Aven peeked over the hedge towards the house sitting atop the hill. This late at night, there was no one around. Magistrate Tomos Florenz would be fully asleep after a day presiding over the endless minor disputes of the town. As would the rest of the house, thanks to Hanion vis Dreamweaver’s power.

  “Well, go on then,” Hanion gestured to Aven with a grin. Too dark to see, but Aven had enough experience with the man to know just how his multi-colored eyes would be twinkling with excitement at a fresh kill. “Night’s not getting younger.”

  Aven checked his equipment again. Dagger, keys. All there. Of course they were. He’d checked a half-dozen times already.

  “What did the magistrate do?” Aven asked. This wasn’t hesitation. It wasn’t delaying. Just...making sure he had all the important information.

  “Always with the questions,” Hanion leaned against the hedge, idly tapping his cane against the dirt. “Thought you’d learned by now you’re not nearly valuable enough to the Order to ask questions. Not yet.”

  Aven was still only a novice in the Shadow Order, only earning that position by running Ralius Talone through the chest. Novices didn’t ask questions. They obeyed. Or else they ended up exactly like Ralius Talone did: murdered by the one who would take their place.

  The questions still lingered. The Shadow Order had his life, his work, his blade. They didn't have his thoughts.

  This was just another job. Just another death in service of the Empire. Or the Shadow Order, which Father insisted was the same thing. They were the higher justice in Tenebras, the blade that fell when the justice of magistrates and judges failed. Aven was no judge. Just the executioner.

  With the estate quiet under a Dreamweaver’s power, Aven walked the path to the front door. With the key they’d duplicated from the housekeeper set, Aven opened the front door. It rasped open, old hinges groaning as if to warn their master. Sloppy. Should have checked the hinges first. The warning fell only on sleeping, dreaming ears.

  Aven suppressed the disappointment. If the house woke from the opening, they wouldn't have abandoned the operation. Hanion would have just insisted they silence all witnesses.

  There was only a single groundskeeper inside. An old man with a grizzled beard, snoring in a chair by the door. Magistrate Tomos Florenz was well respected by the community, enough to feel safe without even a proper guard at night.

  Why, then, did the Shadow Order decide he needed to die? The question was so persistent now, nagging at the corners of Aven’s mind. Even when the Battle Mind tried to force that part away, it still crept back. Because it wasn't just an intrusive thought. It was the question that gnawed every second since he'd killed Ralius. How did the Shadow Order decide who deserved death? What gave them the right?

  Aven left the old groundskeeper to his sleep. He’d only deepen the mystery around how anyone had killed the magistrate in the dead of night. The stairs gave beneath Aven’s feet as he went up them, each one a complaint that went unheard.

  The bedroom was at the end of the hall. Locked. The duplicate key worked there as well. Magistrate Tomos Florenz was a trusting man to give his housekeeper access to the entire house. And the housekeeper was careless enough with that trust to allow the key to be stolen, duplicated, and returned without realizing.

  When the door gave one last vain warning to its master, two figures stirred in the bed, but neither awoke. The shutters were old enough that moonlight filtered in through cracks in the warped wood, giving enough light for Aven to see the man he was about to kill. Magistrate Tomos Florenz was young for a magistrate. Maybe about thirty or so, with a short beard and dark, curly hair.

  Hair shared by the third figure in the bed, who Aven was just now noticing. While the magistrate held his wife (a woman perhaps slightly younger, with lighter hair), she in turn held a small child. Perhaps three years old. A boy with his father’s hair, clutching a straw doll to his chest.

  Aven’s breath caught. The hand on his knife hilt trembled.

  So what if the man was a father? Aven had killed men before who probably also had been fathers and husbands. Had Father ever hesitated because a man might have a family? No. Justice was absolute. The Shadow Order was absolute.

  So why did Aven’s heart pound? Why did it feel like there was a fist wrapped around his lungs, tightening with every breath?

  Aven had killed Ralius Talone in service of the Shadow Order. A good man who’d helped train Aven with the sword, who’d once been betrothed to Aven’s sister. Who’d died because he no longer killed those the Shadow Order judged worthy of death. Ralius Talone’s crime was compassion. Was this magistrate’s crime the same?

  And this child. This boy who would wake up tomorrow to find a father murdered in the night. Even if the father deserved to die, did the child deserve such horrors?

  When Ralius Talone died on Aven’s blade, he’d whispered a message, one only heard by Aven’s ears. The dying gasp of his closest friend.

  “You don’t have to be what they make you.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Ralius Talone forsook the Shadow Order, and he died as a consequence. A fool, Father called him. Maybe he was.

  Maybe Aven could aspire to be such a fool.

  Hanion vis Dreamweaver was watching his mind, Aven knew. But only the surface. The strong impressions. If he'd seen the doubt and questions that lurked beneath, he'd have already condemned Aven just as he had Ralius.

  The Battle Mind had simulated this exact mission a dozen times. It was easy to bring that simulation to mind. The feeling of holding the magistrate’s mouth shut and cutting his throat. Feeling the rush of blood spill down when Aven turned him away so that the flow didn’t stir his wife. He pushed that simulation to the forefront of his mind, let it play out in all the excruciating, horrifying detail.

  At the same time, he slashed his own arm with the knife, coating it with blood. The pain echoed in another part of his mind, split off by the Battle Mind to a place where Hanion couldn’t sense.

  And when that simulation was finished, Aven left. Right back out the front door. Back on the path out to the hedges of the outer garden where Hanion vis Dreamweaver was waiting.

