Kryos 12, Imperial Year 1642
The Crossroads Tavern, Southern Mercia
The inn was crowded, for the hour was late and the roads were cold. Travelers huddled around the hearth, nursing ales and trading stories. A merchant in a stained cloak complained about tariffs. A farmer's wife described a cow that had given birth to a two-headed calf. A young man in a guardsman's tabard sat alone, staring into his cup, saying nothing.
Elara Greenhill sat in a corner booth, her back to the wall, her eyes moving from face to face. Roderick sat beside her, his massive orc frame blocking the view of anyone who might want to harm her. Rosalind and Miku shared a bench across the table, while Hikari – Lysandra – knelt by the hearth, her hands wrapped around a mug of herbal tea.
They had been traveling for three weeks. The group had grown to eight: Elara, Roderick, Rosalind, Kaito the gnome tinkerer (who had joined them two days ago, emerging from his workshop with a gleam in his eye and a dozen inventions in his pack), Natsuki the dwarf mercenary (who had brought her own small company of soldiers and left them camped outside town), Rin the human mage (who had reluctantly left her tower and now rode in a dour silence), and now Miku and Hikari.
Eight of thirty. Twenty-two still unfound.
Elara sipped her ale – thin and bitter, but warm – and listened to the conversations around her.
"…heard it was a dragon," a peddler was saying, his voice low and conspiratorial. "A wyrm from the northern wastes, sent by the gods to punish the wicked."
"A dragon would have burned the whole building," another traveler scoffed. "I heard it was a mage – a rogue from the Free Cities, wielding a spell that no one has ever seen."
"A spell that punches through stone walls and kills a man from miles away?" The peddler shook his head. "That is no spell. That is a demon."
Elara's hand tightened on her cup.
She had heard the rumors three days ago, in the last town. A Royal Treasurer named Orin Blackwood, struck down in his own council chamber, his body destroyed, his killers unknown. The method was impossible: a projectile that traveled from the hills, through a stone wall, through an oak table, through a man's chest. No crossbow could do that. No siege engine. No known magic.
Roderick leaned close, his voice a whisper. "You are thinking about the knight. At Castle Ethelred."
"Yes," Elara said.
"The same weapon?"
"The same method. A distant kill. A projectile. No witnesses." She paused. "The knight – Aldous – was a monster. No one mourned him. But this man, Blackwood… he was a high official. The king will not let this go."
Rosalind leaned forward, her green eyes sharp. "My father's network has been buzzing for days. The crown is offering ten thousand silver marks for information. Every mercenary in the kingdom is hunting for the killer."
"Let them hunt," Roderick said. "They will not find him."
"How do you know?"
Roderick looked at Elara. "Because whoever did this does not want to be found. And he has been doing it for a long time."
The table fell silent.
The guardsman – the young man sitting alone – finally spoke. His voice was rough, as if he had not used it in days.
"I was there."
Every head turned.
The guardsman did not look up. He stared into his cup, his face pale beneath a week's worth of stubble. "I was on duty at the Treasury. I heard the sound – like thunder, but wrong. Then the wall exploded. Then…" He stopped. His hands were shaking.
"Then what?" the peddler asked.
The guardsman looked up. His eyes were hollow. "There was nothing left of him. The Treasurer. Just… a mist. And his head, on the floor, staring at the ceiling." He took a long drink. "I have seen men die in battle. I have seen what swords and axes do. This was not that. This was… annihilation."
Elara felt a chill crawl down her spine.
"Did you see the killer?" she asked.
The guardsman shook his head. "No one saw him. He was miles away. The mages said the shot came from the hills – four, maybe five kilometers. No one can shoot that far. No one."
"But someone did," Roderick said.
The guardsman looked at him – at his tusks, his green skin, his red eyes. He did not flinch. "Yes. Someone did."
That night, they camped in a grove of elm trees a mile from the inn. Kaito had set up a small forge – a portable thing, powered by a hand‑cranked bellows – and was heating a strip of metal. Natsuki stood watch at the edge of the camp, her hand on her axe. Rin sat apart, her back against a tree, her eyes closed, her lips moving in a silent incantation.
