Thus began the next phase of Haxtes' life, a phase that would last for six long and grueling years, a phase that would take him away from Protasia to the dark spires of the Absolom Hive-complex on Malfi, home to the cult-monastery of the Veiled Hand, one of the most notorious assassin clans in Calixis Sector. Six years of pain, deprivation and degradation followed. Six years of conditioning of the body, the mind, and the spirit. Six years of honing Haxtes' killer instinct from something crude and base into the finely tuned instrument of death that is a trained Cult Assassin.

That Haxtes was talented cannot be doubted – only the talented survives their training – but he something beyond talent; a true knack for the trade chosen for him. That only led his masters to push him harder and further, but as with his years on Protasia hardship only made him harder and stronger. So after only six years standard he was chosen to become a Death Cult Initiate; a graduate assassin, ready for his first assignment kill.

Three times he was sent out, and three times he returned alive with his target eliminated. The first was a fat banker from a minor Malfian spire, he died silently, but his bodyguards did not – they screamed as they died. Haxtes was censured for excessive use of force, but the contract had been fulfilled. The second was a member of the Arbites who was about to uncover evidence of some crime best forgotten; that ended in a five-minute dance of death as the murderous style of a Cult Assassin clashed with the brutally effective style of the Emperor's lawbringers. Haxtes survived, but the injuries he suffered were severe enough to earn him another censure. The last target was a young female tech-adept that had somehow earned the ire of the Adeptus Mechanicus. She made for hours of good bed-sport before providing equally well as blood-sport. Three kits, three censures. Clearly Haxtes was talking an altogether unwholesome interest in his trade. Which was why the Cult Masters singled him out for induction into the Circle of Shadows, the inner coven of the Veiled Hand...