I awoke with a start to nothing but darkness.

  Dusk’s presence pulsed faintly in the distance, so far away it felt like hearing a heartbeat through miles of stone. I pushed the panic down and let my senses unfurl. The world spoke to me in vibrations, each detail rising and shaping itself as clearly as if it were noon and the room lit by sunlight.

  I was suspended by chains. My wrists burned from the weight of my own body. The only thing left on me were my Astral Raptor bracers. Those could not be removed without my command. At least I was not unarmed.

  A stool sat nearby with a table beside it, covered in blades, hooks, clamps, and other implements designed to make men scream.

  “Not again,” I whispered, my lips cracked and dry.

  I had kept my bracer’s storage ability hidden from everyone, but this felt like the moment to risk using it.

  My hands tightened on the chains. I slipped a portion of the metal into the storage space with a thought. The chain vanished and gravity reclaimed me. I hit the floor harder than I intended, breath leaving my chest in a quiet grunt.

  I rolled to my feet, joints stiff but functional, and crouched low as I moved toward the door. I spared one last glance at the table of cruel devices. Memories surged without my permission of the first weeks of Talon training, when the masters had done everything possible to break us. Torture, sensory deprivation, psychological drills.

  They had a field day with my regeneration. I learned quickly what pain could teach and what it could not. I also learned I would never willingly endure such things again, even if I knew they couldn’t break me.

  I reached the door and stilled myself. My senses stretched outward, tracing vibrations along the floor and walls, gathering a picture of what lay beyond. As I scanned, I replayed the mission details in my mind from the small piece of particle parchment that would dissipate within thirty seconds of being opened.

  —

  Raptor,

  The Scorned Brotherhood has taken an asset of Highwind blood. Slip beneath their skin and confirm whether the ember still burns. If lit, carry the flame from the shadow without stirring the nest. If the ember has been moved, follow the smoke to its carriers and send word through the usual vein. The Brotherhood holds no royal value, so silence may be applied where necessary. Your record will reflect the clarity of your work.

  Move as one unseen.

  — The Hand

  —

  The memory of the words settled over me again as I pressed my palm against the cold stone.

  Every Talon was given a field name, and mine was Raptor for the obvious reasons.

  Lady Arienna Vale had been taken by the Scorned Brotherhood, a web of slavers, liars, and thieves. Asset of Highwind blood was the Talon-phrase for her, tied to her father, Lord Varric Vale of Highwind. Whether the ember still burns meant I was to confirm she was alive. If lit, carry the flame from the shadow meant extract her quietly without alerting the Brotherhood. If the ember has been moved meant she might already have been sold, and I was to follow the chain of buyers.

  Send word through the usual vein meant using the Talons’ covert communication network. Silence may be applied meant lethal force was permitted, since the Brotherhood held no political worth to the crown. They had taken her hoping for ransom, but the Brotherhood was notorious for impatience, selling captives the moment profit outweighed caution. I hoped to reach her before that happened.

  The Hand were our overseers, the ones who spoke for King Strider and his eldest son in commanding the Claws of the King which was all the Talons across the realm.

  And completing this mission would move me from trainee to Talon.

  I exhaled, slow and steady, and let the world continue to unfold around me. Footsteps. Heartbeats. A shifting weight on a wooden floor. Three men to my left. One pacing. Another sleeping. A guard leaning against the wall, bored. They were a variety of races, but none with abnormal senses that would make escape more difficult.

  I opened my eyes.

  Time to move.

  I called one of my knives from the bracers into my hand. The metal shimmered into my palm like a sliver of starlight. When thrown, the bracers added force, guiding the blade’s path with an invisible pull.

  The pacing man stepped into the perfect line.

  I used my bracers to pull the doors locked latch into my storage, slid the door open and threw my blade.

  The knife left my fingers with no sound at all. It cut through the air, accelerated midflight, and slid cleanly into the base of his skull. He folded before he even understood he was dead. I caught his body dragged him back into the room that I didn’t need anymore.

