Modern Industrial District - Ruins
The silence after the collapse was worse than the screaming.
Finn stood motionless, staring at the rubble where the factory had stood moments before. Dust hung in the air like a funeral shroud, illuminated by scattered fires burning in the wreckage. The acrid smell of burning wood mixed with stone dust and something else—the sharp, metallic scent of disrupted magical energy.
Beside him, Rhea's hands were shaking. Her grey eyes, usually so controlled and emotionless, were wide with something that might have been horror or guilt or both.
"They're dead," Finn said. His voice was flat, empty of the usual humor that masked his darkness. "Three children. We saved fourteen, but we killed three."
"We didn't kill them," Rhea said, but even she didn't sound convinced. "The ritual—"
"We broke the ritual," Finn interrupted, his voice gaining an edge like broken glass. "We killed the mage who could have properly terminated it. We acted without understanding the consequences. And three children died because we were too eager to punish the guilty without thinking about protecting the innocent."
Rhea opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. What defense could she offer? He was right. They'd been so focused on killing the cultists, so consumed by righteous fury at the dark magic laboratory, that they'd acted tactically stupid.
"All teams," Finn said into the communication spell, his voice mechanical. "Western industrial... casualties. Three children dead. Magical instability caused structural collapse. Bodies are buried in the rubble." He paused, forcing the next words out. "Mission failure. Repeat. Mission failure."
The communication spell crackled with shocked silence.
Then Magnus's voice, tight with carefully controlled emotion: "Finn, that's not—you saved eleven. That's not failure—"
"We killed three," Finn cut him off. "You can dress it up however you want, but at the end of the night, three children who were alive when we entered that building are now corpses because of decisions we made. That's not success. That's not acceptable losses. That's failure."
"Finn—" Sera's voice started.
"I'm out," Finn said, and cut the communication spell connection.
He walked away from Rhea, away from the unconscious children they'd saved, away from everything. His legs carried him on autopilot to a rusted water tower fifty yards from the collapsed factory. He climbed it mechanically, his fingers finding holds without conscious thought, until he reached the top and could sit with his back against the cold metal.
Then Finn "The Blade" Corvus—assassin, infiltration specialist, the man who always had a joke and a grin—put his head in his hands and tried very hard not to scream.
He'd killed his first person at sixteen. A merchant who'd abused street children, the kind of monster who thought money meant he could do whatever he wanted. Finn had put a knife through his throat and felt nothing but professional satisfaction at a job done well.
Over the years, he'd killed dozens. Maybe hundreds if he counted indirect deaths from poison and sabotage. Merchants, nobles, guards, criminals, soldiers. He'd killed men who probably had families, who might have been good people following bad orders or just trying to survive in a corrupt world.
But he'd never killed a child.
Not directly. Not through his own actions. Not when he could have prevented it.
"They were already dying," a voice said from below.
Finn looked down. Rhea had followed him, was climbing the water tower with efficient movements. She reached the top and sat beside him, not touching, respecting his space.
"The ritual," Rhea continued, her voice hollow. "Those runes weren't just markings. They were actively draining the children's life force, converting it to magical energy. The mage said the process took an hour. We interrupted it maybe forty minutes in."
"So?" Finn's voice was harsh.
"So they were already dying," Rhea said. "The moment that ritual began, those three were on borrowed time. Even if we'd done everything perfectly, even if we'd captured the mage alive and forced her to reverse the process, I don't think they could have been saved. The magical contamination was too deep."
Finn turned to look at her. Her face was pale in the moonlight, her expression carved from stone, but her eyes betrayed her. She was trying to convince herself as much as him.
"You don't believe that," Finn said.
Rhea was silent for a long moment. "No," she admitted finally. "I don't. Maybe they could have been saved. Maybe Marcus could have done something. Maybe a master healer could have purged the magical corruption. We'll never know now because we acted like warriors instead of thinking like protectors."
"We're assassins," Finn said bitterly. "We're trained to kill, not save. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe Prince Ethan sent the wrong people for this mission."
"The other eleven are alive because of us," Rhea said.
"And three are dead because of us," Finn shot back. "Do you think that math makes it better? Do you think we get to balance the scales like that and call it a win?"
