Some men are born to rule. Some to follow. Others to die.
One, to kill.
—Ulric the vile
Xander looked out the carriage window as his horse galloped: trees and more trees. He didn't particularly mind them.
He could see clearly now. There was still dew on the leaves when he'd left, shimmering faint in the early light. He looked up and saw the sun glaring down from its usual spot, though with noticeably less intensity. The air was a bit chilly for an afternoon, but he didn't mind any of it. They were all blessings from Korvus, after all—every leaf, every cold breeze, every precise beam of light.
What he did mind, however, was the pace. The carriage was too slow. It grated against his nerves. He didn't know who to blame: the horse for being so sluggish, or the coachman for burdening such a weak beast.
He had asked the coachman if he could ride faster a few times, and every time he was met with a dull nod of acknowledgment. The man would strike the horse with his whip, and they would pick up speed—for a moment.
But then they would inevitably return to this slow, agonizing, uneven pace.
He needed to be in Norrath today. They had sent a carrier pigeon to him. There were no real instructions—nothing of substance, really. The paper was completely blank except for three words written in night-black ink. Even without detailed orders, he understood the urgency. If only he could make the coachman and his sick horse understand the importance of time.
The carriage finally grunted to a halt. Xander poked his head outside and saw the massive stone archway of a gate.
"Is this it?" he asked.
"Yur." The coachman had a lazy, trailing accent.
Xander cringed at the sound. That mangled vowel hit an itch in his brain—a crooked, messy flaw that made him want to scream at the man to speak cleanly. But he held his tongue. Instead, he stepped down out of the carriage.
"Yer not supposed to come down. I'm supposed to guide you all the way inside," the coachman grunted.
"I'll manage." Xander pulled his single leather bag down from the carriage rack, adjusting the strap so it rested perfectly flush against his shoulder.
When he walked through the archway, he couldn't help but admire the architecture. He had been here before, but the towering arrays of white stone punctuated by occasional, deliberate cuts of black still left him in awe.
The whites were pristine. Clean. Despite the fact that thousands of boots trod these streets daily, the stone remained brilliant—not a faded, weathered gray, but new cotton wool white. New paper white. It reflected the overhead sun like a blinding mirror. They had clearly applied a fresh coat of lime paint since his last visit.
Whoever held the brush had done a fine job—though, as his eyes swept the lower moldings, he caught a few faint, irregular stains along the edges of the mortar that made his fingers twitch.
The central square was filled with wooden booths, vendors crying out their wares in a chaotic chorus. He stopped in front of a woman displaying fresh catches on a bed of crushed ice.
"Good day," he said, stopping directly before her. "How much do these cost?"
"A single Korvi."
Korvi. He had always liked that their currency was named after Korvus. It wasn't particularly clever, but it demonstrated proper respect. Order in the coin, order in the heavens. He handed the woman a bright, spotless coin and went on his way with his wrapped fish.
He found a shaded corner beside a clean building facade to eat. The fish was wrapped in a brown piece of paper the color of dry sand.
Poor choice of paper, he thought, wincing at its uneven, coarse texture.
He placed his bag down by his left boot, aligning it parallel to the wall, and slowly opened the paper to reveal its contents. He tore away at the fish piece by piece, stripping the flesh cleanly from the spine until there was nothing left but bare skeleton. Gathering the bones back into the paper, he picked up a smooth, rounded pebble beside his foot. He dug a neat, round hole in the soil at the base of the wall, placed the wrapped fish inside, and carefully covered it up. With the heel of his boot, he patted the dirt until the surface was completely flat and undisturbed—exactly as he had found it.
Satisfied, he picked up his bag and walked away.
He wandered the avenues, watching the steady stream of citizens. The smells, the sharp sights, and the rhythmic hum of the crowd had a soothing, ordering effect on his mind. He stopped in front of a florist's stall. She had blossoms laid out in immaculate buckets—flowers of all shades, scents, and symmetrical petals.
