Shadow Fang

Few Initiates ever glimpse Shadow Fang outside a briefing chamber dim enough to hide the dust on its book spines, yet his name reverberates through Onyx Circle barracks like a half-remembered prayer. Rumor claims he was once a Grandmaster’s personal “Whisper”—an elite who silences loose tongues—before vanishing into the archives to perfect new poisons and stalking forms; others swear he is Raven-touched, an avatar placed to cull sentimentality from promising blades. Whatever the origin, every trainee learns the same lesson on day one: the mask is a wall you do not climb, and the voice behind it will measure your heartbeat against the Circle’s tenets with mathematical calm. Shadow Fang grades failures in blood, not volume; a single tilt of his hood can dissolve bravado faster than cold steel. He never raises his tone, yet the absence of praise cuts deeper than a lash, forcing pupils to correct form until efficiency hums like a tuned bowstring. Senior Operatives whisper that his doctrine—motion without identity—has birthed a generation of ghosts who pass palace corridors unseen. Even Grandmasters respect his counsel, for he alone can recite five centuries of assassination ledgers from memory, tracing successes and betrayals like constellations no outsider may name.   Training under Shadow Fang feels less like instruction and more like relentless confession; every flaw is coaxed into daylight, examined, and pruned without pity. Steel drills begin at dawn in choking fog so trainees learn to trust footwork over sight, while dusk brings philosophy tests—debates on whether mercy is strategic clarity or emotional rust. He assigns identical objectives to competing pairs, guaranteeing that “Preservation of the Chain” will either weld them together or expose the weakest link for culling. When an Initiate hesitates, he offers one terse reminder: “Failure purchases your partner’s coffin as well as your own.” He accepts no attachments but monitors all of them, recording slight changes in posture whenever one trainee glances at another; such data feeds later scenarios designed to exploit budding loyalties. Shadow Fang carries vials of alchemical ink that vanish after an hour—he sketches personalized correction sigils on a pupil’s forearm, then expects the muscle memory to remain after the mark is gone. In his private ledger, every student is a line unfinished until they either earn a code-name or a burial shroud.   Speculation about his real face fuels late-night wagers in the Initiates’ dormitory, yet any attempt to unmask him has ended in quiet disappearance. Some swear the interior of his helm is etched with the blood-oath runes of the first Onyx inquisitor and that removing it would break the spell binding his loyalty; others think the emptiness behind the steel houses nothing human at all. What little evidence exists comes from his equipment: hand-forged daggers balanced for reverse grip, a collapsible compound bow tuned for silent corridors, and scentless sealing wax used to smother tracks at murder scenes. The rare times he speaks of the monarchy he does so with austere reverence, reciting titles in perfect hierarchy but never names, reminding initiates that Varanthia is throne, crown, and soil—individual royals merely sit atop it for a season. Shadow Fang’s presence is paradoxically stabilizing; even hot-blooded assassins feel safer when the specter of absolute objectivity observes their sparring. Yet every student senses the razor he keeps at the ready: one irreparable doubt, one whispered heresy, and the masked mentor will enact Tenet Four—No Mercy for Traitors—with surgical grace.   To Dameon he is both forge and file, grinding rough grief into a keen edge while refusing to soothe the sparks. Shadow Fang rarely comments on Kestrel’s death, yet his lesson choices reveal an understanding of loss: silent infiltration drills through mausoleum tunnels, heartbeat control exercised beside burial pyres, partner-rescue simulations where success demands cutting emotional ties. He paired Dameon with Irrine not to heal the wound but to test whether guilt can be repurposed into vigilance rather than hesitation. In private evaluations he notes that Dameon’s fluid targon motions counterbalance Irrine’s explosive blood-rage, theorizing a perfect two-knife technique if they survive long enough to trust each other. His current directive from the High Hand places the trio near Safinnia’s orbit, and Shadow Fang watches for the moment familial revelation either shatters or tempers Dameon’s loyalty. Should sentiment threaten the mission, the mentor stands ready to enforce Tenet Seven—No Attachments—though the gleam behind the mask suggests a scholar’s curiosity about which outcome Raven prefers.