliberate motion, he wiped it away—first with a ragged cloth, then with the edge of his tunic. The blood left a dark smear, not the first, and certainly not the last. He knelt in the mud, silent as the wind that whispered through the dead trees around him. Behind him, the corpse was already cooling, eyes wide with the kind of surprise only death brings.
Three days from the city gates. Exactly where the message said to meet. A strange place for business—but the man had insisted. Said it was private. Said it had to be done far from watching eyes.
He was older than most. Soft hands. Clean cloak. A ring on one finger—plain gold, but with a sigil carved so faintly it was nearly gone. He hadn't begged. Just looked… disappointed.
Thirty years had worn him down like stone under water, but his grip on the spear remained steady. Calloused hands. Quiet eyes. No name worth speaking aloud.
People called him different things in different towns—most of them wrong, and all of them forgettable. He let them talk. It saved him the trouble of introductions.
He rose to his full height—tall, imposing, with the weary power of a man who knew exactly how to kill and when not to. A scar ran from his jaw to his collarbone, barely visible beneath the stubble and grime. His shaved head caught the faint glint of moonlight as he turned, already scanning the trees for witnesses.
There were none. There never were.
He didn't know if that comforted him anymore.
A crow cawed in the distance, and he took it as a sign. Time to move.
By morning, the body would be found. By then, he'd be long gone, just another shadow on the road.
He slung the spear across his back and started walking.
The dirt path curved through the forest like a lazy snake, half-swallowed by roots and moss. His boots made no sound. He knew the way by now—three days' walk from the southern woods to the gates of Caelum, the largest city in the region and, lately, his least favorite.
He'd been there too long. Four weeks, by his count. Long enough for the guards at the east gate to nod at him instead of reaching for their spears. Long enough for the alewife at the Red Lantern to remember how he liked his stew. Long enough to be noticed.
That was never good.
He usually stayed in a place just long enough for the blood to dry and the trail to go cold. But Caelum was different. The jobs were steady, the pay fair, and the city—filthy, loud, crawling with spies and pickpockets—had started to feel almost… familiar.
He hated that.
As the city's outer towers came into view through the trees, he slowed his pace. Smoke curled up into the evening sky. Somewhere inside those stone walls, a man waited to hand him a pouch of silver in exchange for one corpse and no questions.
He hoped the man would be on time. He hated waiting even more than he hated being remembered.
The gates of Caelum yawned open like the jaws of something ancient and hungry.
He walked through without a word, nodding once to the gatekeeper who gave him a wary glance in return. No one stopped him. No one ever did. He looked like the sort of man who had somewhere unpleasant to be, and people respected that.
Inside, the city was alive in the way only rot could be—thick, layered, impossible to contain. Buildings clung to each other like beggars in the rain, stacked and twisted, leaning over the streets in crooked angles. Stairs led to more stairs, alleys folded into other alleys, and wooden platforms connected upper levels like spiderwebs in the sky.
The noise was constant—shouting, laughing, hammering, haggling, screaming, singing. Somewhere, a goat bleated. Somewhere else, a man wept. No one listened.
He moved through it all like smoke, unnoticed despite his size. His eyes flicked from face to face, counting exits, avoiding pickpockets, stepping over puddles that smelled more like blood than water.
"Looking for company, handsome?"
A voice, too sweet for the street.
He turned his head slightly. The woman leaned against a doorway, dressed in a thin red dress that clung in all the right places, or maybe all the wrong ones. Her smile was sharp enough to cut rope.
He considered her. She was pretty in the way a blade is—shiny, dangerous, used.
"I'm not," he said.
She tilted her head. "You hesitated."
He gave a dry chuckle. "I hesitate before poison, too."
She laughed. That got him. A real laugh, from the belly, not the throat. He wasn't sure the last time someone had done that.
