The tavern's rafters groaned under the weight of smoke and voices. Shadows swam along the walls where guttering torches sputtered, throwing weak halos of light that made the faces within appear half-real, half-dream. It was a place where men sought to forget themselves—whether by drink, dice, or the warmth of strangers who came offering smiles and painted lips.
Orin Kaelen entered without disguise. His stride was measured, his head high, his face uncovered for all to see. It was rare, even reckless, for him to walk into a meeting with no mask to hide him, no cowl to shadow his features. Yet tonight he did, and that decision burned with deliberate intent. For once, the feared name of Throat-Cutter was not a faceless phantom whispered in alleys; tonight it had flesh, bone, and eyes sharp as flint.
He chose a table near the corner, one that allowed him a view of the whole room without being swallowed by it. Every habit of his craft followed him even here: back to the wall, escape routes counted, patrons weighed in silence like pieces upon a gaming board. A thief near the fire had hands too quick for honest coin; a pair of mercenaries played cards with more bluster than skill; sailors drank like men trying to drown guilt. Orin's mind filed them all away in heartbeats.
The man he awaited arrived soon after, gliding into the tavern with the soft arrogance of one who had never been forced to bow. He wore velvet the color of deep wine, trimmed with gilt thread at the cuffs and collar. His cloak hung rich and heavy from his shoulders, clasped with a brooch of polished jet. Rings winked upon his fingers as though he carried not hands but candelabras.
So this was the king's advisor. A man named Lord Halric Deymar, if Orin's research had not misled him. A counselor close enough to the throne to breathe its air daily, yet obscure enough that his name passed unnoticed beyond palace walls. Orin had sifted what little whispers the city coughed up about him—beloved of the king's household, known for his silver tongue in counsel, and untouched by scandal. Until tonight.
Halric's eyes scanned the room, falcon-sharp though he tried to disguise it with mild curiosity. When they landed on Orin, the assassin raised a hand slightly. The advisor crossed the room with the stiffness of one pretending calm, though Orin saw the tension in his jaw, the faint clutch of his fingers on his cloak's edge.
"Throat-Cutter," Halric said softly when he reached the table. His voice carried no further than it had to. "It is… a surprise to see you unveiled."
Orin inclined his head. "Tonight, masks would only draw suspicion. We meet in public, not in alleys. A face among faces causes less stir."
Halric studied him, as though memorizing the strong line of his cheek, the storm-gray of his eyes. "So I am to look upon what few have lived to see. Should I be honored—or afraid? Tell me, assassin, have you shown me your face because I will not live to tell of it?"
A corner of Orin's mouth curved in a blade-thin smile. "If that were my intent, my lord, you would not have sat down."
The advisor chuckled faintly, though his gaze lingered, probing. He seated himself across from Orin, the rich fabric of his cloak pooling like spilled ink around the chair. A serving girl brought them wine, slopping dark liquid into rough wooden cups. Halric barely touched his, his focus never leaving the man across from him.
Around them, the tavern carried on. Dice rattled, mugs clinked, the lute-player near the hearth butchered a ballad in a way that would have made a bard weep. Yet to Orin, the noise washed into nothingness. His world narrowed to the man across from him—this client who reeked of privilege, of softness gilded by gold.
For a moment, envy gnawed at him. Halric's hands bore no scars, his face no lines carved by hunger or cold. Life had been kind to him, where Orin's own had been a litany of cruel teachers: hunger, violence, betrayal. The assassin suppressed the thought. Pity was a poison; envy, another. Tonight required clarity, not indulgence.
Halric leaned in. "Still, I confess curiosity. Men say the Throat-Cutter keeps his face hidden, that those who glimpse it are marked for the grave. And here I sit, breathing. Should I wonder how long that will last?"
Orin's answer was a steady look, his tone quiet iron. "You live because I choose it. A mask is not what keeps me safe. It is skill—and the knowledge that I vanish when I wish, and appear when I please."
Halric considered this, then gave a slow nod. "A dangerous confidence."
Before Orin could reply, a shadow fell across their table. A woman slid into the space beside him with the ease of water finding a crack in stone. She smelled faintly of roses and sweat, her bodice laced low, her smile quick and sly.
