Fog cradled the dark spires of Elarith Vale like a mourning veil, trailing its fingers along the jagged rooftops as though stroking the slumbering city into deeper silence. The bells of midnight had long since ceased their tolling, and the moon above, pale and rimmed with frostlight, stood watchful but distant—an indifferent witness to the shadows that moved beneath his gaze.
Within the highest tower of the assassin Hold—a fire crackled not for warmth, but for ritual. The hearth's flame glowed an uncanny blue, casting tall and sinuous silhouettes along the obsidian walls. In its flickering light, Killian Vesper stood, the hem of his silver-edged cloak trailing the floor like spilled moonlight. He held a letter in his gloved hand, its wax seal broken but still intact enough to bear the mark of Khyronia's master—a serpent wound around a dying star.
Behind him, Elysian Nevan paced in slow, deliberate arcs. Though his gait was smooth, it rang with quiet tension—his blade-hand twitched subtly at his side, ever ready, even here, even now.
"He dares to send this," Killian said at last, his voice as soft as velvet and twice as dark. He passed the letter between two fingers and let it fall onto the stone table, where it landed like a challenge. "An invitation, written in syruped ink. Dripping pleasantries, veiling knives."
Elysian approached, lifting the letter to glance at its contents again. "A masquerade ball, in Khyronia's heart," he murmured, his voice low and melodic but never gentle. "He knows we won't send our master. He wants us to answer. He wants eyes on us."
Killian's mouth curled. Not a smile, not quite. More like the ghost of satisfaction before a storm breaks. "He wants to see who our master trusts. And what he sends to dance."
As if summoned by the very breath of that statement, the chamber's iron doors opened with a sound like a blade being unsheathed.
Their master stepped in, clad in deep indigo robes chased with shadow-thread, his face half-obscured by the lattice of a black-gold veil. His presence shifted the air itself, heavy with the weight of a thousand unseen deeds. A scholar of silence, a maestro of death.
He did not ask what the letter said. He knew. The seal alone had spoken enough.
"Let him host his pageant," the master said, voice as pale and dangerous as falling snow. "But I will not attend."
He strode to the fire, watching the blue flame like it might whisper secrets. "His invitation is not a welcome—it is a blade concealed in velvet. Yet he wishes to see who we send, yes? Then we will show him what lurks behind the mask."
His gaze shifted to Killian and Elysian, those eyes like ink spilled over silver.
"You have been seen. You are known. It is not your masks he wishes to unmake—it is the unknown he fears."
Elysian inclined his head. "You mean to send others."
"Yes," the master replied. "The ones who have not yet stepped into the world's light. The ones who kill and vanish, without name or legend."
He turned to the shadows behind him, and with a simple gesture, summoned three figures from the depths of the chamber's hidden arches. They moved like smoke—silent, effortless, devout.
The first was draped in robes stitched from dusk and thorn. His hands bore calluses not of swordplay, but of poisons brewed in catacombs. Eyes like dead coal. No name passed his lips.
The second wore a raven-feather mantle, and her face—painted in bone-white—was known only to the dying. Her smile was soft. Too soft.
The third was the tallest, cloaked in twilight metal, with a voice that came only in the language of steel and silence.
The master spoke again: "These three shall be the breath between Khyronia's heartbeat. They will wear masks and silk, and in the midst of dance, they will see what words dare not reveal."
Killian watched the trio with impassive curiosity, but Elysian's gaze lingered longer. He was memorizing every move, every twitch, the tempo of their steps, the way they drew breath.
"You will not go," the master told them. "But you will prepare them. They are ghosts—you are veterans of war. Give them your caution, your cruelty, and your grace."
Killian bowed slightly, eyes shadowed. "Then we shall dress ghosts in wolveskin."
Night fell deeper over Elarith Vale as the time's passed in quiet rigor. The citadel became a forge of elegance and death, the chosen three trained in steps of seduction and subterfuge.
"Never underestimate the wrist," he whispered to one. "A noble hides his secrets in his posture. A traitor in his eyes. But the wrist—there lies truth."
The raven-masked assassin tilted her head, understanding. Her fingers danced over her skirts where a knife waited, curved and whisper-sharp.
As preparation unfurled like a shadow blooming in candlelight, Killian found moments alone in the high balconies, watching the far-off storm clouds gather over the vale. He held the letter again, creased now, as if it too was weary from plotting.
Elysian joined him one dusk, carrying a bottle of pale liqueur from the southern vineyards. They stood in silence for a time, drinking in the view—and the vintage.
"Do you think he truly expects to ensnare us?" Elysian asked.
Killian exhaled. "He doesn't expect to catch us. He expects us to bleed someone else. The ones we send. That's the test."
"Then we send those who bleed in silence."
"No," Killian said quietly. "We send those who bleed poison. So that even if they are cut, the blade regrets it."
The eve of departure came wrapped in mist. The three assassins stood at the gates of Veilspire Hold, their masks glimmering faintly in the lantern light—bone-white, thorn-black, and silver-glass.
The master did not bid them farewell with words. He touched each one on the forehead, a silent benediction.
Killian gave them their final message. "You are not flesh tonight. You are shadow. You are smile and ruin. Do not speak your names. Let Khyronia speak them for you in fear."
Elysian handed each a tiny glass vial. "Break this if caught. It will not save you. It will make your death worthy of poetry."