  Then, I was moving again quickly crossing the space to the sleeping man. His breathing was slow and heavy. His heartbeat thudded in a pattern that told me he hadn’t even stirred.

  I slid behind him, slipped my arm around his throat, and locked it in tight. My forearm pressed against the right artery, my bicep against the left. A perfect Talon chokehold. Blood flow cut in an instant, breath silenced before it even began.

  He jerked once.

  Twice.

  Then went still.

  A clean death.

  Moving on to the final guard who leaned against the wall, arms crossed, head tilted back. I summoned another knife and threw.

  The blade struck him just below the jaw, angled upward into the brainstem. He slid down the wall landing onto a pile of hay that softened his fall.

  With that all three were dead.

  I walked back to the sleeping man’s body. His clothing was typical criminal garb.

  I stripped him quickly, dawned them as my own. They fit well enough. They smelled of sweat and booze, but it would just help me blend in if necessary.

  My pale left hand and some of the scars were visible, but that was acceptable. The Brotherhood had all types among them, and many bore marks far more obvious than mine. A scarred stranger would not draw attention — a silent one even less.

  I saw a cloak off to the side grabbed it.

  I moved the bodies into the same room before pulling the latch the from my bracer and placing it, so everything looked normal.

  I stepped back to the exit door.

  The Brotherhood catacombs waited on the other side were dozens of heartbeats, faint conversations, footsteps crossing packed earth, the scratch of dice on wood.

  I breathed once more.

  For a moment I felt guilting for how easily I had taken their lives, but it vanished quickly when reminding myself they were slavers. The worst kind of criminals. I didn’t enjoy killing, but I would do what was necessary.

  Here, I was not Bryn.

  Not the orphan boy.

  Not the Academy graduate.

  I was the Raptor.

  And it was time to hunt.

  —

  I had spent the last three weeks integrating myself with the Brotherhood. The first layers were easy to slip into. They owned brothels, bars, and gambling pits. Places where coin passed from hand to hand rapidly.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I worked my way into the gambling halls first. With my tremor sense, winning was simple. I always knew what my opponents held in their hands before they even lifted their cards. I even pointed out a few cheaters while I was there, which helped me integrate faster than expected.

  Saving criminals money worked better than I thought it would.

  After that first week, things grew more difficult. Dusk had to stay far outside the city. Any closer and her presence alone would expose me. Most cities used aetheric protections and alarm wards woven deep into the foundations.

  They prevented monsters from burrowing in or moving unseen underground. That meant Dusk couldn’t swim through stone beneath me, and she was far too large and too distinct to hide in plain sight. She hunted beyond the outer walls while I worked alone.

  During the second week, I began investigating locations I’d heard whispered about or found traces of while watching Brotherhood movement. I uncovered several underground slave pits connected by a network of catacombs. They were deep enough that my tremor sense missed them until I found a physical entrance.

  The pits served as gladiatorial arenas. Sometimes slaves fought monsters for entertainment and betting. Other times rival disputes were settled by forcing captives to fight each other. And occasionally they held volunteer bouts where men tested themselves for coin, rewards, pride, or stupidity.

  That was where I found myself in the third week, standing in a pit with a short sword, facing six Thordrax.

  I didn’t want to reveal my bracer abilities, so I had to make do. I was proficient enough with a blade that I wasn’t concerned.

  The same could not be said for the man beside me.

  Thordrax were a cross between a tiger and a scorpion. Thin carapace under thick fur. Six feline legs ending in razor claws. Two barbed tails built for tearing meat or snaring prey, not poisoning it. Six eyes. A mouth full of serrated teeth. Even their tongue had a hooked barb.

  The man next to me stared in paralyzed horror as our third teammate was torn apart by two of the beasts. Immobilized by fear. Useless.

  I didn’t have time for that.

