The rain in Vireholm didn't fall—it stabbed. Each drop hit the steel rooftops like a dagger, echoing through the alleyways where the city's forgotten crawled. Kael Virex crouched beneath a rusted vent, his breath shallow, his eyes locked on the mansion across the street.
House Varnel. One of the old bloodlines. Rich in magic, richer in secrets.
He'd waited three nights for this moment.
The guards wore enchanted armor, their visors glowing faint blue. Their rifles were relics—blessed with runes, powered by tech. But they were predictable. Kael had studied their patterns, their blind spots, their arrogance.
He slipped from the shadows like smoke, boots silent on the wet stone. His cloak shimmered briefly, adjusting to the ambient light. A gift from the black market. Stolen, of course.
The side gate was locked with a biometric rune. He didn't have the bloodline, but he had something better—an override chip, embedded in a dagger hilt. He pressed it to the rune. It sparked, hissed, then blinked green.
Too easy.
Inside, the mansion was a cathedral of excess. Marble floors laced with gold veins. Floating chandeliers pulsing with mana. Portraits of smug nobles who'd never known hunger. Kael's fingers twitched toward his blade.
He wasn't here to admire.
Room 3B. Second floor. The ledger.
That book held names—children sold, lives erased. His name was in it. He was sure. And if it wasn't, he'd carve it in himself.
He moved like a whisper, bypassing wards with a mix of tech and instinct. The hallway was empty. The door to 3B creaked open.
Inside: shelves of tomes, scrolls, and a single desk. On it, the ledger.
Kael approached, heart pounding. He flipped through pages, each one a wound. Then he saw it.
Subject 47: K.V. — Status: Discarded. No potential. No magic. No value.
His hands trembled. Not with fear. With fury.
They had labeled him like trash. A failed product. A mistake.
He didn't hear the footsteps until it was too late.
"Step away from the desk," said a voice behind him. Cold. Female. Familiar.
Kael turned slowly. The woman wore assassin's black, her eyes like ice. Her blade was drawn.
"You shouldn't be here," she said.
Kael smiled, bitter and sharp. "Neither should you."
Then he lunged
Rain hammered the rooftop as Kael and the unknown assassin crashed together in a blur of steel and shadow. His blade met hers with a screech that echoed through the library's vaulted ceiling. She moved with lethal precision—each strike calculated, each parry a question he barely answered.
He sidestepped a slash aimed at his throat, feeling wind slice past his skin. In that instant, the world shrank to the hiss of metal and the pounding of his heart. He flicked his wrist, nicking her arm—tiny sparks of mana danced off the edge of his blade, a trick he'd stolen from a dying mage in the slums. She recoiled, surprised.
"Not bad for trash," she hissed, circling him. Her cloak flared, revealing hidden runes that flickered with frost. He sensed the air chill around him—she was no ordinary guard.
Kael feinted left, lunged right, driving her back toward the window. The glass cracked under the weight of her boots, ice starting to spider-web outward. He followed up with a pull-kick that sent her sprawling through the shard-strewn frame. She hit the rooftop with a grunt, cloak whipping over the spiked parapets.
He grabbed the ledger and sprinted after her, vaulted to the ledge without breaking stride. Below, the Varnel guards were converging—heavy boots thudding on marble. Kael pressed himself against the stone wall, his cloak's tech dampening sound just enough.
"I'll finish this," she called from above, voice distant but unwavering.
Kael didn't answer. He slipped down a narrow alley, ledger pressed to his chest. Rain plastered his hair to his forehead, ledger pages soggy at the corners, but he didn't slow. Every second he lingered was another line added to his obituary.
The lower districts of Vireholm were a maze of neon signage and crumbling stone. Holographic vendors hawked glowing remedies for magically induced ailments as geese in bio-engineered plumage roamed alleys. Kael weaved through this chaos, vaulting over broken carts and sliding under barred gates.
He felt the woman's presence like a ghost at his shoulder—always there, always watching. He ducked into a dead-end, pressed his back to damp brick, and flipped through the ledger by torchlight he conjured with a flick of his thumb.
Names. Hundreds of them. Children kidnapped, experiments conducted, bodies discarded. And then—his mark, his own entry: K.V. marked "disposable."
A whisper of claws on stone drew his gaze upward—Celeste Varnel, her lithe form perched on the edge of the rooftop. Her eyes glowed silver in the gloom.
"Why are you here, Forsaken One?" she asked, voice softer now. "Revenge is a hollow victory."
Kael stood, ledger clutched like a shield. "Try telling that to the empty mattress I woke on for years."
She studied him, rain running down her face like tears she refused to shed. Then, as if shifting her weight to reality, she vanished in a swirl of frost and shadow.
When dawn bled pink over the spires of Vireholm, Kael was back in his hideout—a hollowed-out service tunnel beneath Old Town. He laid the ledger on a battered workbench, its pages curling. He traced his initials in the margin, committing his pain to ink.
He stood in the shaft of sunrise creeping through a broken grate, arms folded. Above, the city pulsed with life. Below, he plotted his next move. The world had branded him forsaken.
But tomorrow, the world would learn his true name.