Magic.
The word felt foreign on Orin Kaelen's tongue, a taste he had never meant to swallow. Yet it was there—hot, electric, undeniable—seething in his veins like molten iron. He had not prayed for it, had not fallen on his knees before some idol and begged for divine mercy, had not whispered his hopes into the ears of a listening god. No.
Four hundred points of raw System Energy, Veynar Khold had spat through boastful lips, just before Orin crushed the last breath out of him.
Orin had not forgotten the expression in Veynar's eyes. Surprise. True and final. A creature that had thought itself untouchable, discovering too late that its bones could shatter, that its flesh could burn, that its life could end beneath the hands of a mortal assassin.
And here Orin stood still in that chamber, the heavy air reeking of blood and death, staring at the husk sprawled across the marble. Veynar's frame was broken, twisted grotesquely where Orin's magic had raked through him. His limbs bent at wrong angles, joints torn apart, ribs driven inward until his chest collapsed upon itself. No healing, no resurrection would mend that body. The mage was dead—truly dead.
He pressed a trembling hand to his temple, trying to steady his racing thoughts. Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? His body still ached from the struggle, his lungs burned with each breath, and his palms bore the heat of magic unmastered. Dreams did not leave such marks.
He swallowed hard, a laugh catching in his throat. "What in the Abyss are you becoming, Orin?"
There was no answer. Only the corpse and the silence.
He knew he could not linger. The birthday celebration still raged in the upper halls of the palace. Music, drunken laughter, the clang of goblets—none of it reached this secluded wing where Veynar had met his end. That secrecy had been the point. Still, discovery was only a matter of time.
Yet before leaving, a feverish curiosity gnawed at him. Magic had saved him in that chamber, had poured through him unbidden, but he had no idea how it worked. He was no mage. He had never studied incantations, sigils, or the weavings of the arcane. He was a blade in the dark, not a scholar of power.
Then test it, a voice inside him whispered. Find the shape of it.
Orin glanced at the body one last time, then closed his eyes. He thought of a place beyond the palace walls—a quiet hollow in the forest north of the city. A refuge he had discovered years ago, when the noise of taverns and the stink of the markets grew unbearable. A clearing where sunlight spilled like gold through the canopy, and the wind carried only the sound of leaves whispering. He imagined it clearly: the moss damp beneath his boots, the hush of solitude, the relief of being far from human voices.
He raised his hand.
"Take me there," he muttered. "Open the way."
Nothing.
The chamber remained heavy with silence. His breath echoed back at him from stone walls.
He gritted his teeth and tried again, focusing harder, forcing the memory of that forest into sharper detail. The way the moon turned the leaves silver. The scent of pine. The faint gurgle of the stream running nearby.
He clenched his fist, willed the air to tear open into a portal like those he had seen mages weave with a flick of the wrist.
Still nothing.
A growl rose from his throat. He tried a third time, straining until sweat beaded at his brow, until his heartbeat thundered in his ears. The chamber trembled faintly—his imagination, perhaps—but the walls did not bend, and no shimmering gate appeared.
"Damn you," he hissed, lowering his arm. "Damn you all."
The corpse did not answer.
Frustration pressed against his ribs like a vice. Whatever power had flared against Veynar was not a tool he could simply summon at will, not yet. It was wild, chaotic, untrained—like a beast inside him that obeyed only when cornered.
He spat on the marble floor, turned his back on the ruin, and slipped into the shadows. His assassin's instincts swallowed the heat of his rage, cooling him into silence once more.
The palace was a maze he knew well enough by now. Guards patrolled the grand halls where revelers drank and courtiers gossiped, but the narrow corridors of servants and the forgotten stairwells of older wings had always been the assassin's roads. Orin moved among them without sound, the soles of his boots kissing stone without echo. He was shadow, nothing more. No eye turned his way, no voice called to halt him.
Minutes later, he emerged beneath the cold breath of night. The sky was alive with stars, wheeling bright above the city.
He did not run. He walked steady, measured, through the alleys until the palace loomed no longer behind him. Yet his mind could not help wandering back to what might already be unfolding inside.
How long before they find him?
He imagined it clearly. A servant, perhaps, sent to fetch Veynar when his absence from the banquet grew suspicious. The servant would knock once, twice, thrice upon the chamber door. No answer. Hesitant, the servant would push inside—then freeze at the sight of their master's body.
