The lightning had flashed just once in the midst of the sudden storm that had gathered over the castle. Men below grouped together as they brandished their weapons to face the intruder who had invaded their home. Blind without the moonlight to guide them, they searched the castle grounds in a hopeless attempt to find him.
       That moment of light from the bolt that had split the darkness had for that moment revealed him. His trench coat swayed easily in the wind as he stood at the peak of the tower. Eyes watched the men who searched for him below as his hair drifted just behind him. There was no mistaking his identity. This was the legendary assassin. This was the man the stories had named Shadow.
       “There he is!” a guard had shouted from below as he pointed to the outline of a man who seemed at home in the darkness, yet overpowering of its aura.
       Watching down on those men, his lips curled slightly at the right corner with a wicked smirk. This assignment was going to be too easy.
       Another moment as he waited for the light of the bolt to fade away, and darkness closed in amongst them once more. With the men watching him from below, his laughter was lost in the howl of the wind around them all. The storm had only added effect to the fear of the army with its timing. Slowly, he let his arm extend in front of him as he held out a curved blade.
       While his fingers pealed away from the hilt of the knife, his eyes watched it descend from his possession. The sound of steel against stone rang out in response to the thunder as the blade hit the surface of the tower’s roof and slid into the abyss below.
       With his message delivered, the shadowy form turned on its heel and stepped over the edge of the roof. They would not find him as he casually escaped the castle through the same route that he had entered, and with a successful mission, was undoubtedly on his way to collect his payment.
       The shouting of soldiers and chaos of their search had echoed for the remainder of the night while they tried to find a man that many believed was a ghost. The stories ran far and wide of this assassin of the night. Some believed he was a ghost for hire, while others thought he was a myth. Many claimed the stories of this assassin who had never failed were nothing more than old wives tales.
       This castle had learned the truth of his existence all too quickly on that night. After all, it was that night that his target had been found sleeping in bed with his wife, and as they both discovered from the spirit world, they would never awaken. That was the night this kingdom had lost their royalty. That was the night they believed in ghosts.
       “That night was 20 years ago on this day.” Ruben said to his son as he yawned. The fireplace had given them plenty of light, but it was still getting late. Brushing his hands off against his pants, he stood and motioned for the boy to get up as well. “It’s time for bed Mikel.”
       “But dad! I want to hear the part of the story that you were in!” the boy whined while refusing to get up.
       Sighing to himself, Ruben took his place on the floor once more and crossed his legs. “Alright, but after this, you have to go to bed.” Sighing beneath his breath, Ruben tried to find the right place to start at, and then took a breath to relax in front of the fire. “This story isn’t about Shadow, but instead about a boy who had just become a soldier in the castle’s army. The night that Shadow had dropped the knife off of that tower, he had unknowingly allowed that same knife to fall into that boy’s hands.”
       As he continued with his story, Ruben’s eyes began to lose focus and his words seemed more distant as each memory came over him. The glow of the fire gave him the appearance of a ghost to his son’s eyes as he himself inwardly fought with the ghosts of memory. “That night led to a chain of events that would change the boy’s life forever.”
       The knife had landed in the mud at the boy’s feet as he watched the figure standing on the peak of the tower above simply disappear into the darkness. Without considering what would happen, the boy reached into the mud and retrieved the curved weapon.
       Inspecting it, he found that it was still freshly stained with blood in some areas, and so he ran through the howling wind and cluttered city streets in an attempt to bring it to his captain. The entire time, he had a feeling he knew whose blood still stained this blade, and knew that if he was right, there would be dire consequences just for having possession of such a thing. He took haven in knowing the other soldiers had seen the figure of the assassin and could assure that his story was accurate.
       When he had reached the captain of the guards, he quickly saluted the man with a quick bow before producing the blade from behind his back. Every breath in his presence ceased when it was recognized as the possession of the assassin.
       “Sir, the assassin dropped this off the roof before disappearing. I brought it here as quickly as I could so I could hand it over to you. I hope this may aid us in some way to capture this Shadow that everyone has been mentioning, and perhaps bring to justice those behind such an evil task of the murder of our king.”
