The moved in silence through the morning, two shadows born of flesh and blood slipping wordlessly amongst those begotten by light and land, drifting in from the bay as daylight brightened the waters and clinging to the still deepened swaths of penumbra that hung from the buildings along the dockside. The breathing shadows had exchanged all the words they could manage for a time, it seemed, but, in their silence, continued to speak on to the other, with more meaning than the sum of those earlier words might have carried… Maybe it was because, in that quiet, the truths that neither of them had managed to express (and even tried to conceal) with their dialogue were unveiled by its absence. Nyx stalked along close by Cayrimsa’s side, neither surging ahead nor lagging behind as they made their way from the Grey Arm Dock to the dilapidated bulk of the building named Vergel Sea port by its crooked and weathered sign. His yellow eyes took her in from time to time when they broke from his perpetual scan of the sea and streets around them and words to say formed in his mind when they did but he didn’t allow them past his lips. Instead, he allowed the glances to linger a bit longer when her eyes were turned to the study of the world around her or darted away when they were found to be awaiting a meeting with his. As they slipped from the quayside alley and came to the foot of the rickety staircase that climbed the back of Vergel Sea Port the silence was softly broken by the witch’s still soft voice.

“Wait here,” she said, her eyes fixing to his for an instant, “I’ll bring your cloak down…”

The words that had been churning in the mith’ganni’s mind wouldn’t have made sense spoken in the wake of her request so he swallowed them and offered a simple nod in reply. His gaze, even when her own tore away from it, remained on her…

“I’ll be just a minute.”

…and followed her as she bounded up the stairs and disappeared into the top floor of the place in the tinkling of bells.

“I shall be here,” he murmured when she was no longer visible. Nyx sank into a deep patch of lingering dusk that hung between the skeleton of the stairway and the decaying husk of the building to which it was attached, his back pressed to the salted clapboard siding, fingers of one hand touching the hilt of an always-ready blade whilst the slender digits of the other dipped into a small pouch that hung from his belt and came back out with an oblong slice of crystal. As the curiously warm gem rested on the pads of his first and second fingers, his thumb stroked lightly across the all too smooth face of the thing and he allowed his eyes to close for a moment as he prepared himself to look upon the thing…

You begin to disappoint me, Shyndyn, the inner voice sighed, Allowing your mind to linger uselessly in that which has passed you by when you know that the purpose for which I have crafted you leaves no room for such foolishness. Your vocation, now, is death, mith’ganni. Your charge, to deliver me the souls I request. You are the sharpened edge of my axe. Cold steel and cold blood. Where, in any of that, is there allowance for this plague of softness and warmth?

In the beginning, my Lord, Nyx muttered in reply, his thumb still tracing in soft circles over the face of the crystal as his eyes opened and flicked a glance towards the top of the stair before, finally, falling to regard the token. Death, as you say, is my vocation, yes, and I serve you as a result. And, yes, it was you that fashioned me into what I am, but was it not the fires of that plague, as you call it, that smelted the steel from which you forged your weapon? What is cold if it can’t be contrasted with heat? The pale finger moved, at last from the face of the crystal, and Nyx’s eyes peered beyond the gleaming face of the thing and sought out the magic-etched portrait of Lyssa that floated behind that oval facet.

Perfection, Prien answered flatly. The fire makes the steel malleable, my disciple, but it is only when the metal has cooled and its edge has been honed that the weapon becomes useful for what it is. Setting it to the flame once the edge has been made keen only serves to weaken it… to make it useless… and, having been rendered so, calls for it’s owner to discard it in favor of another…

The mith’ganni nearly laughed at that but refrained out of respect for his patron. Then what of the weapons I have seen which spark to flame at the uttering of a word from their wielders, Lord Prien, he challenged, eyes and fingertips roaming over the tiny portrait in the crystal, I did not see any of those deemed useless and tossed aside by those that bore them…

Magical fire, the voice retorted, seeking to end the debate, Quite different from the fires of the forge, Nyx… Spells are turned to…

The assassin did allow a chuckle, then; almost proud of himself that he had been able to trick his god into the explanation he’d just been given. What fire, then, is more magical than the fire of love, Master? What greater spell than that which takes two hearts and melds them into one?

Love?! the dark voice of Prien the Executioner cackled, quickly wiping the self-satisfied smirk from the lips of his devotee. You think you love her? Think she could love you?!?! The god’s laughter rang mercilessly for a long while, melting the once confident smile on the mith’ganni’s face into an uncertain scowl. Oh, Nyx, the voice proceeded after a time, I have allowed you to languish too long in this place, I think, and tested you too much by putting those souls I do not yet require within easy reach of your hand and let you become corrupted by finding use in them… Love, indeed!

When, then, will you carve away the points of your ears for love?

 Never, Nyx scowled, desperately trying to find solace in the image buried in the crystal.

Liar! I think you’d do it if she asked, Prien rebuked, Your “love”. the spiteful laughter again. She won’t love you, you know? Can’t love you… no one can and no one will, don’t you see? If you cannot see that, Shyndyn, mayhaps you’d have done better to have died with the rest of your people, hmmm?