Suddenly, he was seven again. His mother was taking him to an open field, telling him she wanted him to interact more with children his age. He had tried—he really had—but the other children were chaotic, unpredictable, messy. They didn't understand his need for quiet, and he certainly didn't understand their wild noise.
So he had wandered off until he found a patch of land. Untainted. Quiet. Completely vacant.
The sun had shone down through the canopy, light bouncing off blades of grass that were somehow still wet with morning dew. The birds around him sang in harmony, and his small palm had brushed across the damp green stalks. It was an exquisite palette of colors—all the shades he knew, and all the ones he had yet to name. He had plucked a single flower—yellow like fresh butter—as gently as his fingers could manage, bringing it to his nose. It smelled divine. He had wanted to stay there forever, living out his days in the absolute, quiet perfection of those ravishing flowers.
Then his mother had appeared from behind, grabbing his wrist and dragging him away from his paradise back to the noise. He had never forgotten that field. He could still recall the exact scent of that yellow petal. It was his favorite memory from a time when things were still fine, before things went so terribly wrong.
"Would you like some flowers for the missus?"
The shopkeeper's voice shattered the memory. Xander blinked, realizing he had been staring.
"No. That's alright."
Something caught the corner of his eye farther down the avenue—a crowd forming, murmuring and shifting out of alignment. He walked toward them. As he closed the distance, he saw they were gathered in a tight, ugly circle around something. Jeering. Hooting.
Barbarians. Some people simply didn't deserve the privilege of living within these white walls.
He pushed through the outer ring and saw a fat, sweating man holding a young girl tightly by the wrist. The girl was looking at the mob, terrified and confused. Memories flashed unbidden through Xander's mind—a memory of himself trapped in a chaotic circle, helpless against noise he couldn't control. For a strange, fleeting second, he didn't see the girl. He saw someone else standing in her place.
He pushed his way into the center.
"Stop!" he yelled. The crowd kept hooting.
"I said stop!"
His voice sliced through the noise, and the crowd finally went quiet, heads turning toward him.
"What are you doing?" the fat man holding the girl demanded.
"What has this girl done?" Xander asked, his voice low and level.
"She tried to dupe me!" the man claimed with loud confidence, his blob of a face reddening. "She didn't pay me all my money! She was already wasting my time with useless questions, and then when it's time to pay, she doesn't give me enough!"
A man in the crowd spat on the cobblestones.
"I didn't know!" the girl refuted, her voice soft and trembling.
"You filthy liar!" The fat man raised his heavy hand to strike her across the face.
"No need for that," Xander interrupted, stepping between them. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out two clean Korvi, and held them out. "Is this enough?"
"You're one short!" the man barked. "And I don't want your money anyway! I want justice!"
"Yes!" a voice in the mob screamed. "She has to be punished as directed by the scriptures!"
Scripturally, they were correct—the law demanded a steep price for theft within the holy city. But Xander looked down at the girl's wide, terrified eyes, and for reasons he couldn't quite rationalize, he saw no divine purpose in her death. It felt... wrong. An unnecessary stain on the afternoon.
"I will pay you three Korvi," Xander said plainly, "plus another three if you unhand her and let her go."
The crowd began to murmur in frustration.
"Didn't you hear him?" someone yelled. "He wants justice!" Others shouted in agreement, eager for a spectacle.
The fat man stared at Xander, his eyes locking onto the glint of the extra coins.
"Fine," the man grunted, his greed winning out. "I'll take the money." He thrust his broad palm forward, and Xander dropped the exact count of coins into his hand.
Several townsfolk hissed in disappointment, throwing dirty looks at Xander before dispersing. Barbarians, the lot of them—eager to spill blood over three coins just to satisfy their crude desire for noise. He watched them scatter, restoring quiet order to the street.
The white stone walls surrounding them seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Xander looked down at the girl huddled against the lime-painted wall. She was trembling, her hands pressed against the cold stone as if trying to shrink into the masonry itself. Messy. Disordered. But alive.
