ChapterOne
AMIR
France 1761
Beneath the cloak of night, the rhythmic pounding of hooves against the hardened earth echoed like a haunting melody in my mind.The world had become a shadow-draped tapestry—fields lying dormant, villages silent, their shapes fading into the gloom.My men had gathered quickly, and beside me rode my steadfast companion, Moon Lee.We charged forward with unwavering determination, our hearts united by a single purpose—the utter annihilation of our enemy—the Timehunters.
Since I had razed Mathias’ school of darkness and cast aside the vile demon Balthazar, I had become the blade of Lazarus’ will—his wrath given human form.My men and I were more than exiles of Solaris; we were executioners, hunting Timehunters with the cold precision of a storm, wiping their taint from history.
We had been relentless.We had scorched the Timehunter society of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, dismantled their stronghold in the Russian Empire, and shattered their influence in the Habsburg Monarchy.The Kingdom of Prussia had fallen at our hands; its Eastern Realm societies were ruined, and every trace of their corruption was purged brutally.
Now, our sights were set upon France.
“France is next,” I declared, my voice cutting through the night like the edge of a blade.My men, their silhouettes merging with the darkness, nodded in silent agreement.
Ahead, the city lights of Paris shimmered like stars scattered across the earth, a beacon of civilization and power.Gone were the days of the modest Parisi settlement and the subdued Lutetia of Rome’s conquest.Now, it was a city reborn, the crowning jewel of the Age of Enlightenment, where philosophers and scientists sculpted the world with ideas as intricate as the opulent architecture that clawed toward the heavens.
Yet beneath that splendor lurked the rot of unchecked ambition—narrow streets choked with refuse, the air thick with the stench of unwashed bodies and festering waste.Overcrowded tenements pressed against the city’s gilded heart, a stark reminder that enlightenment did not banish squalor, only masked it.And within this paradox, hidden among the grand avenues and labyrinthine alleyways, lay our quarry—the Timehunters of France.
“Le Manoir de la Rivière, 14 Rue des Cygnes, Île Saint-Louis.”The address was carved into my memory, another mark in a long ledger of doomed sanctuaries.Île Saint-Louis, a bastion of affluence amidst the city’s decay, harbored the festering core of Timehunter influence.The grand townhouses lining its quiet streets stood as monuments to their wealth, their facades gleaming with self-importance, oblivious to the ruin we carried in our wake.
“Prepare yourselves,” I commanded, my voice low but tinged with finality.Another society would fall tonight.Another stain on the world would be wiped clean.
We moved like shadows, slipping through the silent streets, the hush of our advance mirroring the tension thrumming in my veins.The moon, a sliver of silver in the void, cast just enough light to glint off the steel at our sides.I pulled the mask over my face with muscle memory—The Black Wraith made flesh.This was more than mere cloth.It was bone.Vengeance sculpted into a grin.
The surface was a dead white, fractured with fine cracks like veins of old rage.Each line told a story—every failure, every betrayal etched into its design.The eye sockets were deep, hollow voids that swallowed light and mercy alike.No reflection, no soul—just silence.
The nasal bridge was narrow and cruel, and the cheekbones jutted out like knives.The jaw, hinged and hidden, moved if I needed it to—but mostly, I didn’t.I let the mask speak for me.And when I did open it, the sound that came through wasn’t a voice anymore.It was a ghost.A weapon.
The grin—always there, and cruel—was the final insult.Jagged teeth curled upward in a frozen sneer, as if daring the world to try and soften me.
It wasn’t just a disguise.
It was who I became when the man inside wasn’t enough.
With the mask on, there was no Amir.No doubt.No mercy.
To the Timehunters, I was not just a man.I was an omen—a harbinger of reckoning.
Only the Wraith.
The monster they whispered about in firelit corners.
The shadow they prayed never turned its gaze their way.
And tonight…
They would remember why.
Le Manoir de la Rivière loomed before us; its grandeur muted beneath the velvet shroud of night.Its towering facade, statuesque and imposing, should have pulsed with life—the hum of conversation, the distant strains of music, the flicker of candlelit debauchery behind gilded windows.But tonight, there was only silence.No light.No revelry.Just the hollow stillness of something unnatural.
“Something is wrong.”The words slipped from my lips, barely a whisper—yet they fractured the quiet with chilling finality.
We dismounted, every movement measured, every breath controlled.The mist creeping in from the Seine curled around our steeds, shrouding them in eerie stillness.The absence of movement—the lack of servants, of watchful eyes behind drawn curtains—unnerved the most hardened among us.The manor should have been alive with the murmurs of a clandestine gathering.Instead, it stood cold and waiting, like a beast already feasted.
The air itself seemed to tighten around us.
Something was waiting inside.
