Chapter 14 – A Name Cast from Shadows
It had been four days since they left Istanbul behind.
The ship now sailed steadily through the briny blue of the Aegean, untouched by storms.
The sky and sea merged at the horizon, and the air hung heavy with salt and heat.
There were still two days until Rhodes.
But at night… the shadows had begun to feel thicker.
That night, as the moon poured a pale silver light across the surface of the sea,
Cafer stood alone at the stern of the ship.
Draped in his black cloak, he sat with a small leather pouch across his knees.
From it, he pulled out his twin daggers.
Each one was like death taking shape in silence.
He pressed stone to steel.
Sccrrr...
Sccrrr…
Only the whetting sound.
And a silence filled with anticipation.
Then something shifted.
Not the wind.
Not the hue of the night.
But a presence.
A weight.
As if there was darkness within the darkness itself.
And Cafer—who spoke the tongue of shadows—felt it instantly.
He had always known when another shade drew near.
But this was… different.
"This feeling… unfamiliar.
And yet… terrifyingly familiar."
A shadow approached, noiselessly.
Cafer did not turn, but his hand gripped a dagger.
One breath of hesitation.
Then he spun around.
A child.
Small. Fragile.
But his eyes…
His eyes were not dark.
They were voids.
"You…" Cafer said, voice low.
"You're the boy who dropped the spinning top when we boarded."
The child tilted his head and smiled faintly.
"What's your name?" Cafer asked, wary and sharp.
The boy answered.
"Sabbah."
A storm erupted inside Cafer.
His eyes widened. His grip on the blade tightened.
"Sabbah?"
"No… That's not possible."
But his mind couldn't help it—
It went there.
Hasan Sabbah.
The legend of betrayal. Of shadows. Of whispered death.
A name steeped in blood.
A bloodline supposedly extinguished.
"All of them were erased.
Burned to the root.
But this boy…
There's something... more."
The child stared at him still.
And Cafer couldn't look away.
It was as if...
"This child carries a darkness deeper than any shadow I've ever known.
There's a void inside him.
And that void... isn't silent.
It's watching me."
Cafer turned his face away.
"Go," he said quietly.
The boy nodded silently.
Said nothing.
But as he walked away…
his shadow did not fall naturally to the deck.
It broke. Fragmented.
And then melted into the night.
Cafer was alone again.
But truly… he no longer was.