"No," Rhea said quietly. "We don't. We carry the three. We remember them. We make sure their deaths mean something by ensuring we don't make the same mistakes again."
Finn laughed, a sound without humor. "Platitudes. We killed three kids through our incompetence, and your answer is to remember them? That's supposed to make it better?"
"No," Rhea said, her voice hardening. "Nothing makes it better. Nothing ever makes it better. But wallowing in guilt and self-pity doesn't bring them back either. All we can do is—"
"Don't," Finn interrupted. "Don't give me the speech about how we have to be strong and learn from this and move forward. Save it for someone who gives a damn about professional development."
They sat in hostile silence, both wrapped in their own darkness.
Below them, palace guards had arrived and were organizing the evacuation of the eleven rescued children. Medical teams worked with efficient professionalism, checking vitals, administering healing potions, preparing transport. The machinery of bureaucratic compassion grinding forward.
But no one was digging through the rubble. No one was searching for survivors in the collapsed building. Because everyone knew there were no survivors to find. Three children were buried under tons of stone and wood, their magically altered bodies probably torn apart by the collapse.
"Marcus and Sera are asking to speak with you," Rhea said eventually, her hand touching her temple where the communication spell anchored. "Sera says—"
"I don't want to hear it," Finn said.
"—that the northern facility had children who showed signs of prior magical experimentation too," Rhea continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Runic scarring, traces of dark magic exposure. Marcus thinks this was systematic—that the Velvet Merchant was running multiple experimental sites, trying to perfect whatever process that mage was using."
Finn's hands clenched into fists. "So what? We're supposed to feel better because this was part of a larger atrocity? That somehow makes our failure less significant?"
"No," Rhea said. "But it means those three children might have been test subjects for weeks or months. They might have been in constant pain, constantly terrified, their bodies slowly being destroyed by dark magic. And we ended that suffering. It's not redemption, but it's not meaningless either."
"They didn't ask to be test subjects," Finn said, his voice cracking slightly. "They didn't ask for any of this. They just wanted to go home. And instead of going home, they got buried alive in a collapsing building because we—because I—"
His voice broke completely.
Rhea finally moved, putting a hand on his shoulder. Not comforting, not gentle, just... present. A reminder that he wasn't alone in this darkness.
"Their names," Rhea said quietly.
"What?"
"The three children. We need to know their names. When we write the report, when we tell their families, when we remember them—we use their names. Not 'casualties' or 'losses' or 'acceptable wastage.' Their names."
Finn pulled out a small notebook from his pocket, something he always carried for recording intelligence. He flipped through pages of guard rotations, building layouts, contact information for informants. Then he found a blank page and pulled out a piece of charcoal for writing.
"The mage kept records," Rhea said. "I saw a ledger before everything went to hell. The three children who'd been altered..." She closed her eyes, remembering. "Thomas Reed, age nine. Emma Blackwood, age seven. And... Sarah Chen, age eleven."
Finn wrote the names carefully, his usually steady hand shaking slightly. Thomas. Emma. Sarah. Three names. Three lives. Three failures carved into his soul.
"Thomas Reed wanted to be a carpenter like his father," Rhea continued, her voice distant. "Emma Blackwood had a sister waiting for her at home. Sarah Chen was learning to read before she was taken."
"How do you know that?" Finn asked.
"The mage kept detailed records on her subjects," Rhea said. "Not just their magical potential, but their backgrounds, their families, their dreams. She documented everything with clinical precision. I grabbed what I could before the building collapsed."
She pulled out several blood-stained pages from her pouch, covered in neat handwriting. Notes about each child's "response to ritualistic modification," their "baseline magical capacity," their "estimated market value post-enhancement."
Children reduced to data points. Lives measured in profit margins.
Finn took the pages, reading through them with growing horror. The mage had been meticulous, documenting every stage of the ritual, every side effect, every scream.
One entry stood out:
Subject 12 (Sarah Chen) shows remarkable resilience to pain. Despite 73% corruption of base essence, she continues attempting verbal communication. Requests to "go home" have decreased over time, replaced by periods of catatonic withdrawal. Recommend accelerating final conversion phase to prevent total psychological collapse before sale.
Finn's vision blurred. He realized he was crying, hot tears cutting tracks through the dust on his face.
