The ledger wasn't enough.
Kael sat in the dark, the pages laying out flat before him like an autopsy of his history. Every name was a dead body. Every line oozing. His eyes burned from reading, but he memorized them anyway—the stolen, the sold, the slaughtered.
He didn't want revenge anymore. He wanted justice. And in Vireholm, justice came with a body count.
He ripped out the page with his own mark—Subject 47: K.V. — Discarded. No potential. No value.—and folded it into his pocket. Everything else in the ledger he sealed in a waterproof bag, strapped to his chest. Then he soaked the work bench in oil, struck the match, and let it burn.
If he screwed up tonight, there would be nothing left for the Varnels to take back.
The service tunnel threw him up and out into the veins of Old Town, where the streets were tighter and meaner, alive with midnight commerce. Magic crackled from stalls at corners, with desperate merchants shilling contraband relics and counterfeit charms. Men with sigils burnt into their foreheads shambled at alley mouths, selling protection for a taste of the soul.
Kael ignored them all. He had a destination.
The Black Needle.
It rose at the heart of the Smolder Docks, a crooked tower of iron and glass, leaning over the sea like a dying god. Its spire slashed the clouds, its windows glowed faint red, and its clientele were the kinds of killers who didn't take contracts—they made them.
He bypassed the bouncers at the Needle's door in a flash with his dagger and a whispered promise of blood. Walking inside, the air was thick with smoke and spellfire, and a dozen languages coalescing in tones of threats and wagers. At the far end of the room was a woman wrapped in gold-threaded velvet, a hood pulled low over her face, hands folded around a crystal orb.
Kael stepped forward.
"You're late," she said before he could speak. She had a low, rich, dangerous voice.
"I'm alive," he replied. "That's all that matters."
Her lips turned up minutely at the edges. "For now."
She indicated he should sit, and he pulled a stool from a table and sat down. The table between them glowed with a low luminescence when she placed her fingers on the orb. The orb glimmered; images flashed across its surface—wards coming down, walls crashing down, one name crossed off after another.
"You retrieved it?" she asked.
Kael pushed the satchel across the surface of the table. "Every name. Every mark. Including me."
The woman's hands paused above the orb. Slowly, she reached for the satchel, opened it, and began to flip through the wet pages with their dark edges. She didn't bother to hide her surprise.
"Nice work," she said under her breath. "And the girl?"
Kael's jaw tightened. He remembered the frost on his cloak, the silver glow of her eyes, the way her blade sung in the dark.
"She let me walk away," he said at last.
The woman cocked her head to one side and studied him as if he were an equation she hadn't solved yet. "Too bad. That one is very dangerous.
"So am I."
The woman chuckled quietly. "That remains to be seen," she said, leaning back in her chair and steepling her fingers. "You've done more than anyone thought you would as a 'discard,' Kael Virex. Just remember, there is a difference between making progress and winning. The Varnels do not forgive. And the girl...she will be coming for you."
Kael's fingers flexed against the hilt of his blade beneath the table. "Good. Let her try."
The woman smiled faintly, despite her remorseless eyes.
"You want them destroyed," she said. "I can provide that. Names. Weapons. Allies. But first, you need to grasp something, Forsaken One."
She tapped the orb, and the image appeared. Celeste Varnel, her hood pushed back, her eyes glowing like winter stars, scars or runes crackling with power atop a parapet.
"She isn't just their weapon," the woman said quietly. "She is the Varnels now. If you want to kill the house... you must kill her first."
Kael's stomach twisted—not from fear, but something deeper, something cold.
He watched the image dissolve until it turned to smoke. Then he stood, the chair shrieking against the floor.
"Then give me everything you have. And pray she dies before I do."
The woman watched him leave, a small smile returning to her lips as she whispered to herself.
"And so the game begins."
Outside, the storm had given in. Dawn was a hint of warmth on the horizon, but Kael didn't even see it.
He only saw her.
A silhouette in his mind, sitting high on a roof, silver eyes unblinking.
Waiting. Watching.
And this time, when they met, one of them would not walk away.