The Widow's Son (A Guild of Assassins story)

In Nordturm's foggy streets, even assassins have antique shops—and Soren's newest customer has a peculiar request: kill a man already sentenced to die...

Apr 12, 2025

The gallery still smelled of stone dust.

Six months had passed since Soren had taken over Kurgan’s workshop, yet the scent clung to the corners, a stubborn reminder that would neither fade nor strengthen.

Like memory, it simply persisted.

He polished the marble bust beneath his hands, fingers working with precision across a chip in the left cheek. The morning fog pressed against the windows, transforming Nordturm into a city of ghosts beyond the glass.

Inside, lamps burned steady against the gloom.

When the bell above the door chimed, he didn’t look up. “The shop doesn’t open for another hour.”

“I’m not here to shop.” The voice carried the unnatural smoothness he’d come to recognise.

Soren raised his head. Dienerin landed before him, folding in her wings.

“It’s been some time,” he said, setting down his polishing cloth.

“The Guild sends its regards.” Her words carried no warmth. “And a contract.”

She approached the counter with fluid grace, sliding a sealed envelope across the polished wood. The wax seal bore the crest of House Varn—an oak tree with roots exposed, its branches laden with coins instead of leaves.

“Lady Larissa Varn requires your services.”

Soren took the envelope, breaking the seal. The parchment inside was heavy, expensive, the ink a deep black that spoke of quality. “A hanging in three days,” he read. “Tomas Ell, convicted of murdering her son.”

“Why hire an assassin for a man already sentenced to die?”

Dienerin’s lips curved into something approximating a smile. “That is neither here nor there.”

The rest of the letter detailed payment—ten-thousand Krones on acceptance, a further ten-thousand on completion.

“Does she know who I am?”

“She knows what you are.” Dienerin moved towards the door. “That is sufficient.”

The bell chimed again as she left, and the gallery returned to silence.

Soren studied the letter once more. No explanation. No negotiation. Just a name, a prison cell, and a deadline.

He folded the parchment and tucked it into his tunic.

Outside, the fog began to lift.

The prison quarter stank of piss. Guard towers rose like skeletal fingers above the walls, their tips lost in the lingering mist. The cobblestones beneath Soren’s boots were slick with something he chose not to examine too closely.

At the iron gates, he presented forged papers identifying himself as an antiquities surveyor. “I’ve heard Warden Koll maintains a collection of historical implements,” he explained to the guard. “I’m conducting a survey for the Historical Society.”

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “Implements?”

“Torture devices.” Soren kept his expression neutral. “Their historical significance—”

“Right.” The guard cut him off with a wave. “Can’t imagine why anyone would care about rusted old thumbscrews, but it’s not my business what the fancy folk find interesting.”

The guard led Soren through corridors that grew narrower and damper with each turning. Rats scurried along the seams where wall met floor.

In the cells, prisoners watched with vacant eyes or didn’t watch at all.

“Must be frightening,” Soren said, “being so close to so many dangerous men.”

The guard snorted. “You get used to it. Most aren’t as scary as they want you to think.” He pointed to a hulking figure in a nearby cell. “Take Borrick there. Crushed a man’s skull with his bare hands, they say. Now he cries himself to sleep every night.”

“And that one?” Soren nodded toward a thin man tracing patterns on his wall.

“Poisoner. Killed his entire family for their inheritance.” The guard spat on the floor. “Mad as a hatter now. Talks to people who aren’t there.”

They continued down the corridor, the guard pointing out murderers, thieves, and worse. Each story carried the same dispassionate tone, as if reciting items from a market list.

“This one’s Tomas Ell,” the guard said, stopping before a cell near the end of the hall. “Hanging in three days. Killed some noble’s son.”

Soren studied the prisoner. Tomas sat on a threadbare cot, a small prayer book open in his hands. He was gaunt, his cheekbones sharp against pale skin, but his posture conveyed a strange calm. Unlike the other inmates, who pressed against bars and shouted obscenities, Tomas seemed resigned.

“Has he given any trouble?” Soren asked.

The guard shook his head. “Quiet as a mouse. Reads that book all day. Strange one, this. Never protested his sentence, never claimed innocence. Just waiting for the end, I suppose.”

Tomas looked up then. His eyes met Soren’s through the bars, and something passed between them—a recognition not of faces but of purpose. Both men saw the shadow of death in the other.

“Thank you,” Soren said to the guard. “I’d like to see those implements, please.”

Lady Larissa Varn’s estate rose from the hillside overlooking the Kusten Road. Ivy choked the stone walls, climbing towards windows that reflected no light. The gardens, once famous throughout Nordturm, had given way to thorns and shadow.