"Well, aren't you a handsome one," she said, her voice syruped with mischief. Without waiting for permission, she perched herself boldly upon Orin's lap. Her weight settled against him as if she had claimed the right.
Orin's hand twitched toward his dagger by instinct, then stilled. She was no assassin, merely a tavern whore with more courage than sense. Her fingers traced along his chest, pausing to toy with the leather ties of his tunic. Her gaze flickered with playful appraisal, and she whispered loud enough for Halric to hear, "A face like yours shouldn't be wasted on wine and talk. You could have me tonight, no coin needed."
Laughter rippled from a nearby table; a few men nudged each other, watching with the delight of those who love a scene not their own. Orin kept his expression even, though within he wrestled amusement and irritation.
He lifted a brow. "Is that so?"
She leaned closer, her breath warm against his ear. "A gift, from me to you. Handsome men deserve remembrance, and I'd like to be the one remembered." Her hand brushed boldly against him through cloth, testing his reaction.
Orin caught her wrist, not harshly, but firmly enough to halt her. His gray eyes met hers with calm steel. "Not tonight."
For a heartbeat, disappointment shadowed her face. Then she laughed, tossing her dark hair back. "What a pity. You'll think of me, I wager. Men always do." She kissed his cheek lightly, almost mockingly, then slipped off his lap in a swirl of skirts. "Name's Lira. If you change your mind, you'll find me."
She sauntered away, hips swaying with practiced rhythm. Several pairs of eyes followed her until she vanished into another knot of patrons.
Halric exhaled a laugh, shaking his head. "By the gods, you spurn a gift most men would kill for. What restraint—or perhaps what disinterest."
Orin allowed himself the faintest chuckle. "We came for business, not diversion. If I wished for flesh and wine alone, I would not have invited company."
"Spoken like a man who knows his purpose," Halric said approvingly. Yet his eyes lingered, perhaps wondering at the assassin's self-denial, perhaps envying it.
"You spoke earlier," Halric said at length, "of vanishing when you will and appearing when you please. A fine boast. Yet men of my station live amid boasts daily. Words are smoke. I prefer fire."
Orin studied him over the rim of his cup. The advisor's eyes gleamed with challenge, though beneath them lay a pulse of caution. This man, so wrapped in velvet, wanted proof that the nightmare he had hired was not mere rumor wrapped in flesh.
"You doubt me," Orin said evenly.
"I doubt everyone. It is why I live as long as I have." Halric gestured to their empty cups. "Fetch us more wine, Throat-Cutter. And while I watch, vanish. Prove your claim."
The words were spoken almost lightly, but Orin heard the blade hidden beneath them. A test, dressed as jest. Fail it, and the man would never trust him. Succeed, and perhaps he would gain more than coin—he would gain fear, which was a currency of its own.
Orin rose slowly, leaving the empty cups where they lay. He gave a slight bow, mocking in its grace. "As you wish."
He stepped into the sea of bodies. The tavern was thick with smoke and laughter, with slamming mugs and shouts over dice. In such chaos, Orin thrived. Every shuffle of boot and sway of torchlight became a cloak. He did not run, did not skulk. He merely shifted his pace, weaving between tables with the natural rhythm of one who belonged.
Halric's eyes followed him. Orin felt them burning into his back. He let them. He walked deliberately past a group of sailors arguing over cards, let their raised voices swell. In the moment the advisor leaned forward to keep sight of him, Orin slipped a fraction sideways, body aligning with the sailors' movements, his profile swallowed in their shadows. He became just another man in the tavern, another shoulder, another back.
Then he was gone.
Not to himself—he knew exactly where he was, each step a calculation. Yet to Halric, staring desperately into the crowd, Orin was no longer there. The advisor craned his neck, muttering something sharp under his breath, while Orin circled soundlessly behind him. He paused by the counter long enough to seize a fresh pitcher of wine, paid for by none but taken with the ease of a ghost, and then glided back.
Halric jumped as a hand brushed his shoulder from behind. His gasp was sharp, his fingers curling toward the dagger sheathed beneath his cloak, before he turned and saw the assassin standing there—smiling faintly, wine in hand.
