My name is Victor. Until not long ago, I was a thief, an orphan, and a survivor on the rooftops of Strasbourg.
Now… I am something more. Something stranger, and far more dangerous.
I have become a Guardian.
I live in a luxurious manor filled with books I can't read, and I train to fight shadows I once thought existed only in fairy tales.
And my training today, it seems, consists of being humiliated.The stone floor of the training hall was cold beneath my bare feet.
In front of me, Margot danced. There's no other word for it.
She moved like deadly smoke, her twin stilettos tracing silver arcs in the air.
She's smaller than me—compact, agile—with a sharp-edged face framed by a dark, perpetually tangled mass of hair, and eyes that see everything—especially your weaknesses.
Margot is the kind of girl you want on your side in a fight. And preferably, not against you.
"You're slow, Victor" she taunted, dodging my clumsy thrust and tapping my ribs with the blunted tip of her blade.
"You're thinking. Stop thinking. Feel."
"Easy for you to say," I panted, stepping back. "Your only thought is 'hit the thing that moves.'"
"It works," she shot back with a fierce grin.
That grin never reached her eyes. Not anymore.
Since we'd lost… since we'd lost everything, our smiles had become just another weapon—a mask we wore out of habit.
"Victor. Margot. That's enough."
Angelica's voice froze us where we stood.
She was at the doorway, motionless.
Angelica Glarner—our mentor, our warden, and our only hope.
Tall, dressed in practical travel clothes that couldn't hide the posture of a soldier.
Her hands were those of a craftsman, but her eyes belonged to a hunter.
She was the one who had found us, brought us here, and now commanded our lives.
"We have an assignment," she said—and the word we sounded like a royal decree.
She led us into the main study.
It was October, 1789.
Outside, France was a boiling cauldron. The Bastille had fallen, and the shockwave of its collapse could be felt even here, in Strasbourg.
There was a new electricity in the air—a mix of hope and terror.
But inside that house, History was just a distant noise.
We were fighting a different kind of war—a quieter one.
On Valois's great table—our enigmatic host and Angelica's master—lay a rolled parchment.
Angelica unrolled it. No words, just a charcoal sketch, rough but effective.
It depicted a tall, dark figure perched on a rooftop, with something like wings.
"Gueule-du-Corbeau," said Angelica, pointing to a spot on a map of Alsace.
"A village in the Vosges. Isolated. Frightened. The reports we've received are unclear. People disappearing into thin air—mostly young ones. And they speak of this."
She tapped the drawing.
"L'Homme-Corbeau. The Crow Man."
The name. The image.
Something clicked in my mind—a damp, cold memory: a rainy night on the river Ill. A blind boatman.
"Hans…" I murmured.
Margot turned toward me, questioning.
"What?" Angelica's gaze sharpened.
"An old man. A boatman," I explained, the image coming into focus. "We met him months ago. He showed us a drawing almost identical to this one. Said it was a peasant's tale—but that someone had seen it… alive."
The memory made me shiver.
"He also sang a rhyme… 'Crow of the river, song of death… beware, young boy, of your rest.'"
Angelica nodded slowly, as if a missing piece had just fallen into place.
"Interesting. That confirms our suspicions—that this isn't just folk superstition."
Her tone shifted to something purely operational.
"The problem is, we're not the only ones who sense these anomalies. Our enemies are listening too. And you know their methods—they won't hesitate to send their zealots to 'purify' the entire area. We must get there first."
"And what do we do?" Margot asked, back in her pragmatic fighter's stance.
"Investigate. Find the source of these rumors. If there really is a creature, understand what it is. If someone's behind it, find out who. You'll be our eyes and ears. No heroics—just information."
Angelica looked straight at me, and I felt the weight of command settle once more on my shoulders.
"Victor, you lead. Margot watches your back. You grew up in the shadows—use them to your advantage."
"And… our toys?" I asked, nodding toward the pocket where I kept my medallion, sealed inside its shielding pouch. My mother's legacy—and my curse.
"Only if absolutely necessary," Angelica said gravely.
"We don't know what's out there. Using your power could be like lighting a beacon in a moonless night. You'd attract the wrong kind of attention. Understood?"
We nodded.
The plan was simple: go there, watch, don't get killed.
Pretty much the story of our lives—only this time, with a countryside detour.
As we packed our gear, I approached Angelica.
"There's one more thing Hans gave me," I said, pulling from my bag a small black plume tied with a strand of red silk.
"He said, 'When the wind changes, you'll know where to go… or where to run.'"
Angelica took the feather, turning it between her fingers with uncharacteristic slowness.
Her expression was that of a scholar examining an impossible artifact.
"Hans…" she murmured, more to herself than to me. "Hans the Blind."
She looked up—and for the first time since I'd met her, I saw genuine surprise in her eyes. Almost fear.
"That name… it appears in our archives. Not in the official reports, but in the margins—in personal journals. He's a kind of legend within the Lodge. A river ghost whispered about from Strasbourg to Paris."
She paused, gathering the threads of those old stories.
"No one has ever found him by searching. He appears when he chooses. And tradition says that when he does, it's to deliver a warning—or a key. His arrival means the game is about to change in ways no one can predict."
She handed the feather back to me. Her hand was cold.
"Listen closely, Victor. I don't know what this is—but if he gave it to you, it's not a gift. It's a piece on the chessboard. Keep it with you. And keep your eyes open. Hans sees things the rest of us can't even imagine."
Moments later, Margot and I were back on the road—two shadows slipping out of the safety of Valois's house.
We were heading toward a village haunted by monsters.
They didn't yet know that sometimes, the worst monsters… are the ones who come to hunt you.