A servant led Soren through corridors hung with portraits of stern-faced men and women. Their eyes seemed to track his movement, generations of judgement preserved in oil and canvas.

Lady Varn received him in her study. She sat straight-backed in a high-backed chair, drowning in black mourning clothes despite the heat from the fire. Her grey hair was pulled severely back, emphasising features sharpened by grief.

“You’ve come about Tomas Ell.”

Soren inclined his head. “I have.”

“Wine?” She gestured to a servant, who poured a deep red vintage into crystal glasses. Lady Varn didn’t touch hers. “I assume you wish to understand why I would hire your particular services for a man already sentenced to die.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“My son, Ravel, was found three months ago in an alley near the docks.” Her voice remained steady, betraying no emotion. “Stabbed seven times. Robbed of his signet ring and coin purse. A witness identified Tomas Ell, who had served in this household until I dismissed him weeks before the murder.”

“On what grounds was he dismissed?”

Her mouth thinned. “Incompetence.”

Soren sipped his wine. It tasted of cherries and oak, expensive and complex. “And he confessed?”

“At trial, yes.” Her fingers tightened around the arms of her chair. “The evidence was overwhelming. The witness was certain.”

“Then why not let justice take its course?”

Lady Varn’s eyes hardened. “Because a public execution grants him dignity. It gives him attention, last words, a proper death with witnesses to remember his name.” She leaned forward. “He murdered my legacy, my only son. The last of the Varn bloodline. He should die like a dog, not a martyr.”

“I see.” Soren set down his glass. “And the payment?”

“Half now. Half upon confirmation.” She nodded to a servant, who produced a leather pouch that clinked with the weight of coins. “I trust your reputation precedes you, Master Soren.”

He took the pouch. “It does.”

“Then we understand each other.” Lady Varn rose, signalling the end of their meeting. “Tomas Ell stole my son from me. I would have him disappear without ceremony, without dignity. Just…gone.”

As Soren left the estate, the sun slipped behind clouds, casting the gardens into deeper shadow.

The laundry district steamed in the afternoon heat, wet sheets and linens hanging between buildings. Women bent over washboards, their hands raw from lye and labour.

Soren found Tomas’s sister in a cramped workroom at the back of a communal washhouse. She was small and bird-like, with the same sharp cheekbones as her brother, but her eyes carried a different weight—not resignation, but resentment.

“I know why you’re here,” she said, wringing water from a shirt with more force than necessary. “Come to gawk at the murderer’s family? See if evil runs in our blood?”

“I’m investigating your brother’s case.”

She laughed, a sharp, brittle sound. “There is no case. He confessed. He dies in three days.” Her hands never stopped moving, twisting fabric, pulling out water, hanging it to dry. “Nothing to investigate.”

“Did he kill Ravel Varn?”

The shirt slipped from her grip, splashing into the washbasin. “No.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Tomas never touched Ravel. He worshipped him.”

“They knew each other well?”

Her eyes darted to the door, checking for eavesdroppers. “They were friends. Closer than friends.” She retrieved the shirt, wringing it mechanically. “The old witch couldn’t bear it. Her precious son, finding comfort in a servant’s bed.”

“They were lovers.”

“Lady Varn discovered them. Dismissed Tomas. Threatened to have him arrested for ‘perversion’ if he ever contacted Ravel again.” Her hands stilled. “Three weeks later, Ravel was dead in an alley. The witness—a city watchman who’s been on Lady Varn’s payroll for years—pointed to Tomas.”

“And your brother confessed.”

“He had nothing left. She took everything. His position, his good name, his truth...him.”

She hung the shirt and turned to face Soren fully. “Why are you asking these questions? What does it matter now?”

Soren had no answer that would bring her comfort.

The prison was more easily infiltrated than it had any right to be. A drop of liquid in the guards’ wine, purchased from an alchemist who asked no questions.

Within minutes, they slumped against the wall, snoring beneath their helmets.

Tomas didn’t startle when Soren slipped into his cell. He closed his prayer book and set it aside. “I wondered when she would send someone.”

“Lady Varn?”

“Who else?” Tomas’s voice held no bitterness, only a weary acceptance. “I knew the hanging wasn’t enough for her.”

Soren settled onto the cot beside him. The straw mattress crackled beneath their weight. “Why did you confess to a murder you didn’t commit?”

Tomas’s eyes widened. “You know I’m innocent?”

“I spoke to your sister.”