If it were a man, perhaps he would swallow his horror and run silently to summon others. Men were taught that screaming was weakness, that fear should be hidden. Yet if it were a woman, Orin could almost hear the shrill cry tearing through the chamber, echoing down the corridors until guards came running.
Either way, discovery was certain. Veynar was dead.
And Lord Halric Deymar would be pleased.
Orin could picture it already: the lord standing among courtiers when the news spread, his face solemn, his lips forming words of grief. Yet when no one watched, the corner of his mouth would curve with triumph. For Orin had done what no other assassin had managed.
Halric had warned him—warned that others had tried and failed, warned that Veynar was too clever, too well-guarded, too steeped in sorcery for an ordinary blade to pierce. Orin had believed that once, had thought himself cleverer than the rest. Yet now he knew the truth. It was not his cunning alone that had carried him through. It was the strange, untamed magic thrumming in his veins.
He felt both cursed and blessed.
Cursed, because the unknown clung to him like a shadow, pressing questions with no answers. Blessed, because in the end, he still lived.
Orin reached the edge of the palace quarter, where narrow streets twisted like veins through the heart of the city. He paused there, drawing the night deep into his lungs, trying to steady the whirl of thought and feeling.
He should have felt victory. Instead he felt confusion, even dread.
"Four hundred points," he whispered again, remembering Veynar's last words. He could almost see the number glowing in his mind's eye, etched into the unseen fabric of the System that governed this world.
Four hundred.
Too much for a mortal.
Orin closed his eyes. For a moment he thought of kneeling in the gutter, pressing his forehead to the stones, and praying—not to any god he knew, but simply to the night itself. To beg for understanding, or forgiveness, or perhaps for this magic to be torn out of him before it consumed him whole.
Instead, he straightened his back, set his jaw, and walked on.
For Orin Kaelen was no priest. He was an assassin. And assassins prayed only with blood.
***
The city was quieter now. Revelers still staggered through the palace district, drunk on wine and spectacle, but further streets lay in hushed darkness. Lamps guttered in iron cages, their weak flames casting trembling halos across the cobbles. Beyond them, shadows ruled.
Orin walked with no destination, his boots echoing softly as he moved through lanes lined with shuttered shops and darkened inns. His hands itched as if the magic still stirred in them, restless, waiting. He had tried to summon it earlier and failed. That failure gnawed at him, sharp as a blade.
He drifted until the streets narrowed, until the walls of old buildings leaned inward as if conspiring against the sky. He halted there, studying one of the taller structures—a trading house, its stone walls scarred by centuries, its roof pitched steep and sharp against the stars.
A thought rose inside him: Climb it.
Not by stairs. Stairs were for the ordinary. Assassins were taught never to rely on open doors when walls could serve.
Orin flexed his fingers, then leapt, catching a seam between the stones. The chill of granite bit his skin. He pulled himself upward, boots finding purchase in cracks and worn edges. His body remembered the rhythm, muscles working in smooth unison, every motion quiet, precise. The city had trained him, hunger had honed him, and years of assignments had perfected him.
Hand over hand, toe over toe. The building seemed to resist him at first, but he welcomed the strain. His breath slowed, his senses sharpened, his body pressed into the stone until he was one with it.
Minutes later he pulled himself onto the roof's edge and stood tall.
The city stretched below him, a dark quilt of rooftops and chimneys, pierced by the faint glow of lanterns at distant corners. The air was cool and sharp, carrying the scents of river water and ash. Almost everyone slept, yet Orin felt utterly awake.
He stood on the very edge, looking down at the cobbled street far below. The stones glimmered faintly in the moonlight, waiting.
And then the thought came. Silly, reckless, absurd. What if I had wings?
He almost smiled at himself. A man dreaming of feathers sprouting from his back—childish fancy. Yet the question lingered, deepened. What if he could fly?
He spread his arms. Nothing. The night did not answer.
"Magic," he whispered, as if the word alone might awaken it. He waited, straining to feel the surge of power that had shattered Veynar's body. Nothing stirred. His arms remained bare.
The silence pressed heavier.
Then another thought slithered in, colder, darker. If the magic is real, if it saved you once, will it save you again?
His eyes drifted downward. The cobbles blurred in the height's distance, hard and merciless.
Jump.
The whisper did not come from without. It rose from the hollow place inside him, that pit carved by years of killing, years of loss. He had slaughtered men and women, noble and common, good and wicked alike, because someone had paid for their lives. He had walked the streets of cities with the stench of blood clinging to his clothes. He had lain awake countless nights hearing the breaths of the dying echo in his ears.
