The color crimson was everywhere, disregarding the delicacies of a finely tipped brush, splashed instead in wild streaks. Vibrant splotches marred the blushed cheeks of the elegantly painted portrait of Duke Karieas. The rich green and gold-trimmed curtains greedily soaked up what color they could, leaving a widening brown stain—though the volume of the liquid was overbearing.

  Risens stood, sword in hand, listening to the staccato patter of blood dripping off his blade. It splashed like a solemn timpani as it joined the pool on a stone floor that was rapidly transforming from a dull, lifeless gray to deathly blood red. Leaking bodies strewn across the room still provided a temporary but ample source for the enduring flood.

  This wasn’t the first time Risens had killed. Not tonight, nor in the last year, nor even in the preceding decade. He was certain of little in his life, but he knew most assuredly, it would not be the last time his blades spilled the lifeblood of another. This was his calling. Passion may have been too strong a word, yet it was all he knew.

  It was his destiny. He was the King’s Rightmaker.

  His hand was the silent justice of King Lathrenon. His orders were specific, though the means were left to his own discretion. None must survive. Information must be secured. An example must be set.

  Tonight’s foray found him in Windwake’s opulent Central Ward. He hailed the capital city as his home, yet he felt no sense of belonging. There were no true homes for someone such as him. His only loyalty was to the crown. Risens currently trespassed on the third story of Duke Karieas’ estate, its pristine grounds comprising a wide swath of valuable real estate sandwiched squarely in the dense hub of the city. It looked positively absurd, the glory of it, surrounded by the filth and muck of the adjacent structures, but so it was. The nobles lived large amongst the thousands of Windwake’s citizens—citizens that were surely close enough to have heard the screams had they been afforded the chance. However, he ensured a quick death to all before even a gasp of horror could be uttered.

  An ever-so-faint rasping—the soft but laborious breathing of one who’d survived—drew his attention. One yet dared to grasp for salvation even after Risens had deemed all those in the Duke’s employ unworthy of the honor. These shallow, grating breaths would be their last, yet still, they persevered.

  The discrepancy tugged at his mind. Though he had made peace with his murderous station, there was virtue in his purpose. Risens was the hand of the King where the King could not go. He was the brutal but necessary arm of justice that, by the will of His Majesty, held the Kingdom of Halthome together.

  Risens drew closer to the sound. “Do you so cherish this pitiful existence that you would cling to life even in the face of certain death?” He spoke softly, his voice steady but drenched in bitterness.

  He kneeled beside the sole survivor, lacing his fingers into the man’s dark and blood-matted hair.

  “Please…” the wretch begged. A wet cough sent a spray of blood, the droplets freckling the man’s face. The deep crimson stood out in stark contrast to the ever-whitening pallor of his skin.

  His pleas were pitiful. Sickening even.

  “You and your ilk have betrayed our Lord,” Risens declared, wrenching the man’s head off the blood-soaked stone so he could stare death in the eye. “You’ve tarnished the Kingdom of Halthome. Each beat of your heart is a curse; your breath, a plague.”

  “I m-merely work for the Duke,” the man sputtered. “I’ve done noth—”

  Risens drew his sword across the man’s neck, turning the pathetic, pointless excuse into an even more miserable-sounding gurgle. His iron tasted the life force that trickled down as the blade danced along supple flesh.

  “May you suffer for eternity in the bowels of Pylkev reserved for traitors,” he growled.

  Another source of crimson added to the cancerous pool. The room fell into silence once more.

  He rose, wiping his blade against the dead man’s coat. The options were limited, yet he found a small section not so wet with blood as to make things worse. Today was proving to be a pivotal day for both himself and the Kingdom. His task—the most consequential he’d been assigned—was tantamount to the continued health of the realm. He tamped down the natural yet unwelcomed senses of pride and doubt that called unbeckoned from within. Emotions and sentiment were as deadly as an assassin’s blades.

  His blades.

  Refocusing his mind, he took stock of his surroundings. He’d cleared the first two floors of the Duke’s estate, leaving the wreckage of his retinue in his wake. Soldiers, servants, maids, and bully boys lay motionless on the stained stone floor. His movements had been like shadows amid the darkness—undetectable, until it was too late.

  He was the King’s Rightmaker after all.

  Skirting the stream of blood that had settled into the mortar between the stones, he stalked into the hallway, creeping silently toward the staircase leading to the final story—one where he knew the Duke himself would be. With cautious footing, he tested each step before letting the whole of his weight rest upon it. A single creaking cry from the wood could betray his presence. Ruin his surprise. Only the third of eleven threatened to reveal him, and that one, he easily avoided.

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  The fourth floor of Duke Karieas’s estate was as ornate as it was pretentious. Each wall was lined with heavy, gilded frames, and within each, a portrait of one of the Duke’s ancestors. Twenty meters of lineage that would all end tonight.

  There was a scarce number of rooms on the upper floor, most of which were filled with extravagant collections of everything from weapons to hunting trophies. Risens knew much of Duke Gael Karieas—his hobbies, his mistresses, his passions, and his sins. He had no doubt that none of the mounted beasts that graced his walls, nor those stuffed and posing in death on pedestals, were slain by his hand.

  Only one such room sparked any sense of curiosity—one filled with seats arranged in a semi-circle around a solitary podium, as if the Duke had been holding council here in his stately home. The candles were burned down to the wick, and the collection of dirty glasses remaining on the table spoke to the chamber’s recent use.

  He tucked the detail—though possibly trivial—away in case it merited remembrance. It would be for the King’s mind to decide which information was valuable and which could be cast aside. Risens’ obligation was to investigate the treachery of the Duke. He was to kill.

