The cellar was steeped in the metallic scent of fresh blood, a smell that clung to the cold dampness seeping from the stone walls and the dust of the place. Three bandits and a military officer lay stripped of their lives in the darkness: one outside, two sprawled inside, and the military man they worked with. Angellon Norvel stood at the center of the carnage with Aiden, her new and reluctant accomplice. They had agreed to work together, though the terms were murky; while Angellon seemed to know Aiden's true objective, he was in the most complete ignorance regarding her plans. She had only asked that he follow her orders, a prospect Aiden didn't know whether to consider good or devastatingly bad.
After committing these murders, Angellon did not rest for an instant. She understood that leaving the bodies as they were would trigger an exhaustive investigation by the Zhailon guard—one that could potentially implicate her. So, after analyzing the grim scene and her situation for a moment, she was able to devise a possible solution.
But first things first. She approached Aiden, her boots squelching lightly in the pool of blood that was spreading from beneath the Zhailonite officer, until she stood behind him. She saw the rope still bound to Aiden's wrists, the dark fiber glowing with a faint, dark light in the scarce illumination. "They're ropes imbued with Terum," Aiden rasped, his voice a ragged croak due to his weakness and dry throat. "We'll need at least the energy of several masters to break them, or a weapon with the same amount of energy."
Hearing this, Angellon arched an eyebrow. "You have no idea who you're talking to." Instead of looking for a Terum-infused blade, Angellon gripped the rope with both hands. For an instant, her knuckles tensed under the leather of her gloves before she gave a sharp, sudden tug. The rope cracked like a whip, snapping apart with a sound that echoed in the oppressive silence of the room. Aiden watched, stunned, despite the fog of pain enveloping him. Angellon hadn't used Terum at any point; the sheer physical strength required for such an act, without the use of energy, was inhuman.
"On your feet. We have to rearrange all this," Angellon stated, her voice devoid of any emotion. Aiden obeyed with a visible effort, clutching his bruised abdomen where the blows had left their marks, and began to rise. Every fiber of his body protested with sharp pains until, trembling, he approached the bandit Lirik and retrieved his family pendant. Then, Angellon went to the military man and stripped him of his hood before placing his inert body in the chair where Aiden had suffered. "Don't just stand there doing nothing. Hold him up," Angellon directed, her eyes an intense red as she glanced at Aiden.
Aiden obeyed and, dragging his feet, moved toward the officer. Awkwardly holding the man by the chest to keep him upright in the chair, he watched as Angellon, for her part, took the military man's wrists and twisted them forcefully behind his back. Then, she pressed the cold flesh of the corpse with the remains of the broken rope before tying a tight knot, making sure it looked like he was the one who had been kidnapped and subsequently interrogated. After the latter, she gave several blows to both the head and the torso, simulating torture prior to his death by a dagger to the skull.
She gathered still-warm blood from the floor—the dark, sticky substance clinging to her gloves—and with it, she drew the emblem of the Tussle on the dusty floor: three daggers, two crossed and one vertical in the center. It was the symbol of a notorious gang residing in the Vaelcrest domain, famous for their specialization with this weapon—an image meant to sow doubt about the crime's authorship and divert any investigation away from her and Aiden. Although the murder of a few simple bandits didn't really matter to the higher-ups, the involvement of a military officer made this a completely different matter. Afterward, she stripped one of the fallen bandits of one of his worn-out boots and, from her own pocket, Angellon pulled out three gold coins that glinted briefly before she slid them inside the bandit's boot, pulling it back on with a tug.
With the scene rearranged to her satisfaction, she took the tattered, blood-stained hood she had gotten from the military man. The rough, thick fabric, impregnated with the smell of sweat, ripped under her strength as she created improvised bandages. Aiden could barely suppress a hiss of agony when Angellon, without preamble or a word of warning, applied a fierce tourniquet to his lacerated shoulder where the military man's knife had penetrated, followed by another on his wounded thigh. A third strip of cloth was tightened firmly around his head, pressing against the wound that wouldn't stop seeping warm blood from his temple.
"You're no use to me if you bleed out before we get there," she muttered, her voice edged with irritation, as she secured the knots with quick, firm movements.
"Don't you think you're forgetting something?" Aiden blurted out. "There are still traces of Terum energy that don't match the scene."
