Prolog
He was born into silence.
Not real silence, there were cries at night, wind in the roof but the kind of silence you feel when no one notices you're there.No one remembered giving him a name.Not even the woman who left him at the monastery gates.Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to.He was one of those kids who just... showed up. No story, no reason.
The monks took him in, like they sometimes did.He wasn’t the first. He wouldn’t be the last.The king didn’t see kids like him as lost.He saw them as tools. At some point , he didn’t remember when, he was taken to a place called the Chamber of Shadows.Not many knew it was real. Even fewer came back from it. They didn’t raise boys there.They broke them, and made something new. Something sharper. Quieter. The past didn’t matter there. Names were taken away. You either changed, or you disappeared.
He was small, but fast. He watched everything. He almost never spoke.He didn’t live through the early tests because he was strong. He lived because he was scared.His body felt pain before comfort.His hands learned to kill before they learned to shake hands.
When he was fourteen, the king asked for him.No big welcome, no ceremony.Just a message. And a task.A family near the border had gone against the king.The order was simple: no one survives.He left before sunrise, a sword hidden in his cloaklike a secret he didn’t want to share.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that means something bad happened. Or is about to. He didn’t stop. That’s what he was trained for. The men died first. Then the women. Then, a child who was running toward him. Arms open and trusting. He didn’t think. Just moved.Like always. Until... In the corner. A girl much younger than him, with mud on her face. She had tears, but no sound. She didn’t scream. Just stared.
He lifted the sword and stopped.He didn’t know why. Couldn’t explain it, but something inside him said no. She was just a kid. Like he had been, before all this.He put down the sword.
“Run,” he said.
She didn’t move at first.Then, slowly, she ran.He stayed there,alone with the silence.But this time, it felt heavier. Different.And for the first time in his life,he had a thought he didn’t know what to do with:
Who the hell am I?