Your love is as dead as your Lyssa, mith’ganni, Prien’s voice whispered, dissipating as the hollow tinkling of the bells hemmed to Cayrimsa’s apartment door carried to Nyx’s ears, As dead as whatever rots in the darkness of this one’s soul… You are mine, Nyx Shyndyn… no one else will have you…

“Dina!” Nyx growled, his fist closing tightly around the crystal as he pushed himself angrily away from the shadows and stepped into a wan patch of sunlight to warm away the cold truth he had perceived in Prien’s admonition. Still, despite the warmth that the light brought to his shoulders as it fell on them, he couldn’t help but shiver…

“Be more careful about where you leave your things,” Cay’s voice, the hard edge having returned to it, was punctuated by the fluttering of the cloak that she had tossed ahead of her words.

One alabaster hand snapped away from weapon-hilt to catch hold of the fabric while the other quickly returned the crystal trinket to the pouch at his belt. The nod he offered as he whipped the cloak around his shoulders was as curt and cold as the bite in her voice and the emptiness that his god’s words had left in his chest. As the shadowy material fell into place over top of his coat, though, and his eyes traveled up the stairway to regard the creature that descended them, Nyx couldn’t help but think the vision that greeted him, and the curious warmth that it kindled in that cold-spot within, surely must refute Prien’s practical wisdom…

The bite that had returned to Cayrimsa’s tone was not mirrored in her eyes when he met her gaze. They were reddened, yes, but not with the contempt or anger Nyx had grown accustomed to seeing when he had stared into them before. Instead, it appeared that the cherry-flush and swell around those amber orbs were the result of tears and not ire… It wasn’t difficult to assume, of course, but she seemed reluctant to look at him and so it was difficult to tell for sure…

A good thing, too, that she’s not looking at you… I’m looking at you and it’s making me sick! Look at you… your mouth hanging open, like some fish gasping out its life on yonder docks… pathetic!

He couldn’t help but gawk, though… Was this truly the same Cay that had moments ago ascended those stairs and disappeared behind the salt-stiffened canvass door?... Vanima! The word formed on his lips and may have escaped into the air as an awed whisper as he forced his mouth closed… Had his fingers not been engaged in the fastening of his cloak they would have certainly reached out to touch her if for no other reason than to assure a blinking mith’ganni that what stood before him was not illusion.

“To your place then?”

“Uma,” he nodded, finally managing to tear his gaze off of Cay but somehow unaware that an uncharacteristically genuine smile had formed on his lips, “my place lies along our path to Bolstoii’s estate. The delay shan’t be long.”… His hands reached back to free his mane from beneath the cloak and then to draw the cowl forward. “Lle maa quel,” Nyx said turning his now hooded gaze towards the city…the route they would take and several alternates sketched themselves in his mind and, with another look in her direction, gave a faint jerk of his head towards the planned destination before setting out.

 Still smiling in the shadows of his cowl, Nyx guided Cay away from the wharf, eastward along the Reyal for a time, and finally veered southward towards the swath of homes, parks, and establishments that marked the invisible line that separated Drasnia’s nobility from the lower castes. The smile faded a bit, though, when instead of continuing on their way towards Governor’s Walk and, thereby, to one edge of the Bolstoii estate, Nyx turned them westward, again, and made for a small house at the edge of a cemetery.

How beautiful do you think she’ll find you, the voice snickered, once she learns where you make your “home”? How long, once she knows, do you think it will be before the word gets out and the round-ears finally find you there? What will happen when they do?

Nyx whispered to a stop just past the little stone cottage wherein resided the newly appointed caretaker of the cemetery. His gaze flitted over the place for a moment, swept the surrounding landscape and scanned the necropolis beyond the cottage warily before finally coming to rest on Cayrimsa’s face… “Perhaps you should wait here.”

Charming…

She hadn’t given him the time to turn and storm away. The disapproving frown… not scowl or glare or disgusted sneer… had stopped him in mid-pivot and quickly reversed the motion. His sharp eyes fixed to hers and, for the glimmer of a second, Nyx thought he caught the early sunlight playing in her eyes the way it played on the waves behind her.

Tears? he wondered, all at once wanting to laugh in disbelief and, if they were real tears, wipe them from her eyes. From Cayrimsa? Doubtful…

“You know,” she said after a moment, her voice… softer?… bearing a less spiteful tone than Nyx could ever recall, “I am not the only one who will have difficulties getting around the Imperial Quarter without raising a few brows…”

The mith’ganni’s pale fingers made to pull his cloak around him at this reminder and, as she pointed out the obvious, he rediscovered that he had yet to retrieve the garment from her apartment. It was a rare thing for Nyx to move through Drasnia’s streets without his race or his equipment being wrapped deep in its shadowy folds, especially in the light of day. She was right. It wasn’t safe.

“I might get shooed off, but you could be hauled off,” Cay’s not-so-sour voice noted, “Perhaps we would both benefit from a change of attire?”