       Before he had a chance to continue his report, the captain had snatched the blade from his palm and ordered that it would be brought to king’s priests for a proper inspection. Their link to the gods would no doubt bring some clues to reveal where this assassin was hiding. Feeling that he had played his part, the boy had decided to return to searching the streets for any trace of the unusual.
       “Stop him!” came the immediate order from behind. Turning to face the captain, the boy met with swords drawn and readied if he tried to escape. “Imprison him until we can discover if he is truly innocent of finding this blade. We can’t risk this being a simple diversion to allow him to walk out of our midst looking the hero and escaping justice.”
       Before he knew what was happening, guards were leading him down the streets towards the prison in the chambers beneath the castle. He tried to plead his innocence, yet it fell on deaf ears. He convinced himself to be understanding of the situation, and held to the hope that everything would be set right soon enough.
       That hope quickly faded as days passed. Those days became weeks as he despaired in his stone prison. Questions began to rise in his mind about why the other soldiers had not stepped forward to prove his story true, and he sought these answers from the guards with every meal that was delivered. Always, he received only silence.
       “They won’t answer you because they know you are innocent.” A voice replied one morning when he screamed for the guards to explain his wrongful imprisonment. “They won’t tell you what happened because they know you will fight them when you know the truth, and they want you to cooperate with them so they can feel less threatened when it’s time to execute you.”
       The voice had come from the cell across from him, and he could barely make out a slim shape of a thief in the darkness. The voice was feminine, yet had the accent of a member of the Thieves Guild. That familiar accent that seemed to hiss like a serpent as it seduced you into believing it was innocent.
       “Then what do you know?” he asked cautiously. It was no secret that a common street thief was full of lies, yet still he needed to know what was happening.
       “The priests were never able to reveal the location of Shadow. In order to keep the faith of the people and not publicly become discredited, they have decreed that the gods show you as the owner to this knife. They are awaiting the first anniversary of the king’s death to execute you. As for your friends in the army, they were all executed for blasphemy.”
       “Blasphemy? But how?”
       “They said your story was true, and that it was Shadow who had been the assassin. When the priests realized the threat of being publicly proven wrong, they declared the soldiers members of the secret organization you had started, and executed them for trying to disprove the word of the gods.”
       Confusion ran through him as he fell back onto the wooden seat behind him. This was too much to take in, and he couldn’t find the words to continue this discussion with the thief across from him. Thoughts of his future, and then of his friends who had been executed because of his mistake ate away at him. Many of those men he had grown up with, and the others were brothers of his barracks. How could such things have happened? How did the world turn on him?
       “I can pick these locks.” the voice said suddenly.
       Looking up, Ruben’s eyes were wide with shock. “Then why haven’t you?” he asked in suspicion.
       “There are two guards at the end of the hall. I can escape the cells, but I cannot get past two trained guards. However, you have experience in combat. If I were to get us out of here, then we could work together to escape. Unless you want to rot in here for another eleven months while they plot your execution.”
       Sighing to himself, he realized she was right. He couldn’t believe he was thinking about escaping his prison, but what choice did he have? It was hours before he sat up again and whispered between the cells with her while they worked out a plan. At sunset the next day, they would make their escape. Hope bloomed again in his heart as sleep conquered him, and he faded into a world of dreams.
       It wasn’t long before he had awakened and spent most of the day preparing himself for what he was going to do at sunset. Hours dragged on and he reminded himself to ask his usual questions when the guard brought his meal, and then to pace and scream for their attention throughout the day so they would continue to believe everything was as it usually was.
       It took forever, but the night had come.
       Preparing himself for what was about to be unstoppable once it began, he heard the familiar sounds of a lock pick being produced and the usual sounds of metal against metal as the bolt slid free from the cell across the hall. Then it was his turn, and he watched intently as she went to work on his cell. Before long, the door swung open, and he stepped into the hallway.
       Taking the lead down the hallway, he crept along silently in the darkness. Coming to the bend in the hallway, he glanced around to the two guards playing dice against the wall, and set the signal for her to do her part. As soon as she nodded her agreement, her hand grabbed the door to his cell and slammed it shut. The sound echoed down the hallway, and the guards instantly reacted.
