The Poisoned Edge

It feels different when you’re not working alone.

With SI:7, I had always been a tool, useful, replaceable, kept at arm’s length. Here, the two men beside me didn’t treat me like disposable assets. They moved like they expected me to keep up, but also like they’d have my back if I didn’t.

The first job they gave me after I joined was simple on paper. I was to slip into a Syndicate cache near Durnholde, burn what we could, and leave before anyone noticed. Two others went with me. Neither of them talked much, and I didn’t push. That was fine. I was still learning how they moved, how they thought.

We got in clean. Got out cleaner.

It was on the way back that it happened. A single arrow from the treeline. I felt it punch through the meat of my left arm and kept running. Only when we were clear did I look down and see the dark, oily sheen on the fletching.

They cleaned it at the manor. Told me it was nothing serious. Just a flesh wound. I believed them because I wanted to.

Two days later the arm was hot and swollen. The edges of the cut had turned an ugly purple. I told myself it would pass. It didn’t.