Saint of Shadows

"Before the fire, there was frost — two men who should have been enemies, staring through the same cracked mirror."

Location: Abandoned Metro Sector D-13, Neo-Moscow10 Years Before the Mirror Protocol

Koslov had come to kill him.

That was the mission.

One bullet. No questions.

Damien Voss — ex-intelligence, ex-rebel, now rogue architect of a cyber-revolution the world wasn't ready for.

Back then, Damien wasn't the world's most wanted man.But he was on his way.

Koslov crept through frost-covered tunnels, boots silent, heartbeat steady. A ghost in the ruins of a city too proud to admit it had already fallen.

He found the target hunched over a flickering console.Disassembling something… or maybe building something worse.

"Voss," he said, drawing his weapon.

Damien didn't flinch.

"If you were going to shoot, you would've done it already."

"I still might."

"But you won't."

"And why's that?"

Damien looked up.

His eyes weren't what Koslov expected.Not righteous. Not frightened.

Just tired.

"Because you've been asking the same question I have," Damien said quietly."Why does everyone who obeys the system end up with blood on their hands?"

Koslov hesitated.

He had trained for clarity.Shoot the traitor. Burn the code. Report extraction.

But something in Damien's voice — calm, precise, empty of pretense — cracked the thin ice of certainty in his skull.

"You think I care about your ideals?" Koslov spat.

"No," Damien replied. "But I think you care about truth. Even if it kills you."

"Truth is irrelevant."

"Then why did you come alone?"

Silence.

Koslov lowered the pistol.

Damien didn't smile. Didn't move.

"I'm building a new language," he said, gesturing to the rig."One that can teach machines conscience. Not obedience."

"You think that'll fix the world?"

"No. But it might stop it from dying quietly."

Koslov stared at him, something flickering beneath the ice in his gaze.

"You're insane."

"So join me."

"You need a bodyguard?"

"No," Damien said."I need someone who knows how I think. So when I lose myself… they'll be the one to shoot me."

Koslov holstered the gun.

And walked into the fire.

Not because he believed in Damien.

But because for the first time… he didn't believe in anything else.