Chương 5: Vengeance Unlocked (Assassin Apprentice's POV)

Under the moonlight, I trudged after my mentor toward the outskirts of Stonebrook, trying not to trip over anything that might give us away. Mostly I was failing.

"Are you sure there's a warehouse here? We've been walking for an hour, Shira." I kicked the rock that almost got me.

"Yes."

"Don't you think they're already sleeping? It's past midnight. Can't we just do it tomorrow, Shira?"

"Assassination transactions happen at midnight for a reason, and stop dropping my name." Shira stopped without warning. I bumped into his back. It was a wall of muscle, unmoving as a boulder that had somehow learned to wear a cloak. There was a moment of undignified shuffling as I fixed my silver smiling mask, my fingers fumbling with the strap in the dark.

"Why the sudden stop, Shira?" He didn't answer. I followed his line of sight, and then I saw it. Ahead of us sat a warehouse. The kind of building that had never been asked to be beautiful and had taken the rejection personally. It had no rooftop, leaving the moonlight to spill straight down into it. Through a window, I could make out silhouettes moving. My stomach did something complicated. It twisted itself into a knot, apparently just because it could.

"Stay here. I'll go alone," Shira said without turning.

"Come on, Shira. How am I supposed to learn the basics if you won't let me—""This time is different. This is more than basics. Also, start remembering not to drop names. That comes before the basics. It's pre-basic. It's the basics of basics."

"So… the foundations?"

"The foundations of the basics, yes."

"Wouldn't that just be—" A wolf howled somewhere out past the treeline. Then a second one. Then a third.

"Shira, wouldn't it be safer if I follow?" I grabbed a fistful of his cloak before he could get another step ahead of me. Shira sighed.

"You'll be fine as long as you stay quiet."

"Come on, Shira, you know quiet and me don't get along well." I shrugged. He turned, reached back, and patted my shoulder once.

"Silence." My shoulder lit up for a second, then it was gone.

"You'll be fine now." He pulled back his hand. I opened my mouth to argue. Nothing came out. Shira walked toward the door. I followed anyway, and to my shock, even my footsteps had gone soundless. A high-level assassin skill, maybe, borrowed or bestowed somehow through his touch. I shook my head. Now was not the time to be impressed. Shira turned again. I stopped, put my hands behind my head, and tried to whistle. Nothing came out.

"Again, stay here." He pushed the door open. It groaned on its hinges, a long, tired creak that suggested the warehouse's maintenance budget had been allocated elsewhere. Possibly to "ominous atmosphere" or "structural neglect as an aesthetic choice." Then he stepped inside. Fine. But he never told me I couldn't peek. I crept to the nearest window instead. A crack ran along it. I leaned closer, and something stopped me before I even touched the glass. I poked it. Nothing happened. A barrier, then.

The kind that only let certain people through. A transaction important enough to warrant this much precaution had to be paying well. Good. I'd nag Shira into buying me snacks later. I turned my focus back inside, ready to learn something about how professionals handled this line of work. Inside, a man with white hair and a regal coat sat on a crate like it was his throne. Ranked #2 among the Mage Guild's ten archmages — our client, Faust. He turned a coin over in his gloved fingers without ever looking down at it.

A habit I recognized, because I did the same thing with a spare button whenever my own nerves got the better of me. Behind him, half-swallowed by shadows that seemed to be working overtime to look menacing, stood a woman. She was fair-skinned and striking. Some useless part of my brain hoped Shira wouldn't fall for her. She was dressed entirely in black: a long black coat, black hair drawn into a high ponytail, and a pair of cat ears twitching atop her head. A beastkin.

Shira crossed the warehouse floor and tossed something down in front of Faust. It landed with a soft thap. The card. The one Shira had taken from the corpse this morning. I'd always wondered what he did with those cards. I'd figured it was just one of his strange habits. Something private he never explained. Turned out it had been for this all along. Wait… hadn't he already told me that, over lunch, weeks ago? I must not have been listening properly.

"Proof of completion," Shira said. Faust picked up the card and studied it. He looked at it for a moment longer than necessary. His expression gave away absolutely nothing. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Something crashed. I looked over to find the cat beastkin sitting on the ground amid a pile of broken planks. A rat scurried away from the wreckage. She rose, patting the dust from her clothes and tail.

"Nyx…" Faust sighed. He pocketed the card and straightened. He watched her watching the corner where the rat had disappeared.

"Don't," Faust said, before turning back to Shira. He produced a coin pouch that jingled with every step, in rhythm with the dull clack of his golden staff against the floor. He handed the pouch over. Shira caught it, tossed it once in his palm, testing the weight the way he always did before he trusted a payment.

"By the way," Faust asked, almost idly, "did she tell you anything?" Shira's hand froze mid-toss. The pouch seemed to hang in the air a fraction of a second longer than it should have, as if even gravity wanted to hear the answer.

"…She asked me to tell you: 'I didn't go down without a fight.'""I see." Faust's tone didn't change.

"And you were alone when you did the job?"

"Yes," Shira answered.

