Age 11
Surface District 7 — Slum Quarter
Target: Defector's Lineage
The fire was still fresh when Kael stepped over the charred threshold.
He moved like shadow through the smoke—silent, precise. His black robe whipped at his ankles, the ash-sigil at his collar glowing faintly in the chaos. Behind him, lesser acolytes fanned out to secure the perimeter, but none dared approach the room Kael entered.
He was Severed. Touched by the Knife. Marked as one of the few who had truly shed the weight of the past.
His orders were clear:
Locate and eliminate the bloodline of Varn Sahl, a defector of the Path.
The man himself had long since fled or been torn apart by rival factions. But the Hollow Circle demanded completeness. That meant his kin.
Kael found them in the backroom.
A woman. Early thirties. Burn scars across her jaw. Holding a girl—six, maybe seven—who coughed blood into her sleeve.
The girl looked up.
Kael's dagger was already in his hand.
But the girl didn't scream.
She smiled.
Not in mockery. Not in defiance.
In recognition.
"Kael," she said softly.
He froze.
"Lira used to talk about you," the woman whispered.
That name.
It landed like stone in his mind. He had burned it away. Cut it clean. Hadn't spoken it in months.
But the girl's voice cracked something.
A memory that wasn't a memory—a scent, a sound, the feeling of someone's fingers wrapped around his in the dark.
"She said you'd save people one day," the girl added.
The dagger didn't move.
The air inside him cracked.
He remembered the blade at his temple. The voices telling him he was no longer son. No longer loved.
But something survived.
He stared at the girl. The same age he was when they took his mother. When they made him kneel in ash.
She didn't look away.
Neither did her mother.
Kael stepped back.
"No one saw you," he said.
"Leave. Now."
The woman's eyes widened.
He turned. Stalked into the smoke. Didn't watch them go.
Later, when the other acolytes asked what became of the targets, he said:
"Consumed by fire. Beyond recovery."
No one questioned him. He had earned that kind of trust.
But that night, for the first time in years, Kael dreamed.
Not of fire.
Not of screams.
Of the moonlight on Lira's face. Of the feel of her hand in his. Of a moment he shouldn't have remembered.
In the deepest cell of his mind, something whispered:
"You are more than what they made you."
Kael woke in sweat.
He didn't tell the Hollow Circle.
He simply added a second, secret truth to his path:
Climb. Survive. And one day, make them pay.