The wind cuts colder than usual today. Hooks calls me out before sunup. We’ve been doing more than physical drills lately—maps, factions, rumors, codes. I’ve started hearing the name Bishop more and more. The loyal ones call themselves the Bishop’s Hands. Others just whisper and move on.

  Hooks has begun letting me hear parts of the meetings—never see them. Always from behind the wall, or the ceiling grate. Their voices echo through stone. Plans I don’t understand yet. But Hooks watches my face after. He’s waiting for something.

  Today, he doesn’t speak right away. Just stares. The silence stretches too long.

  "You’ve tracked. You’ve watched. But you haven’t killed."

  He tosses a folded scrap of parchment at my feet. I pick it up.

  One name.

  Gav.

  The first face I saw when I landed in Deadreach. The first fist to break my ribs. He laughed while I starved.

  My hands tighten around the paper.

  "Kill him," Hooks says simply. "Do that—and you become Graymark."

  Then he walks away.

  No instructions. No guidance. Just blood and expectation.

  The game’s changed.

  This isn’t about survival anymore.

  It’s about what I’m becoming.

  ***

  Tracking Gav isn’t hard. He never cared who saw him. Still walks like Deadreach belongs to him. Still chews with his mouth open. Still struts around like someone owes him a crown, even as the street vendors roll their eyes behind his back.

  He’s surrounded by three others. Two of them I recognize. The first is that dead-eyed brute who kicked my chest in a year ago—stocky, scarred, still walking like he’s owed something. The second has a jagged ear and a twitchy left eye; he laughed while I bled. I remember them clearly.

  Their other one was probably dead. Killed by someone else in this hellhole. Maybe a Blessed. Maybe a gutter-boy with a sharper knife and less to lose.

  The new man is younger, leaner, and keeps glancing over his shoulder like he’s not sure he wants to be there.

  He wasn’t part of it. Not back then.

  I file that away.

  I follow close one night as they leave the alley. A small crowd moves between vendors and steaming carts—easy to disappear in. I've grown taller and leaner over the months, my body shaped by Hooks’ grueling regimen. Faster. Sharper. Built for slipping between cracks without being seen.

  I walk with them, careful, patient, sliding between bodies like smoke. When I reach Gav, I stumble just enough to sell the limp—lean in close, brush my fingers just under his shoulder blade. Fast and low, I retreat, hunched like some piss-soaked beggar scurrying from a kick.

  He doesn’t even blink.

  I learned after getting caught too many times that placing the mark where they won’t notice it right away works better. Shoulders. Lower back. Just beneath a collar—places easy to touch in passing, but not easy to check without stripping layers or turning your back to a mirror.

  That’s all it takes.

  The hum returns, low and steady, familiar, but different. It settles into my chest, a little heavier than before. Sharper, like it's bracing for something.

  I watch. Follow. Learn his habits.

  He drinks in the alley behind Grinwell’s. Always faces the street. Keeps his back to the wall. Smart. The others sit closer to the opening—bait or shield, maybe both.

  Gav talks a lot. That's all I need.

  "Another two crates came through. Titheboy’s skimming again, the prick," he says one night.

  They laugh. One spits ale into the mud.

  I don’t move yet. I wait. Let their patterns build.

  Night falls. Then another day. Then another.

  Hooks doesn’t ask why I haven’t returned. I think he already knows. This isn’t just about the kill.

  It’s about whether I can choose when to strike.

  ***

  Three days in, Gav peels off from the others. Heads toward the trade slope near the wall—no one around. I follow.

  He stops behind a gutted forge, unlatches a crate, and starts counting coin. I creep closer. Silent. Quick. Blade drawn.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I raise it, arm steady. A clean strike from behind. Easy.

  Then I stop.

  My breath catches in my throat. The weight of what I’m about to do settles behind my ribs. I’ve never killed before.

  He’s just a man. A monster in memory, but right now—just a man.

  And for one stupid second, I let that matter.

  But this is Deadreach. A city that eats hesitation. How many bodies have I stepped over? How many screams have I ignored? I’ve seen people stabbed over stale bread and torn apart for crossing the wrong alley. Mercy doesn’t live here.

  Not for them.

  Not for me.

  I grit my teeth, raise the blade—

  Too late.

  He moves with speed I didn’t expect. Drops low, spins away from the sound.

  "Who’s there?"

  Then he sees me and grins.

  "Oh," he says, voice thick with cruelty. "It’s the runt."

  Before I can react, he’s on me. Spins and backhands me into the wall. My shoulder cracks against stone.

  The others are close. I hear their boots pounding in.

  "Let’s gut him slow," one says. "Make it last."

  The hum spikes—louder, tighter, like it knows something I don’t.

  Gav moves fast—faster than he should. He ducks low, twists his shoulder, and my strike slides off target.

  He’s Answered.

  I spot it now: a faint glow beneath his eyes, subtle but unnatural. The skin there looks cleaner, tighter—too perfect for someone who lives in the dirt. Answered traits. Not enough to make him a legend, not enough to earn Zenith’s gates, but enough to make people pause.

  Weeks ago, I finally caught my reflection in a cracked mirror. Saw the only change the Calling gave me—misty silver eyes. That was it. No glow. No flawless skin. Just a flicker in my gaze, quiet and cold. And maybe that was worse.

  I dodge late. His boot clips my leg, sends me sprawling. Two more surround me. One lunges. I roll, grab his wrist, slam the knife into his thigh.

