The air was ice. It bit at the exposed slivers of skin around my mask, sharp and unforgiving.
I crouched on the jagged edge of the slate roof, a gargoyle carved from shadow. Below me, the Dresvan estate loomed—a monument to excess, white marble and gold leaf glowing under the indifferent moon. My fingers traced the parchment in my pocket, the ink from Califer's message practically burned into my retinas.
Target: Darcelia Dresvan Class: Alpha / Royal Blood Status: Execute in silence Client: Reynold Cind
I frowned behind the porcelain. Califer was usually meticulous, providing a ledger of sins to justify the blade—debts, betrayals, blood-spilt. For Darcelia, there was nothing but a name and a price. A heavy, nagging doubt coiled in my stomach like a cold snake. Was she a tyrant in the making, or was I being sent to silence an innocent?
I shook the thought away. Doubt was a luxury the Black Reaper couldn't afford; it slowed the hand and dulled the edge.
I raised my binoculars. The manor was a hive of frantic activity, servants fluttering through the gilded halls like moths drawn to a flame. Finally, I spotted her: a young woman in a flowing white nightgown, retiring to her chambers. The moment her lights flickered out, the world went still.
My turn.
I moved with the predatory grace of a phantom, leaping from the roof to a narrow stone ledge. I slipped through the open window of her chambers, my boots hitting the plush carpet with a silence that defied physics. The girl was a pale blur on a massive silk bed, sleeping with a peace I hadn't known in a decade.
A sudden, sharp flash of memory—a similar room, a similar silence, the smell of lavender and burning wood—pierced my brain. I hissed, clutching my temple as a migraine bloomed behind my eyes. I forced it down, drawing my rapier. The cold steel hummed, an extension of my own hollowed-out soul.
I stepped toward the bed, raising the blade for the killing arc—
The air behind me shifted.
Before I could pivot, a massive weight slammed into my back, driving me into the floor with bone-rattling force. The breath left my lungs in a harsh puff.
"I believe I can't let you do that," a voice purred. It wasn't the voice of a guard. It was rich, melodic, and terrifyingly calm.
My heart hammered against my ribs, but not from the adrenaline of the hunt. This was... different. I twisted, looking up at my captor, and for a heartbeat, the universe simply stopped.
He was striking—dangerously so. His hair was the color of fresh snow, falling over a face that looked as though it had been carved from marble by a master who knew only of beauty and war. But it was his eyes that trapped me: molten gold, piercing and predatory, glowing with an intensity that seemed to incinerate every secret I held. He wore no mask, flaunting a lethal, arrogant beauty that felt like a physical blow.
Under my own mask, I felt a heat crawl up my neck. A flush. It was an alien sensation, a weakness I didn't recognize and couldn't control.
He leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of my ear, his breath warm against the cold porcelain. "You're quite skilled for a Reaper," he whispered, his tone dripping with a smooth, effortless disdain. "But in the end, you're just like the others. Worthless. Weak."
The insult snapped the spell.
I coiled my muscles and kicked upward with every ounce of my trained strength, catching him in the chest and sending him reeling. I didn't wait for him to recover. I lunged, grabbing his collar, and hauled both of us through the open window.
We fell through the night air, a tangle of limbs and steel, landing in the manicured garden below. We hit the grass and rolled, springing up into fighting stances with ten feet of moonlight between us.
"Oh?" He straightened his dark tunic, a cocky, infuriating smirk playing on his lips. "A killer who wants a proper duel. How refreshing."
I didn't give him the satisfaction of a reply. I charged.
Steel clashed against steel, the high-pitched sang of my rapier meeting his heavy blade echoing through the gardens. He was fast—terrifyingly so. Every thrust I made, every feint that had fooled a hundred men, was parried with effortless precision. We moved in a lethal dance, a blur of black cloth and silver hair.
We lunged at the same time, our blades locking at the hilt, bringing our faces inches apart. I stared into those golden eyes, my breath hitching in my throat. But as I looked, his expression shifted. The arrogance vanished, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated shock. His grip on his sword slackened.
He stopped. He just stood there, his sword lowered to the grass, staring at me as if he were seeing a ghost rise from the soil.
"Brother?"
A soft, sleepy voice called out from the balcony above. The target was awake.
I didn't hesitate. I used his sudden, inexplicable confusion to vanish into the tree line, my heart racing for a reason I couldn't explain. I ran until my lungs burned and my legs turned to lead, finally collapsing onto a high branch miles away from the estate.
I pulled off my mask, gasping for the freezing air, my face damp with sweat. My skin was still tingling where his fingers had grazed me.
"Why?" I whispered to the empty forest, my voice trembling. "Who the hell was he... and why did he look at me like he knew me?"
I looked down at the mask in my lap. For the first time, the porcelain felt like a lie. The golden-eyed stranger hadn't fought the Black Reaper; he had been looking for someone else. And as the sun began to bleed over the horizon, I realized with a jolt of terror that for the first time in years, I wanted to be found.