The Crown Prince's Poisoned Pawn

Jin Hao The rain fell over the capital, eighty stories above the ground. I crouched on a steel beam beneath the Celestial Spire, holding tightly to the cold metal as the wind pushed against me. Below, the city was covered in neon lights, magenta, cyan, and imperial gold. The sound of hover-transports filled the air. Cold rain ran down my face and touched the faint scar across my left ribcage. I ignored it. Pain was just a problem, and problems got shadow agents killed. I breathed out slowly and lowered my heart rate to thirty-eight beats per minute. The syndicate's implants helped control my breathing until my chest barely moved. Through my rain-covered face shield, I watched the glass window twenty feet away. My target was inside. Lord Zhao Wei, a senior broker for the Imperial Logistics Bureau. To the royal court, he was a respectable official who handled supplies for military camps. To the Lotus Syndicate, he was a black-market arms dealer who had just sold three crates of advanced explosives to an illegal syndicate group in the underground city. The contract didn't ask for a trial. It asked for silence. Four bodyguards stood around his room. Their jackets hid weapons. Every forty-five seconds, the air shield outside the room adjusted itself. For three seconds, the shield became seventy percent weaker. Three seconds. In my line of work, that was enough. I pressed the switch on my right wrist. A thin blade hidden under my skin slid into my hand without a sound. Ten seconds. I moved forward, carefully placing my feet on the narrow edge of the steel beam. Five seconds. The wind hit my face. I wiped the rain from the corner of my eye and looked straight at Zhao Wei. Three. Two. One. The blue air shield turned gray. I jumped. For a moment, I was falling. Then my shoes landed on the ledge outside the window. Before the window's alarm could react, I used my blade to cut a circle through the glass. I kicked the piece of glass inside and slipped through. The nearest guard didn't see me. Before he could turn, I grabbed his jaw and twisted hard. His neck snapped. His body went limp in my arms. I caught him and lowered him quietly onto the carpet. “What was that?” Zhao Wei asked. He didn't look up from his glass of wine. “I told you idiots to keep the balcony sealed. The rain is….” He never finished. I crossed the room in two steps. The second guard was still reaching for his weapon. I grabbed Zhao Wei's mouth with my left hand and covered it. At the same time, I drove my curved blade between his ribs and straight into his heart. His eyes went wide. He grabbed my arm and tried to pull himself free. A muffled sound came from behind my hand. I held him up until he stopped moving. I didn't feel happy about it. I didn't hate him either. That was the first lesson Master Bao-Chuan taught me in the syndicate. A blade doesn't choose who it cuts. It only obeys the hand that holds it. I pulled the blade from his chest and let his body fall onto the couch. Another name gone. Another person added to the list of people I'd killed. I was twenty-three years old. I had been trained to kill without hesitation. I could take a life as easily as I could please a wealthy client. But every time I saw blood on my hands, I wondered if I was becoming more like a machine than a man. I took an encrypted data drive from my pocket and plugged it into Zhao Wei's terminal. His private transaction records started downloading. 12%... 45%... 89%... Complete. I pulled out the drive and turned to leave. Then I noticed something under the glass table. A small leather folder. It was real paper. In an empire that used advanced technology for almost everything, important secrets were sometimes still kept on paper. I picked up the folder and slipped it inside my coat. Then I moved toward the broken window. Rain blew into the room, falling onto the blood on the carpet. I stepped onto the ledge and raised my hand to make my grappling line disappear into the storm.. BEEP. A sharp sound suddenly came through my earpiece. It wasn't the Lotus Syndicate's encrypted channel. It wasn't the local police frequency either. It was a high-frequency military signal. A channel used only by the Imperial Guards. My blood ran cold. I froze, my shoes balanced on the edge of the eighty-story drop. Slowly, I looked up through the heavy rain. A sleek, midnight-blue royal transport hovered silently in the clouds above me. Its windows were completely black, and the polished obsidian dragon crest of the Imperial Palace was painted across its armored front. It had been there the whole time. Watching me. Then a deep voice came through my comms. It passed through my security system as if it wasn't even there. "Flawless execution, Zephyr. Now... let's see if you can escape the trap I laid for you." My heart slammed against my ribs. Before I could jump from the ledge, a bright grid of red targeting lasers locked onto my chest.