Vex

Velis taught me the first lesson of the Velvet Knives. Silence. Nobody hears you coming... nobody hears much afterwards.

At sixteen I walked into the house of Inquisitor Hale while he slept at his desk... and walked out with his seal of office.

The guild called it the finest theft in a hundred years. Velis gave me a name... Vex. And a dagger to go with it.

For ten years I was the guild's nightblade. And the Court of Varrow learned to fear a shadow with violet eyes.

Inquisitor Hale never forgot his seal. He swore to burn the Velvet Knives out of Varrow, one safehouse at a time.

Then came the Night of Long Knives, when the guild settles all its accounts. I came home to an empty safehouse... and a trap.

Velis was standing beside Hale. She had sold him the guild's peace... and the price was me.

A bolt in my shoulder, a long fall from the Hangman's Bridge... and the black river took me. Varrow thought I was dead.

Captain Ysra Blacksail fished me out of the harbour. The sea took her ship once, she said. She took it back... with interest.

So I learned patience. I mended. I sharpened. And I kept a ledger of my own... every name that sold me.

Velis was the first. She saw me in her mirror, just once. The next night... the Velvet Knives had a new Shadowmaster.

Now Hale hunts the rooftops every night. Let him. The Court has a crown... and one day I'll take that too.

Nobody hears me coming. Nobody hears much afterwards.