Standing here, before the Lunar Council, Silent Edge was ashamed to admit to himself that he was scared. These six ponies were the heads of an entire half of the New Equestrian government and, for him, there was no higher authority. Even Nocturn sat well below the seated members of the Council and treated them with the utmost respect and obedience.
The council chamber was a large, circular room. A round depression sat in the middle of the floor, decorated in an abstract depiction of the full moon. Beyond a guardrail, a raised platform looked down on the depression from five feet up, six separate chairs spaced evenly apart, with the one at the very front looming higher than the rest.
The Six Seats. Both councils had six seats of their own, labeled the first through sixth. In the first seat would sit the speaker for the Council, their leader of sorts, who made the final rulings on all deliberations after hearing from all other members of the Council.
High above the seats, a stained-glass window was set into the domed ceiling, projecting an image of Princess Luna down onto the chamber below. A design decision meant to illustrate that the goddess of the night was ever watchful in these chambers. A soothing presence for the innocent, or the petitioning.
But for Silent Edge, those blue eyes carried naught but the deepest disappointment and scorn. Even with all of his pride and skill, under that piercing gaze, he felt as if he were little more than a foal, about to be scolded by his stern mother.
“Nightblade Silent Edge,” an elderly male’s voice spoke from the shadows beyond Luna’s light, causing Silent to almost jump in his skin. Looking ahead, he had to squint to make out the unicorn of the First Seat, glaring at him through the darkness. “You stand here before the Lunar Council, under the light of Luna’s moon, accused of murder and abuse of power by Sergeant Glaive of the Dragon Sentinels.”
Silent blinked. Was he on trial already? He had been under the impression he was to be questioned first. On that note… how did he even get here? The last thing he remembered was being led away from that courtyard by a Dragon Sentinel after Scarlet made her exit. He had been left in a small, borderline empty room, and then...
“I should hope we do not need to explain to you, Silent,” a mare’s voice said from the Third Seat, causing him to turn. The elderly pegasus mare that leaned out of the shadows observed him with cold, calculating indifference. “How serious these allegations are.”
“As a Nightblade, you are afforded far more freedom in the manner with which you carry out your duties,” another stallion spoke up from the Fifth Seat to his left, this one also a pegasus. “Acts that would otherwise be deemed reprehensible and unconscionable are permitted within your ranks for the sole reason that, as much as I loathe to admit it, they are sometimes necessary.”
“Assassination,” The Second Seat, a unicorn mare, proclaimed.
“Spying,” The Fourth, an earth pony stallion spat.
“Espionage,” The Sixth, an earth pony mare, hissed.
With each new voice that spoke, Silent became acutely aware of yet another face peering at him from the darkness. He was surrounded on all sides by all six members of the Lunar Council, and not one of them appeared pleased with him.
The First leaned closer, and Silent found himself entranced into silence by those eyes. The stallion spoke. “Necessary evils, one and all… where circumstances demand it. You stand here now under the accusation that you committed these evils deliberately, fully aware that they were not required.”
“A testimony provided by Scarlet Frost,” The Second said grimly. “A former sergeant in the New Equestrian army under the jurisdiction of the Solar Council. She fought in the war of retribution and was quite decorated for her service. Many battles are said to have been won in large part thanks to her considerable aptitude for artillery magic.”
“Alas, now she is on the run, wanted for treason, sheltering a fugitive, arson, sabotage, the killing of several members of the Nightblades, and even a count of terrorism, going by your reports of what transpired in Shimmervale,” The Fifth added grimly, his brow furrowing.
Silent went to speak, but the words caught in his throat. His eyes widened. It wasn’t that he was afraid of speaking. He was physically incapable! No matter how hard he tried, the words would not leave his lips. The breath would not leave his lungs. He stood there, mouthing uselessly before the combined scrutiny of the Lunar Council.
The First leaned into the light even further so Silent could see his grizzled, dark blue fur, and his thinning silvery mane, and his piercing golden eyes. “All of this leaves us in a rather complicated situation, Silent Edge,” he said slowly, making sure the Nightblade was listening to him. “So I expect you to cooperate with our requests and speak only the truth. Do you understand what I am asking of you?”