The advisor's lips parted, but no words came. For once, his polished tongue failed him.
Orin placed the pitcher upon the table and resumed his seat, calm as still water. He poured wine into both cups, the red liquid dark as blood in the dim torchlight. "You asked me to vanish. You see me now, and yet you do not know how I came here. That is all you need know."
Halric swallowed, his throat bobbing visibly. Slowly, he lifted his cup. "By the gods," he muttered, half to himself. "You may well be worth the risk."
He drank deeply, though the tremor in his hand betrayed him. When he set the cup down, he leaned closer across the table, lowering his voice to a whisper sharp as a knife.
"The task I have for you is… unlike others. Men greater than you—so they claimed—took it. Each one lies cold now."
Orin tilted his head, gray eyes narrowing. "Then they were not greater than me."
A smile flickered over Halric's lips, thin and quick. He reached within his cloak, producing a roll of parchment bound with a simple leather tie. With care, as though the very object burned him, he laid it on the table and unrolled it.
The torchlight revealed a portrait drawn with startling precision. The artist's hand had captured every line of the subject's face: lean as a serpent, with skin stretched taut over sharp bones, lips curled in a smile that carried no warmth. His eyes were pale gray, flat as steel, and though they were ink on parchment, Orin felt as though they sought him.
"This," Halric whispered, "is Veynar Khold."
The name slid into the air like venom, and Orin noticed the advisor's shoulders stiffen as though the mere act of speaking it had cost him courage.
"A mage," Halric continued. "One who dwells in the palace, at the king's side. He serves under the title of Arcanist, yet his power far exceeds his station. He whispers into ears, twists judgments, bends wills. He is… dangerous."
Orin studied the drawing, committing every contour to memory. He lifted his gaze slowly. "And you wish him dead."
Halric's hand tightened on the edge of the parchment. He gave a single sharp nod. "Dead. Removed from this world entirely."
"Why?"
The question fell like a stone. For a long moment, Halric said nothing. His eyes darted about, checking the tavern though no one paid them heed. At last, he whispered, "That is not your concern. Your concern is whether you can do it."
Orin leaned back, folding his arms. His expression was unreadable, though inside his mind turned over the name, the face, the implications. A mage within the palace, beloved or feared by the crown, targeted by one of the king's closest counselors. To kill such a man was not merely a task—it was a declaration of war against forces unseen.
Yet Orin had walked in the company of death too often to blanch now.
"You fear him," Orin said. It was not a question.
Halric's lips twitched. "Wouldn't you?"
"No." Orin lifted his cup and drank, the wine sharp against his tongue. He set it down with calm finality. "If he bleeds, he dies. And I have yet to meet a man—mage or king—whose throat cannot be cut."
Halric exhaled slowly, as though some weight had shifted. "Then you accept?"
"That depends," Orin said, his voice low, "on the price."
Halric's jeweled hand drummed once upon the parchment, then stilled. "The payment shall not disappoint. Half delivered in advance, half upon completion. Gold, yes, but more than that—diamonds from the royal vaults themselves. Enough to buy houses in every quarter of this city, enough to vanish forever if you chose."
Orin considered him quietly, the din of the tavern pressing around them yet never touching his thoughts. Wealth meant little in itself. He had learned that as a child starving in alleys where a single coin could be wrested from his hand by larger fists. Wealth mattered only insofar as it bought silence, escape, freedom to vanish and appear anew. Still, houses in a city like this spoke of true abundance. He nodded once.
"And if I fail?" Orin asked.
Halric's smile was thin. "Then you will not be here to regret it."
Orin allowed himself a ghost of amusement. "A fair answer."
They drank again. The wine was rough, sour beneath the tongue, yet Orin swallowed it without complaint. His eyes lingered on the drawing once more—Veynar Khold, serpent-faced and smiling without warmth. The kind of man whose cruelty showed even in stillness.
"Half now," Orin said. "Delivered to a place of my choosing. The other half after the mage lies cold. Agreed?"
"Agreed." Halric's voice shook slightly, though whether from fear of the assassin before him or of the mage on the parchment, Orin could not tell. Perhaps both.
With that, the matter was sealed. No handshakes, no signatures. In their world, words bound more tightly than parchment. Orin rolled the portrait and tucked it into his cloak. Then he rose.
