Abandoned opera house. Midnight—where even the moon seemed to mourn.

The theater was long-dead—its crimson curtains moth-eaten, its marble fractured like old bone. The chandeliers hung lifeless above, their crystals swaying to the ghost-breath of the wind.

At the center of the stage knelt a man—bloody, trembling, bound by tendrils of living shadow that writhed around his limbs like serpents thirsting for vengeance.

He was not just a criminal. He was a monster in the skin of kin.

And before him stood the city’s whispering myth. Lucien Valeblanc. The Velvet Executioner. The blade veiled in silk, the judgment born of shadow.

Draped in a coat of midnight velvet, trimmed with tarnished silver, he stood motionless—like death given posture. The brim of his hat shrouded his eyes, but not the dread that leaked from his very presence.

The man sobbed. Pathetic. Hollow.

“Please… please, I never meant to—She’s my blood, my niece. I was drunk—”

Lucien’s voice cut through the air like frostbite on flesh.

"Spare me the feeble litany of a coward."

His tone was low. Eloquent. Laced with ice.

"You drank not of wine, but of power unearned. And in your hands, that power birthed ruin. She was a child—flesh of your flesh—and yet, you defiled her sanctuary."

Lucien stepped forward. His gloved hand raised a single black card, its surface glinting with arcane etchings.

"In the eyes of your god, you may pray. But in mine..."

He lowered the card before the man’s face. It pulsed. A heartbeat of wrath.

"You are but carrion cloaked in flesh."

He flicked it.

A whisper of wind—and then, the card embedded itself into the man’s chest.

There was no scream. Only the sound of shadows splitting skin, of sins being exhaled. Black mist erupted from the wound—shapes writhing, distorted faces howling with every atrocity the man buried beneath silence.

He died as he lived: filthy and afraid.

Then—a breath caught in the air.

Lucien turned.

A figure stood behind the shattered curtain.

She. Eighteen winters. Barely grown, yet already broken.

Wrapped in an oversized coat, arms trembling—not from cold, but from the violence of truth.

Their eyes met.

She had heard the rumors—the executioner who left no trace but a card, a corpse, and silence. A myth in the mouths of beggars and kings.

Now he stood before her. Real. Breathing. Terrible.

Lucien approached, steps silent as regret.

He knelt, removing his hat, revealing a face carved from moonlight and mourning. Gently, he placed a single card at her feet.

Black as a void.

Etched in silver script, ornate and solemn:

"Justice."

He spoke one last time, voice heavy as fate:

"Speak not my name. Whisper not what you’ve seen. This night belongs to shadows… and to the silence that follows justice."

And like smoke fleeing a dying flame, Lucien Valeblanc vanished.

Not a step. Not a sound. Just absence.

But the girl… the girl remained.

And though her soul was fractured, her voice returned—quiet, raw, but alive.