       Rushing past him as he hugged the hall in the shadows, he watched them both move down the hallway towards his cell. Following after quickly, he grabbed the first guard by the shoulders and threw him inside the still open cell across from his. With the element of surprise, he was able to get a hold of the second guard and cast him inside the cell as well. It wasn’t long before she shut the gate to the cell, and they ran for freedom.
       Charging down the stone hallways, he followed the paths he knew all too well, and they had escaped the castle without notice. Once more, his knowledge of the city and the placement of the guards gave them another advantage in escaping the city itself. Once beyond the limits of the city and the castle guards, it was an easy escape into the woods.
       They spent the rest of the night following a map only she knew which would lead them to a city of thieves and cutthroats. She said in that city, she could find information about Shadow, and also work for them both when they would need cash. Plans could be made on the way to the city in order to find a way for him to one day prove his innocence.
       He found the concept repulsive, yet he also knew what he had to do in order to prove he was innocent. He would have to capture the legendary assassin himself. It only made sense that to do such a thing meant he would have to become better than the assassin in order to defeat this man made myth. In all the time they traveled, he questioned whether he could really commit himself to such acts.
       Days passed as they skirted the outside of towns and stole horses for their traveling. It was weeks before they had reached the city she had been so proud to bring him to. Living off what little they had, they had spent a good many nights camping in the forest in order to escape being spotted, and the few times they washed were in lakes or streams they had come across. He was beginning to realize just how beautiful she was.
       By the time they had reached the city of thieves, they had formed an intimate relationship, and although it was secretly, they cared for each other deeply. Yet to the common eye, they appeared only as business partners. She found the work, and he was the one to carry it out. Having taken a few jobs from local Thieves Guilds, she had given him the name Vengeance. By the time they reached the city, he had a reputation behind him and found the work was plentiful for someone of his talent.
       What the reputation behind his name did not mention were the nightmares he often woke from in the midst of the night. Shaking and holding tightly to Rikka, he would wake suddenly in fits of terror. Sweat covering his body as he whimpered like a child and clung to her for safety while she whispered in his ear that everything was alright. She was as much his sanity at those moments as she was his only friend in his new life.
       One nightmare had the worst effects on him and would leave him awake for hours as he lay there shaking. It was a memory of his first mission in which something had gone terribly wrong. He had been hired to kill a local merchant who apparently had become overly greedy and cheated his partners out of their rightful claims. However, when he had slain the merchant in his sleep along with his wife, something unexpected happened.
       A child had walked into the room while he was setting the bed sheets back to an orderly fashion. Before the child had time to scream and attract attention, he had struck his blade out and it flew through the air. He had panicked when he saw the witness to his crime, and the memory of his slaughter of such an innocent life haunted him like no other ever could. He had to clean the mess, and so had to set the child in the bed with his parents, carefully replacing the teddy bear into the child’s arms.
       Was there any forgiveness for what he had become? Had he sold his soul into damnation for all eternity for the price of redemption? Was life truly as cruel and ironic as to take even this from him? The only comfort he had in that nightmare was that it haunted him less than most, and made the others easier to carry inside.
       Rikka was perhaps the greatest joy he had in his life now, and he swore one day they would own a cabin in the woods away from all of this. A place where they could both escape the lives they led and simply live peacefully. They had even planed on having a son, and decided his name would be Mikal. How he wished that dream would one day become a truth.
       Years passed as his reputation grew with every successful job he had taken, and his skills only improved themselves to match the level of difficulty the jobs presented. Many times he had returned beaten and bloody, and scars riddled his body from every mistake he had learned from. While he was growing in popularity and becoming a legend amongst assassins, Rikka was busy with searching for Shadow.
       She had gotten a few lucky leads, but it seemed they were always one step behind the man. Arriving to find the latest job completed and stories of his success igniting the castle like wildfires with gossip of how arrows passed through him, or how no man could defeat him in battle.
