In the city of Mysha, there were no prayers — only contracts.
Tombs were cheaper than bread, and assassins walked the marble streets in daylight, their blades legal as long as they killed quietly. No city was more dangerous, and no girl more feared within it than Asha N'Dari — a shadow shaped into flesh.
She moved like silence had birthed her.
By the time she turned twenty, she had already slit the throats of kings, burned the lungs out of sleeping prophets, and buried cursed rings into the stomachs of demon-priests.
She had never failed a contract.
Not once.
---
Tonight, her target was a governor — Barake of the Iron Hand, a political dog who sold orphans into the mines beneath Gholar. A man protected by flesh-mages and reinforced walls, layered with glyphs and spirit wards.
Asha still got in.
She always got in.
She crouched on a beam of darkwood, high above the great feast hall of the governor's manor. Below her, laughter and greed danced across golden plates and roasted meats. Barake sat bloated at the center, his armor half-undone, his mouth chewing duck fat as if the world was his pig to slaughter.
Asha's eyes were ink-black. Her skin oiled and soot-colored. She wore no armor — only tight, rune-wrapped cloth, and two twin sickle blades, curved like a demon's grin. She didn't wear shoes.
She didn't need them.
Her breath slowed.
Time stopped.
She dropped like death.
By the time anyone looked up, Barake's tongue was already severed. His screams gurgled into his own blood. His guards moved — too slow. Asha slid through them, slicing tendons, collapsing knees, ripping out throats in one motion. Magic bolts flew. She twisted, flipped, vanished into pillars.
Every spell missed.
Every shield broke.
Barake tried to crawl. She pinned his head with her foot.
> "Children don't scream this loud," she whispered.
Then slit his face open from brow to jaw.
---
She left the manor in flames.
As she walked through the alleys, unseen, blood steaming on her blades, she didn't smile. She never did. Killing was not pleasure.
It was purpose.
Back in the Pits of Kharan, where she was raised, they taught that death was cleaner than life. That the world's balance was kept not by kings, but by those who held the power to end kings.
Asha was a balance-keeper.
An agent of the Black Hand, the highest assassin guild in the eastern kingdoms. She was their greatest blade. But her soul? That belonged to someone else.
---
In a hidden chamber beneath a crooked temple, lit only by a single green flame, an old woman in black silk awaited her.
"You disobeyed," the woman rasped. Her voice was cracked salt and fire.
"I left a mark," Asha replied. "As always."
"You burned the manor. The contract was quiet death."
"Barake deserved to scream. He sold children like goats."
The old woman rose. Her fingers were bone-thin, wrapped in rings carved from demon teeth. She slapped Asha across the face.
Asha didn't move.
"You are not a hero," the woman hissed. "You are a tool. You kill. You disappear. You don't burn empires for fun."
"Maybe I'm done being a tool," Asha said.
The room went still.
"Careful, child."
Asha looked the old woman in the eye. "I'm not your child."
The woman grinned.
> "Then you're ready."
---
That night, Asha was summoned to the hidden council — a roundtable of masked masters. They were older than most kingdoms, each member once an assassin who had killed gods, titans, or worse.
One voice spoke — sharp, male, and mechanical.
> "The time has come. He walks."
Asha blinked. "Who?"
A second voice, female, serpent-like:
> "The boy. The blood curse."
A third, low and rough:
> "The cursed child of Amana. The weapon of the forgotten gods."
Asha said nothing, but something inside her stirred.
She had heard whispers — a village turned to ash, enemies slaughtered with no steel, soldiers drowned in their own blood.
But she thought it was myth. Fear propaganda. Wild bard tales.
Now the council confirmed it.
> "Find him," the lead voice said.
"Observe him. Judge him. If he becomes a threat to our purpose, end him."
Asha bowed.
But in her mind… she already knew.
Kaelen Obasi would not be easy prey.
---
As the meeting ended, she lingered near one of the elder assassins — a limping man named Old Lango, known for ending the Soul War with a single poisoned needle.
He spoke softly.
> "He's not what they think."
Asha turned. "What do you mean?"
Lango lit a dark cigar. "The boy. Obasi. They think he's a weapon. Just another cursed fool. But I was there… long ago… when his parents begged for sanctuary. I turned them away."
Asha's brow furrowed. "You denied them?"
Lango didn't answer. Just blew smoke toward the ceiling.
> "He's not their tool. He's not our enemy either. He's fate walking. If you follow him, child... prepare to lose yourself."
---
That night, Asha prepared her gear.
No army. No partner. Just the wind and her silence.
She packed her twin sickles, smoke bombs, venom dust, and a vial of oil from the River Elghun — rumored to melt demon armor. She strapped on her talisman of black glass, the one that let her walk through shadows undetected for five breaths.
She did not wear protection.
Asha had learned long ago — the more armor you wore, the slower you bled.
She left Mysha under the cover of night, heading west, toward Tchamba, where rumors of Obasi's next movement were boiling under palace tongues. He didn't know it yet, but the world had begun to hunt him.
And she would be the one to find him first.
Not to kill.
But to understand.
Because deep inside Asha N'Dari, something was changing. Something was waking. She had never believed in prophecy. Never believed in fate.
But she knew one thing:
Obasi was not just a threat.
He was the key.
---
Across the mountains, in the palace of King Damadu of Gholar, generals screamed at each other behind gold-plated war maps. The Great War between kingdoms had begun to boil again. Tensions over trade routes. Demon sightings in the north. Pirates from the Sky Coast stealing royal ships.
But all of it paled compared to the newest prophecy.
A Gholari priest lay dying in the temple square, face melted from divine fire, and with his last breath, he spoke words that now echoed across all kingdoms:
> "The blood of the boy will flood the gods... and from his bones, the old ones shall rise."
No one knew what it meant.
But every kingdom sent their spies. Every cult sharpened their blades. Every god, demon, and forgotten thing turned their eyes toward the same figure.
Kaelen Obasi.
---
And through all of this, Asha ran through night and wind and shadow. Her feet bled. Her heart did not.
She had killed many.
But something told her:
> "You've never fought what's coming."
---
END OF CHAPTER TWO