At once, Silent found himself capable of speech again, and before he could stop himself, he bowed his head. “Yes, my lord,” he said respectfully, his ears folding back. This was degrading. How were they doing this to him? What enchantment had they placed on him to make him act like such a cowardly dog?!
The First nodded before leaning back. “Very well. Then speak. Did you, or did you not kill innocent ponies in your pursuit of the lamp?”
“I… I did,” Silent eventually admitted, his eyes closing.
“How many?” The Fourth questioned.
Silent bit his tongue for several seconds before forcing out the answer. “...Twelve, my lord.”
“And, to the best of your knowledge, were you left with no alternative?” The Second asked skeptically. “Were you, in all cases, left with no other reasonable recourse but to end the life of the pony before you?”
Silent opened his mouth to claim that yes, it was necessary, to make it clear that he had been left with no choice in every instance. However, as before, the words caught in his throat, causing him to stand there in utter silence.
The glow of the moon around him darkened considerably.
“Silent,” The Sixth said as if a mother scolding her child for lying. “Tell us. Was it always necessary?”
Silent’s eyes darted around frantically, but he dared not lift his head to look at anything but the floor. His heart began to hammer away in his chest. Anxiety and fear were chipping away at him with every beat of his rapidly chilling heart. Why couldn’t he say it?! Why did the words escape him?!
“The truth, Silent Edge,” The First pressed slowly. “We will accept only the truth in this chamber.”
Silent’s eyes widened. The truth… only the truth, as he knew it. “So that’s it,” he realized, a sickening feeling of violation creeping up his spine. “I am incapable of speaking something I knew to be false due to some manner of enchantment!”
He slowly lifted his gaze to meet the eyes of The First. “...No, my lord, it was not, strictly speaking, necessary,” he said slowly, never once tearing his gaze away. “However, it was the most practical method of carrying out my orders. The very orders you six gave me.”
“We gave you our orders with the expectation that you would carry them out in a manner befitting a pony in service to the Lunar Council,” The Fourth pointed out, folding his forelegs over his chest.
“And as for your claims that it was the most practical means of performing your duty,” The Third stated with growing contempt. “It is clear that you believe those words to be true… but we cannot take your word alone. We must see each incident in their entirety before we proceed.”
Silent’s eyes widened as he turned to face her. “M-my lady? What do you mean?” he asked.
Suddenly, he was no longer in the Lunar Council’s chambers. Instead, he was standing before a squat, poorly maintained church of Cadance standing on the edge of a sleepy, snow-smothered village. His eyes widened. This was Stonethrow… But… how did he…?
Suddenly, the aging wooden double doors of the church burst open, and Primrose came barreling out. She was smaller than the last time Silent had seen her, and in far better health, too. Her mane was shorter, and she appeared to be well fed. However, the tears in her ears and the bleeding cut across her cheek told him in no uncertain terms that she was far from well.
His eyes went past her, widening even further. “W-what sorcery is this?!” he demanded, taking a step back.
In the doorframe of the church of Cadance, he saw himself wrestling with an aging stallion, trying to shove past and chase after the escaping filly. He heard his own voice snarling out in his ears, clear as day.
“Step aside, old man!”
“I will not allow you to harm her!” the priest shot back, digging his hooves in and punching for Silent’s face. “The child has suffered enough!”
He took the blow on the jaw with a grunt before extending his left wing, the blade snapping free with a spine-chilling metallic scrape. “Fool. You have no say in the matter!”
With a flicker of movement, Silent watched his past self bury his blade into the priests’ chest, piercing his heart. The priest gasped breathlessly, his struggles going weak, before slumping to the ground. Blood spurted free from his chest and splattered against Silent’s own chest and face. His cold, unfeeling gaze didn’t even flinch.
“Do not worry, old man. The child will be joining you soon enough…”
“A summary execution,” The voice of The First rang in Silent’s ears, making his blood run cold. “Of a priest devoted to Cadance, no less… an elderly stallion incapable of putting up much of a fight. I am failing to see why this death was required.”
“Perhaps, then, the assassin was referring to future exchanges,” The Second’s voice suggested, though her tone suggested she did not believe those words.
“We shall see,” The Third remarked.
