Coming of Age

Mathias was four years old when Grandmother Pathonia came home instead of his mother. "Come with me, my little briarthorn," she said, and sat him on her knee and taught him how to hold a knife.

"Where's ma?" he would ask her, and she'd say, "Dead, my sweet."

He was six when he finally believed her, and nine when he realised she'd been killed, and eleven when he learned who had ended her, just as she had intended to end them. By then, Mathias was Fourth Finger and knew how to establish an alibi, and how to hide a body.

He was twelve when he met Edwin VanCleef. They played hide and go seek along the Stormwind canals. Edwin taught Mathias how to kiss. Mathias taught Edwin how to hold a knife.

(There's more than one way to run a man through.)

By fourteen he was Third Finger. His fellow assassins were older than he and passed through the ranks more quickly, but Grandmother Pathonia taught him patience. "Don't rush, my briarthorn. Don't be hasty. Wait and see. Wait and see. Wait."

By sixteen, he could extract the secrets from a person without leaving a mark.

At twenty-one, he had traced the man who'd killed his mother, knew where he lived and worked and drank, what hours he kept and what routes he favoured and when he could be found alone—but Mathias was only Second Finger. "With your permission, Grandmother," he said, his head respectfully inclined, hands clasped loosely behind his back and his knife at his hip.

"The boy's ready, Pathonia," Waltion urged, at her side as always, a hand on her shoulder.

By now, Grandmother Pathonia's hair was white and her fingers gnarled. She could still pin a man's sleeve to the wall at a hundred paces. "Trade me your knife, Mathias, my little thorn."

A First Finger of the Stormwind Assassins carried a particular blade.

Mathias knew how to do this. He knew how to hold a knife. He knew how. He knew.

So he would be fast about it, because that was how he was taught, and he wouldn't be cruel, however much he wanted to be. All he remembered about his mother was her red hair and her green eyes.

Fast, clean, but not unseen. Mathias wouldn't wear a mask. The man might not remember her hair, her eyes.

But then again, he might.