He had told himself he was unafraid of death. Perhaps it was time to prove it.
Orin's fingers curled into fists. His pulse thundered, not from fear but from something sharper—a dare thrown at the world itself.
He stepped forward and let the roof fall away beneath him.
The air tore past his face, cold and fast, a howl in his ears. The street rushed upward, hungry, certain.
For a heartbeat he felt no magic, no saving force—only the surety that he was about to be broken upon the stones. Perhaps it was justice. Perhaps it was the weight of every soul he had ever ended, dragging him down to join them.
And then, at the edge of death, the beast inside him stirred.
Power surged, wild and furious. It caught him like unseen hands, wrenching him from his fall. His body jolted as if seized by invisible ropes. The cobblestones halted a breath away, so close he could see the cracks between them.
Orin hovered.
His breath broke in ragged gasps, half laugh, half sob. He twisted in the air, looking down, then up, then all around.
"I'm alive," he whispered, incredulous. "I'm alive."
He willed himself upright, and the unseen force obeyed. His boots touched the street with gentle finality, as if set there by the night itself.
He stood trembling, heart hammering, sweat cooling on his skin. Slowly, his gaze lifted back to the roofline from which he had leapt. It loomed impossibly high now, arrogant in its height.
"What the hell just happened?" he muttered, his voice harsh in the silence.
He had not imagined it. He had not dreamed it. He had fallen and been caught. By what—he still had no answer. But the truth was plain: the magic was real.
His hands shook as he raised them before his eyes. These were the same hands that had slit throats and broken bones, the same hands that had stolen purses from unsuspecting travelers in his boyhood. Now they bore something else entirely. Something vast, untrained, and terrifying.
He turned away from the street, breath still uneven. The urge to laugh bubbled in him again, manic and sharp. He smothered it with a growl, forcing himself to walk, step after step, back into the embrace of the city.
The magic had answered him, but only when death was certain. As if it were not a servant, but a predator that rose only when the kill was near.
Orin clenched his fists. If that was the way of it, he would find a way to tame it. To leash the beast. To make it his.
***
Orin told himself he would go home. That was the thought, at least. Though "home" was no house with hearth or inheritance, no place that bore his name. Home, for now, was a rented corner at a stone-built inn on the edge of the copper-smiths' district. An inn that smelled of soot and boiled barley, where the beds creaked with every turn. A temporary shelter—like every shelter had been his whole life.
The night was cool and heavy, the stars wheeling sharp overhead. He cut through narrow veins of the city, drifting toward the inn, until he reached a fork in the streets. One path curved toward safety, lit by the lamps of guildhalls and the familiar chatter of watchmen. The other path descended into shadow, a slum-road choked with refuse, whispered about by merchants and matrons alike.
Orin paused.
His hand drifted to the dagger sheathed at his hip. He knew what waited in that darkness. Not ghosts—no, men more dangerous than ghosts. Cutthroats, thieves, smugglers, and the hollow-eyed homeless who traded survival for betrayal.
Common sense urged him away. His body, however, angled toward it.
Test it again, the voice inside him whispered. See if the magic saves you once more.
His lips curled faintly. A suicidal dare, yes. And he would answer it.
He stepped into the dark road.
The air here was different—stale, sour, heavy with the rot of spoiled ale and unwashed bodies. The stones were cracked and uneven, puddled with stale rain. Crumbled walls leaned in on both sides, graffiti and grime layered over them like scars.
As he walked, memories stirred. He had lived streets like these in another city once, as a boy with nothing but hunger to guide him. He remembered the trembling in his limbs, the gnaw of emptiness that stole sleep. He remembered how older criminals had plucked him from the gutters and taught him their ways. Lure the travelers. Distract them. Lead them where we wait.
And he had done it. Because the first time he had obeyed, they gave him bread. The second time, boots. The third time, a cloak. Each act of betrayal bought him another day. And with each day, he learned that guilt grew lighter the more one carried it.
That is why you became what you are now, he thought. Not choice. Training.
A sound stirred in the dark ahead. A figure huddled at the mouth of an alley—an old woman, bent and frail, her hands clasped as if in prayer. Her voice rasped when she called to him.
"Mercy, master. A coin, a crumb. I have not eaten in days."
Her face was worn, her ribs sharp beneath her rags. She looked every inch the starving beggar. Yet Orin's instincts flared at once. He knew the game. He had played it himself.
There would be others. Watching. Waiting.