       Often, the work he left in his wake was enough to make a good living off of, since the death of the royalty meant the upcoming of a new leader. Many nobles had paid good money to make sure they were next in line for the throne, and did so without hesitation. If Shadow was known as the ‘Killer of Kings’, then Vengeance was definitely known as the ‘Deliverance of Fate’ when he was given the opportunity to decide who took the throne next. Above all else, his reputation was beginning to rival Shadow’s in some places.
       Knowing full well that he would eventually have to face this mythical assassin, he had purposely followed the man’s tracks in order to hound him into coming on his own to reclaim his title as the best. Rikka knew it was the best plan of action, although her worry for such a thing was evident enough. What if he couldn’t defeat Shadow?
       That was a question only time would answer, and time was exactly what ate away at them as it passed. Every day their journey became redundant, until all hope of catching Shadow had seemed to fade. They had become the shadow of the mythical assassin, and in doing so would always remain one step behind the man.
       This was the truth of their situation, until one day Rikka came charging into their room and nearly knocking him over in her excitement. Grabbing his shirt, she threw him on the bed and jumped beside him, watching the curiosity in his eyes while hers burned intensely with some hidden secret. “We found him.”
       It was all she could think to say while she laid there, excitement stealing her breath and making every word seem to do an injustice to the meaning of what had happened. “Vengeance! We found him!”
       “What do you mean we found him?” he said, trying to maintain a certain degree of seriousness in case he was wrong. He knew by the way she was shaking with excitement that he wasn’t.
       “The royal advisor to the King of Senthorne has demanded that Shadow come to him at once to discuss an offer to assassinate the King. We have finally gotten a step ahead of him, and now we can be at that meeting waiting for him!” she said, nearly exploding with the thought of their plans finally coming together. “We can beat him to the cut this time. We can set a trap for him!”
       “No.” Vengeance had said after a moment. “We can’t trap this man. He’ll suspect that. I know another way to bring into the open.”
       Confused, Rikka leaned closer and watched his eyes in curiosity. “How do you propose we bring him out then?”
       A smirk slowly spread across Vengeance’s lips as he turned to look out a window to the night sky. “We take away what makes his legend so powerful. An assassin is only as good as the work he does, right?”
       Smiling as she caught onto his plan, Rikka stood from the bed and threw her cloak around her shoulders. “Alright. I’ll set up the meeting and let you know when the job is yours.”
       Just like she said, she had set up the mission and everything was scheduled for the next full moon. It wasn’t long before Vengeance could feel the familiar rush of adrenaline as he scaled the castle wall silently, and worked his way up a staircase in the guards’ tower. The stone felt good against the leather shoes he wore to mask his footsteps, and a gentle breeze cooled him as he crept through the hallways.
       A few times, he had to dispose of the guards before they could sound an alarm, but his darts made easy work of this as the whistled in the hallway until they met with a targeted throat. It was a slow and bloody path he left to the king’s chambers, but he made it there nonetheless.
       As he entered, he slipped along the wall in the shadows until he was standing over the king’s bed with his blade in hand. It was then that he realized the blanket wasn’t moving up and down with the rhythmic breathing of sleep. Worry crept into him as he pulled the blanket aside slowly. What he found would haunt his nightmares forever.
       Lying upon the king’s chest was a note folded into three sections with a V written on the front. Beneath the note, the king’s stomach had been carved open with an S shaped incision. Reaching down slowly, Vengeance lifted the note into his hands and opened it. His eyes read the words with a growing sense of dread as moments passed.
       Dearest Vengeance,

              It has come to my attention that not only are you trying to steal my legend, but now you are trying to steal my work as well. This isn’t smart business, and to teach you a lesson, I have decided that it is time to take something from you. Since my work is my love and you wish to take that from me, I have decided to take from you the thing you love most as well. I’ll be waiting to hear from you again soon. Until then, tell Rikka she is as beautiful as ever. Never mind, I have a feeling I’ll be seeing her before you do anyways. Have a nice night Vengeance, and know I’ll be hunting you from now on.

