Morning light in the guild compound was always artificial.
Refracted through mana prisms and glamoured skylights, it gave the illusion of warmth, but the corridors were cold, the shadows sharp.
Kai sat alone in a quiet wing of the training annex, a stack of false requisition reports spread before him. His fingers moved like clockwork inking runes, adjusting alchemical notations, altering deployment times by fractions.
To the untrained eye, it was just paperwork.
To the right eye, it was sabotage.
His subordinates had begun to understand. The sensor qgirl now worked beneath the armory ,listeningto conversations between lieutenants. The rune-forger slipped error-riddled cores into outgoing missions. The medic rewrote injury reports and casualty tags.
A hundred small cuts.
But this time, the guild bled first.
The missive came in folded steelleaf. No seal. No signature.
It was slipped beneath his door. Silent. Intentional.
Kai scanned the contents once.
Then again.
ASSASSINATION REQUEST:
Target: Guild Strategist Aven Drel
Location: Sector 9 Disposal Ward
Deadline: 72 hours
Authorization: [CLASSIFIED]
Instructions: Make it look like an accident.
Reward: Tier-3 Clearance Access
Name Signed: Shade
He froze.
He hadn't written this.
Someone had used his alias.
Not just the name,but the fear that now followed it.
They wanted Drel dead. And they wanted Kai to take the blame if it failed.
He leaned back in the chair, thinking.
Drel was harmless. A glorified numbers man who monitored Rift fluctuation charts. Not corrupt. Not ambitious.Which meant this wasn't about justice. Or vengeance.
It was a test.
A message from within the guild's hidden core.
Someone knew Shade existed—and they wanted to use him.
Or bury him.
Kai made his way through the eastern walkways, where the wards shimmered faintly over cobblestones. He kept his hood low. His movements unhurried. Even when his pulse whispered that he should move faster.
The shadows followed him.
Not the magical ones. Not the supernatural Drift he pulled from his blood.
These were whispers. Watchers. Half-felt presences in the air.
Someone had begun pulling strings.But they didn't understand what he was.
The Disposal Ward stank of blood.
Not the fresh kind. Not warm. Not wet.
This was industrial old mana runoff, calcified bone, dissolved gear cores stacked like garbage. Strategist Drel sat behind a shielded terminal, unaware that his name had been written in invisible ink on a death order.
Kai watched him from above—perched in the rafters like a ghost.
It would be easy.
One flicker of mana. A Shadow Spike. Through the skull. Instant. Clean.
But that wasn't the point.
Kai descended slowly.
And spoke aloud."You've made someone nervous."
Drel jolted.
"What. who ?" he stammered, standing too fast.
Kai stepped into the dim lamplight, shadows clinging to his boots like obedient animals.
"There's a contract on your life."
Drel's mouth opened. Closed. His hands twitched for a comm-crystal.
Kai raised one finger. Not threatening. Not yet.
"Not from me. But they used my name."
"Shade," Drel whispered. "I've heard the rumors. I thought you were… fake, because all of the story i heard... it stupid without proof."
"You were wrong."Drel trembled.
"Why warn me?"
Kai stepped forward, letting the weight of silence crush the air between them.
"Because whoever forged that kill order thinks they can shape what I become. They're wrong."
He turned, paused at the door.
"You'll be transferred tomorrow. You're going to make a mistake in your Rift calculations. Just enough to earn demotion. You'll disappear."
"And if I don't?"
"Then someone else will make sure you do."
He left the terminal room in silence.
Aven Drel would vanish from the guild records within 48 hours. Not dead.
Just… erased.
Kai never touched him.
And yet the man was already gone.Later, back in the undercity, Kai stood before his sister's chamber.
The mana tank was near empty.
He could see the stutter in the light threads,small interruptions in the rhythm of her pulse. As if her body were forgetting how to stay alive.
He pressed both hands to the glass.
"I'll buy your time with other people's secrets," he whispered.
"I'll fund your life with silence."
Back at the guild, word of Drel's transfer spread.
No one suspected murder.
But something changed.
People began to look over their shoulders more.
They spoke the name Shade in hushed, uncertain tones. Not just as rumor.As warning.
Kai's network grew.
So did the rot.
But now he knew something else.
He was not the only one playing the long game.