Raikynn stood before the iron-bound door of the Guild. He paused, not out of fear—he had long since forgotten what fear felt like—but because of the persistent thought gnawing at his mind.
One last time.
He nearly laughed at the irony. The phrase "final mission" had been uttered so frequently that it had become meaningless. It was just another lie in a place steeped in deception, a carrot dangled before a mule to keep it marching toward the slaughterhouse.
If they hadn't taken him from the streets, if they hadn't raised him, he would have razed this place to the ground long ago.
He would have exacted his own form of justice on the Council, repaying the "debt" they claimed he owed, not with gold, but with blood.
Yet, debt is a chain that tightens the more one struggles.
He pushed the thought aside, placing his hand on the hilt of his blade—a reflex as natural as breathing—and shoved the door open.
The air inside was stale, carrying the smell of old sweat, rust, and the metallic tang of dried blood. As he walked past two junior assassins guarding the entrance, they did not meet his eyes but bowed deeply. It wasn't respect; it was terror. They looked at him as a rabbit looks at a wolf that hasn't yet decided to attack.
"He's back," one whispered. "Don't look at him," the other hissed.
Raikynn ascended the stairs, his boots heavy against the stone. Each step felt deliberate, reluctant, like walking toward the gallows.
He understood the truth of his profession. Not even the "Strongest" could guarantee the success of a contract until the blade was stained. Every mission was a gamble. Heads, you live. Tails, you die.
At the top, the heavy oak doors to the Council Chamber loomed before him.
He didn't knock; he kicked them open. The room was oppressively thick with incense burning in the corners, failing to mask the scent of death. It wasn't his own blood he sensed. Two assassins stood at the foot of the dais, covered in grime and panting heavily.
At the Guildmaster's feet lay two rough burlap sacks, wet at the bottom.
Thump.
One of the assassins kicked a sack closer, which rolled with a sickening squelch. "The Northern Rebellion is silenced, Guildmaster," the assassin panted, pride evident in his voice.
The Guildmaster sat on her throne, enveloped in shadows, her face hidden by a veil of black silk. She didn't look at the sacks. Her gaze went beyond them, landing on Raikynn.
"Leave us," she commanded, her voice soft yet carrying the weight of a decree. The two assassins bowed frantically and hurried out, dragging their grisly trophies with them, giving Raikynn a wide berth as they passed.
The door clicked shut, and silence reclaimed the room. "You're late," the Guildmaster noted.
"I was busy," Raikynn replied flatly. He didn't bow but walked to the center of the room, arms crossed. "You sent for me?"
She simply slid a scroll across the desk, compelling him to see for himself.
As his fingers brushed the scroll, its texture immediately betrayed its origin. This wasn't the cheap parchment of the underworld, but heavy vellum that carried the scent of a high keep—waxed wood and air untouched by tavern smoke. Even the handwriting was a giveaway. The script was elegant and controlled, devoid of the jagged angles of a hand accustomed to wielding a sword.
As he scanned the lines, the reason for the concern etched on her face became clear. He looked up and stated flatly, "Pass."
"Keep reading," she insisted.
Her tone was laced with a confidence that contradicted his known aversion to political entanglements. However, with nothing to lose but time, he read on. As he reached the final terms, her confidence began to make sense.
"Hmm," he murmured as the logic clicked into place. "You weren't worried I'd say no. You were worried I wouldn't return."
Her silence confirmed his theory better than words could. He lifted his eyes from the parchment to study her expression, knowing that while eyes can deceive, the tension in a jaw rarely maintains its form under pressure.
"If you wanted to keep me, you should've burned the scroll. I wouldn't have known."
"Because," she replied, her voice soft but as clear as drawn steel, "that is what I owe you."
Had the old woman finally developed a conscience?
Raikynn stifled a sneer. If she had, it certainly wasn't her own. Whose life had she taken to acquire it?
That was a puzzle for the underworld to solve. For now, he could tell she wasn't lying. This contract was the perfect opportunity to break his chains, so he cut straight to the heart of the negotiation.
"Keep the coin," he said, his voice flat. "I just want the decree."
A smile played on her lips as he spoke, not one of relief, but the sharp expression of a trap snapping shut. He resisted the urge to sigh, knowing it would only feed her ego. But at least her look confirmed she remained as soulless as ever.
Filling that void would require the lives of an entire capital city, and my blade hadn't yet spilled that much royal blood.
"When?"
