Aivar was a wanderer, a shadow, a spy—and a damn good killer. The Shadow of Dawn had forged him into the perfect weapon, a blade honed for the Sultan’s will. A loyal servant, a pawn in the dirty game of power. But he never complained. His duty was clear: to serve Al-Dahir, to protect its borders, to spill blood for his homeland—his own if necessary.

But the Levorn Empire moved like a serpent in the dark, its gold flooding enemy courts, its whispers turning allies into traitors. A crusade was brewing, war bought with coin and corruption. A war the Sultan did not want.

That was why Aivar came to Varrent—the beating heart of Levorn, where fates were spun, fortunes made, and loyalties shattered. A grand port where East met West, where silk and steel had equal worth, where assassins and merchants walked the same streets. This was no Basra of sun-scorched sands—this was a city of stone and tides, of damp alleyways thick with the scent of salt and betrayal.

He arrived as a noble trader from Basra, slipping into the currents of the city, hoping to vanish into its crowd. But he was not the first spy to walk into the enemy’s den.

And he was not the first to be betrayed.