The streets of Rifthold were slick with last night’s rain, gleaming like glass in the early light, but Sam Cortland moved through them like smoke, quiet, sure, unseen. Dawn had barely touched the sky, just a silver kiss behind the palace spires, and already the city hummed with the weight of secrets.

Above, the towering marble of the glass castle reflected the rising sun like a shard of judgment. Below, in the slums and alleyways of the capital’s belly, the scent of smoke and rot clung to every stone. This was a city built to dazzle kings and break anyone else.

Sam had known no other world. Adarlan had never offered him kindness, not as a boy scraping for bread, not as a blade-for-hire serving the King of Assassins.

He passed the spiked gates of a closed tavern and paused, eyes scanning rooftops out of habit. Somewhere behind him, a vendor rolled open a stall, spilling the scent of baking bread into the air. For one strange, fleeting second, he imagined a quieter life. A real one. With clean mornings, no blood on his hands, and someone beside him.

But this city didn’t give second chances.

Still, he adjusted the strap of the daggers across his back and pressed forward.

The mark was due to arrive at the docks before midnight, alone, unguarded, dressed like any other merchant slipping past curfew with forbidden goods. That’s what Sam had been told: an enemy of the crown, a traitor to Adarlan, someone who moved information and weapons between rebels in secret.

His job was to stop the message from reaching the border.

No witnesses. No mistakes.

He crouched in the shadows of an abandoned warehouse rooftop, the damp stone cold beneath his gloves. Moonlight turned the sea below to glass. The wind carried salt and smoke and the faint hiss of waves slapping the hulls of moored ships. Below him, footsteps echoed.

There. The mark, tall, cloaked, moving toward the pier with purpose.

Sam rose, silent as breath, calculating his descent. A clean strike, fast and bloodless if possible. He didn’t care about rebel politics, but he followed orders when they kept others safe. When they paid well enough to buy a future.

He moved.

But halfway down the stone wall, a scream tore through the quiet.

Female. Close.

Sam froze mid-descent. The mark glanced toward the sound, then back toward the ship. And ran.

Sam’s boots hit the ground in a low crouch. He should have followed. Should have chased, finished the job. But the scream came again, sharper now, choked by fear, and instinct dragged him sideways into the alley across the street. Two men had cornered a young woman against the rotting wall of a fish stall. Sam heard them hissing at her about coin. She struggled, one arm bloody, the other pinned behind her. Her eyes locked on Sam as he appeared, widening with something between hope and disbelief.

He didn't hesitate.

The first man never saw the elbow that cracked his jaw. The second went down harder, Sam’s knee to his gut and a hilt to the side of his head. Both slumped to the alley floor, groaning.

The woman gasped, clutching her arm.

Sam took a step forward. “You’re safe now,” he said softly. “Can you walk?”

She nodded, stunned, and as she staggered past him, Sam turned to glance back toward the docks.

Too late. The ship was gone. The mark had vanished into the dark, and with him, everything Sam had promised to deliver.

He exhaled, jaw tight.

He hadn’t made the wrong choice. But in Rifthold… mercy wasn’t free.