                                                               Yours truly,
                                                                      Shadow

       Panic set in as he crushed the note in his palm and threw it at the corpse of the king. He had already completed the mission, and was half way across the city by now. How could he reach Rikka in time? He had to try though, didn’t he?
       Rushing through the same hallways he had used to enter the castle, he flew like the wind of vengeance in his panicked state. It was, after all, how he had gotten his name.
       It was the description given to him when he exploded from the tower’s doorway and onto the wall of the castle. Three throwing knives already whistling through the air as the guards crumbled before they knew the threat that faced them. Without waiting for the moment to safely scale the wall, he grabbed the rope while he leapt onto the side of the wall and dove through the air.
       A snap of his wrist and the metal claw holding the rope came loose and bounced along the wall as it followed his descent to the water below. It was the only sound that followed his own impact with the water while he swam to the opposite shore. Gathering his belongings, he flew through the forest as if he had wings while whispering prayers that Rikka would be safe.
       It wasn’t long before he had gotten to their camp in the woods where he had left her, and his breath froze in his chest. She was lying there next to the fire as peacefully as a babe. There was a note on her chest.
       Defeated and broken, Vengeance stumbled into the small clearing until he was standing over her with tears filling his eyes. He couldn’t believe what had happened. This was supposed to be his night for victory, and in fact, he had lost everything. There could be no defeating Shadow. Could it be true that Shadow had planned this all from the start?
       “What are you doing?”
       The words seemed to echo around him as he stood there staring down at her. She had rolled over and looked up to him in confusion. She was… alive? She was alive! Joy swept through him with such overwhelming force that it drove his breath away. Tears came faster as he fell to his knees at her side and wept openly. She was truly alive.
       Of course, she was still lying there confused about what he was crying about, and just stared at him with wide eyes that reflected the fire’s dancing beauty. In his babbling, she managed to catch a few select phrases about how Shadow killed the king, and the note he left, and the note that was on her chest. That was when she found the note beside her on the ground. It had fallen when she rolled over.
       “Vengeance! Look at this note!” she cried as she grabbed his shoulder and yanked him forward. Shoving it into his palm as she held tight to him, a whimper escaped as she curled into his chest.
       “No. This… this can’t be.” He said as he held the note up to read it.
       I wanted you to watch.
       Those words echoed in his mind for what seemed an eternity until he heard a bristle of leaves from a tree to his left. Something had moved the branch, and he was willing to bet it wasn’t the wind. There was no time to escape. Had he been waiting there the entire time? Had he watched everything? Could he be so cold?
       Throwing himself on top of Rikka, he heard that familiar whistle through the air. Three sharp pains ignited in the back of his right shoulder as he fell with Rikka in his arms. Three sharp pains followed by silence. Three sharp pains followed by Rikka’s scream. Her voice was filled with so much fear.
       Ignoring the pain, he waited for the next attack. It never came. Hours passed as they sat there and waited for the final blow to come, but it never did.
       Finally, Rikka set about to removing the knives from the back of his shoulder and tending to his wounds. Without sleeping, they packed their small camp, killed the fire, and fled the area as silently as possible. They needed to go far away from here, and they had decided to put all of this behind them and start over.
       It was months later when they settled in a small cabin in the woods to attempt to live the rest of their lives peacefully. They had found a new life together, and Rikka was carrying a child. It was that perfect dream they had shared together so many times. He had fulfilled his promise to her, and they were married on a hill with the sun shining down on them. Their son was named Mikel.
       Rikka had spent a lot of time tending to his injury at first, and then spent most of her days helping to provide for their family while Vengeance set himself to recover from his injuries. It was a slow process to work his muscles back into use as he did exercises and worked himself nearly to the bone with every passing day. Even after all this time, his right arm had lost most of use to an assassin. However, those days were over, and he was all too happy to sacrifice the full potential of his arm to the cause of being able to live peacefully with Rikka and Mikel.
       It was shortly after Mikel was born that Vengeance realized his dream was too good to be true. Rikka had gone into the surrounding woods to gather some vegetables for dinner while Vengeance took care of Mikel. Worry began to show its ugly face while he was tending to Mikel’s every need. She had been gone for way too long.