He should have walked past. Instead, he stopped. He was not afraid; fear had left him long ago. And there was something almost thrilling in seeing how the trap would spring.
He reached into his pocket and drew out a few coins. He tossed them into her hands.
For a heartbeat, she clutched them as if they were salvation. Then she whirled, faster than her bent frame should allow, and fled into the shadows.
The whistle left her lips sharp as a knife.
Orin exhaled slowly. "And there it is."
The shadows moved. Five men stepped into the street, circling him. Knives glinted in their hands, and their eyes gleamed with the hungry confidence of wolves.
"Well, look at this," one sneered. "A kind soul with coin to spare."
Another twirled his blade idly. "Hand it over, stranger. We'll take the coin, the cloak, the boots. Walk away barefoot, if we let you walk at all."
Orin stood still. His gaze swept over them—measuring, calculating. Their stances betrayed them. One leaned too heavily on his left leg. Another held his knife too far from his body. Amateurs, all of them, though numbers gave them courage.
"I'll warn you once," Orin said quietly. "Turn back."
They laughed. Ugly, barking sounds.
"You hear that?" the leader jeered. "He thinks himself a hard man. Let's carve that thought out of him."
They lunged.
The first came fast, thrusting his knife toward Orin's gut. Orin sidestepped, seized the man's wrist, and twisted. Bone popped; the blade clattered against the stones. Before the scream could leave the man's throat, Orin slammed his forehead into the bridge of his nose. Blood burst outward. The man crumpled.
The second and third came together, blades slashing from opposite sides. Orin ducked low, spinning with lethal grace. His leg swept one man's ankles, sending him sprawling. In the same motion, Orin drove his elbow into the other's ribs, feeling cartilage crack beneath the blow. The man wheezed, staggered, then doubled over coughing blood.
The fourth shouted and charged, stabbing downward. Orin caught his forearm, yanked him forward, and drove a knee into his gut. The air rushed out of him in a strangled gasp. Orin ripped the knife from his grip and flung it aside.
The fifth hesitated, eyes widening as he watched his companions fall. Still, desperation drove him forward. He raised his blade high.
Orin stepped inside the arc of the strike, his hand snapping upward to seize the man's jaw. With brutal precision, he slammed the back of his head against the wall. The skull struck stone with a sickening crack. The man slid down, moaning faintly.
Silence fell.
The five lay scattered across the cobbles, groaning, broken but alive. Orin stood above them, breath steady, heart calm. His dagger remained sheathed. His body had fought as it always had—efficient, ruthless, absolute.
He looked down at them with something almost like disappointment.
"You should have listened," he murmured.
Blood smeared the stones, but none of it was his. Not a cut, not a scratch. He rolled his shoulders, loosening the stiffness from the climb and the fall earlier.
The fight had lasted no longer than a minute. Yet in that minute, he had proven again what he already knew. He was more than an assassin. He was more than a blade for hire. The world had given him magic, though it had not yet taught him how to wield it. And until he learned, his body would suffice.
Still, a hunger stirred in him as he stared at the beaten men. A hunger to test the magic again. To feel it erupt, wild and unchained. To know whether it would obey him when death was not certain.
He tilted his head, studying the criminals where they writhed.
Perhaps he would give them another chance.
Orin looked down at the heap of groaning men. What if I gave them a chance to kill me? What would the magic do then? He crouched, his shadow stretching across them. His voice was quiet, but it cut like steel. "You want me dead? Chain me. Bind me. Prove you can finish what you began."
For a long moment, none of them moved. Their eyes widened, darting to one another. They were wolves, yes, but wolves that had tasted the fang of a greater predator.
The leader spat blood from his mouth, then barked a laugh. "You're mad."
"Maybe," Orin said. "But you'll never see another chance like this. I won't fight. Bring your shackles, if you dare."
The men exchanged wary glances. One muttered, "Trap."
"Look at him," the leader growled. "He offers himself. You think I'll waste that gift?"
He gestured sharply. One of the thieves slunk off into the shadows, returning minutes later with rusted iron manacles. His hands trembled as he approached. Orin lifted his arms, wrists bare.
"Do it," Orin said. "I won't resist."
The man hesitated, then snapped the cuffs shut. The iron bit his skin, heavy and cold. They chained his ankles as well, binding him tight.
When the last shackle clicked, the men stepped back in disbelief. For a heartbeat, they seemed unsure what to do.
Then the laughter came. Cruel, jagged.
"Gods damn," one chuckled. "He really is loony."
