It had been long since the sun had set, and the moon consumed everything. A layer of cold and mysterious darkness creeped ever hazier. The surrounding area becoming ominous and grim as if threading through an abandoned cemetery. With the only sound coming off of a nearby alleyway, two cats fighting and hissing at each other. Making my way through the dimly lit streets with only a few windows covered in the light of candles, I envisioned my life if the circumstances were to be different. I saw my mother sitting in a chair next to a fireplace, her face ecstatic and thrilled. The smile on her face incomparable to anything my eyes had set sight upon. I saw my childhood friend, turned fiancée running with me through a field with a light summer drizzle falling from the partially cloudy sky.

Did it really come to this? I, once a praised noble, next in line for the throne turned into a mere peasant? Truly how low had I fallen? I gripped the pendant which laid around my neck, the only memory of my mother that I had. I felt a single tear starting to form, flowing down my face, and finally dropping to the cold paved road. I slightly shook my head to get rid of any thought linked to a source of emotions. As I regained my composure, a carriage came running down the street, slightly missing me. I flinched and fell to the side, on my back cursing at the reckless driver, although I was not as nearly pissed as I had shown, since it made me more vigilant and focused but mostly that it had taken away my previous thoughts.

The moon had reached its peak and shined atop the clear nights sky, surrounded by countless bright shining stars. I reached my destination, a large manor spanning four floors. My targets, situated at the top, the feudal lord Rahan of the city and his guest, a wealthy merchant whose trade routes spread the whole empire and to the colonies, Breas. The most important people in the Kingdom apart from the nobility. I had my work cut out, penetrating the manor would prove quite difficult.

A large, slightly oxidated, copper fence surrounded the perimeter. On it, thorny roses climbed up the spikes to the top where they bloomed in the moon's light. I concealed my presence in the shadows that were cast upon the ground by the foliage. Using them, I scouted the outskirts trying to find a possible entrance or an exploit in the patrols which I could use to get in. But no such luck would be had that night.

At last, after an intensive search, there it was, a window on the second story, left slightly ajar. With no other way to get there, I gathered my composure and made a conclusion about whether I could make that jump. I knew I could, but I had no way of knowing what was on the other side of that window. After some time of thinking, I decided to go through with it. Whilst climbing a tree with a long branch, looking towards the window, I overheard the guards talking.

“So, Cintia is getting married? And to him of all people.”

“Well, that’s what I overheard from John, but you know how he is. Half the things he says are absolute bullshit and totally made up.”

“I guess it could be true. She’s already twenty and still not engaged. But why would anyone get married to her of all people? The Lyudye family is long gone, there’s nothing one would get out of marrying her apart from her beauty.”

What?! My sister was alive? All my life I lived with the assumption that I was the only survivor from that night. Knowing that I had lost all sense of reason, I needed to get in and find out what they knew about my sister.

I took a deep breath and focused on the window in front of me, running turned into a leap... The freezing air hit my face. As the surface where I stood turned to void, it felt like several minutes had passed before I finally made the jump. I grabbed the wooden board under the window, it cracked slightly and I panicked, not knowing if it could support the weight of my body. I quickly leaped upwards towards the window. As I did, a shadowy figure appeared inside. Reaching for my blade with my right hand and leaning on the window with my left, it opened. And as quickly as it did, my dagger had manifested in the neck of the shadow, who turned out to be a servant.

Kinn collapsed on the servant’s body on the hard wooden boards, making a thud. Looking over, he saw a clear and empty room. Looking back at the servant’s body he saw blood spewing out of the wound, which was only amplified by Kinn pulling it out. He wiped it on the servant’s clothing. A yell, then, startled Kinn.

“Hey, what’s going on? What was that noise?”

“Hey I need some help over here.”, Kinn said. Quickly making his way behind the door as it opened. A servant entered the room. Kinn seized the opportunity, and in one continuous motion, he grabbed the servant’s arm, yanking her and closing the door shut. He grabbed a piece of cloth and wrapped it around her mouth, then immobilized and restrained her whilst. The woman was completely in shock of what was happening.