He nodded faintly, a hand dropping from where it had reach for the missing cloak and coming to rest on the pommel of the kukri at his hip, and his eyes danced suspiciously along the wharf. Nyx had registered all of these actions as they happened but had failed to notice that his feet had already started carrying him closer to Cay again. “You are right,” he agreed as he drew nearer, “I left my cloak in your rooms. That and, perhaps an item or two from my…”

Tomb, the voice in his head laughed, Crypt? Grave?

“…my place should be all that is required.” His eyes roamed over her again, more slowly than he had intended them to. “Do you have something else there,” he asked, “or might we need to shop for something?”

Nyx rolled his eyes, turned them away from Cay as she began her caustic and not un-expected reply to his suggestion, and, shaking his head slowly, regarded the etching of the constellation that occupied the space between them… I grow weary of your prattling, Cay, he sighed inwardly, the inner voice having spitefully reminded him that he had perhaps wasted more than enough time that didn’t concern business on her as it was, if you have nothing constructive to add, I’d prefer it if you just shut your mouth! Goad me as you will… I am no longer listening… A scarcely muffled snort of derision escaped his nostrils as he made to step around her, resolved to let her barrage of rebukes and barbs go unanswered if not unheard and to return his focus to the task at hand.

“…Any compassion you might feel is only your confusion over the lust burning in your pants.” Those words, though, stopped Nyx even before he could lift a foot to walk away, and there was little he could do to stop or mask the indignant glare he shot at her, then.

Lust?!?! he would have challenged her had he not been biting his lip in an attempt to avoid fueling her misdirected anger, Is that what you think, nwalmaer? You’ve blinded yourself more than I had imagined… Nyx couldn’t admit or even define, even to himself, the true motivation for any of his actions during the past day but he was certain that it wasn’t lust. Lust was the thing that had driven the ‘celebration’ he had had with the DeMoria Demons following the successful completion of the Gracchus contract and (for the twins, at least,) their induction into the Hellkites… That was lust… and wine… and…

Even lost in the throes of that debauchery, though, you thought of this one, didn’t you? You’re sure it isn’t lust, mith’ganni?

“…Perhaps you would have benefited by finding a whore to thrash around with yourself last night,” Cay continued.

Each acidic syllable that passed her lips narrowed Nyx’s gaze that much further but he still found himself unable to walk away from her. I am sure, he answered his inner voice, If it had been simple lust, I would have found a whore and…

 …and, this slitch’s tirade wouldn’t bother you?

 How many times in a day must I tell you to shut up?!

“Come to think of it,” the witch quipped, “I know a few around here. Perhaps I should find you one and let you ‘rest’ up while I go and investigate the Bolstoii manse. 

Or perhaps…” she smirked, “perhaps you are trying to get rid of me just so you can get the little Bolstoii princess on your own? Hoping to get a taste of a human yourself? Is that it?” 

“Dina! Dolle na lost,” Nyx spat in reply, his own rising ire causing him to miss the color that had flushed Cay’s cheeks but urging him to thrust an accusatory finger at her as he leaned in and glowered at her with only a scant inch of space between his face and hers, “e llefea nan’eleaya ten’tavua!” He had intended to storm away immediately but, for the briefest of instants, he could smell her… not the clinging stench of brine and fish and the festering filth of Drasnia’s fetid side-streets… not even offensive punk and musk of the now dog-eaten Dugan that still fouled her… but the true scent of her, the one that she desperately sought to bury beneath those others… a scent like rain and the clean air of a night sky… he struggled with the urge to grab hold of her and…

 “Pach!” He threw his hands exasperatedly into the air, chasing the thought from his head, and at last, did start away from her, grumbling to himself as he went.

“I’m going with you.”

“Do as you will,” Nyx replied, waving a dismissive hand but not bothering to look back as he strode for the inland end of the Grey Arm. “See that you manage to keep up, though,” he added, a condescending grin besmirching his lips as he turned and looked her up and down once more, “if we plan to get you through the Imperial Quarter looking like that, we’ll need to move quickly… and keep to the few shadows that remain…”

That said, the mith’ganni assassin turned again and moved like a wraith towards an awakening Drasnia… awaiting the next verbal jab that he knew was to come from behind him…

Moon-yellow eyes deliberately scanned the bay, reveling in the fact, as the sun climbed into the morning sky, that its light winked off of the rippling, blue-black waters of the sea and harkened one to recall stars in a night sky. As he peeled another section of the orange away from its mates, Nyx’s gaze sought out that place in the heavens where Quenat en Etellenya would be if night hadn’t faded and then traveled to the waters below that swatch of sky to find the spot where the ocean’s unrelenting waves crashed against the craggy cliff faces beneath the lighthouse of Drasnia’s harbor…

“I’m not hungry…” The orange made a dull plopping noise as it disappeared into the brine off the dock.

A section of orange was pushed passed pale, smirking lips. His gaze broke from the lighthouse and slid sidelong in her direction for an instant before he shrugged and, peeling off another orange piece, wandered a few more lazy steps down the dock. “You owe me half a copper for that,” he said offhand, taking up his study of sea and sky once more. “The juice might have helped your throat, too, yes?” He popped the orange section in his mouth then and chewed almost absently as he watched the waves winking back at the slowly ascending sun… and listened to Cay reach for the bag he had left for her.

