Prologue
THE MONTH OF NOEL DAY 7, YEAR 681 OF THE SECOND HOLY CALENDAR
Slain signed his name at the bottom of the page and reflected on his report. He needed to make sure he didn't miss anything of importance. He also had to check that there were no grammatical or spelling mistakes in his report. He did so with extra vigilance, as this report was going to the top. He could not allow the slightest sloppy mistake to be made on a report going to his respected master.
After he was through with that, he nodded his head in approval at his own work before standing up and picking up the report. It was already in a manila envelope, but he wrapped it in a waterproof cloth before throwing it in a cheap hemp bag and firmly tying it shut. Hemp was a reasonably cheap material. As a result, it was used to store particularly toxic garbage; the entire bag was thrown away, not just its contents. If anyone happened to stumble across the hemp bag, they assumed it was garbage being thrown away and wouldn't investigate further. Of course, to anyone who knew what they were looking at, it was a gold mine, as the way he tied the rope was actually a coded message that this was an urgent report to be given to the top.
Once done with that, he walked over to the garbage chute on the side of his office. If anyone saw this, they would just think it was another garbage chute that would lead to a destructor slime that ate essentially everything and, therefore, was used as a garbage disposal. Anyone who knew a bit more would understand that this building already had a garbage chute connecting all four floors to one singular garbage disposal room. But this garbage chute didn't lead to a destructor's slime; instead, it led to a series of tunnels under the city.
The tunnels were kept in strict secrecy by the Royal Family and their covert agents, known as the Royal Office of Intelligence ROI, more commonly called the Crows. Bags containing information would be dropped into these tunnels and eventually picked up by messengers. These messengers would collect all the bags dropped across the city, gather and compile the information, and then report to other agents. Most agents, particularly those tasked with intelligence gathering, maintained real-world identities and could not regularly meet clandestinely with shady figures in dark alleyways. Therefore, they devised this method to minimize direct contact. This system was effective in Lapetra, the capital city founded by Michael, to secure the future of his dynasty. Still, it was unsuccessful in other cities due to the lack of infrastructure.
Slain's public identity was Slain Hayden, but his actual identity was 012972, although people had already called them Slain before he received his identity. His father was supposedly a slave who joined the army during the Black Rebellion, fighting bravely at the First Battle of Haydens Ford. He had received his freedom and citizenship as a reward. Once he received freedom, he took the name of the battle for his own and shortly thereafter had a son with an unknown woman named Slain. Living long enough only to raise his son and die shortly thereafter. Of course, that last part was a total lie.
Slain was born an orphan and was taken in by the ROI and trained to become an intelligence agent like all of the other agents of the ROI. His fake identity had been forged on his 15th birthday when he became a man by the laws of the Kingdom and the ancient tradition. His supposed father had died 6 years earlier, and he had never even met the man. His death had been concealed for precisely for this purpose, and according to what Slain later found out, the man was a member of the ROI himself. He then joined an academy and was sponsored by a nobleman, a fairly common practice as the nobleman would get his services until he paid back the tuition. He served that nobleman for 5 years as a scribe, only receiving half pay in that time until he paid off his tuition, at which point he gained his freedom and, like many scribes, chose to leave the nobleman who would pay his tuition, feeling he had abused him. He then became a scribe for a brothel owned by the royal family in the city of Lepetra.
Once again, all of that was a lie, and in reality, the nobleman in question was a cooperator of the ROI, and he worked as an intelligence officer in that period. Leaving that nobleman in a huff after feeling abused was a carefully cultivated act to make his persona seem more legitimate and, in reality, just the transfer from working in a relatively minor position to working as one of the intelligence-gathering agents in the city of Lepetra. Initially, he'd worked in the brothel under an agent until he had been promoted to leading the brothel's intelligence-gathering operation. He was then promoted to one of the leaders of intelligence gathering across the entire city until his promotion to being in charge of gathering information across Lapetra and its surrounding region.
But even that paled in comparison to his most recent promotion, which was the promotion to being one of the leaders of the ROI. He had finally met with Queen Veronica, like most members of the ROI, and he'd been trained from an early age to worship her and the entirety of the Royal Family. Being allowed to meet with her was the most incredible honor, and being allowed to report to her directly was an even more tremendous honor. Despite these repeated promotions, he maintained his public persona as a mere scribe working in a brothel. Of course, the actual intelligence operation of the brothel was now handled by a different agent. However, his public persona proved helpful as he could host parties and meetings at the brothel without anyone raising suspicions. After all, there was nothing strange about going to a brothel.
He returned to his work after delivering his report in the trash chute. The ROI was one of the most significant intelligence operations in the western continent. Most kingdoms disdained intelligence gathering and didn't invest heavily in it. Part of the reason was that they viewed it more as a way for tyrants to maintain their internal power rather than a way to gather intelligence on foreign enemies. Their intelligence departments amounted to sending citizens into foreign countries disguised as freemen or merchants. Of course, these so-called spies could only gather publicly known intelligence and could not gather privately known intelligence.
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The Kingdom of Black was distinctly unique. It established an ROI long before forming a royal family. The ROI extended its influence to all surrounding nations, and at Veronica's request, there was even a growing operation established in the Kingdom of Jax. This initiative was funded through various investments and properties, some held in the royal family's name and others set up as front companies. Some enterprises belonged to foreign kingdoms.