Once the shock wore off, she saw the dead body covered in blood out of the corner of her eye, her face immediately turned pale. The cloth tightened around her mouth as she tried to scream, but it was muffled.

Kinn adopted a superficial smile as he said:

"I am terribly sorry to inconvenience you on this fine night, but I do have some questions that require your immediate attention. Now, I’m going to remove the cloth around your mouth. If you scream, it will make the situation difficult for the both of us. Do you understand?"

The woman nods her head.

"Good.", Kinn said.

Slowly removing the cloth and feeling a bit uneasy at the sight of the mortified and shaking woman, he finally composed himself and began asking:

"Where’s Rahan?"

"At the top floor second room left of the stairs."

"Is he asleep?"

"I don’t know."

"Do you have a key to his room?"

"No, the room can only be locked from the inside.”

"Lastly, what do you know about Cintia?"

The woman took a long pause. And finally spoke:

"You’re the son of the Lyudye’s aren’t you?"

Kinn’s startled look told the woman all that she needed to know, confirming her assumption. Kinn started to reach for his dagger, but was stopped by the words that came out of the woman’s mouth:

“I used to work for your family.”

Kinn froze as he started to compare her face to his memory, and yes, her face did indeed resemble that of the head maid.

“Rosa?”

“Yes. I know what happened that night, but I have no status or power, so my testimony wouldn’t hold any weight. I won't tell of this to anyone. You have my word.”

Rosa was always nice and kind to me. I wanted to let her go unscathed, but she knew my identity. Kinn thought to himself.

“There's a master key in my back pocket. Take it. It will help you. Opposite of Rahan's room, you will find a door that leads to the attic. Do whatever you must.”

After that, Kinn couldn’t bring himself to kill Rosa. He readjusted the cloth back over her mouth and tied her to the cabin so she couldn’t move. Before he left the room he said, “Thank you. I will not forget this, and one day I shall repay you.”, then, he left.

Quietly closing the door behind him, he made his way to the stairway making sure to be as quiet as possible as to not draw any attention to himself. While ascending the dimly lit stairway, he makes cautious stops to avoid the sentries. Once he made it to the top, he quickly assessed his surroundings. He saw a door that was missing a doorknob so it must have been Rahan's room. Kinn put one ear to the door, not hearing anything, his immediate assumption was that Rahan was asleep. Next to that door was another one, also missing a door handle, Breas’s room. Opposite of Rahan's room, just like Rosa said, was a door. He quietly went in and he saw a trap door at the end of a staircase. He struggled to open the lock as it was rusty, but after a few nudges, it finally opened. It was a complete mess, boxes and random objects scattered across the dark room, covered in cobwebs and dust. It hadn’t been cleaned up in years. Estimating his current position and the position of the room, he deduced where he was, somewhere above the middle of the Rahan's room.

The night’s reign began to dwindle as the sun’s rays started to vanquish the night’s abyss. The rays of the twilight’s dawn peering through the window, reverberating the lifeless room, to that of one that inspires curiosity as to what treasures lay in it, to be discovered. But Kinn had no such time to let this curiosity get to him. Apart from the window, the only other source of light comes from a crack in the floorboards. Peering through them, he saw Rahan, sound asleep. Removing a loose board, he had an internal monologue thanking Rosa. Soon the small crack morphed into a hole the size of Kinn, he jumped through it and landed on the floor as soundlessly and gracefully as a cat. Standing at the bottom of the bed frame, Rahan was within arm’s reach. Making quick work of the situation and wrapping Rahan in the bed sheets, he made sure to secure him to be unable to move or speak. Kinns actions were so precise that Rahan did not wake from it. Opening the window next to the bedframe, the chilly wind started to abrasively play with his hood almost blowing it down. After it subsided, the suns gentle rays started to cradle Kinn’s face, he bathed in its warm embraced, reminiscent of his mother’s touch.

He looked at his pocket watch and said to himself "Five minutes left to go."