  Blood hits the dirt. He screams.

  Another grabs me from behind. I thrash, twisting, elbow catching nothing but air. My knife’s gone. My breath’s gone. Someone stomps my ribs—everything lights up white.

  I’m going to die here.

  I flail, hand catching cloth. Skin. I shove the mark into him out of desperation. Not strategy. Not intent. Just raw survival.

  And then—it hits.

  Like something snapping into place. A second heartbeat layered beneath my own. A rhythm not mine, guiding every twitch and breath. My nerves light up with theirs. I feel the strain in their muscles, the rise of panic, the anger behind their fists. One man’s leg coils—I shift without thinking, just before it lands.

  The Mark isn’t whispering.

  It’s steady—like a distant drumbeat, syncing me to the rhythm of the fight, one beat ahead of the next blow.

  I drop, roll. His foot slices air instead of bone. I don’t think. I react.

  Pain anchors me to the moment. My ribs scream with every breath. My arms are cut. One eye’s nearly swollen shut. The air stinks of blood and piss and fear—mostly mine.

  I stumble through chaos, ducking low. Fingers brush skin—another mark. Then another. My hands shake. Blood and dust sting my eyes. I reach out, searching, and my hand lands on cold steel. A knife half-buried in the mud—rusted, chipped, but still sharp. I snatch it up and push forward.

  The next one charges. His chest tightens. His weight shifts. I move first—twist sideways, jab the knife upward. He grunts, staggers, keeps coming.

  My knee slams into his, and something gives. He drops. I don’t wait. Mark the last. Muscles scream, lungs burn, but I keep moving.

  They punch. I flinch late. Catch the edge. Go down hard. Sand in my teeth. A boot comes for my head. I roll, barely missing it, and drive steel through a thigh. He howls.

  It’s brutal. Ugly. Nothing clean or precise. Just survival, teeth bared and instincts flaring.

  One by one, I mark. One by one, I move just fast enough, just low enough, just sharp enough.

  The one I just marked swings high. I duck and drive my shoulder into his gut. He stumbles. I pull a hidden blade from my boot and drag it across his thigh.

  Another grabs me from behind. I twist—not away, but into him. The motion comes before I even think. My blade meets his throat.

  The last one—Gav—charges.

  I slam my palm against his shoulder—fast, direct, deliberate. The hum spikes like lightning in my skull.

  He growls and braces. His skin ripples—tightens—just before I strike. I feel it in the Mark. Something locking up, hard as stone. My blade drags against his ribs like it hit chainmail. The impact still hurts him—but not enough.

  He swings. I duck. His elbow clips my shoulder, jarring it bad—but not breaking it.

  Then I catch his arm, pivot, and drive the blade into his side.

  He screams.

  The slope is mud and blood and slipping boots. Cuts line my arms, one by my ribs. I don’t remember when they hit. I barely stay upright.

  But I move. I survive.

  One by one, I take them down.

  When the last one falls still, I stumble back, soaked in blood and breathless.

  And I’m still alive.

  Gav crawls. One arm broken. One eye swollen shut.

  He coughs, blood on his lips. His mouth twists like he wants to speak—plead, maybe—but nothing comes out but a bitter, rattling breath.

  I step closer. Blade steady.

  Gav’s breath rattles through clenched teeth. His one good eye locks on mine.

  "Funny," I murmur. "You look smaller now."

  No last words. No mercy.

  I finish it.

  The hum fades.

  I stand there for a long moment, the blood cooling on my skin, my breath ragged in the dark. The bodies are still. The fight is over. But something in me hasn’t stopped moving.

  Boots crunch over gravel behind me.

  Hooks steps from the shadows, silent as smoke.

  His eyes scan the wreckage—then land on me.

  "Graymark," he says, voice low. "You’ve earned it."

  He walks a slow circle around the bodies, like he’s inspecting a butcher’s work.

  "You’re one of us now. A Hand of the Bishop. The blade that cuts what the light won’t touch."

  I don’t speak. Just meet his eyes.

  He nods once. "This city’s rotting. You’ll help clean it. Not with sermons. With steel. With silence. With fear."

  He pauses, then adds, "Rest. Clean up. You’ve got more work ahead."

  And just like that, he’s gone.

  When I get back to the safehouse, there’s a black cloak folded on my bed. Rough wool. Simple clasp. But unmistakable.

  On the back, stitched in near-black thread, is Bishop’s sigil—a hand curled into a fist, wrists split open, stylized to form jagged, bladed edges. Not from power—but from defiance. The slashed wrists represent the chains of Zenith’s control, broken and weaponized. It isn’t just a symbol of vengeance. It’s a promise that the wound becomes the blade.

  And I’m a part of it now.

  I stare at the cloak, fingers brushing the stitched symbol like it might vanish. The weight of everything presses in—the pain, the blood, the way Hooks said my name.

  Graymark.

  It doesn’t feel like a title.

  It feels like something buried in me finally surfaced. A truth I’d been circling for too long.

  I thought killing Gav would wreck me. That I’d feel the guilt crawl in and eat me hollow. That I’d hear his voice in my sleep or see his face every time I blinked.

  But I don’t.

  There’s no guilt. No sickness. No hesitation left.

  Just silence.

  And that’s the worst part.

  Because it means I’m already gone.

  Already shaped into what they wanted.

  Already Graymark.

  And when I pull the cloak over my shoulders, it doesn’t feel like a disguise.

  It feels like mine.