“Ehhhh…”

It was both more and less of a reaction than Nyx would have expected… Struck you dumb, have I, little cousin? He couldn’t resist stealing a glance at her expression as took in the bag’s contents and one corner of his mouth climbed a bit higher on his face as he watched her. I half expected for you to have thrown it at me by now…

He chewed another slice of the orange, his expression breaking into an expectant grin as she reached into the blood-soaked sack and made to pull its contents into the daylight. “No charge for that,” he muttered, eyes drifting away from her as she turned the trophy in his direction.

In the periphery of his vision Nyx watched as, still holding the hand, Cay eased her way to her feet. The motion was not graceful and bore the signatures of stiff and bruised muscles and, perhaps, not enough time at rest. His features twisted in either disapproval or disgust… perhaps wavering on the brink of both… and he poked the remaining bits of the orange into his mouth as he turned and wandered yet further out along the Grey Arm. Damn what she does in her own time, he growled inwardly, his gaze seeking a bit of solace in the glimmering of the waves but, for some reason, finding none, when you clatter and creak like some elder round-ear – especially on a job – you are worthless. She risks not only herself but her standing in the paching Hellkites and me, as well! And for what?...

“I see you do not approve…” The tone of her words, he imagined, and the plunk of Dugan’s hand being tossed into the harbor that punctuated it, were meant to make him turn and look at her again and to offer an angry reply, no doubt. Nyx did neither…

My “approval” is beside the point, he fumed as he paced out the few steps remaining between himself and the constellation he had carved in the deck board not hours ago.

Is it?

Yes,  Nyx answered, his gaze dropped to the etching and, as a languorous moan carried from Cay’s throat to his ears, let his eyes close for longer than he should have.

Liar.

“There are others of course,” the witch’s voice taunted in the wake of that phantom one that was doing the same. Eyes closed or open, there was no escape from it and, at those words from her lips, Nyx found he couldn’t keep his eyes shut.

He didn’t glare at her the way he might have wanted to… wouldn’t give her the satisfaction… instead, the mith’ganni stared at the constellation at his feet.

So you don’t care then, the inner voice asked as at the same time…

“Will you do this to them all?” Slowly, Cay came closer, her hand raised up between them…

His gaze slid in her direction against his will and was met with her blood-smeared palm. “Yes,” he whispered… whether in response to the inner query or the one posed by the witch, though, even Nyx wasn’t sure.

“Will you? Because it won’t matter. You could kill every one of them… and still you would not taste…” she paused and moved her palm to her own lips. Her tongue slipped out and trailed over her own skin from the point where her thumb met her wrist to the tip of her index finger and let her eyes lid slightly as the thick human blood filled her taste buds, “as sweet as a human…” 

He licked his own lips then, his gaze lifting from where it had been following her tongue to flatly meet hers; I wonder, nwalmaer, he wanted to say, if you have ever truly known sweetness, hmm? Would you burst aflame should someone bring you pleasure without hating you for it? Instead he smiled an almost knowing smile at her and offered a lift of a black brow as he folded his arms across his chest and waited for her to finish her tormenting… as torturous as it was, he was resolved to hear only her and not allow any competition or affirmation from the voice in his head.

“Now that you have that out of your system,” Cay snarled, the taunting sultriness in her voice fading…

It was you, Nyx smirked, speaking with naught but his expression, who has spent the last minutes taunting, Cayrimsa; not I… You who chose to spend the night rutting in a gutter rather than preparing yourself for the task at hand…

 Or rutting with you?

 Shut up! The elf’s gaze fell, again, to the constellation at his feet, his jaw clenching.

“…We can get to work right? You said you knew where to start…”

“Yes,” the assassin hissed, eyes flashing a bit as they narrowed and tore away from the starmap and lifted to meet the hardened amber ones that glared at him, “work…” He looked past her, then, and regarded the city beyond the wharf and nodded at the silhouette of the Governor’s Palace and the carefully designed row of noble estates that spread behind it. “The only Bolstoii in Drasnia whose activities would begin to concern our dear Captain Dmitrova, I imagine, would be kith and kin of Styopa Bolstoii,” he said, taking the time to include a summary of what he knew about the Merchant Master, “I had occasion to provide services to Styopa some years ago and, if I recall, his wife’s name is Anya… leaving Kharinya to be a daughter, perhaps a niece… regardless, our surveillance would best begin with the estate.”

His gaze traveled back to her and took in her battered, bruised, and dirty form from head to foot and back again… And I suppose you’ll just parade all of that along Governor’s Walk and expect to go by unmolested, yes?… she looked in no condition to go creeping about the grounds of a noble’s estate…

“Perhaps,” Nyx suggested, masking the disgust… or was it concern… that threatened to skew his flat, all-business façade, “your part in this, for the morning, should be to lobby our report with Dmitrova, then return home for some rest, little cousin. I shall scout the Bolstoii manse, get an eye on our breeder-girl, and find you when there is more to do, yes?”