  The room he sought—the Duke’s private bedchamber—was the final room at the end of the hall. He paused his silent approach as the muffled hint of sounds echoed from beneath the door’s slight gap. Risens needed little imagination to understand that there was very little chance any sleep was happening within.

  The volume crescendoed. A woman screamed—a cry wrought from pleasure, not pain. Risens was no saint. He’d partaken in the rigorous activity of the city’s more discreet establishments on occasion. He understood the act when he heard it. So, too, did he understand its infinitely compromising nature. Though he had no fear of the Duke, he considered it fortuitous that he would catch the man unprepared with his pants down.

  Taking a step back, he adjusted his cowl, ensuring his face would remain beneath its shadow, and lunged forward. His boot slammed into the center of the door. The heavy panel splintered at its hinges, sending a shower of splinters into the chamber. The ecstatic moans ceased, abruptly replaced with shrieks of fright. In an instant, their expressions shifted—his from lust, and hers from feigned bliss to very real terror as Risens appeared in the wreckage of the doorway.

  The room was illuminated by a single chandelier suspended from the ceiling by a silver chain. The force of his assault on the door caused it to sway, casting wild, moving shadows around the room. The sudden theatrics weren’t lost on him. His dark hood was drawn, painting a deep, shifting shadow over his eyes.

  The woman’s disheveled dark hair spilled in rippling waves over her porcelain skin. She had twisted her nimble body to view the cause of the disturbance. Even in the low light of the room, covered by layers of makeup, the Brand on her torso—just below her breasts—was unmistakable.

  The Brand of the Courtesan.

  It was a marking he recognized with ease, a crude twisting of roses that gave the appearance of them engaged in sensual activities. It was a Brand only imbued upon the streetwalkers, the working women who plied their craft in passion and touch. Seduction was their charm, and even the Raven’s Guide knew it.

  The Duke shoved the woman atop him forward, spilling her across the foot of the bed, closer to where Risens stalked into the chamber. He pulled his cowl forward once more. Shaking with dread and mumbling appeals for her life, she made no attempt to cover her unclothed figure with sheets or hands.

  Having rid himself of his plaything, Karieas shrank backward. Showing the proper amount of shame, he clawed for anything with which to conceal his naked body.

  “Who are you?” the Duke demanded, struggling to appear less frightened than he clearly was. There was no grit or teeth to his tone; it was just as weak and frail as the man himself. “How dare you—”

  Risens rushed forward in a blink, leaping onto the bed. The sturdy wooden frame groaned in protest as he drove his knee into the Duke’s chest. Spinning his dagger in a reverse grip, he planted the blade into the firm mattress just between the man’s legs. With a nod, he sent the quivering woman away. Her garbled whimpering and begging ceased, and she offered no protest as she slid out of the room.

  “My guards—”

  “Are all dead,” Risens finished, pulling his cowl back to reveal his face. His eyes burned, and the threat within them was clear. “Along with your servants and anyone else unlucky enough to be within these walls.”

  “You son of a wh—”

  With a quick flick of his blade, Risens carved a thin line just below the man’s waistline. Deep, yet not fatal. Out of desperation, Duke Karieas swung his fist. A second precise slash of his blade severed a tendon in the man’s shoulder. Propelled by the force, the appendage slapped harmlessly against Risens’s side before falling limp to the bed. The man issued a pained, fearful squeal that swelled through the empty room. The high-pitched wail threatened to burst eardrums all the way down at Pale Pink’s Pub.

  “Bastard!” Karieas cried. He regained his composure, though he desperately clutched himself with his usable arm. Dark blood spread over the disheveled and formerly pristine white blankets.

  “Your life is forfeit, False Duke. Your only remaining hope is that I bring it to a swifter end.”

  “What do you want? Who sent you? I can pay…” The questions and entreaties flowed like the city’s aqueduct, full of refuse and filth from the increasingly frantic man.

  “Your coin is of no use to me,” Risens retorted. “You know why I have come?”

  Karieas, eyes bulging with a combination of fear and pain, offered a harried nod.

  “Information is all I desire. Who joins you in your treason? Tell me what I want to know and I will end your suffering.”

  “What more can you do?” The Duke asked in a tone laced with venom.

  Risens brought the knife level with the man’s eyes.

  “I can leave you to suffer in darkness,” he threatened, his voice naught but a harsh whisper. Rotating the blade, he let the swaying light and shadows play off the blood-streaked metal. He dragged it down the man’s cheek, drawing yet more blood, letting it come to rest in the corner of the Duke’s duplicitous mouth. “I’ll remove your ability to cry out as you drown slowly in your own blood.”

  The Duke’s eyes went wide. His bravado yielded, replaced by blubbering as he begged. The pathetic action caused the dagger to nick his lip. A dribble of blood spilled down, and Risens shifted the tip of the blade to the Duke’s throat.

  “Please, I can’t tell you,” he pleaded. “They would kill me.”

  “I am going to kill you,” Risens snapped, his patience waning. “It is my blade now resting against your throat. They will be too late. Talk. Now.”

  Risens’ calls to duty had been numerous, proving his penchant for deadly creativity. He gritted his teeth, loathing the pointless pace of interrogation. Sabotage, assassination—those were rousing. This, at times, was an exercise in futility.

  “Windwake will fall,” Karieas said, the expression on his face darkening despite the pain. His eyes narrowed into wicked slits. “Halthome will fall. It’s not a matter of if but when.” The man laughed despite the direness of his situation. “There is nothing you can do to stop it.”