"As if I hadn't noticed," she replied. The residue from the use of Terum energy came from the largest, roughest bandit, Rynn. So after rummaging through the bandits' belongings and finding only short, notched knives, Angellon felt somewhat disappointed. The Tussle was known for its relative wealth and power; a small knife wasn't a tool they would use for a job like this. Besides, she needed a weapon that truly looked like it belonged to an important gang, not just anything she found lying around that anyone could have. She needed something more convincing. Scanning the gloom of the cellar, her eyes fell on a hunting razor with intricate details on the hilt, forgotten in a corner. Though at first glance it seemed to have no value, it bore the embroidery of the Solvaynes, accompanied by a precious stone at the bottom of the handle. That would do.
"What do you plan to do with that?" Aiden inquired, his distrust barely veiled in his voice as he watched her handle the razor he had been given to commit a murder.
She didn't even look at him. "What do you think I'll do?" she retorted, her tone as cold as the razor's steel. A tense silence settled between them, broken only by the distant dripping of blood.
"That razor..." Aiden began, "it belonged to the one who hired me. He warned that if I escaped without fulfilling my deal, without the money or his weapon... they would find me wherever I went."
Angellon shrugged, a gesture that was almost lost under her hood. "Words. They don't matter anymore. You're part of Veilon's army now. In theory, that makes you untouchable."
"Just like him," Aiden whispered, his gaze shifting to the military man's corpse.
Angellon paid him no mind; her decision was already made. Those kinds of loose ends were minor problems, to be dealt with at another time. "Move toward the exit," she finally ordered. "We don't have all night."
Aiden, gritting his teeth, obeyed. Arguing was pointless. The bitterness emanating from Angellon was almost palpable, but Aiden had no intention of complicating the precarious alliance they had forged. If working for her meant a chance, however remote, that she would protect him or at least keep him alive, he would cling to it. For now, he had no choice but to trust, or pretend to, that this woman truly had the situation under control, no matter how much every instinct screamed otherwise.
Once Aiden had moved far enough away, becoming a silhouette, Angellon turned back to Rynn's body. The razor she had weighed earlier now gleamed with a sinister purpose in her hand. Without a hint of hesitation, she knelt beside the corpse. With one hand, she gripped the dead man's forearms firmly, one after the other, and with the other, she executed two swift cuts, severing them cleanly from their owner. A wet, brief sound broke the silence, after that she dropped the razor near the bandit.
She took the remaining pieces of the blood-soaked hood and used them to roughly wrap the stumps of the amputated arms, more to facilitate their transport than to stop the hemorrhage of a dead man. Finally, with the remains of the imbued rope, she tied a strong knot, securing her package to prevent blood from continuing to seep from the stumps.
The bandit's torso, for its part, was still gushing blood, but that was of little consequence to the plan. Lastly, Angellon grabbed Aiden's leather bag from the floor and stored the bandit's severed arms inside to carry with her.
Upon reaching the door, Angellon scanned the darkness outside on both sides. After ensuring no one was nearby, she dragged the body of the first bandit she had killed and pulled it inside the cellar with the others. Then she went out, gave a signal to Aiden, and after leaving the cellar door slightly ajar to facilitate the discovery of the scene, they melted into the blackness of Zhailon.
The Citadel's streets, shrouded in the silence of the deep night, were barely illuminated by the flickering light of a few distant iron lanterns, their vacillating glow reflecting on the damp, slippery cobblestones. Aiden struggled to keep pace with Angellon, who glided like a shadow through the nooks of the kingdom's alleyways, expertly evading the few guard patrols and occasional night owls. At first, as they moved through the Third Circle, they left faint stains on the ground from the blood on their boots, but in time the blood wore off until their trail was lost.
Every step was a new assault of pain for Aiden, a torture that beat him without mercy. He felt the hot, sticky blood continue its slow descent down his body; on his head, shoulder, and wounded leg, the fabric of his clothes clung grotesquely to his skin. His leg was a hell of throbbing heat that pulsed with every forced movement, causing him to drag it from time to time. His head was an anvil where an invisible hammer struck torturously, and his vision became a nauseating whirlwind, oscillating between fleeting moments of clarity and a thick dizziness that threatened to fell him.
Just as they were turning into a narrow alley, flanked by the back wall of a shop and a peeling wall, they heard several agitated voices. Looking closer, they discovered several burly figures surrounding a pair of terrified passersby—a mugging was in progress. If they moved forward, they would be caught in the middle. Although Angellon could deal with them easily, the noise would inevitably alert the nearby guards. It wasn't worth the risk, so they both decided to stay in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to pass. But it was then that a new problem became evident. A subtle, almost inaudible drip broke the tense silence between them. They both instinctively looked down: Aiden was leaving a fresh, tell-tale trail of blood on the damp flagstones; his clothes, especially the leg of his trousers, were visibly soaked. A grimace of annoyance tightened Angellon's face. Nothing was going according to plan tonight, and Aiden's condition was getting worse by the minute.
