Shadow and Candlelight

The dagger left Elara's hand before the thought fully formed.

It crossed the darkened chamber in silence—a whisper of steel finding home between Lord Varis Corbray's shoulder blades. He gasped once, a wet, surprised sound, and collapsed against his oak desk. The forged trade permits he'd been selling to Shadow Mark smugglers scattered across the floor like fallen leaves.

Elara didn't watch him fall. She was already moving.

She dropped from the ceiling beam where she'd clung for three hours, landing without sound. Her shadow-woven cloak absorbed what little candlelight guttered in the wall sconces. To any eye not trained in Umbramancy, she would have been invisible—a void in the shape of a woman.

Varis was still alive, technically. His fingers scratched at the dagger's hilt, too weak to pull it free. Blood spread across the back of his fine velvet coat, black as ink in the dim light.

"You," he wheezed, recognizing her in his final moments. His face, ruddy and cruel in life, went gray with understanding. "The Wraith's—"

"Yes," Elara said quietly.

She didn't enjoy this part. That distinction mattered to her, though she couldn't have said why. She retrieved her dagger with a practiced twist—one efficient motion that ended his struggle—and cleaned the blade on his sleeve before returning it to her thigh sheath.