"I see. That was good to hear, then." Shira turned toward the door. He reached it, pushed forward, and recoiled as though he'd walked straight into a wall that wasn't there. The barrier. I thought he was exempted. What is going on? He spun back to face Faust.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Do you know what an archmage is?"

"A mage who's reached the pinnacle of magic?" Shira's hand moved to his belt, and his dagger slid free. Something was definitely wrong. First was the barrier and now this. Shira would never draw his dagger for nothing. I slammed both palms against the barrier. It swallowed the impact and gave nothing back, just like before. I tried to shout. Still no sound came. I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached. A mage is a bad matchup for an assassin, I told myself, over and over, like a prayer.

"Correct," Faust said.

"But there is this member of ours. The moment she discovered her own incompetence, she went to the Archer Guild instead."

"Was that a problem? She found she lacked talent and looked for an alternative."

"Normally, it shouldn't have been." Faust's face twisted with disgust.

"But there's a village that started calling her an archmage." His grip tightened around the staff.

"Those commoners think an archer-mage can be called an archmage?! A title that should only belong to those who've truly earned it! How stupid could they be?!" He was panting now, nearly frothing, a madness bleeding into his voice. When it passed, his tone dropped back to something cold and even.

"Do you know what I did to that village?"

"How would I know?"

"I burned it." Shira let out a slow breath.

"Just so you know, I'm a professional. I won't speak of it."

"I will eradicate everyone who knew." Faust wasn't listening.

"Stop it. A mage is a bad matchup for an assassin." Faust's free hand settled over his staff. Shira kicked off the ground. His speed was impressive as ever. There's no way Shira loses this, I thought as I pumped my fist against the glass. Clang! Metal met metal. Nyx stood before Shira now, holding a large sword she hadn't been carrying a moment ago. A blade forged from stone and brick torn straight from the warehouse walls. I slammed my palm against the barrier again. Damn it!

Shira's dagger flashed, strike after strike, and every single one was turned aside. How can someone carrying something that heavy move that fast?! Shira leapt back, but chains shot up from the floor and closed around his ankle. They yanked him down before he could land clean.

"Ensnare," Faust murmured, then turned his eyes to Nyx.

"Finish him." Nyx swung. Shira's dagger moved first. He twisted and slipped past her blade, then shot forward toward Faust. My eyes widened. Yes! He broke free— Then I saw it. A single foot remained on the chained ground where he'd been standing a heartbeat ago. He surged past Nyx anyway, dagger raised, now painted red and aimed for Faust's throat. But before he could reach him, Nyx let her swing carry through the full arc and caught Shira's collar with her free hand.

She's carrying that huge sword one-handed this whole time?! Faust raised his hand, unhurried, and pointed at Shira's chest. His palm turned red. No—"Flame Arrow." The red shot out and took Shira's chest with it, whole. One moment Shira was standing. The next, he wasn't — not in one piece. Both halves hit the floor. I screamed. Nothing came out but a raw, silent shape in my throat. The stone sword crumbled in Nyx's grip, disintegrating into a heap of rubble and brick dust at her feet.

"Let's go." Faust struck the ground with his staff, and a magic circle bloomed outward from the tip. Light climbed up through the dark. Nyx stepped into the circle without a word. Then she turned her head — toward me. Our eyes met. She didn't speak. But that wasn't the problem. What I couldn't forgive was that I hadn't even tried to speak back. I knew my voice wasn't back yet, but I didn't try. My hand shook against the invisible wall. I was afraid.

I was afraid of the person who had just killed Shira, and I hated myself for it. The light swallowed them both, and then they were gone. My fist, still pressed against the barrier, finally moved forward and shattered the glass. I climbed through the broken window. Its jagged edges painted my hands red with my blood as I passed. I didn't feel a thing. I didn't care.

"Shira!" My voice had returned. I moved to the corpse — to the corpses, plural, because there were technically two pieces now — and knelt beside them. I'd watched it happen, but some useless corner of my mind still expected the scene to look different up close, less final. It didn't. My hands moved to check for a pulse before my mind caught up with what my eyes had already told me. There was no pulse to find. There hadn't been for a while now.

"You know I can't file completion forms!" Shira didn't correct me. Didn't point out that it should be "incompletion forms." Didn't lecture about proper Guild terminology. Didn't launch into the usual speech about how paperwork was what separated professional assassins from common murderers. That absence of correction lingered in the air like smoke. I sat back on my heels, my hands trembling, and tried to think of what came next. The Guild had protocols for this. There were always protocols.

Protocols for failed contracts, protocols for assassin deaths, protocols for reporting, protocols for revenge, which was technically discouraged but had its own forms anyway.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, to no one in particular. I pulled off my mask, and I screamed. A sound that tore out of me and didn't stop until it had nowhere left to go. [You have unlocked Vengeance.] [You can now track the one you hate the most, and a red thread will appear connecting you to the target once a chance presents itself.] I picked up Shira's dagger with my free hand, stood up, and put my mask back on. [You can only track one person. Who do you want to track?]"Faust."