Seeing no other viable alternative, Angellon abruptly changed course, gesturing for Aiden to follow her. He, mustering his last reserves of strength, obeyed, dragging his wounded leg down another deserted alley. Between two buildings, Angellon located an iron grate embedded in a recess. For a moment, she glanced to both sides to ensure no one was there and then quickly, with an effort that barely seemed to tense her muscles, she lifted it, revealing a black hole that exhaled a foul breath of stagnant water and rot, a nauseating smell that rose from the deep bowels of the kingdom. The sewer. It was the only option to prevent Aiden's trail from giving them away, and it also avoided any encounters.
They descended into the darkness, Aiden clinging to the pipes, feeling his battered body protest. The stench was almost solid, a mixture of excrement, mold, and the city's decomposed secrets. The icy, filthy water reached their ankles, and the blood dripping from Aiden mixed with it, briefly staining the dark liquid before dissolving. The only sound in the oppressive gloom was the viscous sloshing of their steps and the echo of water constantly dripping from the invisible vaults above their heads.
"Hold on to the wall," Angellon ordered, and the echo of her voice seemed to be absorbed by the damp stone. She herself also placed a hand on the surface.
The tunnel walls were made of a dark, slippery, and constantly wet stone. Despite the absolute darkness, which didn't even allow them to distinguish their own hands in front of their faces, Angellon guided them forward, following a path that was completely blind to Aiden. However, this soon changed.
"There are two paths ahead. We're going to the right," Aiden heard from Angellon.
The sewer became a labyrinth of forks. Aiden had to switch sides repeatedly, following Angellon's directions. He was sure Angellon didn't possess any kind of special night vision, as she was the first to cling to the wall. The fact that she knew the correct path with such precision made Aiden wonder more and more what this woman was after and what dark purposes moved her.
Everything seemed to go relatively well for a stretch, until Aiden, his strength waning with every step and his head dull with pain, stumbled while trying to switch sides in a particularly narrow passage. He fell face-first onto the muddy floor, the impact knocking the little air he had left out of him and staining all his clothes, as well as contaminating his wounds with the filth of the place.
A hiss of pure exasperation escaped from between Angellon's teeth. Without letting go of Aiden's bag, which she gripped in one hand, her other hand closed like a claw on the man's healthy arm, hoisting him unceremoniously until he was left trembling, propped with a dull thud against the tunnel's slimy wall. Aiden choked back a groan; the steel grip almost dislocated his uninjured shoulder. He felt her coldness through the soaked, dirty, and foul-smelling fabric of his own shirt, the icy contact another torture on his feverish skin. The world tilted dangerously around him, and for an instant, only the rough, damp support of the wall kept him from collapsing again, his breath a series of shallow, painful gasps.
"We're getting close. Hold on," Angellon's voice was sharp, devoid of any hint of compassion, but laden with the urgency of someone who could not afford any more delays.
Aiden didn't know how long they had been walking in that fetid blackness, but every minute felt like an hour of agony. So much so that finally, Aiden's body succumbed completely. His legs refused to obey, becoming dead weight. Darkness began to swallow the edges of his vision as he was propped against the wall, and he began to slide toward the muddy floor when he felt Angellon lift him with utter ease.
At first, he was dragged a few meters, each scrape a torture. Then, Angellon put Aiden's healthy arm over her shoulders, securing him to carry him. Aiden's body was nearly broken, left completely at her mercy. When they finally emerged, through a hidden exit among twisted roots in a dry riverbed, the transition from the suffocating darkness to the twilight of the outdoors was a blow to his exhausted senses. Aiden fainted at that moment, consciousness abandoning him completely.
They came out onto a barren wasteland, a desolate moor on the outskirts of the Citadel of Zhailon. Angellon, without slowing her pace, adjusted Aiden's unconscious body, his head hanging limply as she headed towards an improvised camp that rose in the shadows. As much as she hated all this, she had to keep moving forward.
The first thing they saw was a dense thicket of thorny bushes, and beyond it, the dark silhouettes of worn-out tents swaying in the night breeze, surrounded by an irregular palisade of wooden stakes hastily driven into the earth. A single individual was sitting on an empty supply crate near the camp's entrance. He was young, with black hair and a relaxed posture, dressed in a military uniform of a silver tone with subtle gold details that shone faintly in the light of a distant bonfire crackling in the center of the settlement.