  I launched into the fight, crippling one creature and killing another outright. That brought me to the spot I needed. I snatched up the sword dropped by the dying man on the ground. I was far more comfortable dual-wielding.

  Then I dove in fully.

  Dodging. Striking. Letting shallow cuts slip through when necessary, trusting my regeneration to stitch them closed while I avoided anything lethal. The Thordrax were starving and sloppy. Their attacks were wild with hunger.

  My training taught me to survive storms like this. To turn chaos into openings. One by one, I dismantled them — severing limbs, crippling tails, crushing joints — until the last creature fell and I stood alone in the pit.

  That victory earned me an audience with the pit boss. Unfortunately for him, he had bet heavily against me. He didn’t appreciate losing coin. Typical criminal logic — cheer you on in the arena, then toss you into a torture chamber for ruining their wagers.

  Saving money for them helped me find an in and losing them money got me caged.

  That is how I ended up chained and unconscious.

  I didn’t mind too much. My investigation suggested he was the last person to have Lady Arienna. I fought in this pit specifically to get closer to him, hoping it would open the path into the deeper catacombs.

  They sped the process up by dragging me here themselves. Very considerate of them.

  Now I just needed to find the girl.

  —

  I shifted the door open and was greeted with a dimly lit tunnel leading into a central hub that branched out like a spider’s web. I had no idea where to begin searching.

  But the fact that my cell was down this corridor meant the hub beyond likely connected to other holding rooms. If Lady Arienna was being kept anywhere nearby, this was as good a place as any to start.

  I crept forward, slow and steady, until I was close enough for my tremor sense to fill the room without revealing myself.

  Eight guards.

  Five sat at a central table deep in a dice game, far enough from their weapons that it gave me a small advantage. The other three leaned against crates, chairs, and a rack of tools, watching the room with varying levels of boredom. Aether lamps cast a harsh, steady light. Crates were stacked at uneven heights throughout the chamber.

  Heartbeats echoed from a tunnel across the hub. They belonged to men built like these guards, which meant more Brotherhood members in that direction. To my left, down the nearest offshoot tunnel, the heartbeats were weaker. One pulse was barely there at all. A foul stench drifted up from that path a blend of decay, waste, unwashed bodies.

  Likely the holding cells.

  As good a starting point as any.

  I stayed hidden for several minutes, watching for a guard rotation. None came. During that time I noticed one of the dice players cheating — subtly swapping in a weighted die every few throws. I waited until he was about to win a sizeable pot.

  When he did, one of the other guards lunged across the table and slammed into him, snarling curses and raining punches onto his face. The rest of the table surged forward to break up the fight, shouting, shoving, dragging the two men apart.

  The perfect distraction.

  I slipped past them all without a sound.

  Once the tunnel swallowed me, I moved quickly. The heartbeats became clearer. The stench thickened. The passage ended in a junction that split into four separate corridors, each lined with cell doors. No guards patrolled this area.

  I searched methodically.

  Lady Arienna Vale was seven years old. I was to find a child, thin and frightened, bearing a birthmark on her back left shoulder. That was the identifying marker I had been told to watch for.

  I combed through each tunnel, scanning cell after cell. Rotting straw. Emaciated slaves. Men half-conscious. Women bruised and shivering. Not a single child.

  Twenty minutes passed.

  Still nothing.

  At the fourth tunnel, I found a series of empty cells. Recently emptied, by the look of the bedding and discarded chains.

  Someone had been here.

  Someone small.

  I decided to risk it. I approached the nearest occupied cell, its captive an older man with hollow cheeks and eyes like dying coals.

  “Have you seen any children brought through here?” I whispered.

  He blinked at me, uncertain if I was real.

  I leaned in closer.

  “Answer quickly,” I murmured. “And quietly.”

  I slid my hand behind my back, called a piece of bread from my storage space, and brought it out where he could see it.

  He blinked again. His cracked lips parted.

  “Several small children were here,” he whispered. “Taken… a day or two ago. Hard to tell time down here.”