Moments later, he found himself ducking under a low arch and stepping into the brothel—The Silk House, a three-story tangle of pleasure, perfume, and poor judgment. The air was thick with incense and secrets. Music played somewhere behind a curtain, the slow, rhythmic kind that sounded like it wanted to crawl into your bones and stay there.
He told himself it was a brief stop. He hadn't eaten. He needed to wait until the payment was ready. And the woman—what had she said her name was? He'd already forgotten—was leading him by the hand like she owned him.
He'd known a lot of women. Too many. Their names blurred together like songs from taverns he never stayed in long enough to finish.
But then something shifted. The music cut out. Voices rose. A door slammed upstairs, followed by a crash and a scream.
His hand moved instinctively to the spear on his back.
And just like that, the night started to turn.
The scream upstairs turned into a gurgle.
He didn't like that sound. Too wet.
The woman tugged at his hand. "Upstairs, love. Let's find a room."
He was about to answer when something shifted in the air—too quiet, too fast.
A sound.
Thunk.
A crossbow bolt punched through the air and buried itself deep into the woman's chest. She staggered, eyes wide, mouth opening but no words coming. He had already twisted her in front of him the moment he saw the glint of metal. Reflex. Survival.
She died before she hit the ground.
"Damn shame," he muttered, letting her slump to the floor like a dropped cloak.
Three shadows leapt from the upstairs balcony, landing with a crash that shook the walls. No warning. No hesitation. Just drawn blades and murder in their eyes.
He smiled, just a little.
The first came fast, slashing wide with a short sword. He stepped into the swing, caught the man's wrist, and drove his knee hard into his ribs—once, twice, until something cracked. Then he yanked the spear off his back, reversed it mid-motion, and drove the butt of it into the man's throat. Down he went, gagging on a crushed windpipe.
The second attacker lunged low, aiming for his legs. Clever. But he'd fought dirtier men in dirtier places.
He kicked a nearby chair into the path of the blade, spun the shaft of his spear in a tight circle, and used the momentum to hook the man behind the knee. As the attacker fell, he rammed the spear down through the man's collarbone, pinning him to the wooden floor like a sheet of paper.
"Two," he said under his breath.
The third hesitated, just a half-second. That was enough. He threw a bottle—someone's perfume—right into the man's face. Glass shattered. The man screamed, blinded, and staggered back.
He didn't kill this one.
Instead, he pressed him against the wall with the haft of his spear, hard enough to make him cough blood. "Who sent you?" he growled, low and close.
The man spat in his face.
He drove the spearhead into the wall just beside the man's throat. "Try again. I'm patient. But not gentle."
A beat passed. Then another.
"…Ian," the man gasped. "It was Ian. He said you knew too much. That he wouldn't pay for a job half done."
Of course. Always the coin.
He stared into the man's face for a long moment. "Tell me—did Ian send anyone else?"
The man hesitated. A flicker in the eyes. That was enough.
"Liar," the hitman said, and drove the spear straight through the man's gut, angling it up under the ribs. The man jerked once, twice, then stilled.
He yanked the spear free with a grunt, the blood splattering across the cracked floorboards and the cheap painted walls. The woman's body lay nearby, still warm. He glanced at her.
"You picked the wrong mark, sweetheart."
He took a cloth from the corner of the room—part of a discarded curtain—and wiped his spear clean again. The tip glistened, polished by death.
From outside the brothel, the city buzzed on. Caelum didn't care. Caelum never cared.
He stepped over the bodies, out into the corridor, and then down the stairs. No one stopped him. No one even looked.
By now, word would spread—he'd killed again, and Ian had made a move. That meant Ian was afraid. That meant leverage.
But not yet. Not tonight.
For now, he needed a place to disappear.
He pulled up the hood of his cloak, stepped into the stinking street, and vanished into the crowd.
He melted into the crowd like a shadow slipping between cracks. No one followed. No one dared.