Before Silent could speak in protest, the scene twitched and shifted again, and now he was standing before an isolated farmhouse near the edge of a forest. Inside, he could hear ponies screaming…
One by one, each of Silent’s past encounters with Primrose and the ponies he had killed on the way were played back before his eyes and the eyes of the Council. He tried his best to cry out for it to stop, to tell them they had it all wrong, to try and explain himself, but the words would not come. There was nothing he could say to justify himself to them that would not be a lie. More than once, he even tried to intervene in the illusion, slicing out at his past self or even at Primrose when she fled, but his blades never materialized, and his hooves passed through his targets as if they did not exist.
Finally, the visions began to depict his interactions and confrontations with Scarlet. Their battle in the alleys of Swanrun, their brief scuffle in Shimmervale, the day he had finally sunk his blades into Primrose’s soft flesh in the night, and Scarlet’s subsequent apocalyptic rage. Finally, he was once again standing in the courtyard, watching his own past self from only a few hours ago holding his wing blade up against Sharp Lens’ neck in an effort to convince Scarlet to stand down.
“NO!” Scarlet shouted, taking a shaking step before coming to a stop when Silent pressed the blade closer to Lens’ throat, visibly pressing against the skin. “NO! No, please, don’t hurt him!”
“Then surrender,” Silent snarled out, his brow furrowing. “I have not the patience for this ridiculous game any longer, Frost. You’ve caused me no end of trouble since getting mixed up in all of this, and I have run out of reasons to hold myself back. Give yourself up, and no harm shall come to you or your companions.”
Slowly, the scene faded away, and Silent once more stood in the Lunar Council’s chambers, the disapproving glares of the Six Seats glaring at him from all sides. He felt small. He felt pitiful and insignificant and weak under them. He shrank down, his ears folding back.
The First leaned forward into the light again, his old face twisting into a severe scowl. “Silent Edge… the testimony of your own memories is beyond damning. On no less than eight of the various scenes we have witnessed, you murdered innocent ponies when there was no need to do so. Furthermore, you have, until your target arrived in this city, never once made an effort to bring her in alive. You always struck to kill first.”
“For she is an insult to your pride,” The Second deduced, contempt dripping from her voice like the venom of an angry python. “A target that slipped away from you. You always were a proud hunter, were you not?”
“A mentality hammered into your brain by that adoptive father of yours,” The Fourth grunted in disapproval. “For it is one he shared.”
Silent’s scalp burned at that, and he took a step towards the stallion. “Leave him out of this!” he snapped, his wings unfurling slightly. “The former spymaster has nothing to do with this!”
“But he does,” The Third corrected without missing a beat. “For he was the one who adopted you off of the streets. It was he who gave you your new name, that you might leave behind your time as Street Rat. It was he who taught you the ways of the dark, how to fight, how to lie, how to kill, and how to steal. And it was his pride in you, his uncharacteristic affection that drove him to make a misplaced promise. A promise which has driven you to act with haste and moral compromises.”
“His promise that it would be you to inherit the title of Spymaster upon his passing,” The Fifth stated factually.
“His promise that you would lead the Nightblades in his stead. That you would go on to become a symbol of what it means to be a true servant of the night,” The Sixth added.
Silent’s teeth ground together, anger starting to replace his fear and dread. He stood tall, turning slowly in place to glare at each member of the Council. “Yes, a promise that you saw fit to revoke!” he accused, jabbing a hoof at one of them. “All of you!”
“You butchered the king of Talonreach in a fit of retribution,” The First replied calmly, his tone darkening, warning Silent to mind his own. “An act that goes entirely against our core values and, more than that, was not needed to win the war or even the siege of the city itself.”
“Spurred on by what you erroneously believed to be a mistake on our part, you hastened to complete this last mission as swiftly as possible,” The Second pointed out. “You forsook the standards of your order and hunted down this child with every intent of slaughtering her instead of capturing her. You have falsified your reports to us to cover your tracks, and you have murdered several without mercy or remorse in your personal quest to reclaim a promise that your father was never in a position to make in the first place.”
“And so it is,” The First continued, rising to stand and stepping forward. “That you stand here now… and so it is that you shall depart these chambers stripped of your rank and titles within the Nightblades.”
