“Good,” I said, forcing steel into my voice.“Prepare yourselves.Once I have the prisoners, I will signal.Be ready to move quickly.”
As they dispersed themselves, I turned toward the window.The light had shifted, spilling fully into the room, illuminating everything in stark contrast—the dawn of a new day.
But this was no ordinary morning.It was a day edged with danger, its promise tainted by the ever-present weight of fate.Even the best-laid plans could shatter like glass in an instant.
My fingers tightened around the quill as I brought it to parchment.Every stroke of ink was a calculated deception, a carefully placed lie.
“Meet me at the Sable Mare Tavern,” I wrote, the words precise, despite the duplicity bleeding into them.
“I am the Black Wraith.I’ve heard you’re looking for me.”
Instead of wax, I sealed the missive with a smudge of soot and shadow—a mark that would be understood by those who needed to see it.
I turned to the boy waiting in the corner, his wide eyes betraying fear and understanding.He was young but had long since learned the weight of the world he moved in.
“Deliver this,” I instructed, pressing the note into his palm.“Do not linger.Do not speak.You were never here.”
He swallowed hard and nodded, vanishing into the corridor as swiftly as he had come.
As nightfall draped its ebony cloak over the city, I slipped through the secret passageways of Alexander’s estate with practiced ease.The corridors were familiar, their shadows wrapping around me like old companions.Outside, my men—phantoms in their own right—waited along the perimeter, poised for the strike.
The plan was simple—free the prisoners, signal my men, and extract swiftly.
But my mind—my mind wasn’t on the mission.
It was with her.
Elizabeth.
The enemy’s daughter.The woman I should’ve never touched, never trusted.And yet, last night, I had done both.I let my guard down.I let her in not just to my bed, but into the locked vault of my past.
I told her things no one else knew—about the scars no one saw, the army I lost in Solaris, the man I used to be before this war hollowed me out.
And then she said something no one ever dared.
“You would have been a wonderful father,” she’d whispered.
The words continued to hit me like a blade to the chest, carving through the walls I had spent years fortifying—a father.The thought had never crossed my mind.Duty was always my priority—loyalty to Lazarus, the mission, the war.There had never been room for such dreams.
And now, here I was, crawling through corridors with her still in my head.I had made a mistake.
I allowed myself to want.
Approaching the dungeon, every nerve in my body sharpened, attuned to the slightest sound.Something was off.
The door was ajar.
An ill omen.
A shiver crawled up my spine.My pulse quickened—not with fear, but with the thrumming pull of anticipation.Something had gone wrong.
I stepped inside.The torches blazed, casting flickering light against the damp stone walls.Chains dangled from their iron clasps, swaying slightly, empty.
Not a soul stirred.
I exhaled slowly, the sound barely more than a whisper in the suffocating stillness.
“Too late.”
