Eleven hours.
Eleven hours was all it took for everything to fall apart.
First was the skooma dens. Then the docks. Then over the course of one single night the Legion and the city watch raided and took over every single major establishment the Flavanas had set down in Anvil. Former connections had bailed. The watchmen we’d always paid to look the other way had disappeared – gods, how had I never noticed? In their place came hardliners, wretches so disgustingly clean no amount of bribery could’ve made them overlook someone stealing an apple from a stall. No one in the city had the family’s back anymore, and no one had come to our aid. Even my house staff had handed in their resignations, and in my fury, I’d beheaded my butler, sending the rest of them scurrying away. Denholm had turned informant, the fat bastard.
When morning came, Flavana Manor was empty save for myself. It was only a matter of time before someone came up with the warrant to lead me off to my cell, then my trial, then my execution. The Empire had seized my holdings. I was powerless, bankrupt… but worse than that, I was alone.
‘Azalea,’ I said dully. I must have said his name five thousand times as I sat there in the basement. ‘Azalea…’
I still could not bring myself to be angry with him. I had every right to, I had every reason to, it was absurd – but whenever I thought of him all I could think of was the night I had first seen him dance, the subdued, shy smile on his lips and his quiet sorrow in this last week.
I should have noticed, I cursed myself for the idiot that I was.
Edwin was gone. He had been my oldest friend, by my side since childhood – and it was by thinking of him that I finally managed a spark of rage towards Azalea. You were never just a simple whore. I knew that from the start. And using the dagger that I’d given you myself…
My enforcers had left, some fleeing the city, other already arrested. Alone. All alone.
I shifted from behind my desk and checked my equipment one last time.
My sword had been sharpened. I had two loaded crossbows on my desk within arm’s reach. My armour – well, my armour stank. I had been wearing it for one full day as I waited. Waited and prepared. They would not take me that easily. There was only one way into the basement, and the corridor to the chamber I had barricaded myself in was layered with traps. With a detached sense of despair, I wondered how many I could take with me until someone got lucky. Two crossbows gave me only just as many kills at best; there would be no time to load and crank them again. The corridor was narrow, which meant I could take one or two at a time, but I was hardly the Empire’s finest fencer.
The day passed slowly. The anticipation and uncertain dread built in me until I was sure I would burst. On several occasions I found myself screaming at the empty corridor for them to get on with it, and then, invariably, inevitably, my thoughts would come back to-
I drew in a shuddering breath as I swore his name lovingly and tore off my helmet, reaching for the umpteenth time for the bottle in front of me, my fingers stopping within a hairsbreadth of the whiskey. It would free me; I knew. It would numb the pain, help me forget-
Not now. The pain wouldn’t stop, the pain shouldn’t stop, not ever – and ever was coming soon. I could wait. Now… now was the time to fight.
I reached for the helmet and saw it. The lone figure. Lissom and dark, clad in a greyish black tunic and a hooded cowl, materialising out of the shadows at the end of the corridor. It stalked close. There was a naked blade in its right hand, and its footsteps were silent.
None of my traps had gone off. They had either been set up wrong or the intruder – this single intruder – had disarmed all of them. In that case…
‘Nothing to it then,’ I breathed. The fact that they had only sent one person was telling of this one person’s expertise – but I’d be damned if I was going down without a fight.
Considering the things that I’ve done, I was likely damned either way.
There was no time to put my helmet back on. I rose from my seat, lifted one crossbow, and took aim. The intruder made no evasive movements and continued gliding towards me with-
Gliding.
His gait was a dancer’s gait.
His scent reached my nose, his creamy lilac scent.
And a pair of vibrant silver eyes, glimmering and shining in the darkness of the corridor, torch after torch extinguishing as he passed.
Gods, I shook my head as my vision swam. This was it. The final insult. I squinted as hard as I could, determined not to let the tears fall. My hands shook as I depressed the trigger. The bolt flew, bouncing off the inside of the corridor and skittering away. Nowhere near.
I took two deep breaths.
Edwin. Remember Edwin.
And finally, finally the hatred came, black and choking, rising up in me. I hated him as much as I loved him, and the hate and the love intertwined in my chest like twisting snakes stirring my blood into a white-hot frothing boil.
I snatched up the second crossbow swiftly and took the shot. My aim was true. The bolt sang towards his breast, quicker than the eye could follow, the deadly triangle of the point capable of piercing armour with ease and set to tear through his tender flesh. The surge of vicious satisfaction that I felt was accompanied by an equally terrible grief. Goodbye, my-
There came a flash of bright purplish lightning and for just a brief quarter-second, his form blurred and vanished. The bolt buried itself into the far end of the wall. And Azalea reappeared with a crack of thunder on top of my desk, staring down at me.
‘Tell me,’ I said, my voice trembling with emotions I could no longer distinguish. ‘Was all of it- Had any of it ever been real?’
The cowl hid his nose and mouth, but his eyes… his eyes looked so different now. Those silver pupils had been misty once, misty and cloudy, suggestive and soft. The warm mist had been peeled away, and behind it – behind it was ice. Celestial, ethereal, beautiful, but ice nonetheless.
‘No,’ Azalea said. And he stabbed me.
Gods, it hurt. It hurt so much.
I turned my waist and intercepted his sword with my pauldrons, drawing my own blade. I had armour and a bastard sword, which gave me more reach. For five seconds I thought I stood a chance. I kicked the desk over and took a single half-step forward, leading with my right foot as I slashed at his midsection while he fell. Too slow; far too slow. He sprang backwards, his movements deft, nimble, like that of a cat’s.