Another spat on him. "Thought you were some shadow-born terror. Turns out you're just a fool begging for pain."
They circled him now, knives glinting, voices thick with scorn.
"You want to die?" the leader sneered. "Then we'll grant your wish. But not quick. Not clean. We like our prey tenderized."
The first kick slammed into Orin's ribs. The second struck his jaw. Then fists and boots rained upon him, their laughter rising with each blow.
Orin curled beneath the storm, his body jerking with every strike. Pain tore through him—ribs cracking, lips splitting, blood pooling in his mouth. His cheek met the stones, and he smelled his own copper tang mixing with the stench of gutter rot.
He did not resist. He let them. He remembered.
The training yard. His boyhood stripped bare. The lash tearing skin from his back. The drills that broke bones and forced him to crawl until he could stand again. Children screaming in the night, some never rising the next day. He had survived it all.
This was no different.
The men's voices blurred into jeers. "Bleed, dog!" "Beg us!" "Cry for your mother!"
Orin spat blood and laughed. Low, ragged, feral.
That laughter unsettled them. Their rhythm faltered. Yet the leader snarled, driving his boot into Orin's ribs again.
"Kill him," he ordered. "End it. We'll strip his corpse after."
The knives lifted. Five steel points glinting above him, ready to plunge.
And in that instant, Orin's will flared. Not yet.
Something inside him ripped open. Power surged through his veins like fire bursting from a forge. The shackles around his wrists shattered, iron snapping as though made of glass. Chains fell from his ankles, clattering across the stones.
The men froze, eyes wide.
Orin rose slowly, blood dripping from his lip, his chest heaving. His gaze burned with a light not wholly his own.
They lunged.
The first criminal struck, blade thrusting for Orin's chest. Orin lifted his palm, not even knowing why. A wordless force erupted from him—flame, white-hot and sudden. It slammed into the man's torso. His scream split the night as fire engulfed him. He staggered, clawing at his burning chest, until he collapsed in a heap of ash and char.
The second rushed from the side. Orin turned instinctively, willing the air to shield him. Instead, a gale exploded outward. The man flew backward, bones snapping audibly as he struck the wall with a sickening crack. He slid down in a heap, neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Orin gasped. He had meant only to push him back.
The third came, eyes wild with fear. Orin pointed at him, half-formed intent in his mind. The cobblestones at their feet erupted like spears, shards of stone ripping upward. They impaled the man through the thighs, through the gut, nailing him screaming to the street. His shrieks rattled the night until his throat gurgled into silence.
The fourth thief hesitated, terror dawning, then rushed in desperation. Orin raised his hand again. The moisture in the night air gathered violently, condensing into a sphere of water that engulfed the man's head. He clawed at it, thrashing, choking. Within seconds his body went limp. The sphere collapsed back into mist, leaving him sprawled, drowned upon dry stone.
The fifth remained. He stood trembling, knife raised uselessly, staring at the carnage around him.
Orin's hand shook as he lifted it one final time. He felt the storm-thread inside him pulse, wild and electric.
Lightning cracked from his palm, jagged and merciless. It struck the man square in the chest, illuminating his convulsing frame in ghastly blue light. He collapsed in smoke, flesh charred, eyes staring sightless at the sky.
Silence fell.
Orin stood alone among the corpses, breath ragged, his heart racing like a war drum. The night reeked of ash, ozone, and blood. His hands trembled, his body slick with sweat. He had not meant to kill with such brutality. He had not known how to kill with such brutality. The magic had answered him in storms and fire, in stone and water and lightning—none of it controlled, none of it shaped.
He looked at his hands again. Murderers' hands. Assassin's hands. And now… something worse. Something more.
His chest heaved, the echo of screams still ringing in his ears. He had tested his theory. The magic was real. It was his. And when death threatened him, it would rise to answer, whether he willed its cruelty or not.
The street lay silent around him. Five corpses sprawled across the stones, twisted in death. A scene no city watchman would mistake for anything but sorcery.
Orin closed his eyes, swallowing the taste of iron and smoke.
"Gods damn me," he whispered. "I am no longer only a blade."
***
Morning came veiled in smoke and sound.
The city woke with its usual chorus—merchants shouting prices, donkeys braying as they dragged carts, the clang of hammers from smithies. The great market square throbbed with life, a tide of bodies pressing shoulder to shoulder between stalls draped in canvas and laden with every good a man might crave: salted meats, bolts of dyed silk, iron tools, cheap charms carved from bone.
