Kryos 25, Imperial Year 1642
The Kingdom of Valdria, Eastern Marches
Valdria was a kingdom of rolling plains and slow rivers, its wealth built on wool and silver. Unlike Mercia, which had grown fat on trade, Valdria had grown lean on war – border skirmishes, succession crises, and the constant low‑grade violence of rival noble houses. The current king, Aldric the Fourth, was a weak man who had inherited a weak throne, and the nobles knew it.
Among them, none was more ambitious than Duke Alistair Vane.
Vladislav Eisenberg had been watching Duke Vane for three weeks. The man was a predator in noble's clothing – charming, ruthless, and utterly without conscience. His crimes were not secrets. They were open.
He had murdered his older brother to inherit the duchy. He had sold villages to slavers to pay off gambling debts. He had personally overseen the torture of a rival's wife, extracting information that led to the rival's execution. He had poisoned his own father when the old man threatened to disinherit him. And those were only the crimes Vlad could confirm.
The nightmare came – not the classroom, not the bombing, but the faces of the duke's victims. A brother who had trusted him. A wife who had screamed for mercy. A father who had wept as the poison burned his stomach. Vlad saw them all, and he saw the balance.
This death brings more good than harm. Far more.
He settled behind the scope.
The duke's manor was a sprawling estate of stone and timber, surrounded by gardens and a high wall. Guards patrolled the perimeter, but they were lazy – the duke had not faced a serious threat in years. Vlad had chosen a position on a low hill four and a half kilometers to the east, where a stand of pine trees offered cover.
The rifle, Tyrant's End, rested on a reinforced bipod. Vlad had calibrated the scope for wind, temperature, and the earth's rotation. The cartridge – a 20mm hollow‑point, designed to fragment on impact – was chambered and ready.
Through the scope, he could see the duke's study. The windows were large, leaded glass, and the curtains were open. Duke Vane sat at a desk, writing a letter. A servant stood by the door, waiting.
Vlad breathed out. His finger found the trigger.
The nightmare came again – a final reminder. The duke's victims. The weight of the act.
The balance is clear.
He fired.
The roar of the rifle echoed across the hills, a deep, concussive blast that sent birds flying from the pines. The recoil slammed into Vlad's shoulder, and the smoke from the muzzle obscured his vision for a moment.
He did not need to see. He knew.
The bullet traveled four and a half kilometers in 5.2 seconds. It crossed the gardens, passed between two guard towers, and struck the window of the duke's study. The leaded glass shattered inward, spraying shards across the room.
The duke looked up. He had time to open his mouth – to form a single, silent word – before the bullet struck his chest.
The hollow‑point did what it was designed to do. Upon impact, it expanded, fragmented, and transferred its kinetic energy into the duke's torso. The effect was not a hole. It was a cavity. His ribcage exploded outward. His heart, lungs, and spine were reduced to a fine mist. His body, still seated, slumped sideways, and his head hit the edge of the desk with a wet crack.
The servant – a young man in a gray tunic – stood frozen, his mouth open, his eyes wide. Blood sprayed across his face, across the letter on the desk, across the wall behind the duke. He did not scream. He could not.
He simply stood there, trembling, until the guards burst through the door.
Vlad lowered the rifle and cycled the bolt. The spent casing spun through the air, landing on the pine needles beside him. He did not need a second shot.
Through the scope, he watched the chaos unfold. Guards shouting, servants running, a woman in a silk dress collapsing to her knees. The duke's body was still in the chair, but it was no longer recognizable as a man. It was a ruin of meat and cloth.
Vlad felt nothing. He had weighed the consequences. The duke's death would save countless lives. The balance was satisfied.
He packed the rifle, dismantled the blind, and walked away into the forest.
Kryos 26, Imperial Year 1642
The City of Silverwell, Capital of Valdria
The news reached the capital within hours. By nightfall, the entire city knew that Duke Alistair Vane had been struck down by an unseen hand – a thunderbolt from a clear sky, a demon's curse, a mage's vengeance.
The king, Aldric the Fourth, called an emergency council. The nobles, terrified and furious, demanded answers. The mages' guild offered a reward of fifty thousand silver marks for information.
No one had any. The only evidence was a brass casing, found on a hill four and a half kilometers from the manor, identical to the casings found in Mercia.
The assassin had struck again. And this time, he had crossed borders.
Kryos 28, Imperial Year 1642
Thornreach, Northern Boreas
Vladislav Eisenberg sat in his workshop, cleaning Tyrant's End. The barrel was fouled, the action gritty, the stock cracked in two places from the recoil. He worked methodically, as he always did.
The report from Valdria had reached him through his network. The kingdom was in chaos. The duke's allies were scrambling to cover their own crimes. His enemies were celebrating. The common folk, who had suffered under his taxes and his cruelty, were lighting candles in thanks.
Good, Vlad thought. The equation holds.
He finished cleaning the rifle and set it on its rack. Then he walked to the window and looked south.
The other lights – the reincarnators – were still there. Still gathering. Still searching.
He thought about the young knight, Gregor, and the brass casing he had left behind. He thought about the halfling and her growing band. He thought about the king's mages, scrying the hills, finding nothing.
They will not find me, he told himself. I am a ghost. I have always been a ghost.
But as he turned away from the window, he paused.
A memory. Not the bombing. Not the classroom. A different memory. A conversation, in a university cafeteria, with a friend he had not thought of in a hundred years.
"If you could go back and kill Hitler as a baby, would you?"
"Yes," Vlad had said. "Without hesitation."
"And if it meant becoming a monster yourself?"
He had not answered then. He did not have an answer now.
He returned to his workbench and began designing a new cartridge – an armor‑piercing round, for targets behind cover.
The work was all that mattered.
The work was all that had ever mattered.
End of Chapter Seven