       After having put Mikel down for a nap, Vengeance made sure their cabin was locked and made his way into the woods. Something had to have happened for Rikka to have been gone for all this time, and as he ran down the paths, his growing suspicions began to make promises of truth.
       Hours later, he found her in a clearing with the vegetables thrown about on the ground. Blood covered the front of her dress and the ground around her while she laid unmoving. Lifting her gently, he could feel the life slipping from her as her eyes looked around wildly for something to focus on. A knife had slid across her stomach and penetrated most of the organs on the right half of her body. She wouldn’t live to see the morning.
       Holding her close to his chest, tears fell from his cheeks and onto hers while her arm wrapped over his shoulder. “You can’t die on me. Not now.”
       “He said… to tell you he has never failed to kill someone before.” She whispered as her chest heaved with the effort of taking a breath. “He said… that with me dead, you were free to have your life back. He’ll never hunt you again so long as you do not take another job.”
       It was with those last words that Rikka’s breath faded from her and her body went limp in his arms. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her back to the house with tears flowing from his eyes. Tears that continued while he set up her funeral pyre, and came with more force as he laid her upon the pyre and placed the torch beneath. It was all he could do to watch the flames carry her soul to the heavens as the night became morning.
       It was in that sunrise that his pain gave way to hatred once more. If the sky had appeared to be on fire that morning, then the look in his eyes could rival the most beautiful of those colors. As he gathered his things and readied Mikel to travel to the city, he once more opened his pack that held his assassin’s outfit and weapons. He had sworn never to wear that outfit again, and now he would have to break that vow.
       During the time that they had lived in that cabin, he had made friends with men from the city nearby while selling the deer and wild boar he hunted in order to buy Rikka the most beautiful clothing a woman could ever desire. He also used the coins to bring her artifacts and trinkets that she loved to collect and decorate the house with.
       It was now that he would have to ask one of those friends to watch over his child, and when they saw the outfit he was wearing, they understood why.
       Being sure that Mikel was set, he left the rest of his gold with his friend and began his new journey to the north to return to his hunt for a mythical man. This time, he had decided he would not go looking for Shadow. No, he swore to himself, he would bring Shadow to him. Weeks passed as he formed these plans and made his way along trade routes filled with wagons, horses, and a thousand merchants peddling wares he would never use again.
       His destination was what had troubled his thoughts many times over. He had not been to this kingdom since he was a boy, and it was where he had first met Rikka. Many nights by a campfire, he had cried himself to sleep while remembering their adventures together, and many mornings he had woken to the cold miserable emptiness of his present journey.
       Finally, he had made it to his destination. As his eyes watched the castle in the distance grow larger with every step, he paused only a moment before the great doors of the outer walls to survey the guards. He had no intentions of acting the assassin on this night.
       Allowing his blades to slip into his palms from his sleeves, he walked the hallways of the castle without concern for who laid eyes on his presence. After all, they didn’t live long enough to ask why he was within the castle. Guards littered the floor as he made his way to the king’s chambers, and moments after he stepped within the great oak doors of that chamber, the king littered the floor as well.
       Vengeance was his name that Rikka had given to him, and as the wind of vengeance swept through that castle, his title gave him the right to decide who was to succeed the now deceased king. He was the Deliverance of Fate, and he was now delivering the fate of this kingdom into the hands of himself.
       It wasn’t long before the guards had discovered their companions throughout the hallways, but by the time they had gathered and began to search the castle, he was already at the church. Three ministers were the ones who had sentenced him to death just over two years ago, and three ministers were the ones who would proclaim his innocence on this day.
       Leading them all by the tip of his blade through the church and into the town square, he walked them up the wooden steps of the gallows and ordered them all to kneel before their public. One by one, he tied their nooses and waited for the guards to arrive. He was awaiting the most important man who had condemned his that night.
       “What do you think you are doing?” a man raged out from a group of gathering soldiers ready to take the gallows as soon as the ministers were safe. The man was shouldering his way through the crowd of soldiers until he finally stood before Vengeance.