Orin Kaelen moved through the throng with the quiet ease of a man who had spent his life blending into crowds. No hood veiled his face today. He wore the same plain tunic and worn boots as any laborer. Invisible not by concealment, but by ordinariness.
That was the way assassins survived.
And there, among the bustle, he saw the man he had come to meet.
Lord Halric Deymar did not cloak himself either. He walked in fine garments, yes, his doublet trimmed with subtle silver thread, his hair bound in a courtly tail. Yet he moved as though no one would dare notice him too closely. His confidence was his armor.
Their eyes met across the sea of bodies. Halric smiled faintly, tilting his head in greeting.
Orin slipped through the crowd and fell into step beside him. Together they wove through stalls, two men conversing as if in idle business.
"You live," Halric murmured, his tone dry.
Orin's mouth quirked. "Did you expect otherwise?"
The lord's smile sharpened. "Truth? I doubted. Many blades had tried Veynar Khold. Every one failed. He was clever, guarded, wrapped in wards. I thought you might join the heap of bones at his feet. And yet… here you are."
Orin said nothing. The memory of that chamber—the corpse shattered beyond mending—was still too vivid.
Halric's eyes glittered. "Tell me, how did you manage it? A man like Veynar does not fall to knives."
"Trade secret," Orin said.
The lord chuckled. "Fair enough. I care for results, not recipes. And your result is exquisite. The city will speak of it for weeks. Perhaps longer, once word spreads."
They passed a stall where a fishmonger gutted silver carp, the stink of entrails mingling with sawdust. Halric's voice dropped lower.
"Your payment awaits. The remainder, as promised. At the same place where you found the first half."
Orin inclined his head. That hiding place—a hollow brick in the cellar of a forgotten granary—was known to no one but him and Halric's messengers. He trusted it as much as he trusted anything in this city.
"You've kept your word," Orin said.
"And you have kept yours," Halric replied. "Rare currency, in our trade."
They walked on, brushing shoulders with peasants and nobles alike. The market swelled with noise—hawkers calling for coin, children darting between legs, guards pushing through with spears held high. Amid it all, the two men might as well have been ghosts, their words drowned beneath the chaos.
Halric glanced sideways at him. "You've made yourself… valuable. I will remember it. There will be more work, no doubt. The realm is a garden, and weeds spring eternal. It was a pleasure doing business with you, Kaelen."
He began to angle away, but Orin's voice stopped him.
"One question."
Halric arched a brow. "Yes?"
"Did the king want him dead?"
The lord stilled. The crowd jostled around them, but his gaze locked on Orin's, searching, weighing.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because I want to know whose hand truly held the knife," Orin said quietly. "Yours? Or the throne's?"
Halric's smile faded. For a long moment he said nothing. Then he exhaled slowly.
"You are bold, assassin."
"Curious," Orin corrected.
Halric looked away, scanning the crowd as if the answer might be written on their faces. At last he leaned closer, his voice scarcely above a whisper.
"Yes. The order came from above. The king desired Veynar removed—but not by his hand. Too many eyes, too much risk. So he sent me. And I sent you."
The words hung between them, heavier than coin.
Orin studied the lord's face. There was no jest there, no flicker of deceit. Only truth, reluctantly given.
"Then I have killed for a king," Orin murmured.
Halric straightened, composure returning. "Think of it as promotion. You stand where few ever will—an assassin who has served the throne itself. Be wise with that knowledge. It is power, but also peril."
Their eyes met one last time. Then Halric smiled once more, smooth and practiced.
"Until we meet again."
He vanished into the market, swallowed by the sea of bodies, leaving Orin standing amidst the press of merchants and beggars.
For a long while, Orin did not move. The noise of the square surged around him—bartering voices, clattering hooves, the grind of cartwheels—but it felt distant, muffled, as though he stood in another world.
He thought of the corpse in the palace chamber. Of the fire, the lightning, the drowning mist. Of the look on Veynar's face when he realized his own death.
He thought of the king, faceless yet present, somewhere behind the throne's shadow, a man who had willed this death and used Orin's hand to carry it out.
Orin exhaled slowly. He felt no triumph. Only the strange, sharp elation of knowing he had risen higher than he ever dreamed.
Once he had been a starving child, luring strangers into alleys for a crust of bread. Then a blade-for-hire, faceless among many. Now… now he was something else entirely.
An assassin burdened with magic he barely understood. A tool of kings.
And the world would not soon forget it.