"She was still asking to go home," he whispered. "Right up until the end, she thought someone might come for her."
"We did come for her," Rhea said, and now her voice was cracking too. "We just came too late."
They sat together on that water tower, two killers who'd spent their lives in darkness, and grieved for three children they couldn't save.
Below, the palace guards finished their work. The eleven rescued children were loaded into wagons, wrapped in warm blankets, given water and soft words. They would live. They would recover, at least physically. They would go home.
But Thomas, Emma, and Sarah would not. Their homes would receive condolence letters. Their families would be given compensation—cold gold for warm lives. The kingdom would call them tragic losses in the war against corruption.
But they were more than losses. They were failures. Personal failures that Finn and Rhea would carry forever.
"All teams, this is Darius," the captain's voice cut through the communication spell, formal and controlled. "Western guard post is secure. Twenty-eight hostiles neutralized, twelve captured. Eighteen children recovered, all alive and stable. Palace guards have secured all locations. Magnus and Brutus report eastern docks fully secured. Sera and Marcus report northern facility secured. Finn, Rhea—report your status."
Finn looked at Rhea. She looked back.
"This is Rhea," she said into the spell, her voice empty of emotion. "Western industrial is... we recovered fourteen children total. Eleven alive and stable, currently in palace guard custody. Three deceased from magical complications during extraction. All hostile forces eliminated. Facility is destroyed."
Silence on the communication spell.
Then Darius, carefully: "Casualties are... unfortunate. But you saved eleven. That's eleven families getting their children back. Focus on that."
"Copy," Rhea said tonelessly.
"Finn?" Darius asked. "Are you operational?"
Finn wanted to say no. Wanted to say he was done, that he couldn't do this anymore, that the weight of three small bodies crushed under rubble was too heavy to carry.
But eleven children were alive because he and Rhea had acted. Fourteen families would not receive the worst news a parent could hear. The dark magic laboratory was destroyed, its evil workers dead, its operations terminated.
The mission was a partial success.
It just didn't feel like one.
"I'm operational," Finn finally said, his voice rough. "Where do you need us?"
"Prince Ethan's team is still dark," Darius said, and now genuine concern colored his professional tone. "No communication for twenty minutes. Something's wrong at the noble quarter location. I need all teams to converge there immediately."
Finn and Rhea exchanged looks.
"We're not done," Finn said, not a question.
"The night is never done," Rhea replied.
They climbed down from the water tower, two killers who'd failed, two assassins who couldn't save everyone, two broken people who would keep fighting anyway because that's all they knew how to do.
As they reached the ground, a young palace guard approached nervously. "Sir, ma'am... the children you rescued. They're asking for you. The older ones want to thank you."
Finn shook his head immediately. "We don't need thanks."
"But they want—"
"No," Finn said harshly. "We don't deserve their gratitude. We're not heroes. We're just... we're just people who were there."
The guard looked confused, but Rhea put a hand on his shoulder. "Tell the children we're glad they're safe. Tell them to go home, hug their families, and try to forget everything that happened. And tell them..." She paused, her voice catching. "Tell them to remember Thomas, Emma, and Sarah. Tell them to live good lives for all three."
The guard nodded and retreated.
Finn pulled out his daggers, checking their balance, their edges, their familiar weight. Tools of death that couldn't save life. Weapons that were useless against the real enemies—time, circumstance, impossible choices.
"Ready?" Rhea asked, her own weapons already drawn.
"No," Finn said honestly. "But let's go anyway."
They moved into the darkness, heading toward the noble quarter where Prince Ethan's team had gone silent. Where Magnus and Rhea's friendship would be tested. Where more impossible choices waited.
Behind them, a palace team finally began the grim work of excavating the collapsed building, searching for three small bodies that would need proper burial.
The weight of failure settled on Finn's shoulders like chains. But he kept walking anyway.
Because that's what you did. You carried the weight. You remembered the names. You moved forward even when you wanted to stop.
You failed, and you lived with it, and you tried to fail a little less next time.
Three names written in his notebook:
Thomas Reed, age nine.
Emma Blackwood, age seven.
Sarah Chen, age eleven.
Three children who asked to go home.
Three children who never would.
And two assassins who would remember them forever.
To Be Continued in Chapter 37...