As he continued processing documents, he felt a shift in the room. It was a shift in the atmosphere, a change he only noticed because he was trained as an assassin. Even then, he could only sense the danger and not tell where it originated. He had never been particularly good at the combat aspect of his job. He was more of a leader and an intelligence gatherer than an assassin. But simultaneously, he felt both bodyguards move to eliminate the danger. Shadows move across the floor, squirming in unnatural patterns before a series of sparks and clashes sounded throughout the room.
Once the clashes died down, the scene before him unveiled itself. Three figures, all dressed in similar cloaks and masks, were gathered in front of his desk. One was on the ground with a knife sticking out of their shoulder, and another one had a knife half raised to attack their assailant but instead had a knife pressed against their throat. “I win,” a female voice said, coming from the masked assailant who had the knife pressed against the other one's throat. A tongue click later, the man dropped the knife and backed off.
“Elder Slain, you need to discipline your guards better. They attacked me the moment I stepped into the room.” Her slightly disrespectful tone and the disrespectful way she didn't bother to greet him first would have caused annoyance in any other Elder, but Slain was more broad-minded, and besides that, the “Elder” part of his title wasn't a joke as he was 55 this year. He had the experience of not needing to be bothered about someone showing him 100% respect.
“Sit down, Sophie. I called you here for important matters, not so you could almost kill my guards.” He waved his hand at the two, and they promptly disappeared. He wasn't disappointed in them as the woman they lost to was a “dagger” while they were mere “hands.” The ROI was divided into several branches, including the hands responsible for infiltration, sabotage, and assassination, but there was also the more elite subgroup, the daggers. The daggers were responsible for the assassination and counter-assassination, serving as the elite bodyguards of the members of the royalty family. Sophie was the youngest among them, a newly appointed dagger. Her talent was such that even the conservative Elders acknowledged her as a dagger, something quite rare.
Sophie bowed. “177990 extends her greetings to the Elder,” she said respectfully. She was confused about the order, but at least she hadn't forgotten her manners. He breathed an internal sigh of relief. He had gone on a limb to recommend her recent assignment and even her promotion. Any mistake she made would reflect poorly on him in front of the Council of Elders and even his respective master.
He stood up and reached for the pot of coffee on his sideboard. Magically kept warm, the coffee came out steaming hot as he poured it into a mug and added the right amount of sugar and cream for Sophie. Thanks to his familiarity with her, he knew her taste down to a tee.
He sat the steaming cup of coffee down in front of her. “Sophie, as you may or may not be aware, the youngest of the four royal children will be undergoing his baptismal ceremony shortly.” He felt the eyes behind her mask slightly shift, but he ignored it and continued. “As I'm sure you're aware, we assign a dagger to each of the Royals.” He felt the eyes behind her masks start to glow and gave her an encouraging smile. “The Council of Elders has selected you to become the dagger of His Highness Prince Dominic.” The royal family was the center of their worship, so of course, serving by the side of a royal was the highest honor any ROI member could receive.
But shortly thereafter, he felt the expression behind her mask darken slightly. “I, of course, considered that I'd be granted the honor, but I thought my previous failure would mean Her Majesty wouldn't consider it.” Slain grimaced slightly that they touched both of their scars too directly. During the war, which was now primarily known as the Golden Stallions Invasion, the ROI had dispatched agents at the request of Veronica to cause a distraction by targeting essential figures in the army. After looking around, they discovered no figure other than the Golden Stallion and his sister was necessary. Everyone else was replaceable, so they targeted the Golden Stallion with little hope of success. Their thought process on the subject had been about as far as we provided distraction if it failed, and if it succeeds, that would be wonderful. So they had sent Sophie, a young and talented assassin. They had suspected that even if the assassination attempt failed, she could make a getaway, and they couldn't send any more experienced assassins since the resources at their immediate disposal were limited.
She did succeed in escaping but failed in her assassination attempt on the Golden Stallion. She'd blamed herself continuously, not understanding that she always intended to fail, and no one held it against her. A part of the problem was that she was a young prodigy who would always succeed at everything she tried. When confronted with failure, she was mentally staggered. In reality, the Council of Elders was impressed by her performance. She not only succeeded in causing a distraction but also put fear in the heart of the Golden Stallion, which members of the council felt played a role in his ultimate defeat.
For Slain, it was a personal failure. When Veronica heard that they had attempted to assassinate the Golden Stallion, she scolded him and the other elders. She said her only real intention was to cause distraction and that she had no intention of killing the golden stallion. They didn't understand why she wanted the sworn enemy of the kingdom to live. It was one of the few times in Slain's career that he felt humiliated and didn't understand her intention.
“Sophie, I've told you multiple times you shouldn't worry that you're a talented young assassin. You need to focus on the protection of His Highness Prince Dominic. The spies assigned to watch Howard Towers have reported suspicious movements from him. He may make a move on Their Highness Prince Dominic or Princess Nora.”
She pushed back her chair and bowed. “Tell the council they no longer need to worry about this matter; His Highness Prince Dominic is safe with me. I will not allow anyone to harm him, not even the emperor himself!”