His leg came swinging back to the front even as he dodged the slash, and using the fallen desk as leverage he rebounded forward, returning to our dance with a vertical stroke. I met the blow with a deflectional parry, twisting my wrists as I brought my sword around to cleave his head off. His neck was slender, like a swan’s. Even without my full weight behind the blow I was sure the cut would be clean.
My sword took a single strand of hair off his scalp as he reacted and moved with a speed no human being should be capable of, and like butter his blade slipped – right around the edge of mine and snaking up towards my face. I jerked back. The sword glanced off the chainmail on my collar. He took three steps back before I could reengage, out of the reach of my sword, and with a sudden flourish hurled three sizzling bolts of energy towards me. I let the armour absorb the magic. I was wearing leather underneath, and the dispersed lightning could not hurt me.
His left hand moved again, hissing through the air. I heard something burst and he disappeared in a cloud of smoke. One last lightning bolt sailed past me as I stepped back myself, narrowing my eyes at the haze, watching for movement-
And then a brilliant blue bar appeared in front of me.
I looked down, confused, as a strange, buzzing numbness spread through my body.
The bar flickered. It was wreathed in lightning, crackling with energy.
It was sprouting from my chestpiece.
The Dwemer plate had cracked open. The lightning was eating into the metal, attacking it until more and more chips came flaking off from the gash.
As the lightning fizzled away, it left behind a humming, vibrating blade. It was his. Of course it was his. He yanked the sword out and I felt my heart give one last twitch.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Azalea.’
And I began to bleed.
My sword clattered to the floor and I fell over backwards. Almost effortlessly, he caught me and laid my head down in his lap. A single, salty drop touched my lips, trickling onto my tongue.
I looked up.
‘You said it wasn’t real,’ I smiled faintly. ‘Liar. You liar.’
Nothing. Still nothing.
My head was resting on his thigh. It was soft and firm at the same time, and I knew all too well how good of a pillow it was. There was no pain. Only a peaceable drowsiness. A shiver passed down my back, and then I could no longer feel my spine. ‘Cold,’ I mumbled, my skin tingling. ‘Azalea…’
He spoke. His voice was wet velvet.
‘Harrow,’ he whispered. ‘My name is Harrow.’
‘Harrow,’ I breathed, grinning like a fool.
Harrow.
This wasn’t so bad.
I closed my eyes. As I drifted away, I felt a slow rocking. His sweet flowery scent enveloped once more and at last I was warm.
I sighed and went to sleep.
Alive.
She was no longer alive.
She was still.
She was without motion. That was what life was; the result of the countless systems that make up a creature’s body all working in tandem, all in motion. One thrust was all it took to end it. A simple resolution for such a convoluted process.
Ten minutes passed.
She grew cold on my lap, the residual heat from her body dissipating into the environment, into me.
She was still.
She was silent.
She was dead.
Kill confirmed. Target Sabina Flavana eliminated Eleventh Sun’s Dusk, Year One Hundred and Ninety-Seven, Fourth Era.
I left the Manor. I headed back towards the command post, held only by Shadeclaws now. The operation was well and truly over.
I made my report to Haruka and Bengakhi. Haruka still would not meet my eyes. I wondered how much she had objected to Bengakhi’s idea. I wondered how she saw me now. I hoped that she still thought I was a good shinobi.
Bengakhi simply nodded when I finished. And then he said ‘Good work’. I had never heard him call anyone ‘good’ before. Shi and Sho had gathered to give their reports as well, and they too told me ‘Good work’. I was happy.
Haruka did not need me at the Bouquet. I would be spending the night in the apartment. Bengakhi assigned me a room. It was the room I had questioned Dandelion in. He had set up a small cot inside. I was grateful.
I saw now why Bengakhi had done what he had done. His order had made me understand. This silence – this stillness – that was me. This is me.
People are not silent. People are not still. But I do not deserve to be called a person. I am beneath love. Arngrimur and Valesse had love. Ambarro and Diia, too, though the dunce doesn’t quite know it yet. I had no right to expect anything of the sort, I had no right to demand the privilege-
And yet the village would have me still.
What else should I do, then, but to devote myself entirely to the village in return?
Everything I have done, and everything I will do, has been and will be for the village. It is the only place I could belong, the only place that could ever and would ever take me, accept me.
Everything for the village.
Anything for the village.
I put my head down and slept. And in my dream I saw Aetius again.
He was standing in front of the chasm that had opened last time, from where the bodies I had left over the years had reached for me and told me-
‘You killed me,’ Aetius said calmly, his hands clasped behind his back.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I did.’
Whisper was on my hip. I could still feel her heart stopping against the hilt, against the skin of my thumb and forefinger.
I walked up to Aetius. I was taller than him now. I was no longer the fumbling boy who had eviscerated him by mistake.
Aetius turned to the side and pointed down, towards the pit. The pile of bodies was still there. It had grown. And on the very top was her corpse. Her jaw was slack. Her eyes were blank.
‘You’ve killed her too,’ Aetius said.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I have.’
He turned back to look at me. I moved my right hand to my hip. I drew level with him. The bodies in the pit had disappeared. It was empty. It was bottomless. His voice was sad, mournful.
‘And you’ll kill so many more,’ Aetius murmured.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I will.’
I swiped Whisper across his abdomen. With eyes as blank as hers, Aetius toppled backwards, his intestines trailing out of his gut, falling down, down, down.
And he, too, disappeared.
I slept on, dreamless.
Comments
but this is me, and i tend to sort of faze out du... more