Author's Preface
Dictor nodded lazily, accepting the guard's salute. "Okay."
The guard reached into the breast pocket of his dark uniform, retrieved a sleek black card, and handed it respectfully to the marksman. Dictor took it without a word and pulled the heavy carriage door shut.
Agastya frowned, his sharp eyes instantly catching sight of the card in Dictor’s black-gloved hand. Printed on the matte surface was a perfect, passport-sized image of his own face.
"What is that?" Agastya asked.
"It is your official identity card," Dictor said, tossing it across the carriage.
Agastya caught it. The card was heavier than it looked, forged from a thin plate of cool, dark metal rather than paper or plastic. Alongside his photo, it bore the name Astragan Rui nheart , a string of encrypted numerical details, and a high-clearance license ID.
"Congratulations," Dictor grinned. "You officially work for the Bureau of Investigation now."
With the paperwork secured, the carriage lurched forward once more, its Aetheric engine humming as they finally began the long descent away from the towering library of the Upper Wards.
As they moved toward the lower elevations of the city, the weather began to turn. A thick, biting winter fog started to roll in from the streets. It clung to the cobblestones and swirled around the carriage wheels, wrapping the morning sun in a suffocating grey haze. The light struggling to reach the city was weak and pale.
Inside the carriage, the temperature dropped noticeably.
"Doesn't it feel a little cool right now?" Dictor asked, leaning back and crossing his long legs.
"Hmm," Agastya replied with a single, distracted nod.
He was staring out the tinted window, watching the luxurious carriages and heavily bundled nobles blur past. But he wasn't really seeing them. His mind was already turning gears, calculating his next move. With his Vanguard stipend, he was going to buy a house, or rather, choose a secure estate where his new family could actually live safely.
Looking at the creeping frost on the windowpane, Agastya remembered the crumbling, drafty bakery he had woken up in. He could vividly imagine how Elara must have suffered living in the small house during the bitter winter months. Poverty was a ruthless executioner; it forced a person to either challenge the lethal weather and die or struggle agonisingly just to survive another night.
Living had never been easy for the baker’s fragile family. But now that Agastya, an apex assassin, had inherited this life, everything was going to change. He didn't just want to survive. He wanted to give Elara and her family a quiet, comfortable, and perfectly secure life, far away from the freezing slums.
And the reason he wanted to protect them was terrifyingly simple: they had called him family.
Only a man who had lived his entire previous life in the cold isolation of an assassin could truly comprehend the staggering weight of that word. Those born into the warmth of a home rarely understand its true value, taking it for granted. But to a hollow shell of a man, it was a treasure worth killing for.
The carriage descended further, the smooth cobblestones giving way to the cracked, uneven streets of the Lower Wards — the industrial outer ring of the sprawling city. As they entered the slums, the ambient temperature plummeted.
The sleek carriage finally rolled to a halt in front of the cramped, familiar silhouette of Astragan’s house.
Dictor reached over and slowly pushed the heavy door open. Instantly, the fog.
Before Agastya could step out, Dictor held up a black-gloved hand. "Wait a minute."
The marksman reached inside his long coat, withdrawing two thick, unmarked envelopes from an inner pocket near his waist. He handed them across the carriage.
"Your initial stipend," Dictor explained casually. "One envelope contains your signing bonus of fifteen hundred Elartraum. The second contains your first month's operational advance of three hundred. With this, you can buy a highly secure estate up in the Upper Wards. Get your family out of this freezing rot."
Agastya looked at the thick envelopes, a genuine flicker of appreciation in his eyes. He nodded respectfully, slipping the immense fortune into his coat pocket before stepping down from the warm carriage and onto the freezing, soot-stained street.
The massive, Aether-enhanced horses snorted loudly, their hot breath pluming in the icy air as they prepared to move.
"0900 hours at the Bureau of Investigation tomorrow, rookie!" Dictor called out from the shadows of the cabin, flashing his trademark grin. "Don't be late!"
With a solid thud , Dictor pulled the carriage door shut. The vehicle surged forward, disappearing into the thick winter fog and leaving Agastya standing alone in front of his home.
Agastya stepped up to the weathered wooden door of the house. The street outside was already growing dim, the weak winter sun rapidly fading behind the thick, smoggy fog of the Lower Wards. He reached out and knocked softly on the wood.
Almost immediately, the rapid padding of footsteps echoed from the other side. The heavy iron deadbolt slid back with a sharp clack, and the door was pulled open.
His younger sister, Elara, stood in the doorway. She was wrapped tightly in a thick shawl, her eyes wide and anxious. The moment she saw him standing on the threshold, a massive wave of relief washed over her face.
"Brother?" she breathed, her sweet voice trembling slightly.
Before he could answer, she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the house, quickly shutting the cold out behind them.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Elara demanded, her relief quickly shifting into frantic scolding. "It's already past four in the afternoon! You never opened the shop. When I went out and asked the neighbours, they said you were arrested and dragged away by government men!"
She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. "Did something happen? You can tell me, big brother. Or tell Dad, or our second brother."
Agastya smiled inwardly, perfectly masking the cold, calculating mind of an assassin behind the warm, reassuring expression of an older brother.
"No, nothing happened, Elara," Agastya lied smoothly, reaching out to gently pat her head. "It was just a minor, routine inspection regarding my permits. Nothing more. By the way, where is everyone else?"
Elara blinked, letting out a frustrated sigh. "Ah! They went down to the local police station hours ago to look for you, and they haven't come back yet. Didn't you cross paths with them on the way home?"
Agastya kept his gentle smile plastered on his face, though internally, he was already calculating the logistics of the headache he had just inherited. ‘How could I possibly cross paths with them, he thought dryly, when I was locked in a classified, subterranean Vanguard bunker fighting a supernatural operative?’
The adrenaline of the fight was completely gone, leaving only the bone-deep exhaustion of a man who had lived through two different lifetimes in a single day.
Agastya tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling, and let out a long, impossibly heavy sigh. "No, Elara... I didn't see them."
Before Agastya could formulate a plan to go out and track down his missing father and brother, a low, rhythmic thrumming vibrated through the floorboards of the house. It was followed by the sharp, heavy clatter of iron-shod hooves against the cobblestone street.
Elara jumped, her anxiety instantly flaring back to life. She darted past him and hurried to the frost-rimmed window, anxiously rubbing away the condensation to peer out into the freezing winter fog. Her breath hitched.
Agastya stepped up behind her, his eyes narrowing as he looked out into the gloom.
Parting through the thick, smoggy mist was another sleek, black carriage. It rolled to a smooth, calculated halt directly in front of their small, crumbling shop. Agastya recognised the chassis and the faint blue glow of the engine immediately. It was identical in every single detail to the Vanguard transport that had dropped him off less than two minutes ago.
Agastya frowned, his muscles subconsciously tensing as his hand drifted toward the pocket holding his new spatial ring.
"Why would Dictor come back?" Agastya muttered under his breath.