Sven's instructions had been clear—kill the king, and be seen doing it.
Let the Marsedians know he was coming and what he was doing. But why? Why had the Mitrezians agreed to the treaty, only to send an assassin on the very night of its signing?
Other gemstones glowed on the walls of that hallway. King Gravok enjoyed extravagance; he had no way of knowing that in doing so, he was providing Sven with sources of energy to fuel his Projections.
Sven's abilities had not been seen in millennia. Stories from that era were nearly forgotten, and the remaining legends were wildly inaccurate.
Sven peeked around the hallway again. One of the guards at the intersection spotted him, pointed, and shouted. After making sure he'd been seen, Sven turned and ran.
As he sprinted, he inhaled deeply, absorbing the soulight from the lanterns. His body surged with power, his speed increased, and his muscles overflowed with energy. The soulight inside him became a storm; his heartbeat thundered in his ears. It was terrible and yet glorious.
He crossed two corridors, turned into a third, and threw open the door of a storage room. He paused just long enough for a guard to round the corner and catch a glimpse of him—then rushed inside.
Preparing a Full Projection, he raised one arm and commanded the soulight to gather there, causing his skin to glow. Then he gestured toward the doorframe, coating it with a white luminescence. Just as the guards arrived, he slammed the door shut.
The soulight bound the door to the frame with the strength of a hundred men. A Full Projection fused objects together until the light was exhausted. However, it took longer to create and consumed soulight far faster than a Basic Projection. The guards began hurling their weight against the door, causing the handle to tremble and the wood to crack. One man called for an axe.
Sven strode across the room swiftly, weaving between furniture stacked inside. It was made of expensive woods and decorated with red fabrics. Upon reaching the opposite wall, he raised his Soulblade and—steeling himself for another sacrilege—struck the dark gray stone with a horizontal slash.
The stone parted easily; a Soulblade could cut through any inanimate object. Two vertical strikes and another horizontal one below dislodged a massive block from the wall. Sven pressed his hand to the stone and infused it with soulight.
Behind him, the door began to give way. Sven glanced over his shoulder and focused on the trembling door, projecting the block in that direction. Frost formed on his robe—projecting something so large demanded a massive amount of light. The storm within him had calmed, reduced to a drizzle.
He stepped aside. The huge stone block shuddered, then began to slide into the room. Normally, moving it would have been impossible—its own weight would anchor it. Now, however, that very weight had released it; to the block, the door had become down. With a deep groan, the cube tore free from the wall and flew across the room, smashing through the furniture.
The soldiers, who had just broken through the door, stumbled into the room at the very moment the enormous block crashed into them.
Sven turned away from the sounds of horror: screaming, splintering wood, shattering bones. Crouching low, he slipped through the hole and into the adjoining hallway.
He walked slowly, absorbing soulight from the lamps he passed, pumping it into himself and replenishing the storm within. As the lamps dimmed, the corridor grew darker. At the end stood a thick wooden door. As he approached, tiny sprens of fear—appearing as viscous purple globs—began to drift from the walls toward the door. They were being drawn by the terror from beyond.
Sven opened the door and stepped into the final corridor that led to the king's chambers. Tall red ceramic vases lined the passage, interspersed with nervous soldiers. In the center, a long narrow carpet—red as a river of blood.
Without waiting for Sven to approach, the spearmen ahead broke into a short run and raised their short throwing spears. Sven slapped his hand against one of the door's thresholds and pushed soulight into the frame, using the third and final type of Projection: the Reverse Projection.
This one functioned differently from the other two. It didn't make the doorframe glow with soulight—instead, it seemed to absorb the surrounding light, shrouding it in strange darkness.
The spearmen threw their weapons. Sven stood still, his hand resting on the frame. A Reverse Projection required constant contact but consumed relatively little soulight. While active, everything approaching him—especially lighter objects—was drawn instead toward the Projection.
The spears veered mid-air, swerving away from Sven and slamming into the doorframe. As soon as he felt the impacts, Sven leapt into the air and projected himself to the wall on the right, his feet striking the stone with a thud.
Immediately, he reoriented his perspective.
To his eyes, he wasn't standing on a wall—the soldiers were, with the blood-red carpet stretching between them like a long hanging tapestry. Sven dashed down the hallway, swinging his Fractal Blade, slicing through the necks of two men who had thrown spears at him. They collapsed to the ground, their eyes burned.
The other guards in the corridor panicked. Some tried to fight him, others cried for help, and still others fled. The attackers were struggling—disoriented by the absurdity of trying to fight someone walking on a wall. Sven cut down a few more, leapt into the air, spun, and projected himself back to the floor.
He landed among the soldiers. Completely surrounded—but wielding a Soulblade.
According to legend, the Soulblades had first been wielded by the Lighterns in ancient times. They were gifts from their god, granted so they could fight stone and flame monstrosities towering meters tall—enemies whose eyes burned with hatred. The Hollowborn. When your foe had skin like rock, steel was useless. Something supernatural was required.
Sven rose, his wide white robes billowing, jaw clenched in the face of his own sins. Then he struck, his weapon gleaming in the torchlight.
He delivered three blows in rapid succession. Wide, graceful strikes. He could not avoid hearing the screams that followed, nor seeing the men fall around him like toys knocked over by a careless child.
If the Blade touched a man's spine, he died with burned-out eyes. If it sliced through the core of a limb, that limb died. One soldier staggered away from Sven, one arm hanging uselessly from his shoulder. He would never feel or use it again.
Sven lowered his Soulblade, standing amid the bodies with charred eyes. Here in Marsemia, men always spoke of legends—of mankind's hard-won victory over the Hollowborn. But when weapons made to slay nightmares were turned upon ordinary soldiers, the worth of a man's life became nothing at all.
Sven turned and continued on his way, his sandals pressing softly against the plush red carpet. The Soulblade, as always, cast clean silver reflections.
When one killed with a Soulblade, there was no blood. That seemed like a sign.
The Soulblade was merely a tool; it could not be blamed for the murders.