       “General. How nice to see you again.” Vengeance said as a slight curve to his lips began to grow on the sides. “Just over two years ago, you sentenced me to death for the murder of your king. I was innocent on that day, and you could have saved my life had you come forward. However, the ministers here had threatened you with charges of blasphemy against the gods had you challenged their decree that I was the assassin. I am here to make amends for that night, and I have done so by ridding you of your present king.”
       Immediately, the crowd began to whisper amongst themselves not only of the assassination of the king, but also of the charges he placed on the ministers and the general. It wasn’t long before confusion ran rampant and the soldiers began to question their orders to kill this intruder. The general had at last come to realize the mistake he made by openly confronting Vengeance.
       “I will not stand by and let some assassin declare that the innocent have spread lies while a murderer thinks he will dictate what is truth.” The General cursed up at the man standing with a knife to the first minister’s throat. Without waiting for the minister’s to be sentenced, he made his way to the wooden steps of the gallows and began to climb them two at a time.
       Vengeance has hoped that he could get the ministers to publicly declare the truth of what they had done, but with the general coming for him, he had decided instead to simply react and be done with this. Bringing his arm back, he snapped the throwing knife with everything he had as it flew from his finger tips.
       The crowd watched as guards all clambered forward to attempt to save their general and the ministers, but none of them had enough time. The blade flew across the neck of the first minister and continued its perfect line across the throats of the other two ministers as well. At the end of its journey, the blade sank itself into the thigh of the general who had made it to the top of the stairs.
       Everyone froze with the realization that this man had killed three ministers and taken down a general with only one blade, and whispers rose once more when the townspeople questioned if this assassin was human. It was beginning to echo through the crowds that he might be the legendary Shadow himself come to conquer a kingdom for himself.
       “I was once wrongfully accused for a murder I did not commit. I come here today to tell you all that my name is Vengeance, and I have come seeking just that for the crimes committed against me by these men. If any dare to challenge me then let them speak up now and resist, for I am your new king!” Vengeance declared while he stood proudly against a setting sun before all those who had gathered. “My name was once Ruben and I served with many of you men when I was a boy. I am here to inform you that you will surrender to me, or I shall see to it that you disappear silently into the night.”
       It wasn’t long before Ruben had been embraced by the people as the new king, and he began his journey south to retrieve his son. For their assistance, he rewarded those few friends he had who had cared for Mikel in his absence by making them all nobles in his new kingdom. After all, what good is being king if nobles would just try to kill you so they could succeed your rule?
       Years passed as he became known as the immortal king. No assassin had succeeded in removing him from the throne, and the nobles who had hired the assassins all died in their sleep within weeks of the attempts on his life. It was questioned if even the great Shadow would fail against this man. This had been his plan all along to drag Shadow out of hiding.
       Years had passed, and Shadow had never come seeking him. Over time, Ruben had lay to rest his blades and as king, fought to bring wealth and peace to his people. He had spent those years raising Mikel, and fulfilling his promise to the people of his kingdom that he would work to better their lives.
       “And that was how I became the king. Now, it is time for bed.” Ruben said as he stood up slowly. Sighing, Mikel slowly stood and grudgingly made his way to his own room for bed. Watching as the boy closed the door, Ruben began his nightly routine of exercises in order to maintain his edge as an assassin. It was that talent that had kept him in power for so long, and he wouldn’t allow himself to fall into a lazy comfort that all kings in their own arrogance assumed was their right that none other could take from them.
       When his exercises were finished, he stood and would have walked to his bed to sleep if it wasn’t for the slightly darker section of one of his windows. Staring at the shape of a man silhouetted in shadows while he sat on the window sill luxuriously, Ruben sighed to himself. “What took you so long?”
       Without moving from the window sill, Shadow turned and looked directly at Ruben with a smirk. “Because I am the better assassin.”
       Leaping from the window sill and into the night, he spun just as he slipped from sight and threw a single blade into the room. As the knife glinted from the firelight, Ruben’s eye grew wide. A sharp pain burned the front of his throat as he fell backwards. He could taste his own blood while he lay on the carpet, eyes staring off into nothing.
       It turns out, Shadow was right. He was the better assassin.