On the Grey Arm…

The moon had dithered away and all but the brightest of stars had followed it from the sky. Before long the coming dawn would brush the horizon with its first wispy strokes of pink and yellow and even those stars – the gleaming, silver left eye of Uelaereene and the skittering yellow of Shipri’s Torch – would be swept from the heavenly canvass and the world would be revealed in all its ugliness under the light of the sun. Nyx Shyndyn, his gaze still fixed on that spot in the sky from where the constellation he had recently named Quenat en Etellenya had already faded, sighed almost sadly as day promised to break and, with some reservation, let his eyes dip to the plank between his feet where he had absently carved a diagram of that assemblage of stars.

 It had been his intention to wait Cayrimsa out in this very spot… Let her come to me, this time, if that’s what she wants… The point of his dagger whittled angrily into the star that indicated the curve where Quenat en Etellenya’s shoulder – hidden beneath the tumble down length of her hair – would have curved delicately upward to meet her neck. His eyes ticked back to that spot in the sky where the true stars awaited their next appearance come night fall – the midnight blue mantle of night already washing to a paler tone there under the threat of a soon to rise sun – and rose from where he had sat the past hours.

He was hungry, he decided as he returned the dagger to it’s sheathe, and could do with a bit of breakfast before he was to meet with Cayrimsa. There would be stalls opening in the marketplace not far from here at this hour and it would not take long to go there, buy a melon and perhaps an orange or two, and be back to the docks well before he imagined the witch would arrive. Besides, with the stars gone… and Cay not having arrived, yet… lingering on the docks seemed pointless and a waste of time that could be better spent on things other than waiting. Turning on his heel and leaving the sky behind him, Nyx prowled along the pier intending to make for the tiny bazaar that bordered the wharf from the city proper. He hadn’t put a half of the dock’s length behind him, though, when he caught sight of a familiar figure huddled… and apparently asleep… against a sea-weathered pylon.

Thought to surprise me, did you, my precocious little nwalmaer?

He consciously muffled his footfalls as he drew nearer, his eyes taking in the burlap sack of a dress, the too-large, clomp-worn leather of her boots, and the battered, shadow-veil casting brim of the trademark leather hat that Cay wore when she stalked the city streets. What he perceived, though, was not the repulsive heap of cast-off, dirty, and threadbare garments but the lithe curves of the body, the cascading chestnut tresses, and the angry, yet, surprisingly beautiful face that hid beneath the façade... The conflict within and without, yes, he snickered to himself as he whispered to a stop next to the sleeping sorceress. Nyx’s eyes traced along the length of the Grey Arm before returning to her and, having verified that they were very much alone at the time, he crouched down and studied her intently.

He watched the near imperceptible rise and fall of her shoulders and listened to the even, unlabored sounds of her breathing. The rasp and rattle was all but gone… You chewed the leaves, then... Good… A self-satisfied smile danced on his lips. She may not have wanted his aide or even have trusted it, for that matter, but she had apparently accepted and benefited from it, at least. He wondered, then, if she had also applied the poultice and if the bruises on her neck had diminished and, so, reached out a hand to lift the brim of her hat away from where it hung down to shade her face…

It was the smell that reached his nostrils as he leaned in that first told him something was not quite right… the smell of alley trash and fouled dirt and oil and blood and human sweat and sex. Nyx made an almost disgusted face, his nose wrinkling and eyes scrunching against the corrupt musk… the brim of the hat had lifted under guidance from his deft fingers and, through the few strand of hair that escaped her hat and coursed past her mutilated ear, he noted, as his eyes fell first upon her neck, that the bruises had abated for the most part, except in a few spots where it appeared the poultice had been washed… or licked… away. Nyx’s eyes narrowed all the more as they traced the line of her neck to where it met her jaw, the disgusted look melting into something more akin to anger as the putrid stench of a round-ears breath – slathered on her neck in the form of saliva – joined the gut-turning perfume that assailed his senses. Those eyes flared wide for an instant when they took in the reddened welts… obviously raised by a fist… on her cheek and the drying blood smeared from her swollen lips to her chin.

If you wanted her, the voice in his head sneered as Nyx let loose of the hat’s brim and let it fall, it appears you would have been better served to have just taken her in the alley when the thought first occurred to you, hmm? It would seem that’s what she prefers…

The mith’ganni’s eyes were mere slits as he rose to his feet and glared down at the disheveled heap before him. His thin lips were drawn in a sharp, tight line across his face as, behind them, his teeth ground and drew blood in his own mouth as they nipped cheeks and tongue. A curious heat welled in his chest, stretched downwards to his belly and up to burn hatefully into the base of his skull. His entire body tensed for a second and, though he willed it not to happen, his fingers curled themselves into fists so tight that his nails dug into his palms.

Cannot be troubled to come out from beneath the blankets for you, the voice laughed at him, but more than willing to roll in the dirt with some rutting breeder… What do you think of your “Lyssa,” now?

Nyx gave a furious shake of his head, finally managing to uncoil from the rigor that had beset him and tear his eyes away from Cay, and then, as he turned and strode angrily up the pier toward the city that loomed in the pre-dawn quiet ahead, snarled and spat a blood-tinged gobbet of saliva into the bay…

Yes! That’s it! Go and fetch your breakfast, now, Twilight Fool, and get us back to the business at hand…

Nyx wasn’t listening to Prien’s taunts… Let the Executioner think whatever he may wish and twist it however he may see fit… Until the fire that consumed the elf from within had been slaked, nothing else mattered… The death god was right in one thing, though… there was business at hand… a business that would require tending before Dmitrova’s contract could be considered any farther.