They departed without a sound. Into the fog. Into the schemes of masked men and whispered rivals.
And behind them, the spires of Elarith Vale vanished into the dark like teeth disappearing behind a grin.
They moved like mist through the deadwood—one breath, three shadows.
The sky above was pale, not with light but with forgetting.
No footsteps. No rustling. Just the hush of trained silence.
Then, a voice—soft as silk brushed across bone:
Raven (the girl):
"Do you think we will dance?"
A pause.
"Or will it be the kind of waltz where only one partner leaves with a heart?"
The man in the duskthorn robes didn't look at her. His voice was like parchment burning slow:
Duskthorn (the poisoner):
"We're not meant to leave with anything."
A pause.
"We enter. We ghost. We vanish. Even the memory of our bones must rot differently."
Ironcloak (the blade) said nothing, but the metal at his hip hummed, as though amused.
The girl twirled, letting the raven feathers of her cloak catch in the windless dark.
Raven:
"I hope the wine is red."
A tilted smile.
"Red like a throat singing its last verse."
The duskthorn man looked to her at last—coal eyes meeting painted white skin.
Duskthorn:
"They will not see us."
A whisper.
"They will feel us, like sleep before drowning."
Raven:
"And what if they dream of us afterward?"
She laughed—low, close to song, close to madness.
"What if we stain them in dreams?"
Ironcloak paused mid-step. Turned just enough for moonlight to catch the line of his jaw.
Then he lifted a single hand—two fingers raised.
Two souls to fall.
The others nodded. Agreement without speech.
"We do not kill for favor." Raven's "No" The second Assassin "we do not kill for coin Raven smiling "No him again We Kill for silence".
Ironcloak drew one line in the air with his fingertip. A slash. Final.
Raven whispered as they vanished into the trees again:
"Let them call it art… when they find the bodies."
Elysian stood alone on the rooftop, gazing out at the horizon where moonlight dipped over the spires of Khyronia. He hadn't worn a mask tonight. There had been no reason. No invitation.
His arms were crossed, but not in defense—more like cradling something fragile inside himself.
Killian's footsteps were silent, but Elysian didn't flinch when he appeared beside him. Killian was never loud, but his presence filled a room like a tide rolling in. Now he stood there in his cloak of silver-lined shadows, watching Elysian quietly.
A long pause. Then, softly:
Killian:
"You wanted to go."
Elysian didn't answer at first. His eyes flicked up toward the starlight—two sapphire glass shards trying to hold steady.
Elysian (lightly):
"Would've been nice. Just once. To be someone else for a night. Someone… ordinary."
A beat passed. Killian turned his gaze to the stars too. Then he shifted—slowly, deliberately—and held out his gloved hand.
Killian:
"If you don't mind…"
A breath.
"May I have this dance?"
Elysian blinked. His body stiffened like he'd been struck—not in fear, but disbelief. Slowly, his wide eyes slid from the offered hand to Killian's face. For a moment, he searched him, lips parted, unsure whether this was jest or kindness or something in between.
But Killian didn't tease. He waited.
Elysian's smile came soft. Not quick, not easy. The kind of smile that had to melt its way through sadness first. It warmed his face like sunrise on frost.
And then, carefully, he placed his hand into Killian's.
The Dance
They began with a bow—Killian's elegant and precise, Elysian's more hesitant, almost shy.
No music played. But they didn't need it.
Killian took the lead, stepping back first, drawing Elysian forward with the gentle, guiding press of a palm against his waist. Their fingers entwined—not tightly, but securely, like a promise.
They circled each other, boots whispering across the stone underfoot.
A classical nobleman's dance—it began in three-quarter time.
Elysian followed, unsure at first, his steps small and reserved.
Killian smiled—not with mockery, but encouragement—and gently swept them into a full turn, cloaks brushing in the breeze, their silhouettes silvered by moonlight.
One hand on Elysian's back. One holding his hand aloft. They moved in sweeping arcs, a waltz pulled from memory and stitched with silence. The stars above them blinked like candle chandeliers, bearing witness.
Killian's hand shifted slightly, lifting Elysian's arm to twirl him once—slow and fluid. The kind of spin you don't rush. Elysian came back flushed, laughing under his breath.
Elysian:
"You've done this before."
Killian (quietly):
"Twice. Once for assassination. Once for a queen."
Elysian smiled, eyes twinkling.
"And now for me?"
Killian didn't answer. But the hand on Elysian's back pressed just slightly closer.
Their footwork grew more confident, more synchronized—an unspoken rhythm blooming between them. The noble waltz evolved into something looser, more intimate. Shoulders brushed. Breath mingled. Each step they took echoed faintly in the open air like soft bells.
Killian turned Elysian again, but this time didn't release his hand—he pulled him close, their chests nearly touching, one hand now resting over Elysian's heart.
The waltz slowed, almost to stillness.
Killian whispered, his voice low enough that only the stars might have heard:
Killian:
"Who says we need a ballroom?"
Elysian's breath caught. His cheeks flushed, but his smile deepened—not the warming kind now, but something steadier. Something safe.
And for a long moment, they just swayed.
Two assassins on a rooftop, dancing beneath the moon—far from masquerades, far from death, far from what the world expected of them.
Just for a little while, they were neither hunter nor hunted.
Just hands. Just footsteps. Just something beautiful.