Chapter 1 The Blood Of Shadowborne

In the remote highlands of Mount Umbra, where the wind shrieked like a banshee and the shadows reached for eternity under the moon, there loomed the Shadowborne Estate. It was a citadel of quiet death, a labyrinth of gothic fins and hidden hallways. Within these walls legends did not whisper; they were etched in blood. The name Shadowborne instilled fear in kingdoms. They were the masters of the covert kill, the masters of the whisper of doom. One after another for generations, assassins with unparalleled skill were bred, raised by discipline, brutality, and fierce loyalty to the family's code. One of these was Kael Shadowborne, the youngest scion of this dark dynasty. Kael had known no life outside these walls. Since the day he could put one foot before another, when he learned to scream before he learned to speak, the bitter truths of the bloody, tortured history draped over them defined him, taught him to wield a dagger before he ever held a quill, and that feeling was a sin and hesitation, a death. But unlike his siblings, he had questions that sat in the dark corners of his thoughts like an infected sore that wouldn’t heal. His oldest brother, Darius, epitomized the Shadowborne ideal. He was cold and cruel, moving through the estate like a living shadow of a ghost, his very presence instilling dread and respect in equal measure. Darius's first kill he had made when he was thirteen years old, killing a noble so meticulously that none of the guards outside the room realized it until the morning sun broke through. He’d been an enforcer in the family now, maintaining the line, liberated from anything as weak. And then there was Selene, the second born and wily of Shadowborne heirs. She floated like a spectral silk; her beauty a veil for the poison within. Selene enjoyed toying with her prey and left elaborate trails of manipulation in her wake before finally closing in for the kill. She viewed the world as a vast chessboard, each piece as one she learned to use and to discard recklessly as the need arose. Kael was the least strong and most not dastardly among his brothers. He was fast, he was nimble, and he was lethal on command, but something inside him shrank back from the craft of killing. It was not the act itself that alarmed him but the meaning behind it. They had been told all their lives that their targets warranted death, that the Shadowborne did not take lives; they tilted the scale of power. But what if the scales rested on lies? The youngest, Kael, was still shackled to the training halls, properly battered into submission by exercises designed to break lesser men. It took him each morning to rise before day had broken on the horizon, his limbs sore from bruises and scrapes that had hardly gotten a chance to heal. Combat drills, poison resistance, and tactical deceptions—all these were but an endless cycle of preparations for the day he was to take his first life in the name of the family. But tonight was a different story. He held his ground in the ceremonial hall, his breath welling in chests, with gravity coming to roost on his shoulders. Before him, seated on his throne of iron and obsidian, was the head of the Shadowborne family, Lord Renard. His father was a granite man, his face a study of controlled cruelty. His eyes, warm with nothing, bore into Kael’s very being. “The moment has come,” Renard intoned, his voice heavy with the authority of a man who had been behind the deaths of kings. “You were trained; you were taught. Now you will prove yourself." A servant stepped out from behind a door, sliding a small scroll into Kael's hands. He unfurled it with practiced ease, his gaze flitting over the name engraved on it in ink the color of spilled blood. Killian Voss. Kael's pulse rushed. That name he had heard. A trader whom they have dealt with for almost 20 years. Killian was no warlord, no traitor to the crown. He was a man, after all. And he would be Kael’s first victim. Darius stood on the sideline, arms crossed, face unreadable. Selene smirked, her mirth barely concealed. All of them had endured this rite, and they savored the idea of their youngest finally being baptized in blood. Kael faltered for just a breath, but he knew damn well his father saw it. In the Shadowborne clan, hesitation was the aroma of prey. He formed a fist, hiding the tremor under his sleeve. “Do you doubt your duty, Kael?” Renard’s voice was soft, but it came with implied threats. Kael locked eyes with his father, his gut a churning pit of dread. "No, Father. A lie. One he could not afford to get caught up in. Renard stared at him another moment and then nodded once. Then go. Don't come back till it's finished. And with that the verdict was rendered and Kael set free. The hall doors loomed before him, the iron frame more daunting than he remembered it. He stepped through and into the shadowed halls of night. Thoughts no Shadowborne should entertain swarmed through his mind. It would be a point of no return for him if he did it. He would be chained to this life, to this blood-drunk road. But if he failed. Failure was not an option. Not when it meant death. The night stretched before her, along with the first step toward Kael, toward either fate or destruction.