Once alone again, he sat at the edge of his bed. From the inner lining of his coat, he drew the sealed commission of the Black Envoys.
He harbored no illusions about his situation, nor the cost of bearing sins without protection within the clan. Death often followed. And for an orphan like him—rumored to have murdered both his adoptive and birth parents—the process became all the simpler.
Parents. Guardians. Powerful mentors.
Those rare figures who somehow survived within a clan where death was commonplace formed a wall between a cub and the Council: voices capable of securing protection—or arranging quiet erasure—for young Mantle-Bearers still bound to the Black Envoy commission system.
Being an orphan did not automatically condemn one to hardship.
But it became something else entirely when you were an orphan with the potential to rival another's prospective asset.
Then life grew difficult.
The odds bent against you.
Your "assignment" became, in all but name, a death sentence.
That was the reality they sanitized. Hopeful cadets were fed the lie that assignments reflected specialized fields of study, that merit alone determined fate—not the interests of those powerful enough to shape it.
Not that Chion particularly cared.
He simply found it fascinating.
He broke the seal.
****************
BLACK ENVOY COMMISSION
Issued Under Joint Authority
Envoy Decree
Division: Blade
Cadet Designation: Mantle XVIII
Name: Chion Nyxvalis
Assignment Codename: The Red Rising Incident
Operational Theatre
Region: Oravia — Southern Continent
Political Status: Allied State of Lecrocia
Province: Veldro Province, Central District
Operational Radius: 500 kilometres along the Southern Tide Coast
Time Allocation
Six (6) Moons.
No extensions shall be granted.
Situation Brief
The allied trade state of Lecrocia has entered a state of critical civil collapse.
Three confirmed Dragon-Blooded Warlords, self-styled as The Red Rising, have:
Executed a coordinated military coup within the capital.
Eliminated or displaced the ruling authority.
Razed surrounding farmlands and population centers.
Established maritime and terrestrial blockades rendering 30% of the Southern Coastline impassable.
Severely disrupted imperial trade routes and regional stability.
Imperial response through conventional means has been deemed politically nonviable at this time.
Mandate
Cadet Chion Nyxvalis is hereby tasked with the following objectives:
Locate and extract any surviving members of the Lecrocian Royal Line currently in concealment within state borders.
Mount and execute an independent campaign resulting in the total dissolution of the ongoing civil war.
Neutralize all three Dragon-Blooded Warlords of the Red Rising.
Deliver the severed heads of said warlords to the Imperial Capital of Meridia — The Knightage, God's Division, First Quanta — for formal assessment and record.
Failure to complete any listed objective shall constitute mission failure.
Rules of Engagement
Cadet is authorized unrestricted operational discretion.
Collateral damage is permissible where deemed necessary.
No reinforcements shall be provided.
No extraction shall be authorized prior to mandate completion.
Final Clause
This commission is issued in full accordance with the laws governing the Exodus Trial.
Return is permitted only upon fulfillment of mandate conditions.
By Seal of Authority
Primarch Seal I — Selerian Imperium
Primarch Seal II — Nyxvalis High Council
Seal of the Knightage, God's Division—
Sarian Lee Selerian VII
**************
Chion let out a slow breath of resignation. The cogs of thought turned quietly behind his eyes. A suicide assignment in everything but name. Minimal intelligence. The furthest operational distance imaginable. Enemies biologically designed to slaughter Highbloods.
Still… he had a net. Or at least, he believed he did.
From what he vaguely understood of the upheaval simmering at the highest levels of the Vale since the Ascension — when only forty-seven of them had emerged alive — the Patriarch, despite his grand speech of shame and doom, had ordered several quiet measures to preserve the young. The clearest sign had been the Primarch Heads themselves. All had left displeased, their Commissions rejected openly. Any proposal that carried even the scent of foul play had been sent back in the same hands that brought it into the Vale.
The only true victor had been the Emperor. Unlike the others, his Envoys' Commissions were protected by ancient law, granting him ten souls regardless of the task. Chion's best guess was simple enough: the Council had sent both their finest and their most despised into Seleria.
That was enough. He could work with those two conditions.
Use the condemned to survive Seleria. Rely on the Patriarch's hidden hand to keep rogue hunters restrained long enough for him to become a ghost.
But how?
How was he supposed to utilize tools he could not identify? How would he cross imperial borders, traverse the open ocean, stop a war he knew nothing about, and then return to Seleria carrying trophies without being quietly erased halfway through?
His mind turned the problem over again. And again.
Too many variables. Too many clever assumptions. Too many what-ifs. Nothing solid held.
A soft exhale escaped him.
How unnerving. For a moment, he allowed himself the thought: perhaps the old man's runts had been right. Perhaps karma truly did stalk evil men.
He frowned at the thought and dismissed it immediately. No. He was simply reaching beyond his grasp.
His focus shifted to tomorrow.
He rolled the scroll with care and slid it back into the folds of his cloak. Its weight pressed against him beneath practiced composure, set aside until the moment it truly mattered.
Then his gaze settled on Viren.
He had to die. His blood needed to soak the Vale's cold obsidian floors long before Chion ever departed for the Trial.
Viren would become the spark — the why — that forced the Council and his countless self-declared enemies to treat him according to the Clan's ancient standards: cautious reprisals, indirect warfare, endless plots recycled across millennia.
What he needed now was precision. To crystallize the exact conditions required.
His fingers tapped lightly against his chin as he began drafting the script in his mind — the argument he would use to rip those conditions from the Council itself.
An hour, maybe two, and it all came together. Perfect. He was ready to play their game. To see how far precedent, law, and shallow schemes could stand against absolute certainty.
With nothing left but time to decide, he allowed the gears of his mind to settle. And just as the righteous drifted into sleep believing the world would remain as it was, so too did he.
Knowing full well that it would not.