The sound was shockingly delicate. It carried none of the thunderous violence of a magical detonation, nor the grinding scrape of metal meeting stone.
It was the soft, wet whisper of an impossibly sharp edge slipping through silk.
From the deep shadow cast by the high-backed granite chair, a slender, silver-blue blade of ancient steel punched directly through the two-foot-thick stone backrest.
The strike possessed no kinetic drag.
It did not crack the granite; it did not splinter the reinforced wood; it completely ignored the six layers of high-grade warding runes stitched into the velvet lining of Sariel's noble attire.
The blade bypassed physical resistance entirely, folding the space between the exterior stone and the interior of the Councilor's ribcage.
The tip of the katana erupted four inches out from the dead center of Sariel's sternum.
Sariel's entire body snapped rigid.
His breath choked in his throat with a sharp, wet gasp.