  He half expected Hanion to kill him on the spot. Instead, the man clapped softly as Aven stepped behind the hedges with him and showed the bloody dagger.

  “Bravo,” Hanion smiled, a predator’s grin. “See? A clean kill. No fuss.” That approval still sickened Aven more than any disapproval could, but he shoved that away too, held it all back as much as he could, even if the Battle Mind felt that the roiling emotions were about to burst. “Get over that dithering and you’ll be as good a blade as Gaius ever was. Clean that dagger now and we’ll-”

  Hanion didn’t see Aven’s intentions until he rammed the knife into the dreamweaver’s stomach. In the Battle Mind’s slowed perception, Aven saw his mentor’s face turn to shock. A shock that rippled to agony when Aven stabbed him again.

  "You..." Hanion gurgled. No more words came.

  A mind vis’ power struck Aven’s mind all at once. A riot of colors burst in his vision. Howling burst in his mind. He couldn't see. Couldn't hear. The Battle Mind fought through it, just for a second, just long enough to ram the dagger home a third time. He could still feel the bite of the blade in flesh.

  Blood bubbled up from Hanion’s mouth as his power still tried to sink Aven into a dream, tried to smother him with nightmares. But a body could only endure so much.

  Vertigo slammed into Aven, and the dagger fell from his hand. For a long moment, his vision went black. Only the feeling of the grass on his palms anchored him to reality at all. Grass and warm blood seeping through his gloves.

  When it cleared, Hanion’s corpse was in front of him, and the bloody dagger was still in Aven’s hand.

  Nervous laughter bubbled out from Aven’s mouth. He was still a murderer. Just one who’d murdered another murderer instead of a man who might have been innocent. Power that Aven had tried to control for years now bubbled up, the void rejoicing in the kill. Black joined the red spilling from the self-inflicted wound on Aven’s arm.

  Reason crept back in the mania. With Hanion’s power released, the house would wake up. Even if they didn’t notice anything was amiss yet, they’d eventually discover the corpse in the hedges. Aven didn’t have the means to dispose of it. And Hanion and Aven were supposed to make contact with the Order before dawn to confirm the job was done. When Hanion didn’t show...they’d know.

  He was a dead man. A murderer and a traitor to the Shadow Order. Well, if he was a dead man, he’d at least let Father be the one to decide that fate.

  Leaving Hanion’s corpse behind, Aven set off on the road to home.

  * * *

  Aven lunged across the hall of Governor Iraias’ citadel towards the man who should have been dead. A murderer who, by all rights, should be a corpse in a Tenebras ditch.

  Yet here he was, standing at Helena’s side. Hanion vis Dreamweaver's swirling eyes widened in shock, locked on Aven. He didn't move. No one else was moving either. Too surprised by the sudden charge.

  Until a hand seized Aven’s neck from behind and slammed him face-first into the stone floor.

  Even as he felt his nose break against the hard tiles, Aven reached out, voidclaws ready to finish what should have been completed more than a year ago.

  The tips of boned wings stabbed down into his arms, pinning him in place and rending the voidclaws into harmless mist. Screams erupted now, the Tenebras delegation drawing back in horror.

  Aven’s gaze met Helena’s as she backed away. Eyes wide in terror. No sign of recognition. Because she didn’t see her brother; she saw a monster.

  Vestra’s hand tightened around Aven’s throat from behind. Then, she was dragging him away, grip far too powerful to break from. With the hot, burning rush of rage and void stilled, Aven didn’t struggle. The eruption of anger, the need to kill...it felt like those emotions belonged to someone else.

  No, that was just a foolish excuse. It was all him. Just a part that had been tucked away in a corner of his mind until the levee broke and it all rushed forth. He could blame Mother's presence and the stress of confronting her. He could blame Hanion for inspiring such rage. It was still him who lost control.

  A hundred eyes watched Vestra drag Aven from the hall. Aelia’s gaze stood out from the crowd. A terror matching Helena’s. For the moment, she too only saw a monster.

  “Aven,” Esharah’s mental cry reached him. “What's wrong?”

  “That...that man is an assassin,” Aven pulsed back. “He-”

  Before Aven could send any more, another presence settled in. One that smothered any rage or alarm into a sickening sense of...comfort. Peace forced on him like a numbing medicine. No words, just an overwhelming impression of Lady Ashnya’s power. And amusement. As if his murderous outburst was just the work of a rambunctious child.

  “Get out of his head,” Esharah hissed.

  With a mental war clashing in his mind, Aven was helpless to stop Vestra from dragging him down the hall and hurling him inside an empty room.

  He hit the wall hard, the pain enough to break through the smothering peace that Lady Ashnya forced upon him.

  He stayed in a heap on the floor, head in his hands, a tangle of horror and shame. Snapping like that only would make him look like a deranged madman. At a time when he should have been showing his best image for Aelia’s sake. What had he even planned to do? Kill Hanion in front of a hundred witnesses at a conference of cooperation?

  “I said, out,” Esharah still fought against Lady Ashnya’s mental influence on him. A losing battle.

  Still no words from Lady Ashnya. Perhaps her mental powers weren’t that...precise. Instead of a presence like Esharah’s, it felt more like a force of nature. A smothering fog that covered everything.

  “Hey!” Vestra rapped her knuckles against Aven’s skull. Hard enough to rattle him. “Back off, whore. I’ve got this handled.”

  Another pulse of amusement from the distant Lady Ashnya, then her presence vanished.

  “And that goes for you too, Esha,” Vestra hissed in Aven’s ear.

  Esharah withdrew as well, reluctantly retreating and leaving Aven alone with the fourth-circle vis.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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