It was a cold December day with ice on the ground. We were three strong. Dressed in black, conspicuous against the ice, unless we were covered in it. Lesson one: invisibility is not just camouflage, it depends on movement. The ability to present what others expect to see.

Loki and Naku were with me. A little older. More experienced. I was the youngest. Expendable.

The mission was simple: get into the house. Past the Emperor’s guards. The ‘house’ was a shack in the woods but the Emperor’s guards were real enough. Three layers thick with perimeters all around. Standard watch formation from the Imperial House which also meant patrols.

I had got as far as the first outpost. Burrowing through the ice, crawling under the snow rather than on it.

It hurts. The snow is like a mantle. It burns where it touches. It makes you feel alive. It drives the point home that the only thing that keeps you here is the spark. What’s inside. Lose focus, you die. That simple.

Imperial Guards are good. But they are human. You wait long enough the cold makes them weak. They struggle. They feel because it’s hard for them it’s hard for everyone else around. Common mistake: to think the enemy as weak as you. It’s wrong! You need to think the enemy’s stronger. Then you realise you need to work hard to just stay even. To beat the enemy you need to be better. Stronger, faster, smarter.

More! You need to understand.

I waited shrouded in snow, feeling alive. Winning.

I knew what I would do. The Guard I was watching was weakening. He was ten feet away. Cold. He would soon start to walk around to keep warm, alert. And I would burrow then right past him.

Through a chink in the snow I watched. Listened.

Then I saw the guard tense. Become rigid. I held my breath. A figure in black came into my line of vision. A man I’d never seen with the Guards before, wearing plain clothes. He carried a sword like mine but there was no Slinger star upon him.

“You there, you almost dead,” he challenged the Guard and the man stood straight, his face alive, the spark inside him strong.

“Sir,” he said. “All’s quiet here.”

“Quiet?” the man said and he said it loudly. More loudly than was necessary. He looked then right at me. Where I was hiding in the snow. No movement. Not even a breath. “Quiet?” he repeated and his eyes were slits. “Do not move from here unless you want to die,” he said and then looked away and there was a smile on his face.

It was my first encounter with the Man in Black.