This time he did not vanish into the tavern's press. He walked straight for the door, his step unhurried, his back unguarded. He wanted Halric to watch him leave, to feel the weight of a man who had accepted death as trade and did not flinch from it. He glanced once over his shoulder. Their gazes met, steel against velvet. Then Orin stepped out into the night.
***
The city breathed around him, alive in its twilight pulse. Cobblestones gleamed with spilled lanternlight, slick from the day's rain. Merchants packed their stalls under heavy tarps, while urchins darted through alleys with pilfered scraps. Perfume from distant gardens mingled with the stink of tanneries and fish guts. Bells tolled faintly from the harbor, and the air carried both salt and smoke.
Orin walked as one unseen. His hood now shadowed his face, his steps sure upon the stones. Few spared him more than a glance; to them he was another wanderer slipping through the veins of the city. To him, the streets were maps, and every shadow an ally.
He thought, not for the first time, of the life that had brought him here. There had been a time when he slept beneath archways with rats for warmth, when hunger gnawed so sharp he had stolen bread from corpses. Now he rented lodges, bought meals when he wished, traveled city to city without anchor. Yet he owned little beyond blades and silence. His past had taught him not to cling. Homes burned, families betrayed, allies turned foe. Better to keep only what one could carry at a moment's notice.
His current lodging was modest: a stone-built inn on the edge of the copper-smiths' district, its sign carved with a tarnished bell. The keeper, a bent man with eyes clouded by age, gave Orin a nod as he entered. No words were needed. Coins had already bought him privacy.
Up a creaking stair and into his chamber. The room was bare: a narrow bed, a chest with iron hasps, a washstand with cracked porcelain. Orin lit the lamp, stripped down, and bathed from the copper basin. Hot water had cost him extra, and steam rose in curls as he sluiced grime from his skin.
Later, dressed in a plain tunic, he ate salted venison and coarse bread the innkeeper's wife brought up. He chewed without savor, his mind elsewhere—on the mage, on the plan.
When at last he lay upon the straw mattress, he did not sleep. Eyes closed, he conjured the serpent's face from the parchment, studying every detail as though it were a map of terrain he must soon cross. Strategy filled him. Always strategy. The way shadows might fall in palace halls, how guards marched, how mages cloaked themselves in arrogance. Every possibility unrolled before him like a game of stones, and he turned each piece in his mind until dawn teased the shutters.
***
The next days became ritual. Orin lived as shadow, his true self sheathed beneath roles. At sunrise he left the inn clad in rags, his hair dusted with ash, his boots scuffed to holes. He joined the beggars clustered at the palace gates, a tin cup in hand, his voice rasping pleas for coin. Palace guards rarely glanced twice at beggars. They were as permanent a fixture as the stones themselves.
From that place of invisibility, Orin watched.
He saw when Veynar emerged, draped in dark robes stitched with silver runes. Always flanked by two guards, never speaking to them, his gray eyes colder than the steel at their hips. Sometimes he carried scrolls, sometimes vials that glowed faintly even in daylight. Each time, the guards kept a deliberate distance from him, as though fearful of touching the air around his body.
Orin marked every exit, every hour. When bells rang from the palace towers, he knew whether the mage was within or without. He learned the cadence of Veynar's stride, the tilt of his head when irritated, the way servants bowed twice as low to him as to lesser nobles.
When the rags wore thin, Orin shifted roles. He appeared one day as a porter hauling sacks of grain through side gates, another as a scullion slipping in with kitchen boys. The palace was a hive, and in hives, new drones arrived daily. No one looked twice if you carried yourself correctly.
He listened. To laundresses gossiping of stains they could not scrub, to grooms cursing the mage's stallion for biting, to kitchen hands whispering that he ate at strange hours, requesting meat raw and wine mulled with herbs they did not recognize. Orin tipped coins where words faltered, smiled where silence was safer. Each fragment became thread; each thread, part of the noose he wove.
Nights he spent on rooftops, crouched among chimneys with the city spread below. Candlelight glowed from palace windows, each flame a marker of life within. He mapped the pattern of those lights, learning which chamber belonged to which. Veynar's burned late, often past midnight, fading only when dawn threatened.