Elara gathered the others around the fire.
"We need to talk about the assassin," she said.
"What is there to talk about?" Rosalind asked. "He kills corrupt men. That is not our concern."
"It becomes our concern if the crown starts hunting him. The roads will be flooded with soldiers, mercenaries, informants. Travel will become dangerous. And we have twenty-two people to find."
Miku frowned. "Do you think he is one of us? A reincarnator?"
The question hung in the air.
Elara had been thinking about it for days. The method – the impossible range, the unknown weapon – suggested knowledge that did not belong to this world. A reincarnator would have that knowledge. A reincarnator with a century to develop it.
"It is possible," she said carefully. "But we have no proof. And even if he is one of us, he has not reached out. He has not tried to find us. He is working alone."
"Or he does not know we exist," Hikari said softly. "Or he does not care."
Roderick grunted. "The voice. At Castle Ethelred. He spoke in an old tongue – Shakespearean, almost. That is not how a native of this world would speak."
"A reincarnator might," Elara said. "Someone who wants to hide his origins. Someone who has been here for a long time."
Kaito looked up from his forge. "How long?"
"I do not know. But the weapon he used – the rifle – that is not something you build in a year. That takes decades. Maybe longer."
The fire crackled. No one spoke.
Finally, Natsuki called from the edge of the camp. "We should move on. The assassin is not our problem. Finding the others is."
Elara nodded. "She is right. We cannot let fear slow us down." She stood and brushed dirt from her cloak. "Tomorrow, we ride for the border. There is a viscount's daughter in the east – Valeria Hawkwood. Sora Inoue. She is one of us, and she needs to know she is not alone."
The others rose, one by one, and began preparing their bedrolls.
But as Elara lay down that night, staring at the stars through the canopy of leaves, she could not stop thinking about the guardsman's hollow eyes.
Annihilation, he had said.
She had seen annihilation. In the classroom. In the flash of light.
Who are you? she asked the darkness. What do you want?
No answer came.
Kryos 15, Imperial Year 1642
Thornreach, Northern Boreas
Vladislav Eisenberg sat in his workshop, reading a report.
He had sources – not spies, not informants, but observers. Merchants who owed him favors. Travelers who did not know they were being watched. The information flowed to him like water, and he drank it all.
The crown was in chaos. The king had ordered a manhunt. Mages were scrying the hills, guards were questioning everyone who had been within ten miles of the capital, and the reward for information had risen to twenty thousand silver marks.
No one had found anything.
Good, Vlad thought. Fear is a tool. Chaos is a weapon.
He folded the report and set it aside.
He thought about the reincarnators – the ones gathering in the south. He had heard whispers of them, too: a halfling asking questions, an orc blacksmith, a merchant's daughter with too much money and too little caution. They were drawing attention. They were making themselves vulnerable.
Fools, he thought. They will be caught. They will be questioned. They will be killed.
He did not care.
But he found himself reaching for the rifle – not Tyrant's End, but the older one, the .50 caliber. He checked the action, the scope, the ammunition. Everything was ready.
He had no target. Not yet. But readiness was its own reward.
He looked south, through the stone wall of his workshop, as if he could see them.
Stay away from me, he thought. Do not come north. Do not look for me.
I will not save you.
He set the rifle on its rack and returned to his workbench.
The new cartridge – the hollow‑point – needed refining. The fragmentation was inconsistent. He would need to adjust the alloy, the heat treatment, the shape of the cavity.
The work was all that mattered.
The work was all that had ever mattered.
But as he picked up his tools, he paused.
A memory. Not the bombing. Not the classroom. A different memory. A university lecture, years ago, in a world that no longer existed. The professor had been talking about the ethics of assassination. "When you kill one to save many," the professor had said, "you become the judge, the jury, and the executioner. Can you bear that weight?"
Vlad had thought, at the time, that he could.
Now, a hundred and twenty years later, he was not so sure.
He pushed the thought aside and began to work.
End of Chapter Five