When Angellon approached him with her hood up, he first perceived them as mere shadows in the darkness. The young man barely looked up, about to question them, when the light from the distant bonfires fleetingly illuminated Angellon's face under the hood. His clear blue eyes, cold as ice, seemed to understand in that instant who she was, or at least, that he shouldn't ask questions. So, without the slightest hint of curiosity or surprise, only with a watchful stillness, he lowered his head again in a sign of recognition.
The night breeze carried the scent of dry earth and burning wood, an almost pleasant contrast to the stench of rot from the sewer they had just emerged from. Angellon advanced with a firm step toward the heart of the makeshift camp. The bonfire flames flickered in the gloom, casting long, restless shadows of the few people still around onto the worn canvas tents and the rudimentary palisades that marked the shelter's perimeter. Although some noticed the imposing figure of Angellon and her burden, no one said anything; they knew well enough not to meddle in her affairs. It was a precarious settlement on the outskirts of the Citadel, very different from the robust fortifications of Zhailon.
Angellon moved with confidence until she reached one of the larger tents, set slightly apart from the others and made of a darker, more durable canvas than the rest. The entrance flap was pulled taut, suggesting greater privacy or importance, near the center of the refuge. Angellon lifted the tent flap and, upon entering the enclosure, slid Aiden's body from her shoulder in the darkness, letting him fall with less delicacy than his critical condition deserved. The sound of the body falling startled someone inside. A light flickered in the darkness of the tent, then stabilized, illuminating the figure of a woman sitting up, a little disoriented, on a thick blanket. Her long, dark hair was spread out, reaching an improvised cushion where she had been resting a moment before while holding a candle in her hand.
"Who's there?" a sleepy murmur inquired, tinged with sleep. A hooded silhouette was framed against the dim glow of a newly lit candle, and narrowed eyes struggled to focus.
"Zen," Angellon's voice cut through the air. She threw off her hood, revealing her face and letting the fabric, now a blood-soaked rag, fall unceremoniously to the dusty floor. Her eyes, freed from the shadow, had regained their usual unsettling violet hue.
"Angellon...?" Zen asked, surprise and sleep battling in her tone as she clumsily sat up on her bed of furs.
"Get up," Angellon ordered, her voice blunt, ignoring the other woman's confusion.
"What... what's going on?" Zen asked, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, the scent of dried herbs and ointments from her tent mingling with the metallic smell she now vaguely perceived in the air. Her gaze struggled to adjust to the flickering candlelight and Angellon's dominant presence.
Impatient, Angellon cut off any incipient questions with a sharp gesture toward Aiden's motionless body, lying beside her. "There's work. This man needs your help. You're going to heal him."
Zen's eyes widened in disbelief as she focused on the figure lying on the floor, the scene taking her breath away. The man was covered in blood from head to toe; his clothes, tattered and soaked, clung to his body. A pool of blood was beginning to form around him.
Zen knelt beside Aiden. Her youthful, expressive face, with large pearl-colored eyes, instantly turned grave. With a frown, her delicate hands began to assess the extent of the damage. First, she checked the improvised tourniquets made from the bandits' hoods; they were tied tightly, containing the worst of the bleeding from the shoulder and thigh, but the fabric was saturated. The wound on his head was still seeping a slower but steady flow.
"What the hell happened to him?" she inquired with grave urgency, her hands trembling as she felt for Aiden's weak pulse under her cold fingers on his neck.
Aiden remained motionless. Angellon, who had observed the initial assessment with palpable impatience, cut off any further potential questions.
"Just do your job," she ordered, her tone clipped. "And make sure you leave him spotless. He's to be presented before King Veilon tomorrow."
Zen exhaled slowly, a resignation tinged with annoyance in her gaze. Arguing with Angellon was like trying to stop the sun from rising; it was simply not possible, a waste of time and energy. "As you say," she muttered under her breath, turning her full attention back to the unconscious body, the magnitude of the task stretching out before her.
Angellon offered nothing more. She turned on her heel and left the tent without looking back, leaving Zen submerged in the tense silence, with the monumental task of keeping the stranger alive.
Alone, with the metallic scent of blood and the flickering candlelight as her only company, Zen faced what lay ahead. She sighed deeply, the weight of a fatigue—one that went far beyond a simple interrupted sleep and sank to the very root of her stay in that place—settling on her shoulders.
Definitely, she thought, as her hands began to move with expertise over Aiden's wounds, this is going to be a very long night...