The Price of Dominion
The investigation chamber lay far beneath the palace.
No windows.
No witnesses.
Only stone that remembered screams.
Raven stood at the far end of the room as the chief guard dragged the man in and threw him to the floor like refuse. Chains rattled as they were secured, iron biting into flesh.
"This is the last one," the chief guard said. "Captured alive. Barely."
The assassin lifted his head slowly.
He smiled.
Blood crusted his lips. One eye was swollen shut. His body bore the marks of careful cruelty—broken in places meant to hurt, not kill.
Raven's expression did not change.
"You were sent to kill a royal servant," Raven said evenly. "Speak. Who ordered it?"
The man laughed—a wet, broken sound.
Raven nodded once.
The guards went to work.
Time passed.
Screams echoed, then faded into hoarse breaths. Blades were used. Heat. Pressure. Pain delivered with precision. Each method was abandoned the moment it threatened death.
Still, the assassin did not speak.
Finally, he slumped forward, breathing shallow but defiant.
"You've lost," he rasped. "You won't stop what's coming."
The room went silent.
The chief guard glanced at Raven, uneasy. "He won't break."
Raven closed his eyes.
This was the moment.
The line he had sworn never to cross.
"What I am about to do," Raven said quietly, "was outlawed for a reason."
The guards stiffened.
"To enter a mind without consent is a violation of soul and will," he continued. "It destroys what remains afterward."
He opened his eyes.
"But you attacked what is mine."
He stepped forward and placed two fingers against the assassin's temple.
The man's grin faltered.
"No—"
The world fractured.
The assassin convulsed as Raven tore through memory—uninvited, merciless. Images flooded in: secret meetings, coded orders, coin exchanged beneath banners not yet raised.
Raven saw everything.
And more.
When he withdrew, the man collapsed completely—mind hollowed, eyes empty, breath shallow.
Raven straightened slowly, face carved from stone.
"Turn his head," he ordered.
The chief guard hesitated—then obeyed.
Behind the assassin's ear, barely visible beneath blood and grime, was a mark burned into flesh.
A stylized wing.
The Eagle Clan.
Raven stared at it.
So.
The tigers were not alone.
"They move faster than I anticipated," he said softly.
The chief guard swallowed. "Orders, my king?"
Raven turned away.
"Quietly seal their borders," he said. "Freeze their trade. Summon their elders under the pretense of alliance."
He paused.
"And when the court is full," he continued, voice deadly calm, "I will remind them what happens when clans forget who rules this land."
The guards shuddered.
Raven walked out of the chamber without another glance back.
Behind him, the assassin breathed—alive, but ruined.
And far above, an entire clan stood unaware—
That by dawn,
they would be reduced to shambles.