River’s Mouth Market

Dugan Negodiaev chortled loudly around the half-chewed sweetmeat in his mouth and clapped his compatriot on the shoulder as the pair ambled amongst the stalls and kiosks of the waking bazaar. “Ya need to get yerself a patrol on the wharfs, Pavel,” he laughed,  his one blue eye winking at the obviously impressed young legionnaire that walked along beside him, “yer never gonna get any of those kind of benefits twaddlin’ yer watch hours away in the streets above… ‘less, of course, ya wanna get reassigned to walk on the North Side and them whores over there’ll make ya pay for sure.

Ya make an arrangement like the one I stumbled inta, though,” Dugan added in a lower tone after swallowing his food, “all as you’ll need ta do is wait for it ta pass ya on the prowl, my friend, an’ they’ll be glad ta give ya whatever ya want…”

“Really?” Pavel’s expression wavered between awe and doubt as he glanced into the ugly, one-eyed visage of the elder guardsman; “How do you manage that, then?”

Dugan snorted out a laugh, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and then thrust his fingers under Pavel’s nose. “Ya smell that? That’s a little half-point piece o’ gutter-trash called Cayrimsa.” He snatched the hand back after he was sure that Pavel had gotten a good whiff, and indulged in a re-sampling for himself before licking his fingers and nudging the junior man with an elbow. “Caught the little harlot doin’ somethin’ she shouldn’a been a while ago, aye… an’ what she was doin’, bein’ the half-blood whore that she is, coulda got her sent straight to the block if’n I’d had the mind to take her before the Praetor. She were a slick tongued one, though, Pavel… talked me right outta arrestin’ her, she did, if ya get my meanin’…”

Chuckling, Pavel nodded that he did, his cheeks flushing with mild embarrassment as his eyes drifted towards a stall not far ahead. A fruit merchant called Ambrose appeared to be in either a heated discussion or foundering in the deep gap of a language barrier with a pale-skinned elf.

“…Now, little Cay takes her beatin’s like the point-eared footwasher she is,” Dugan was still boasting, “an’, when she’s bleedin’ enough, begs me ta give it to her just as rough…”

“I told you,” the legionnaires were close enough now that they could hear Ambrose’s irritated tone, “I don’t serve your kind… go someplace else…”

“Mahnee,” the point-ear insisted as he thrust a silver coin at the merchant, “have mahnee… hahngre… please?”

“No,” Ambrose reiterated making a gesture that emphasized the point, “I don’t care if you have money… you’re a point-eared nothing and, if you’re not here to fetch it for your master’s manse up on the row, I’m not selling you anything! I don’t serve your kind! Do you understand?” The merchant caught sight of Dugan and Pavel approaching and a wave of obvious relief crashed over his features; “Oh… Naxir be praised!!!”

“What seems to be the trouble here, citizen,” Dugan queried the shopkeep as he drew up on one side of the white-skinned elf and Pavel on the other; both casting dubious glares at the rather nervous looking creature between them.

Ambrose made a disgusted gesture at the yellow-eyed thing before him; “This Twilight Trash is loitering in front of my stall and refuses to leave,” he said, looking hopefully at the elder guard, “My customers will surely be out soon and if this piece of offal is fouling my wares, they’ll surely pass me by and take their business elsewhere.”

“What’s he want,” Pavel asked, scowling at the dark-clad creature with the unsettling eyes.

“Hells if I know,” the shopkeep replied, “I can’t understand a damn word he’s saying!”

“You,” Dugan prodded with a foot at the mith’ganni who stood, now somewhat hunched between the two of them, “What are you doing here, eh? What do you want?”

“Hahngre?” the creature whined hopefully, pale yellow eyes skittering up to meet the one blue one that glowered down at him. “Mahnee… Ah pae… foad…” a slender, and eerily pale finger pointed at the melons piled in a bin on one of Ambrose’s tables. “Ah pae,” the creature’s other hand lifted and presented a silver coin that would have bought twenty of the melons had Ambrose deigned to sell them to an elf, “please?”

“The bugger wants food,” Pavel chuffed, drawing quick glances from the other humans.

“Yes,” Ambrose sighed, “and I told him that he’d need to get it elsewhere. Unless he’s the servant of a house I know, I don’t serve his kind.”

A sly smile broke across Dugan’s features, then; “If it’ll get the thing gone, Ambrose, would ya sell what he wants ta me?”

The merchant grinned knowingly. “Oh, but of course,” he grinned…

“Hahngre…” the mith’ganni mumbled, again, his gaze ticking in confusion between Ambrose and the guardsmen “…ah pae mahnee…”

“Right, right,” Dugan said, holding up his hands to call the elf into silence, “Yer hungry and wanna pay money for food, okay…”

The elf nodded excitedly, the strange horses-mane style of his hair bobbing almost comically as he did so.