  I handed him the bread. He tore into it immediately, desperation overriding everything else.

  Our short exchange had stirred movement. Heartbeats shifted in the nearby cells. Some captives sat up. Others crawled closer to their doors, listening.

  Before I could be pulled into more requests, I opened the old man’s cell and stepped back. As I had passed through the tunnels, I had unlocked every cell with someone inside. The mechanisms were simple. Neglect did half the work for me.

  The creak of the old man’s door drew the attention of the others. I felt them through the stone rising, shuffling to their doorways, testing rusted metal.

  One by one, doors groaned open.

  I didn’t stop. I watched the movement through my tremor sense as I slipped down the corridor.

  I wished I could do more for them. But mission came first, and if the old man was right, Arienna wasn’t the only child involved.

  I had to hurry.

  I reached the corner where I could observe the guard room again while remaining unseen. Two heartbeats were missing, the pair who’d fought earlier had left. That left six guards now. Their dice game had ended, and each man had reclaimed his weapon. They stood lazily in a loose circle, talking about nothing that mattered.

  I studied the room in silence.

  I needed to cross it. The tunnel on the far side led toward the cluster of guards whose heartbeats I sensed earlier. That was the most likely exit or more helpful information.

  I drew one quiet breath and let the stone speak.

  I wasn’t sure whether the city’s aetheric protections reached this far down. That was one reason why I hadn’t tried swimming through the earth here. The other was because the Hand told me to try and complete this mission without using it in order to test all my stealth training in the field, but now I needed to get out of here as quickly and quietly as possible knowing Arienna and the other children weren’t here.

  I tested if the bedrock was open to me. It felt fluid and welcoming. I could slip through it as easily as another man moved through fog.

  I placed my palm on the floor and sank.

  The stone embraced me, cool and dense. Sound faded. Only vibration remained. The guards stood above me like silhouettes carved from cadence, six heartbeats, six sets of shifting weight, six subtle patterns of breath.

  I moved beneath the first guard.

  He laughed at something one of the others said. The moment his head tilted back, I rose through the stone like a ghost surfacing through water. My blade flashed once. A single precise thrust at the base of the skull. He collapsed into my arms without a sound.

  I dragged him down to the floor behind a set of boxes.

  Five.

  I glided under the floor toward the next cluster. Two guards stood close together, weapons in hand but posture relaxed. Their attention was on the conversation, not the shadows at their feet.

  I emerged between them.

  One knife took the throat. The other pierced the heart causing him to inhale so no words could escape. Both men fell forward into me before their minds understood they were dead. I eased them to the ground, after a moment.

  Three.

  The next guard was pacing. His boots clicked against the smooth floor at an even rhythm. I waited, following the pattern, until he stepped over the place where I lurked beneath him.

  I reached up.

  One hand clamped over his mouth. The other drove a blade upward into the jaw, severing everything vital. He convulsed once and went still. I slowly lowered his body to the ground as I sank back into the stone.

  Two.

  The last two stood near the table, tension creeping into their voices. They’d noticed the room growing quieter, though not enough to understand why.

  I surfaced behind the first one.

  My arm looped around his throat, cutting off air and sound. He kicked once, twice, then slumped. I pulled him down with me. His weapon clattered softly on the table.

  The final guard spun at the noise.

  Too late.

  I rose from the floor at his back, slammed a hand over his mouth, and drew the blade across his throat with a quick, controlled pull.

  The perfect Talon cut.

  He sagged in my grip.

  Zero

  I laid him gently on the stone, then let the rock close over the body. I left their weapons where they had fallen, swords, clubs, and daggers scattered across the floor.

  The former slaves I’d freed would find them soon enough.

  I surfaced fully, alone in the now-silent chamber. Only the steady hum of the aether lamps remained, buzzing faintly above the crates.

  The tunnel across the room waited.

  I stepped into it and let the darkness swallow me again.

  Time to find Arienna.