He infiltrated deeper still. A borrowed livery and a confident stride carried him past lesser gates, into corridors where nobles rarely walked. Once, he nearly brushed shoulders with a courtier whose eyes lingered too long, but Orin's head bowed, his step quickened, and suspicion died.
Every day gave him more: the mage's habits, his favored chambers, the paths he walked unguarded. Orin's patience was endless. Others had failed, he knew, because they lunged too quickly, mistaking arrogance for opportunity. Orin waited. He would not strike until knowledge sharpened into certainty.
***
On the seventh night, he returned to his chamber at the inn. The lamp guttered as he entered, the silence thick after a day of observation. He unrolled the parchment once more and stared at Veynar's cold gray eyes.
"You are flesh," Orin murmured to the still face. "And flesh yields."
His fingers traced the hilt of the dagger at his side. Strategy had become shape, plan become blade. Soon, he would move from watching to acting. The mage might wield powers that made men tremble, yet Orin's confidence lay not in magic, but in the precision of a man who had never once underestimated death.
***
The night of the celebration came dressed in fire and music. From the palace spires unfurled banners of crimson and gold, their silken folds snapping in the wind. Lanterns strung across courtyards lit the stone in hues of amber, while trumpets called revelers toward the grand feast. The city below throbbed with merriment, taverns spilling drinkers into streets, bells ringing to mark the royal birthday.
For Orin Kaelen, it was opportunity.
He wore the apron of a servant, his hair tied back, shoulders stooped. A tray of goblets steadied in his hands, he moved among scurrying attendants. To the guards, he was invisible—a man carrying wine as dozens of others did. No one looked twice. That was the art: to be unseen while standing in plain sight.
The palace was alive with laughter, courtiers dressed in jewels that caught the light like fragments of stars. Musicians played along corridors, and dancers spun in wide halls where silk swept stone. Orin walked through it all, every step calculating, every breath measured. Yet his gaze was never far from the one he hunted.
Veynar Khold.
He glimpsed him from across the feast hall: robes black as charred wood, silver runes stitched down their sleeves. The mage did not laugh, did not clap to the music. He merely observed, eyes pale and cold, his lips curved in that perpetual smile that never reached his eyes. Those near him bent instinctively away, as though the air around his body chilled them.
Cruel. Dangerous. Unwanted. These were the words whispered by servants, the truths Orin had pieced together in his research. Few dared oppose him openly, yet the king's own counselor had come crawling to an assassin in a tavern. That meant the mage was hated, perhaps feared even by the crown itself.
And fear was a weakness.
Orin carried trays, poured wine, fetched dishes. Always his gaze returned to Veynar, watching when he turned from the king, when he spoke with other mages, when he sipped the mulled wine with herbs servants gossiped of. Orin's heart was calm, his body tuned for what was to come.
Hours passed, and still the revels thundered. At last Orin saw what he had counted upon: Veynar's lips tightened, his eyes narrowed faintly. He leaned to another mage, whispered, then excused himself with a motion sharp as a blade. Without waiting for ceremony, he left the hall.
Orin slipped away minutes later, shadowing through corridors bright with torchlight. He carried an empty tray, his disguise intact, moving in silence. He knew where Veynar's chambers lay—he had mapped the palace as carefully as any battlefield.
The hallway near the chambers was nearly deserted. Revelry had drawn guards and courtiers alike elsewhere. Perfect.
Orin entered the mage's chamber before its master returned. The door yielded to a servant's key he had taken days ago. Inside, the room was heavy with incense. Strange sigils burned faintly upon the walls, their glow like veins of fire. Tables cluttered with scrolls and crystals filled the space, yet Orin ignored them all. He melted into shadow behind a tall cabinet, dagger drawn. Its edge gleamed faintly in the dim light.
And then he waited.
The minutes stretched, long and silent. From distant halls came muted echoes of music, laughter rising and falling like waves. Orin's breath was steady, his heartbeat measured. This was the stillness before the strike, the predator's patience.
At last, footsteps.
He recognized the cadence instantly—the sharp, deliberate rhythm he had memorized through days of observation. Veynar Khold.
