The Hero's celebration was a symphony of light and sound. The grand plaza before the royal castle was a sea of jubilant faces, all turned towards a temporary stage draped in crimson and gold. Banners snapped in the breeze, merchants sold candied apples and miniature flags, and minstrels played cheerful, heroic tunes. It was a perfect picture of a kingdom celebrating its champion. For me, it was a hunting ground.
I moved through the throng not as a person, but as a current, flowing through the gaps, my presence as unnoticed as a shift in the wind. My dark, simple clothes were the perfect camouflage, allowing me to blend in with the servants, apprentices, and common people who crowded the edges of the plaza. My hood was pulled low, my face a study in shadows. My senses were stretched taut, a web designed to catch the slightest discordant thread in the tapestry of the crowd.
On the stage, Lucas was a radiant sun. He stood beside Princess Lilly, waving to the cheering masses. He wore a ceremonial version of his armor, polished to a mirror shine, without a single scratch or dent. He looked strong, confident, and completely at ease, soaking in the adoration. He was playing the part of the Hero perfectly. I felt a familiar, bitter pang watching him, but I crushed it down. That feeling was a luxury. Today, it was a fatal distraction.
My mission was simple and impossible: identify and neutralize the assassins from the Serpent's Hand before they could strike. The file had given me nothing to go on—no names, no descriptions. All I knew was that they were here, hidden somewhere in this sea of thousands.
I couldn't look for weapons. A professional wouldn't carry a sword in the open. I couldn't look for suspicious faces. The best assassins looked bored, or cheerful, or completely unremarkable. I had to look for what was wrong. I had to find the tells.
I started at the perimeter, circling the plaza. I ignored the laughing children and the star-struck nobles. I watched the people who weren't watching the stage. A man leaning against a pillar, his eyes scanning the rooftops instead of the Hero. A woman selling flowers whose hands, though stained with dirt, had the calloused knuckles of a fighter. A couple who held hands but stood just a little too far apart, their bodies angled to give them a clear line of sight to the stage's exit points.
These were possibilities. Sparks of interest. But nothing concrete. I needed more.
The King finished a grand, booming speech, and the crowd roared its approval. The ceremony was moving to its climax: Lucas was to be gifted a legendary shield from the royal armory. This would be the moment of greatest distraction. This would be when they would strike.
I moved closer to the stage, worming my way through the dense press of bodies. The noise was a physical force, a wall of sound that I had to push through. Up close, the tells became clearer.
I saw him first. A man dressed as a palace guard, standing near the steps to the stage. He looked perfect. His armor was polished, his posture was ramrod straight. But his eyes were wrong. The other guards were watching the crowd, their gazes constantly moving. His eyes were locked on a single spot: the clasp that held Princess Lilly's ceremonial cloak. A weak point. A place a poisoned dart could find purchase. That was one.
I slipped a small pellet from my pouch, a bit of dried mud and dung I'd prepared. As a portly merchant pushed past me, I "stumbled," bumping into the guard. "My apologies, sir," I muttered, my head bowed. In that brief moment of contact, I pressed the foul-smelling pellet into a seam on the back of his gauntlet. He wouldn't notice it now, but in the close confines of the barracks, the smell would be undeniable. It would mark him for Captain Marcus's loyal men to investigate later. A subtle tag.
I moved on. My eyes caught a flash of movement on a nearby rooftop. A glint of metal. Not a weapon. A hand mirror, positioned to flash a signal. I followed the line of sight down into the crowd and found her: a young, plain-faced woman who looked like a scribe's assistant. She held a small, folded fan. She was the signaler, coordinating the attack. That was two.
Her target was likely not Lucas, but someone in the crowd. A distraction to pull guards away from the stage. I needed to neutralize her without causing a scene. I bought a candied apple from a nearby vendor. As I moved past the woman, I let the sticky apple slip from my grasp, seemingly by accident. It landed on her foot. As I bent to retrieve it, apologizing profusely, I snagged the delicate paper of her fan with a small, hooked ring on my finger, tearing it. The signal was broken. Her face hardened for a fraction of a second, a flicker of pure fury, before she smoothed it back into a mask of mild annoyance.
One to go. The file had implied a team of three. The leader.
I scanned the crowd again. The King was presenting the shield now, a magnificent thing of silver and gold. All eyes were on it. My eyes were on the faces in the crowd. And then I saw him. He was unremarkable in every way. A middle-aged man with a bland face, dressed in the simple robes of a minor bureaucrat. But he wasn't watching the stage. He wasn't watching the crowd. He was watching the other two assassins. I saw his gaze flick from the tagged guard to the woman with the broken fan. I saw the minute tightening of his jaw. He was the controller.
He was the real threat. He held the final piece, the actual weapon. I saw him subtly shift his weight, his hand drifting inside his robe.
This one couldn't be a subtle tag or a broken tool. This one had to be stopped now.
I began to move towards him, a shark closing in. The crowd was my greatest obstacle and my greatest cover. I pushed through, earning annoyed glares. I had to get to him before he acted. He saw me coming. I don't know how. Maybe he sensed my intent. His eyes met mine for a split second, and there was a flash of recognition. Not of me, but of my kind. Predator recognizing predator.
He abandoned his plan. He turned and began to move away, trying to lose himself in the crowd. I followed, a grim chase in slow motion, both of us constrained by the river of people. He was heading for a side alley. A mistake. An alley meant isolation.
He darted into the narrow passage between two buildings. I followed a second later. He was waiting for me. A thin, wicked-looking blade was in his hand.
"The Association sends a child now?" he hissed.
"They sent enough," I replied, my voice a low rasp.
We didn't waste any more words. He lunged, his blade a silver blur. He was fast, skilled. But he was an assassin, used to striking from stealth. He wasn't a brawler. I was no master, but the pit had taught me one thing: how to survive a desperate, ugly fight.
I parried his thrust with my own dagger, the screech of metal on metal lost in the roar of the crowd from the plaza. I didn't try to out-fence him. I stepped inside his reach, slammed the heel of my palm into his nose, and drove my knee into his gut. He staggered back, blood pouring from his face. Before he could recover, I lunged, not with my blade, but with my shoulder, slamming him hard against the brick wall. His head hit the wall with a sickening crack, and his knife clattered to the ground. He slid down the wall, his eyes glassy.
My mission was to neutralize. Not necessarily to kill. I leaned down, my dagger at his throat. "Who is your contact?" I demanded.
He just gurgled, a bloody smile on his face. "The Serpent has... many heads..."
His hand shot out, not with a weapon, but with a small, dark object. A capsule. He brought it to his mouth. Poison.
I knocked it from his hand, but it was too late. He had already bitten down. A seizure wracked his body, and then he was still. He had taken his secrets with him.
I quickly searched his body. No more weapons. No incriminating letters. Just a few coins and… this. Tucked into the lining of his boot was a small, tightly folded piece of parchment, sealed with a dot of wax. It was coded, the symbols meaningless to me. But it wasn't a mission briefing. It felt different. It was a clandestine communication, something separate from the attack. Something the Association didn't know about.
My orders were to eliminate the threat and return. The threat was eliminated. My mission was over.
But this note was a loose thread. A new secret in a world made of them. I stood in the shadows of the alley, the thunderous applause for Lucas washing over me. I held a choice in my hand. Follow my orders, return to my cell, and report a clean success. Or follow this thread, disobey my masters, and see just how deep the rot in this city truly went.