"Right now," she replied. "The carriage is waiting at the Southern Inn."
He nodded, tucking the vellum into his sleeve as he prepared to leave. But before he could step through the threshold, she delivered one final warning.
"If you fail, you are mine... Forever."
Raikynn stepped out without a word, letting the heavy oak door seal the threat behind him.
As he emerged onto the bustling main street, the city's noise enveloped him. Pausing at the intersection of three muddy streets, he inhaled the air, thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, cheap metal, and desperation. To his left, the Refiner's District spewed chemical smoke into the night, like multicolored venom tainting the sky. To his right, the Auction House loomed, a fortress of greed built on the remains of broken promises.
"Tonight is the last night," he muttered to the darkness.
Although not a sentimental man, the urge to walk overpowered the instinct to sprint.
The streets seemed louder than he remembered, or perhaps he had never truly listened before. As he moved through the crowd, he forced himself to look around.
A merchant passed hurriedly, his eyes glued to a ledger. Upon seeing Raikynn, the man flinched, stumbling into a mud puddle to avoid brushing against his cloak. A mother guided her child toward a shop window, shielding the boy's eyes as Raikynn passed. He glanced down at his chest, instinctively checking for any red stains.
The leather was scrubbed clean. Not a drop of blood remained. Yet their body language spoke volumes. They regarded him as though he were dripping with gore, fresh from slaughtering a stronghold.
It's not the clothes, he realized. It's the smell of death.
He kept moving, pushing the thought aside.
He passed an alley he had walked through countless times without truly noticing—a shadowy mouth with dripping eaves. It marked the spot where his blade had first tasted blood at the age of twelve or thirteen, though the exact number had long since faded away like smoke. A familiar, hollow silence settled in his chest, so he shrugged it off and continued walking until candlelight spilled from a second-floor balcony ahead.
Three women leaned over the iron rail, silk robes slipping from bare shoulders, wearing smiles as bright and artificial as carnival masks.
"Hey, Raikynn!"
"Hello, ladies."
"You coming up tonight, love?"
"No," he replied, not breaking stride. "Not tonight."
"Aww, that's a shame. Well, don't forget us on your next payday."
The words landed like a casual slap, stinging more than he anticipated given the source. He knew what they were. He had paid them and sought solace in their warmth on nights when the blood wouldn't wash off. Yet their cheer was a cold reminder that to them, he was merely coin on legs.
He exhaled through his teeth as the Guildmaster's old warning drifted back, half-mocking and half-serious.
You need a woman, boy. One who doesn't charge by the hour.
He almost smiled at the irony. Turning the corner, he left the artificial light behind as his boots carried him south through the indifferent current of the city.
The noise of the red-light district faded into the sullen silence of the merchant quarter, where shadows stretched long and thin against the cobblestones. He veered toward the iron-shuttered shop on the corner. Not by choice. Pure habit. The Guild didn't just teach you how to kill; they rewired your brain until instincts moved your limbs for you. In this case, Rule #1 was pulling the strings.
The weapon is the soul... Lose the first, forfeit the second.
He stepped into the warmth of the open forge, unbuckling his scabbard to lay the weapon on the counter without a word. The blacksmith wiped his soot-stained hands and drew the steel by an inch, squinting at the edge in the firelight before sighing with a look of familiar puzzlement.
"Like I've told you a hundred times," the smith grunted, "it requires—"
"—no maintenance," Raikynn finished.
"None," the smith agreed, sliding the steel back home with a sharp click. "It's pristine."
Of course it was. Amateurs chipped their blades on bone. Raikynn slipped through joints and severed soft tissue. No target had ever lasted long enough to parry, and no armor had ever caught his edge at a bad angle.
He tossed two silver coins onto the counter, a tax for his own paranoia, before taking the sword back to step out into the chill.
The buildings grew older and the streets narrower until the creaking sign of the Southern Inn materialized out of the gloom like a headstone. He stopped outside the weather-beaten entrance.
"So this is it," he muttered to the empty street. "Some whores, a blacksmith, an alley and a Guild."
He had intended to visit more places to see where he had left a mark. But the further he walked, the heavier the realization settled in his gut. He was nothing more than a ghost haunting the living.
No one cared if he was alive. No one asked where he was headed.
Why would they? He was a man crafted to be known by none.
As he stared down at his scrubbed, calloused hands, he finally understood the cost of his perfection. The water did not just wash away the blood of his victims. It erased him as well.