The door opened. The mage entered, shutting it behind him. Locks clicked. He sighed, robes whispering as he moved toward the bed. With a weary motion, he sat, shoulders slumping.
Now.
Orin slid from hiding, silent as breath. He crossed the chamber in heartbeats, dagger poised. The mage's throat glimmered pale in the torchlight. One swift cut, and the deed would be done.
His arm arced—
—and froze.
Not by hesitation, not by fear. Frozen. His muscles locked, his body stilled mid-motion, as though invisible chains wrapped him. The dagger quivered inches from Veynar's neck, but would not move closer.
Slowly, the mage turned his head. His gray eyes glowed faintly, lips curling into that cruel smile.
"An assassin," he murmured, almost with delight. "At last."
Orin strained, every fiber of him screaming to move. Nothing obeyed. He might as well have been a statue carved of flesh.
"You came close," Veynar continued, rising to his feet with serpent's grace. "Had you tried days ago, perhaps you would have succeeded. But no longer."
He lifted a hand, and Orin felt pressure crush down upon him, forcing him to his knees. The dagger clattered to the floor.
"I have consumed what others can scarcely dream of," Veynar whispered. His voice thickened with triumph. "Four hundred points of raw System energy, ripped from the corpse of a godling. Power beyond reckoning. I am untouchable now. Indestructible."
The words were madness, yet Orin felt their truth in the force that bound him. This was not mere sorcery—it was something deeper, sharper, the very bones of the world bent to the mage's will.
Veynar crouched, eyes glimmering like knives. "Had you struck before, you might have ended me. But now, you will serve another purpose. You will die slowly. Bone by bone."
Pain exploded through Orin's arm as it twisted unnaturally. He bit down on a cry, but his jaw trembled with the force of it. The mage laughed softly, savoring his torment. With a flick of his fingers, another bone cracked.
Orin gasped, the world blurring at its edges.
No one would hear him. He saw the shimmer of a dome around the chamber, a ward that muffled sound. Veynar had sealed him in a coffin of silence.
More bones snapped. Agony seared him, white-hot, tearing cries from his throat that no ear could hear. His mind reeled. He had walked the edge of death before, bled in alleys and battlefields, yet this pain was deeper than any blade.
"You are nothing," Veynar whispered, voice thick with glee. "A shadow, soon to be ash."
And in that abyss of pain, something stirred.
A fire not of flesh, not of will, but of something older. Orin's breath shuddered, and deep within, he felt it—a pulse, a resonance, as though the world itself answered his defiance. No. I am not nothing.
Light flared behind his eyes. The snapped bones knit, pain reversing into impossible relief. He gasped, staring at his own hands as they straightened, whole once more. The chains of magic that bound him trembled.
Veynar's smile faltered. "Impossible."
Orin rose. Slowly at first, then with gathering force. The invisible bonds shattered, dissolving into sparks. He stood tall, his eyes blazing with a new light.
"I have no magic," Orin said, his voice low, steady. "I never did. Until now."
The mage staggered back, hand rising in defense. Spells flickered, wards ignited. Yet Orin moved faster. He seized the dagger, now thrumming with the strange energy flooding his veins, and with it he cast a snare of light that coiled around Veynar like ropes.
The mage screamed as his own limbs twisted, bones snapping one after another, mirroring the agony he had tried to inflict. His voice echoed against his own ward, trapped within the chamber.
Orin's face was cold as stone. "Bone by bone, you said. Let it be so."
The chamber filled with the wet sound of breaking. Veynar writhed, shrieking, his pale eyes wide with disbelief. His runes flared, then guttered. One by one, his defenses fell.
At last, silence. The mage's body collapsed, bent and broken, his smile gone forever.
And then it came. Not a sound, not a sight—yet Orin felt it. A surge, vast and raw, flooding into him. His breath caught, his vision burned white. Notifications did not appear before his eyes, yet his soul knew them, etched into bone and blood.
Raw System Energy absorbed: 400 points.
The same power Veynar had claimed, now his.
Orin staggered, clutching the table for balance. His veins sang, his muscles thrummed, his very being reshaped. He had never touched magic, never bent the world with will. Now it coursed through him like fire through dry wood.