Before I left I noticed my gear was worn, my blades starting to dull. I shoved my hands into my pockets as I made my way toward the blacksmith, the same one who had given me my first weapons. My fingers found the three pieces of metal before I even remembered they were there. I pulled them out. The emblems from the rogue hunters. Both Dormin and Rue had told me to take them. I'd forgotten completely.
The pounding of metal grew louder as I approached the gate. Steam curled into the air as hot iron met cold water, the hiss of it sharp against the morning noise. One of the smiths turned his head as I walked in.
"What ya got there?" His eyes widened as he stepped closer. "Are those…hunter emblems?"
His breath hitched. He was already reaching for his coin purse.
"How much for one? I'll give you five thousand for the silver one." He held out a bag of coins, dangling it like bait.
"Give him some space." The man who had forged my blades stepped forward, waving the others back. "It's Oren, yeah? Yours are the Darksteel blades."
I nodded.
"Hey." He extended his hand. "I just wanted to say thank you. For what you did."
"No problem. Just remember who helped ya when you get all famous."
I shook it. He nearly pulled me off my feet.
His eyes dropped to the emblems still in my left hand and he let out a low whistle. "You'd better not be walking around with those out in the open. Some high rank hunter emblems go for hundreds of thousands. One wrong set of eyes on you." He drew a finger across his throat. "You won't see it coming. Take them to Damian. He'll see you paid right." He gave me a firm pat on the back, nudging me along.
"Thanks," I muttered. "I think."
I turned to go and caught movement on my left. Two operatives, watching. One already had a hand resting on his dagger.
The blacksmith glanced at them. Then at me. Then back at them.
"You fellas need something? Or are you just here admiring my good looks?" He laughed to himself. The two exchanged a look and moved off, one of them throwing a last glance my way.
I didn't wait. I pictured Damian's building. The door. The hallway. I raised my hand toward the nearest wall and the shadows there thickened, pulling together like something alive.
I stepped through.
The cold was instantaneous, a smooth total darkness that swallowed me whole for half a breath, and then I was standing in front of Damian's office door. I let out a slow exhale. I'd done it clean. No strain, no stumbling. For the first time it had felt like mine.
Damian was behind his desk with a folder open, eyes moving across the page like he was skimming a schedule. He didn't look up when I walked in.
"Why are you still here?" He closed the folder and took his feet off the desk. "You were given orders. Don't tell me you're folding before you've even started."
I crossed the room and set the three emblems on his desk without a word.
He looked at them. Then at me.
"Interesting." He picked up the silver one and turned it over in his hand, feeling the weight of it. "Where did you get these?"
"Last mission. We were ambushed by a group called the Hunters. I took them off the bodies."
His eyebrows lifted. "You beat Harlong? A grade one assassin?"
He let the question sit for a moment, watching my face.
A short exhale through his nose, almost a laugh. "Rue beat him. Not surprised. Even among the higher tiers, he's exceptional."
He pulled open a desk drawer and produced a large leather bag, setting it down with a dull thud.
"Let's see. Combined the emblems come to around ninety thousand. Minus your outstanding debt, that puts you at thirty."
"Thirty thousand." The words came out in disbelief.
He counted it out and slid two bags across the desk toward me.
"Now get out. If you're still inside the compound by nightfall I'll put a bounty on your head for refusing direct orders." He reopened his folder like the conversation was over.
I picked up the bags and walked out. Thirty thousand gold. Even in Mr. Will's house I don't think I'd ever seen that much in one place.
The forge was up ahead, the hammering of metal and heat getting louder as I walked. I almost made it.
"We'll be taking those emblems off your hands now." A voice rang out from behind me. I turned and found myself face to face with the two from before along with two new faces. One stepped forward.
I pulled my swords and let my magick run. The shadow aura expanded around me, dark and deep, and I swept my gaze across all four of them. One moved in first, slower than I expected. I stepped left and brought my hand down hard on the back of his neck and he dropped. Another came in moving like he had all the time in the world.
"I'd expected more from men willing to jump a person in broad daylight." I moved back, letting his swings miss. I saw them coming before he threw them. Left, right, stepping forward. Overhead swing. Like he was calling each move before he made it.
Quick movement to my right caught my eye.
Layla dropped off a roof and fired in the same motion. Mid-air she thrust her free hand out and the arrow split into dozens, raining down around the operatives. She landed in front of me with a gust of wind.
"You boys wouldn't be actively targeting an assassin with no bounty, would you?"
One stepped forward, his aura toxic and almost suffocating.
"Layla, step aside. Let us men handle thi—" The last word never left his mouth. An arrow straight through it. Mouth, tongue and throat, all gone mid-sentence.
"Anyone else?" The others walked away murmuring. Probably something along the lines of we'll meet again and that damn woman.
I looked at Layla with awe. Damn she was good.
I made my way toward her but her hand came up and stopped me, resting flat against my chest.
"No…I know last night was special but let's slow down." She kissed me on the cheek and walked away.
"See ya later…I guess," I said to myself, then turned and walked into the forge.
I stood there while the blacksmith sharpened my blades and repaired my armor, going on about how back in his day there wasn't magick to lean on. Only pure strength and wit. My mind drifted toward the dark towers of Draznkal. Even from Stonehaven I could see the mountains and the base of the towers sitting just under the clouds.
"That'll be five hundred gold." I counted it out and handed it over, then walked toward the gates. New armor, sharpened swords. No more excuses not to go. No more last minute goodbyes.
Only me, the journey, and what lies in the deepest reaches of those cursed ruins.
● ● ●
I took the long way around Riverdale. I didn't even want to think about that place. My father's death still weighed on me and the last thing I needed was to ride past that shack.
Three days to Draznkal. Or at least to the base of it. I pulled out the folder and read it over one more time, committing the details to memory.
*Operative: Oren Leatherglove*
*Grade 4*
*Affinity: Shadow*
*Retrieve the stolen Sword of Night from the Ruins of Draznkal. Bandits that took it have taken refuge there. Any additional recovered items will yield a bonus payout.*
*Bounty payout: 10,000 gold.*
The Sword of Night. A blade that absorbs magick and holds it for redistribution. I'd heard Falkus describe it once and even then it hadn't fully landed. Holding the brief now, riding alone toward the one place in Arramoor that even Grade Ones didn't come back from, it landed a little differently.
I folded it back up and tucked it away, then urged my horse forward. He'd given me only a slight protest when I mounted him. Smart animal. If he knew where we were going he'd have done a lot more than that.
The sounds of Riverdale faded behind me. The coastal forest that separated Riverdale from Eratiell rose up ahead, thick and dark, the smell of pine and wet earth cutting through the morning air as I rode into the tree line.
The towers of Draznkal were still days away but the mountains were much clearer now, even through the shade of the pine forest. They dwarfed everything beneath them. The kind of size that doesn't just block the horizon — it replaces it.
A deep voice cut through my mind without warning, low and vibrating, like something tearing open at the edges.
*Those who walk the path of destruction must become destruction itself.*
My head snapped up. I pulled the horse to a stop and scanned the tree line. Birds. A few deer grazing in the distance. Nothing else. No movement. No presence I could point to.
Just the voice, and the silence it left behind.
I pressed a hand to my chest and focused on my breathing until it steadied. The same voice from the vision. The same weight behind it, vast and patient and completely indifferent to whether I was ready.
It knew I was coming.
It had probably always known.