THUMP.
It was the soft, undignified sound of a body hitting the alley floor.
Lyno was out cold. His eyes were rolled back, a tiny string of drool escaping the corner of his mouth. The sandwich, his last bastion of sanity, lay half-crushed beside his head.
Valerius Zathra stood at the mouth of the alley, his arms laden with magically-chilled kettles and priceless crystal cups. He looked at his unconscious Master. He looked at the kneeling assassin. He looked at the discarded stiletto.
His expression was not one of alarm. It was one of pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
"He has done it!" Valerius declared to the empty alley, his voice booming with pride. "He faced the legendary Shadow's Kiss—a living embodiment of mortal death—and not only pacified her, but inspired her to cast aside her former life and pledge her fealty... all without taking a single step or uttering a single spell!"
Seraphina, still kneeling, looked up from Lyno's unconscious form. As an assassin, she knew the signs of someone fainting from shock. She'd caused it herself dozens of time.
But this was the Master. Her new, enlightened mind instantly discarded the logical, mundane explanation for a more profound one.
"He has entered a state of contemplative trance," she said, her voice filled with awe. "The effort of... accepting my vow... of rewriting the karmic path of a soul steeped in so much blood... must have required him to retreat into his own consciousness."
Valerius strode forward, carefully setting his precious tea-making apparatus down on a clean crate. He peered down at Lyno like a scholar examining a newly discovered rune.
CLICK.
The pieces assembled themselves in his hyper-intelligent mind, forming a brilliant and utterly incorrect picture.
"Trance? My dear child, you underestimate the Master's sheer efficiency!" Valerius said, a manic gleam in his eyes. "This is not a retreat. This is a reallocation of cosmic resources!"
He pointed a dramatic finger at Lyno. "Mortals must remain conscious to process information. The Master has no such limitation. He has deemed his physical vessel temporarily unnecessary. He has intentionally induced a state of metabolic suspension to dedicate his full, undivided cosmic awareness to the task of integrating your oath of fealty into the grand tapestry of fate!"
Seraphina stared, her mind blown. It made perfect, terrifying sense. Fainting wasn't a weakness. It was a a power-saving mode for gods.
"He is... honoring my vow?" she whispered, touched to her very core.
"He is doing more than honoring it! He is sanctifying it!" Valerius proclaimed. He then gestured towards the squashed sandwich. "And observe! He has relinquished his physical sustenance! A symbolic act, demonstrating his complete transition from a state of physical being to one of pure, conceptual processing! This is a sacred moment!"
Seraphina now viewed the sad, dirt-covered sandwich with the same reverence she would a holy text. It was the centerpiece of a miracle. The lesson in humility that had changed her life.
The two followers, one ancient and scholarly, the other young and lethal, looked at each other over the prone body of their Master. An understanding passed between them. They were the first. The chosen.
"I am Valerius Zathra," the old man said with a slight, formal bow. "Formerly Grand Sage of the Aethelian Empire. Now, I am simply the humble attendant and chronicler of the Master's works."
Seraphina rose gracefully to her feet. "I was once called the Shadow's Kiss," she replied, her amethyst eyes firm with conviction. "That name belongs to the cycle of death, a cycle the Master has freed me from. From this day forward, I have no name. I am only his Shadow. I will guard his vessel."
"An excellent division of labor!" Valerius declared happily. "I shall interpret his will; you shall enforce it. I shall tend to his serenity; you shall eliminate any who would disturb it."
They had known each other for less than a minute and had already formed a pact, united in their profound misunderstanding of Lyno.
"We must move the Master," Seraphina stated. Her tone was practical. "He should not repose in the dirt." She reached down, intending to simply lift him.
"WAIT!" Valerius commanded, his hand shooting out to stop her. "You must not touch him directly! The esoteric energies swirling around his vessel right now are volatile. He is rewriting fate itself! Your physical touch could introduce a variable, a flaw in the grand equation!"
Seraphina recoiled as if burned. Of course. She had been foolish.
"Then how do we move him to his... Throne of Serenity?" she asked.
"With reverence," Valerius stated. "And with the proper tools."
He first turned his attention to the Holy Sandwich. With the care of a master surgeon, he used one of his pristine silk handkerchiefs to scoop it up, dirt and all.
"The Remnant of the First Lesson," he whispered, carefully folding the silk around it. "Its axiomatic properties must be preserved for later study."
He then turned back to Lyno. Valerius's eyes glowed with a soft white light as he gathered aether around his hands.
"I shall perform the Rite of Serene Levitation," he explained. "It will keep his vessel perfectly balanced, free from the jarring motions of the physical world. Your role, his Shadow, will be to precede us. 'Sanitize' the path of any hostile intent, corporeal or otherwise."
A moment later, Lyno's limp body was gently lifted into the air. He floated horizontally, about three feet off the ground, a faint white aura shimmering around him. He looked like a very pathetic saint.
"Lead on," Valerius commanded Seraphina. "To the Athenaeum of Origin."
Seraphina nodded curtly. With a flicker of movement, she melted into the shadows at the edge of the alley, scouting ahead for threats, real and imagined, against the most important person in the universe. Valerius followed slowly, reverently guiding his floating, unconscious, and slightly drooling Master home.
Far away, in the Imperial Citadel, Captain Vorlag stood stiffly, the polished obsidian floor reflecting her grim visage. She held a communication crystal that pulsed with the faint light of a direct link to the highest echelons of power.
"Report," a voice commanded from the crystal. The voice was calm, ancient, and held an authority that could make mountains bow. It was the voice of the Emperor himself.
"Sir," Vorlag began, her report concise and military-sharp. "The anomaly, now codenamed 'The Librarian,' is confirmed to be an entity of unimaginable power. The incident in the town square has been classified as an Axiomatic Severance Event, per the Mage's Council."
"I have read the preliminary report," the Emperor's voice returned. "It mentioned the allegiance of Valerius Zathra."
"That information is correct, Your Majesty," Vorlag confirmed. "But there is... a development. A significant one."
There was a pause. The crystal seemed to dim slightly. "Continue."
Captain Vorlag took a deep breath. "Majesty... The Shadow's Kiss was dispatched by the united guilds to terminate the Librarian. I can now confirm that she located the target."
A heavy silence filled the throne room. Vorlag could feel the Emperor's immense pressure even through the crystal.
"And?" the Emperor's voice was now dangerously quiet.
"Be advised," Vorlag said, choosing her words with extreme care. "The Shadow's Kiss... has also entered his sphere of influence. Her contract has been broken. We believe she has been... pacified."
The silence that followed was not empty. It was filled with the sound of a thousand strategic calculations, a hundred paranoid assumptions, and one, universe-shattering conclusion being drawn.
The Emperor's voice, when it finally returned, was strained, containing a note of something Vorlag had never heard before. It sounded like fear.
"By the Unblinking Eye... He commands obedience from sages and bends assassins to his will without a fight? Who is this man?"