The third SS9 enforcer died with a gurgle, his throat a line of perfect crimson.
Ken, age thirteen, watched the life leave the man's eyes.
He did not feel triumph, disgust, or fear.
He processed the event as data:
*Eleven seconds. Three kills. No witnesses. Efficiency rating: 97%.*
Rain began to fall on the capital's slums, drumming a cold rhythm on the cobblestones. It diluted the blood pooling around the bodies, washing the evidence toward the gutters.
Ken stepped back, avoiding the spread. His boots, black and practical, left no discernible print in the grime.
He knelt by the leader of the cell—a minor inquisitor named Rorke. The man's file in Ken's mind listed three confirmed poisonings of political dissidents.
With a gloved hand, Ken retrieved a small, prismatic data-core from the man's inner coat.
The core pulsed with a sickly yellow light, filled with reports on suspected "Umbral-touched" families.
*Targets. Like Mother.*
He slipped the core into his own waterproof satchel.
His work was not done.
From a belt pouch, he produced a thin, ceramic stylus, heated by a minuscule energy cell. He moved to the brick wall of the dead-end alley, the one his targets had chosen for their "interrogation."
In the center, at eye level, he etched a single, flawless circle into the damp brick.
The line was smooth, unbroken, and deep. It sizzled faintly as the rain touched it.
The symbol of the Umbral Scribes for "Null." For "Silence."
His calling card.
A Phantom had been here. The SS9 was not safe.
He stood, his gray eyes scanning the alley once more. His **Eye of Truth**, a constant, low-level activation in his vision, confirmed no lingering energy signatures, no hidden observers, no glitches in the scene besides the ones his own power had momentarily caused.
The bodies would be found at dawn. The circle would spark terror, then fury, in the right people.
He turned and walked into the concealing curtain of rain.
Within ten steps, his form seemed to waver, blending with the shadows and the downpour. A minor application of **Quantumization**—not a full teleport, but a subtle phasing that made light slide off him unwillingly.
To any stray glance, he was a trick of the light, a shadow that moved against the wind.
And then he was gone.
---
**Two hours later, the royal palace of the Stellar Dominion.**
Prince Ken Vaelstron's chambers were the opposite of the alley: quiet, warm, and clean.
A book on intermediate energy theory lay open on his desk. A half-finished cup of now-cold tea sat beside it.
Ken stood before a full-length mirror, methodically removing his "hunting" clothes—dark, non-reflective synth-weave, easily burned—and changing into soft sleeping silks.
He examined his own reflection.
Slender. Pale. Features arranged in an expression of vacant placidity. The sharp, observing gray eyes of the Phantom were now softened, their focus deliberately made a little hazy.
He practiced the slight tremor in his left hand, a nervous flutter he'd perfected.
He rehearsed the slow, shallow breath of someone with a weak constitution.
The Prince was a role, and every detail mattered.
Satisfied, he padded silently across the room and into the small adjoining sitting room.
On a plush chair by the window, Queen Lyria slept.
A book had slipped from her fingers to the rug. In sleep, the lines of gentle wisdom that framed her eyes were smoothed away, but a faint tension remained around her mouth—a permanent scar from the Night of Scarred Silence.
Ken did not feel a surge of "love" in the emotional sense.
He felt a **directive**, foundational and absolute, written into the core of his being:
*Ensure this person's safety and peace. Priority: Maximum.*
He retrieved a light blanket from a chest and draped it over her with precise, quiet movements. His fingers, so steady when holding a stylus or a blade, did not brush her skin.
He simply performed the necessary action to maintain her optimal temperature and comfort.
As he turned to leave, her voice, thick with sleep and the remnants of forgotten nightmares, murmured:
"Ken?"
He froze, then turned back, his Prince-mask settling seamlessly into place.
"Mother. You should be in bed."
She blinked, her eyes focusing on him with that intuitive depth that always seemed to see too much.
"I was waiting for you. You're out late."
"I was in the library," he said, the lie smooth and effortless. "I lost track of time studying for the academy entrance exams. I apologize for worrying you."
The words were polite, distant, exactly what a studious, timid son would say.
Lyria's gaze held his for a moment longer. She saw the boy she raised. She did not see the Phantom.
She sighed, a sound of fond exhaustion.
"Don't work too hard. Your health comes first."
"I will be careful," Ken promised, another perfect line in the script.
He retreated to his room, closing the door with a soft click.
The moment the latch engaged, all semblance of sleepy concern vanished from his face. It became a placid, emotionless plane.
At his desk, he opened a hidden panel in the floor. Inside was a secure data-slate. He inserted the stolen prismatic core.
Lines of text scrolled—names, addresses, scheduled "purifications."
He committed them all to permanent memory, then triggered the slate's disintegration protocol. The core and its data dissolved into harmless, inert dust.
In his mind, he accessed his mental dossier.
He added three confirmations of death under Rorke's name. He cross-referenced the new list of targets with his existing network map.
He began calculating the optimal pre-emptive strikes.
His eyes lifted from the now-empty hidden compartment, looking past the walls of his gilded cage, toward the floating spires of the Stellar Ascendancy Academy, visible in the distance through his window.
The entrance exams were in one year.
A battlefield, masquerading as a school. Filled with the children of his enemies, future SS9 agents, and the political tools he needed to manipulate.
A new equation formed in the cold, luminous theater of his mind.
**Variables:** 300 incoming students. 7 rival kingdoms. 1 hidden empire.
**Objectives:** Infiltrate. Analyze. Eliminate. Protect Lyria.
He closed the hidden panel.
The Prince's mask was ready for tomorrow's performance. The Phantom's plans were set.
*They will never see me coming,* he thought, the vow as silent and final as the circle etched in the rain-soaked alley.
---
**In the highest spire of the palace, in a chamber of white and silver.**
Empress Valeriana received a report of three dead enforcers and a strange symbol.
A slow, icy smile touched her lips, a secret shared only with the darkness.
---
**[End of Chapter 1]**