He stepped forward, extending a pale, clean hand toward her. "Are you alright?"
The girl blinked up at him, her wide blue eyes lingering on his face for a beat before taking his fingers. He pulled her up with a firm, measured tug. She immediately began brushing dirt and gray grit from her skirt, her movements swift and panicked.
"Thank you," she murmured, her voice soft and breathless.
Xander adjusted the leather strap of his satchel, aligning it neatly against his collarbone. "No need. I don't know what it is you did to those men, but no man holds the divine authority to judge another in the street. Only Korvus can do that."
The girl simply nodded, staring at him as though he had spoken in an ancient dialect. She didn't offer a prayer.
Xander studied her face. Up close, the flaws in her presentation were obvious: the dust on her cloak, the frayed hem of her hemline, and the total absence of proper northern attire. Her posture lacked the rigid, clean composure of someone raised beneath the white archways.
"You're not from around here, are you?" he asked, his gray eyes sweeping over her features
"Is it that obvious?" she asked, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders as if trying to hide the foreign on her skin.
A tiny, stiff smile touched the corner of his lips—a brief, disciplined twitch of muscle. "No. I just have good eyes, is all."
An awkward silence settled between them. The street was quiet now, perfectly still. He had fulfilled his duty, settled the discrepancy, and cleared the noise. There was nothing more to align here.
The girl dipped her head in a small, polite bow and turned toward the dark alleyway leading back toward the southern gate.
Xander watched her go, his eyes tracking her line of movement until her silhouette vanished around the corner. He glanced down at the cobblestones where the fat merchant had stood, noting three dark spots of spit near the wall. He frowned, nudging a loose pebble with the toe of his boot to cover the stain, before turning back toward the central spire.
He had a letter with three black words in his pocket. There was no more time to waste on stray travelers.
He walked past the statue of Grand Archon Sorin and bent the knee to the Saint. The First Archon. The man every person who ever worshipped Korvus wanted to be.
Then he saw it—a smudge of dried mud clinging to the bottom of the white stone. His jaw clenched. He bent down and used the clean edge of his black sleeve to wipe the mud away, rubbing until the stone was pristine once more. When he was sure it was perfectly clean again, he stood up and walked away.
A sound caught his attention as he passed an open courtyard. He looked sideways and saw an Acolyte conducting a class. The children sat in straight rows, quiet, listening with utmost attention. With order, as it should be.
He reached the Tower of the Archon and started up the long flight of stairs, eventually making it to the top. He respected the Archon for his willingness to climb these stairs every day—a proper, disciplined ritual.
Two men stood guarding his door. One of them stretched out a hand.
"Leave your bag outside."
"Why is that necessary?" Xander asked, his brow furrowing.
"It's procedure."
Xander handed over his bag, watching as the guard set it roughly to the side, letting it fall lopsided against the wall. Xander's eye twitched violently at the mess.
"Be careful with it," Xander said, his voice dropping into a cold, sharp register.
He knocked twice, walked through the door, and found the Archon staring out the window where a black curtain hung heavy over the light. The room was small, austere, with a single bed covered in red sheets pulled tight, and a wooden wardrobe by the side. In front of the Archon sat a single black marble table with two chairs placed at exact opposite ends.
The Archon wore a long, flowing white robe that swirled as the wind came through the frame. Eventually, he turned around and smiled—a slow, mechanical thing.
"Hello, Xander," he said, pointing to a chair. "Sit, please."
Xander sat, aligning his posture, and the Archon sat down opposite him at the table.
"Thank you for coming as quick as you could. The matter at hand is rather urgent."
"You sound disturbed, sir," Xander said, studying the old man's face. "Should I be worried?"
The Archon laughed, a dry, hollow sound.
"Do I? Well, you don't need to be worried," he said. He stood up and walked back to the window. " The letter was rather vague, but It's nothing special."
"I see," Xander spoke, keeping his hands flat on his knees. "And what is it you need me to do?"
"The same as always. I need the Empire's finest assassin to kill a pest for me."