The lower city was a maze of narrow, winding streets slick with grime. The air, thick with the smells of cheap cook-fires, unwashed bodies, and despair, clung to the back of my throat. This was a world away from the grand halls where Lucas was being celebrated, a festering wound on the side of the glorious capital. And tonight, I was the disease.
The file the Curator had given me was sparse. A name: Elias Thorne. An address: a small apartment above a textile shop. A single, grainy sketch of a man with a receding hairline and a worried expression. And the final, damning detail: he was selling guard patrol schedules to a contact linked to the demon armies. A death sentence, signed and delivered.
I wore the uniform of the Association's lowest operatives: a simple, dark tunic and trousers, a hood to obscure my face, and soft-soled boots that made no sound on the cobblestones. The rusty dagger from the pit had been replaced with a new one, perfectly balanced and sharp enough to shave with. It felt heavier in my hand, weighted with purpose.
Finding the address was easy. The hard part was standing in the shadows of the alley across the street, watching the single lit window on the second floor. I was a ghost, an unseen predator, and the warm, yellow light from that window felt like a judgment.
From my vantage point, I could see inside. It was a small, cramped living space. Elias Thorne sat at a table, his shoulders slumped as he looked over a ledger. A woman—his wife, I assumed—was humming softly as she mended a child's sock. In the corner, a little girl, no older than seven, was sleeping in a small bed. There was no sign of the second child mentioned in the file.
This was the man I was supposed to kill. This was the threat to the kingdom, the danger to the Hero. He didn't look like a monster or a traitor. He looked tired. He looked like a man crushed by the weight of the world. He looked… normal.
The lessons from the pit, the cold survival instinct, warred with a remnant of the boy I used to be. The boy who knew that normal people didn't deserve to die. But the Association's logic was a cold, sharp blade. The Hero's safety already depends on you. If this man sold a patrol schedule, and a demon raiding party used it to attack the castle, and Lucas was hurt… the chain of responsibility would lead directly back to my failure.
My hesitation wasn't a choice. It was a liability.
I needed a plan. The order was specific: make it look like a robbery gone wrong. A simple assassination was easy. A staged crime was complex. It required thought. And for the first time since my arrival, I felt a flicker of something that wasn't rage or fear. It was a cold, clear focus. This was a problem to be solved, a puzzle to be unlocked. My mind, a tool the Association had so far ignored in favor of breaking my body and will, started to work.
A robbery meant a struggle. It meant noise. It meant witnesses being woken. Too messy. Too much risk of being seen. A robbery also implied the thief was after something of value. A poor merchant in the lower city was an unlikely target for a simple thief. It wouldn't be believable.
No. I had to create a narrative. A better one.
I slipped from the alley and moved to the back of the building. A rickety wooden staircase led to the second floor. I scaled it silently, my new boots making no sound. The back door was old, with a simple lock. The tools the Association had provided—a set of thin metal picks—felt natural in my hand, as if I had been using them my entire life. A few tense seconds of maneuvering, a soft click, and I was in.
I was in a small kitchen area. The smell of stew still lingered in the air. I held my breath, listening. The soft humming from the main room continued, uninterrupted. I was a ghost in their home.
My eyes scanned the room, my mind racing, building the story I needed to tell. I saw a small, lockbox on a high shelf. Perfect. I picked the lock—it was even easier than the door—and looked inside. A few coins, some documents, nothing of real value. I took the coins, scattering a few on the floor to make it look like a hasty search.
Next, I needed to create the "gone wrong" part. I moved silently to the main room, staying in the deepest shadows. The woman put down her sewing, stood up, and stretched. She walked over to her husband and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Come to bed, Elias," she said softly. "You can worry about the numbers in the morning."
He sighed and nodded, closing the ledger. "You're right." He stood up and kissed her cheek. "I just don't know how we're going to afford the medicine for Leo this month."
Leo. The second child. The one I couldn't see. He was sick. That was the missing piece of the puzzle. That was the motive. A desperate father, a sick child, and a source of easy money from a dangerous client. It didn't excuse what he had done, but it made him human. And that made this harder.
The woman went into what must have been their bedroom. Elias stayed behind for a moment, his face illuminated by the single candle on the table. He looked old, defeated.
This was my chance. The story needed a single victim. A robber surprised by the husband, a brief struggle, a fatal wound. The wife would find him. Her screams would be the alarm.
I drew my dagger, the polished steel catching a faint flicker of candlelight. I stepped out of the shadows.
Elias Thorne turned. His eyes widened, first in surprise, then in pure terror. He opened his mouth to shout.
I was faster. I crossed the space between us in two silent steps. I clamped my hand over his mouth, stifling the scream. His body tensed, ready to fight. I didn't give him the chance. There was no struggle. No noise. Just a single, efficient, upward thrust with the dagger, exactly where Kael's anatomy lessons had shown us. It was quick. It was silent. It was clean.
I held him for a moment as the life went out of him, his body going limp in my arms. I gently lowered him to the floor, arranging his body to look like he had fallen during a fight. I pressed his own hand against the wound, smearing his blood to make it look like he had tried to stop the bleeding.
I placed the ledger he'd been reading near his body, open to a page of worrying numbers. The story was now complete: a desperate merchant, working late, surprised a thief, and paid the ultimate price. It was a believable tragedy. It was a perfect lie.
I backed away, melting into the shadows, my work done. As I reached the kitchen door, I heard a soft sound from the other room. "Elias? Is everything alright?" his wife called out.
I didn't wait for her to discover the scene. I slipped out the back door, locking it behind me, and descended the stairs into the darkness of the city. My hands weren't shaking this time. My stomach wasn't turning. I felt… empty. Cold. Efficient. I was a tool that had performed its function.
As I navigated the maze of streets back towards the Association's hidden entrance, I saw a poster plastered on a brick wall. It was a grand, colorful announcement, illuminated by a nearby streetlamp. "A CELEBRATION FOR OUR HERO, LUCAS!" it proclaimed in bold letters. "VICTOR OF THE NOVICE TRIALS!"
The Novice Trials. I knew what that was. A scripted, safe tournament held within the castle walls, designed to showcase the Hero's skill to a cheering crowd.
The irony was a physical weight. While Lucas was playing for applause, I was in the slums, murdering a desperate man to protect him. He was being celebrated for a fake victory. I had just achieved a real one, a silent, dirty victory that no one would ever know about.
The Curator was waiting for me in the dark corridor outside my cell. He didn't ask if the mission was a success. He knew. He looked me over, his gaze analytical.
"Good," was all he said.
He slid a new file across the floor to my feet.
"The merchant had a ledger," the Curator's dry voice explained, confirming what I already knew. "Our source confirms it mentions a name: 'The Serpent's Hand'. They are an assassination guild hired by the demons. They are planning to strike during the Hero's celebration tomorrow."
He looked at me, his eyes gleaming faintly in the gloom.
"Your next task is to become a ghost in that crowd and cut off that hand before it can strike."