“Well,” Dugan grinned patronizingly at the mith’ganni, “since you’re a filthy badger-shaggin’ point ear, Ambrose here can’t sell ya his wares in good confidence, ya see?”

The mith’ganni looked a bit disappointed and shot a hot glance at the snooty merchant… looking quickly back in the direction of the crag-faced legionnaire when the man continued…

“Hey! No need for all of that,” he scowled, making a menacing face at the already recoiling elf, “Ambrose is bein’ generous today, ya little toad, and he’s agreed ta sell what ya want to me, understand? You give me your coin, there, pick what you want, and I give the ‘mahnee’ to Ambrose…”

The elf nodded his understanding and looked somewhat ashamed that he was agreeing to the terms.

 “Then,” Dugan added, “you get out of here and don’t come back… If I see ya in Drasnia after the sun is high, I’ll arrest you and whatever point-ears you’ve brought with ya, and none of ya’ll ever see the light o’ day again…”

“Yesss,” the mith’ganni agreed, stretching out his hand and offering the silver coin to Dugan, “Ae lev… ae lev… pae mahnee foad, now… then ae lev, yes…”

Dugan’s hand reached forth and pinched the silver coin from the pale palm that offered it but didn’t catch the flickering of a snarl that flashed on the mith’ganni’s lips when the yellow-eyes took note of the reddened and bloodstained knuckles. “Get your ‘foad’ then, point-ear,” Dugan spat offering the coin to Ambrose, “and be quick about it!”

The elf blinked and then quickly snatched a pale green melon and two oranges from amongst the merchant’s wares. Once these were in the creature’s possession, he skittered back a few steps and his yellow eyes ticked nervously from one human face to the next as if uncertain that he’d actually be allowed to leave…

“That’s right,” Dugan was laughing, now, “don’t wait round fer change ta be made… that’s the price o’ doin’ business fer the like o’ you hereabouts. Go on, now,” he sneered waving a dismissive hand at the elf, “get outta here!”

The mith’ganni blinked again, then smiled a little, and without another word, skittered away from the fruit vendor’s stall and disappeared into a still dark alleyway across the broad thoroughfare. He heard the humans laughing mockingly in the wake of his departure and, once he had gained the shadows of the alley, he laughed, too… because he knew what would happen next, even if the legionnaires didn’t.

“All right,” Dugan Negodiaev chuckled, accepting his cut of the mith’ganni’s ‘change’ from the silver piece and then clapping Pavel on the shoulder before the younger man excused himself and headed for home, “you lads have a fine mornin’, then. I’ll be headin’ back ta the barracks myself, I s’pose,” his eye turning in the direction of the alley that the mith’ganni had disappeared into, “right after I make sure that Twilighter finds his way outta the city. Let ‘em hang around too long and they tend ta make a spectacle of themselves buggerin’ their horses, ya know?”

With the raucous laughter that that comment had brought on from the others, Dugan left them behind – Pavel meandering through the bazaar in the direction of the garrison and Ambrose returning to setting up shop – and strode towards the alleyway. He was almost surprised not to see at least some trace of the vile creature when he peered into the passage. “Mebbe you mith’ganni are as fast as yer horses like they say,” he snorted, a bruised-knuckled hand falling to the hilt of his sword as he stepped further in to the space between the runs of shops and tenements, “or mebbe yer just a sneaky no-speaky what’s got at hidin’, eh?” He strode confidently but cautiously deeper into the alley, toeing at a rubbish heap here and there when he suspected that it was made of more than waste and garbage… his confidence faltered a bit when he thought he saw a shadow pass behind him and looked back to find himself in a deeper and darker section of the alley than he’d hoped to gain.

“Ye’d best be prayin’ to whatever point-eared gods ya got,” he murmured, his eyes squinting against the penumbra that surrounded him, “that I don’t find ya hunkered down eatin’ yer melon in my alley, horse-fucker…”

“Oh?” The oddly accented voice came from directly behind him and Dugan’s surprise was obvious on his features when he turned around to find himself face to face with the yellow-eyed devil from Ambrose’s stall.

“And why is that, breeder,” Nyx grinned viciously, his yellow eyes burning with malice and hatred as they bore into the one wide, blue eye that gawked back, “because you’ll beat me and rape me if you do, yes?”

Dugan made to draw his sword but his hand was no longer attached to his arm… the gore dripping from the hooked blade of the kukri in the mith’ganni’s hand a testament to where it had gone… he made to cry out, both in pain and for aide, but Dugan found that his windpipe was no longer connected to his mouth… a black-bladed dagger in the Twilight Elf’s other hand had seen to it that the pair were sundered… In his death throes, Dugan’s bladder and bowels attempted to release but the mith’ganni’s hook-bladed kukri, in a vicious upsweeping slash had already spit him up the middle from crotch to craw and his guts were already piling around his feet… as he crumpled and the vision in his remaining eye waned Dugan tried to look once more on the creature that had killed him but the mith’ganni’s pale fingers had already slid into the socket and were pulling the eyeball from his head…

Nyx spat on the butchered form of Dugan Negodiaev as it fell atop the spill of its own entrails and smiled with satisfaction as he wiped the bloodspatter from his face. “Take that to the Praetor, gatebird,” he hissed, stooping to wipe his blades off on the fallen breeder’s uniform, “and pray to whatever round-eared god you may have that your friend chooses not to follow your advice, yes?”