“Ah.” Tomas looked down at his hands. They were clean, the nails neatly trimmed despite his surroundings. “I confessed because I had nothing left. She took everything.”

“You loved him.”

“Yes.” The word hung between them, simple and devastating. “And he loved me.”

“Who killed him, Tomas?”

“Does it matter?” Tomas turned to look at Soren, his eyes clear and steady. “I die in three days. Or sooner, I suppose, depending on why you’re here.”

Soren said nothing.

“It wasn’t a robbery. Ravel was planning to leave Nordturm. We both were. He’d secured passage on a merchant vessel bound for Ostreich. A new start, away from his mother’s influence.” He smiled, a fragile thing. “He came to tell me the night he died.”

“You think Lady Varn had him killed?”

“I think a woman who would rather see her son dead than loving beneath his station is capable of anything.” Tomas picked up his prayer book again, running his fingers over its worn leather cover. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it? You’ve come to kill me, not solve a mystery.”

“Yes.”

Tomas nodded. “Will it hurt?”

“No.” Soren reached into his pocket. “It will be like falling asleep.”

“Thank you.” Tomas’s shoulders slumped, releasing a tension he must have carried for months. “May I ask one thing?”

“You may.”

“There’s a sketch hidden in the lining of my coat. Could you…could you burn it?” His voice caught. “I don’t want her to find it. To destroy it out of spite.”

“I will.”

Tomas smiled, a real smile that transformed his gaunt face. “Then I’m ready.”

As promised, the poison was gentle. Soren slipped the powder into Tomas’s water cup and watched as the man drank without hesitation. They sat in silence as the prison grew quieter, the distant sounds of snoring guards and muttering prisoners fading as night deepened.

Tomas’s breathing slowed. His eyelids grew heavy. “I would have followed him anywhere,” he whispered. “Even into this darkness.”

“Sleep now,” Soren said.

As Tomas’s eyes closed for the final time, he breathed a single word: “Ravel.”

Then silence.

Soren found the sketch exactly where Tomas had said it would be, sewn into the lining of the threadbare coat hanging on a peg. It showed two young men, heads bent close together, smiling with the private joy of shared secrets.

On the back, in careful script: “For him, I would’ve died twice.”

True to his word, Soren burned it before he left, watching the paper curl and blacken in the flame of an oil lamp.

The ashes drifted down like snow, settling on the cold stone floor.

On the morning of the scheduled execution, Nordturm’s central square filled with spectators. They came not out of justice or moral outrage, but from the simple human appetite for spectacle.

Death as entertainment.

Soren stood at the edge of the crowd, hood pulled low over his face.

The priest climbed the gallows steps, his white robes catching the morning light. “Citizens of Nordturm,” he called, his voice carrying across the hushed square. “It is my solemn duty to inform you that the condemned, Tomas Ell, was found dead in his cell yesterday evening.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd—disappointment mixed with speculation.

“The cause appears to be natural, perhaps brought on by the burden of his sins.” The priest made the sign of the star. “Let us pray for his soul, that Creation may show him mercy where earthly justice could not.”

Soren’s gaze drifted to a balcony overlooking the square. Lady Varn stood alone, draped in black, her face a mask carved from stone.

As the priest continued his improvised sermon, her lips pressed into a thin, grim line.

Before the prayers finished, she turned and disappeared into the shadows.

Justice, Soren thought, came in many forms. Some were sanctioned by law, some by coin, some by the quiet judgment of history. Which form had been served today, he couldn’t say.

When Soren returned to the gallery that evening, an envelope waited on the counter. The wax seal was broken, but he recognised it immediately: House Varn.

Inside was the promised payment—ten-thousabd krones—and a simple note in elegant script: “Thank you. I trust your silence.”

Soren poured himself a measure of whisky and settled into the chair behind the counter. The bust he’d been polishing that morning still sat incomplete, its chipped cheek a flaw no amount of careful work could entirely erase.

He lifted his glass. “To silence,” he murmured to the empty gallery.

The whisky burnt all the way down.

Outside, fog crept through Nordturm’s streets once more, wrapping the city in a shroud of grey. Soren worked at the bust by lamplight, his hands steady despite the whisky, despite the hollow feeling that had taken root beneath his ribs.

For a moment, catching his reflection in the glass of a display case, he started. The face that looked back seemed older, harder—not his own.

He returned to his polishing, fingers moving in familiar patterns, neither creating nor destroying, simply maintaining. This was the life he had chosen—or perhaps the life that had chosen him. A shadow among shadows. A blade among blades.

Jon Cronshaw - fantasy and speculative fiction author

Discussion about this post