Silent went rigid, his ears folding back. It felt as if an ice pick had just been driven into his chest. Slowly, he took a step forward, his eyes going wide. “W-what…?” he choked out.
“You heard me,” The First declared in a cold growl. “Be thankful that we are showing you this leniency, Silent Edge. By Nocturn’s request, you have been spared the life sentence your crimes deserve. But you will never serve the Council again. You are henceforth cast out from the Nightblades, and from Newcanter. You will be relieved of your weapons and armor before you depart from the castle.”
“No… No, no, you cannot do this!” Silent shouted, stepping forward only to be met with an invisible barrier. “You can’t!”
“We can, and we have,” The Fifth snorted. “Accept your fate, Silent Edge.”
The First nodded. “Our decision is final. Your protests will avail you naught in this hall.”
Silent’s eye twitched, a pressure building up in the back of his mind, like an increasingly heavy weight bearing down on a glass floor. “You… this… t-this is madness!” he seethed.
“In your eyes, maybe it is,” The First countered quietly. “But we are not judging from yours. We are judging from ours. Now… begone.”
Silent snapped awake with a sharp gasp, his eyes snapping open to take in his surroundings. He was sitting in a chair at a basic wooden table that sat in the heart of a small stone room. A lone candle burned on top, providing faint, gently wavering light.
Panting heavily, struggling to control his breath, Silent lifted a hoof up to rub at his temple. He absently noted that his armor and wingblades had been removed, leaving him clad in nothing but his fur and feathers. “It was… it was just a dream?” he asked quietly, his eyes closing. It had all felt so real…
“Aye, that it was,” the voice of Nocturn said solemnly behind him.
Startled, Silent jumped to his hooves and spun around, wings spreading out. Sure enough, the thestral stood in the corner, staring back at him with supreme disappointment on his face. “Your entire trial was held in the dream realm, thanks to the Dreamwalkers of Newcanter. A common practice amid the Lunar Council’s organizations when dealing with internal cases…”
Silent’s heart plummeted. His wings drooped down to hang at his sides, his ears folding back. “You… you mean…?”
Nocturn nodded. “I am afraid so… and I witnessed it all. You are the last to awaken.”
A heavy silence fell over them. Slowly, Silent folded his wings back up at his sides, his brow furrowing. “...I see,” he whispered, no longer bothering to hide the contempt and resentment in his voice. The pressure grew heavier.
Nocturn frowned and opened his mouth as if to retort. However, he thought better of it, and instead gestured for the one door against the wall. “The door stands open. Take your leave…” he ordered plainly.
Silent glared at Nocturn for several seconds before turning and heading through the door, shoving it open with a trembling hoof. His entire body was tingling with rage and humiliation, burning away at his flesh like a raging inferno.
“And Silent?”
The pegasus turned to shoot his former commander an impatient, hateful glare.
Nocturn did not react to the hostility in the glare in the slightest. His face was the picture of sympathy. “...Find your peace in this life. That is my final order to you.”
With those words, the thestral spymaster turned and departed down the corridor. Silent watched him go until he was out of sight, coat bristling. He turned to face the other way, his lips peeling back to reveal his teeth. How dare he. How dare that insufferable, arrogant bat tell him that! After stealing what was promised to him, what was his by right, that creature had the audacity to tell him to go and find peace?!
It was outrageous! It was infuriating! Every fiber of Silent’s being burned hotter and hotter, his breath coming in increasingly labored gasps as the full weight of what had just transpired came crashing down on him. His career. His duty. The promise made to him. All of it had been snatched away. Everything he had worked towards since abandoning his old life was gone!
The weight became too much. There was an audible snap in the back of his head.
Suddenly, Silent’s rage began to quiet down, his body relaxing. With a slow, smooth motion, he craned his neck back to stare after Nocturn. “...You are right. That will be your final order to me, spymaster,” he said in a cold, emotionless voice. He turned and set off for the exit, his mind made up. “Now, I will do things my way.”
“Everything I just lost is thanks to you, Scarlet Frost,” he thought, his blood boiling quietly and subtly in his veins at the memory of that red-maned hag. “You will pay for what you have done. Once I have finished strangling the life out of the child… I will be coming for you, next.”