The Eagle Club was a symphony of whispered lies and the soft chime of crystal. I moved through it as Kuvon, my merchant's smile a rigid mask. The air was thick with perfume and the scent of old gold. Every laugh felt like a shriek, every glance a potential blade. I had planted the device, a tiny sliver of crystal adhered to the underside of a luxurious chair in the private lounge. My mission was a success.
And then I saw him.
Rylan stood across the room, holding a glass of amber liquid, holding court. He was older, his face sharper, but his eyes held the same clever, mocking light. A memory, long-suppressed, flashed before my eyes: his hand on my shoulder, a shared laugh in the rain, followed by the cold betrayal in his eyes as he handed me the mission parameters that were a death sentence. The wound, freshly torn open in my quarters, now bled freely.
The mask of Kuvon strained, cracking under the pressure of the Penance's cold fury and Arthur Glass's old pain. I had to leave. Now.
Slade on the other hand infiltrated the other side of the lounge. I had no idea why or what Corvus asked him to get, but I didn't bother asking.
The extraction was clean. Slade said nothing on the return journey, but his silence was approving. Back in the spartan safehouse, the silence was deafening. The success felt like a failure. Rylan's face was burned into my mind.
Corvus's voice emerged, smooth and clear, from the raven perched on the windowsill, though its beak never moved. "The data is pristine. You have exceeded parameters. Your… control was impressive."
The sound of his voice, so calm, so utterly in command of a world that was tearing me apart, was the final spark.
"Control?" I snarled, my voice dropping the merchant's cadence, shedding the barkeep's patience. It was the raw, guttural tone of the Penance. "You sent me in there to open an old wound. This was never about the data. It was a lesson."
"All things are a lesson." The raven tilted its head. "And, Penance, the next time you raise your voice when speaking to me, would be when your girlfriend takes her last breath."
That was it. The last thread of my composure snapped.
The world narrowed to a single point. Corvus Sharpe. In my mind's eye, I saw him standing in his vault, smug and untouchable. The arrogance of it, to think he could puppet me so close to the ghosts that haunted me and keep threatening me.
I tapped into the core of my power, the part the manacles could only mute, not erase. Void Step. It was not mere speed; it was a spatial contraction, a technique that allowed me to cross distances in the blink of an eye, leaving a fading afterimage in my wake. Even Director Zero barely stopped me when I got serious with it.
The safehouse vanished. The world became a streak of blurred light and howling wind. I felt the familiar, exhilarating drain of qi as I tore through the fabric of the city, a human projectile aimed at the heart of my tormentor.
I erupted into the vault of ravens in a shriek of displaced air. My form solidified, a mere two paces from Corvus, who stood as I had pictured him, before his great map. My right hand was already a blade, tipped with enough focused qi to pierce a fortress wall. I took the final step, the killing strike a heartbeat away.
And then, everything stopped.
Not the world, but *me*. My momentum vanished. My qi, which had been a roaring inferno a moment before, was simply… gone. Sucked into a null void more absolute and terrifying than the manacles had ever been. It was a profound, soul-deep emptiness, far worse than suppression. This was *erasure*.
I stood frozen, a statue of my own ambition, utterly hollowed.
Corvus slowly turned. He hadn't even flinched. A slow, wide grin spread across his face, a crack in the marble of his composure that was more frightening than any snarl.
"The first lesson was patience," he said, his voice soft. "This is the second: perspective."
An invisible force, vast and unimaginable, slammed into me. It did not feel like a punch, but like the sky itself had fallen on my chest. There was no defense, no resistance. My body was flung backward like a discarded doll. I crashed through a table of delicate instruments, shattered a stand of ancient scrolls, and finally crumpled against the far wall, the impact driving the last gasp of air from my lungs.
I lay there, broken amidst the wreckage, gasping. The power did not return. I was just a man. Less than a man.
Corvus walked toward me, his steps echoing in the sudden silence. The ravens watched, a thousand unblinking judges.
He looked down at me, his grin gone, replaced by a look of cold, academic interest.
"You are a finely crafted sword, Penance. But you have just tried to cut the hand of the smith who holds the hammer. Remember your place. The next demonstration will not be on the walls. It will be on the lock you so value."
He turned and walked away, leaving me lying in the ruins of my own hubris, the taste of dust and despair in my mouth. The cage was no longer gilded. I had just been shown its true, unbreakable bars.
Silence.
It was the most profound sound I had ever heard. It was the sound of my own powerlessness, the echo of my shattered will. Dust motes danced in the air, illuminated by the cold glow of the warehouse, settling on my broken body like a shroud. I lay amidst the splintered remains of Corvus's artifacts, each breath a fiery agony in my ribs. The hollow void where my qi should be was a wound deeper than any blade could make.
I heard the soft, retreating click of Corvus's heels on the stone. He did not look back. To him, the lesson was delivered. The weapon had been tested against the anvil and found wanting.
From the shadows, Slade emerged. His usual stoic mask was gone. His eyes, wide and uncomprehending, were fixed on the spot where I had appeared from nothing. He wasn't looking at me with pity or triumph, but with a kind of horrified awe.
His gaze then fell upon me, crumpled and defeated. It was not the look one gives a rival, but the look one gives a force of nature that has been brutally, impossibly caged. He understood now that the manacles had never contained me; they had only ever irritated me.
The other agents in the vault, previously invisible in the gloom, now stirred. Whispers slithered through the shadows, filled with a new, fearful respect. They had feared the legend of the Penance. Now, they had seen a fragment of the reality, and witnessed the god-like power that kept him leashed. Their fear of Corvus was now matched by a terror of what he had chosen to keep as a 'pet'.
And then, as Corvus's presence vanished entirely from the vast space, the pressure lifted.
It was not a trickle. It was a floodgate bursting.
Qi roared back into my core, a tumultuous, life-giving tide, so violently it forced a choked gasp from my lips. It flooded my meridians, screaming through the pathways that had been so utterly voided moments before. The fire in my ribs dampened to a dull, manageable ache as my CultivatedBody instantly began its work, knitting bone and mending tissue. The power did not feel like a returning friend; it felt like a caged beast being released back into its master, furious and wild.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows, then to my knees, my movements slow, deliberate. I did not look at Slade or the others. I looked at my own hands, flexing them, feeling the reality of my returned strength.
Corvus was not just a businessman. He was a phenomenon. A fundamental law of this new world I was trapped in. To strike at him directly was suicide. He held all the cards: power, knowledge, and the one piece of my soul I could not sacrifice, Lily.
I slowly, painfully, got to my feet. The grey coat was torn and dusted with plaster, but I did not brush it off. Let the evidence of my failure remain. Let them see the cost of defiance.
Slade took a cautious step forward, his hand no longer near his weapon, but open, as if approaching a wounded, dangerous animal.
Without looking at Slade, I took off my longcoat and threw it at him. "Patch it up."
I turned and began the long walk out of the vault, my steps uneven but steady. The whispers of the agents followed me, but I paid them no mind.
But as I walked, the phantom sensation of that spatial leap still tingled in my limbs. The memory of that power, however briefly I had held it, was a seed.
The calculation was no longer one of rebellion, but of survival. Corvus was a fundamental law. To strike him was suicide. He held all the cards. But even laws have loopholes. And I had just been shown the lock. Now I would find the key.