Caelum didn't ask questions when blood was spilled—not in the Silk House, not in the lower wards, not when a man walked out calm and clean while others stayed behind in pieces.
The name echoed in his head as he walked: Ian.
Of course it was Ian. Greedy, well-dressed bastard with soft hands and a nervous laugh. The kind of man who liked to pay others to get dirty—and then clean up the mess when the blood started to stain.
He'd remember that.
But not tonight.
He moved through the streets with purpose, weaving through lantern-lit markets and narrow stone alleys, past drunkards pissing against walls and street kids hawking rotten fruit. The city stretched above him in layers—wooden walkways, overhangs, balconies like ribs sticking out of an overfed corpse. And above it all: the tower.
The old clocktower had stopped ticking years ago. Time had died there, quietly, like everything else that didn't pay rent.
He reached the base and ducked into a crumbling doorway, then began the climb. Two hundred and twelve steps. He'd counted.
By the time he reached the top, his legs ached—but that was the price of peace.
The room at the top was cold and open, with half the roof gone and the great rusted bell looming like a giant's tooth. A mattress, a crate, a lantern, and his pack. Nothing more. Wind howled through the broken slats. Below, the city blinked with firelight and sin.
He dropped his spear with a sigh and slumped against the wall.
"Could've had a warm meal, a soft body, and maybe even a laugh," he muttered, rubbing his shoulder. "Instead I got three corpses, no coin, and blood on my boots."
He looked out over the rooftops, eyes scanning the night like a hunter watching prey.
"Next time Ian hires someone," he said to no one in particular, "he better hope they're cheaper. They'll need to be. He'll be paying in more than silver."
He closed his eyes for a moment.
And listened to the city breathe.
He dozed off to the sound of wind and distant bells, body still, hand resting loosely on the spear beside him.
Sleep never came easy, not anymore. But the cold and exhaustion had worn down his guard just enough to let the city slip away—until the creak.
A step.
Soft, careful.
Another one.
He was awake in an instant, eyes open, breath held. Someone was climbing the stairs.
Two hundred and twelve steps. And they were already halfway up.
He moved like water, lifting his spear in silence, body low and balanced. Whoever it was had found him. Ian's men, maybe. Or worse. He stepped behind the rusted bell and waited.
The footsteps drew closer. Light. Not armored.
Still dangerous.
He tensed.
Then the figure emerged into the room.
Small. Slender. Definitely not a grown man.
The spear was already mid-swing when he caught sight of the boy's face—freckled, wide-eyed, mouth half-open in surprise. Maybe fifteen. Maybe younger.
He stopped the swing an inch from the boy's throat.
They both froze.
"…Holy shit," the boy whispered. "You were really about to kill me."
He didn't answer. Just stared at him, breathing slow, spear still raised.
The boy straightened up, brushing dust off his knees like it was nothing. "Look, I didn't know this place was taken. I come up here sometimes. It's got the best view. Didn't think anyone else was stupid enough to sleep this high."
"Leave," he said coldly.
The boy grinned. "You're not much of a talker, huh? You live up here? What are you, a priest? A bandit? You don't look like a priest."
He lowered the spear a few inches but didn't relax. "You've got ten seconds before I change my mind."
"Change it to what?" the boy said, hands up, unafraid. "You already almost killed me. What's next? Break my legs and toss me down the stairs?"
He didn't reply.
The kid sighed. "Fine. I'll go. But for the record, you're a terrible host."
He turned to leave, muttering something under his breath.
"What did you say?" the hitman asked.
The boy glanced back, smirking. "I said you look like someone who sleeps with his boots on and still has nightmares."
A pause.
"Am I wrong?"
The man didn't respond. The boy disappeared down the stairs with uneven steps that echoed through the tower. He waited until the sound was completely gone before lowering the spear and exhaling.
Just a kid.
But too curious.
Too bold.
He looked out over the city again, scowling. "Caelum's rotting worse than I thought… now even rats are learning to talk back."