At the docks once more…

Cayrimsa was exactly where she had been when he left her, slumped against the pitch-coated piling a third of the way up the Grey Arm, still sleeping from the looks of it…

“Wake up,” Nyx growled, nudging her with a toe much as Dugan had done to him not long ago, his eyes trained to the peeling of an orange he held in his hand.

When she begrudgingly stirred and peered up at him from beneath the rim of her hat he didn’t meet her gaze. Instead, he poked a piece of orange into his mouth and then tossed its unpeeled twin into her lap. “Breakfast,” he said simply, his eyes scanning the rippling waters of the bay for a moment, finally sought out the amber eyes of the witch and, once having met them, flicked a meaningful glance at a damp-looking black bag that sat on the other side of the pylon against which she had been propped. “That’s for you, as well, yes,” he said, turning away and strolling a foot or so away as he feigned interest in finishing his orange. “We’ll talk business when you’ve finished eating and opened your gift, perhaps…”

Nyx, having gotten to his feet just as slowly as Cay had nodded her reply to his query about the stocks on her shelves, backed away a step or two before actually turning and stalking across the room. Curt direction from the half-elven witch pointed him at the jars, small boxes, and vials in which the herbs he wanted, along with a mortar and pestle in which to prepare them, might be found. He gathered these things without a word and placed them atop the roughly built table closed by and, after using a corner of it to wipe the film of pale blue dust from the mortar, unclasped his cloak and draped it across the lone chair that flanked the table. It was then that he noticed the coin-like Bedine token, heated now to a near glow, which surmounted trivet atop the warping wood of the tabletop. The mith’ganni’s expression soured a bit, his eyes narrowing and the corners of his mouth turning downward a fraction, as he saw it and recognized it for what it was…

Do not pretend it surprises you, he growled at himself, his yellow-eyed gaze flicking for an instant from the Bedine coin to the blanket-wrapped woman on the palette and the tapestry that haloed her, You’ve known for sometime that she uses such a thing to torture her marks… and herself… you’ve seen it burned into the flesh of round-ears, heard her use it more than once in those nights you’ve spent on this very roof listening to her work…

He snorted – a sharp, derisive, puff of air escaping his nostrils as his attentions returned to the sundries before him – and forced himself to ignore the revolting symbol of the Empire’s slavers. The mith’ganni’s fingers dipped into a dark pouch slung from his belt and came out with a parchment wrapped bundle of herbs which he unwrapped and laid out on the table amidst the other supplies. From this Nyx selected a couple of blue-grey leaves which disappeared into his mouth after having been placed on his tongue and a pinch of some shredded, reddish-colored pulp that was dropped into the mortar. This done, his trained fingers picked specific amounts of the herbs he had taken from her shelves, dropped them into the stone cup, and taking up the pestle, began to pulverize and mix the ingredients into a smooth salve.

The leaves on his tongue had begun to soften and the unguents in the pestle were all but ready when, born forth on the angst he had felt swelling on the brine-tinged currents of air that wafted through the room, a muffled cry, immediately followed by the unmistakable thunk of a blade burying itself into wood reached his ears. He smiled, flipping the leaves on his tongue, and his eyes lifted from the contents of the mortar to gleam at her. Even a dagger grows heavy after holding it for such a time, yes, he was about to taunt. Before the words could be spoken, though, Cay thrust her hand out…

“Give me that,” she demanded, the stern set of her features and flatness of her tone leaving no room on the air for his remark. “I’ll tend to my wounds from here. I appreciate your assistance and I’ll see you in the morning.”

His moon-hued eyes narrowed, perhaps hiding the angry flare that rose when her tone became dismissive.

 “And,” she added caustically with a flippant jerk of her chin in the direction of the bell-strung canvas that covered the exit, “there is a door…”

His gaze narrowed more as they slid back from the indicated egress, took in the dagger that stood at an angle in the planks of the floor, and lifted to the woman on the bed beyond.

The inner-voice that wasn’t his chuckled mockingly; You expected something else, then? The witch to actually become Lyssa, perhaps, and bed you as thanks for tending her wounds? Oh! The clan would endure, then, wouldn’t it? In the fish-fouled womb of a half-breed…

Nyx dispelled the voice, growling aloud through clenched teeth as he snatched the mortar from the table and stormed across the room. “See that you do,” he snarled, taking hold of her thin wrist as he pressed the poultice-filled vessel into her hand. He pushed the now softened leaves past his lips and laid them, too, in her hand…

“Chew these… they will make it easier to breathe… Should my flanks get skinned because you cannot cast…”

It took him longer than it should have to release her arm or break his gaze from hers but he did both and backed away. “I shall await you at the Grey Arm,” he said, stooping to pluck his dagger from the floor before, at last, turning his back on her and striding for the doorway. Nyx didn’t look back after that (though, he wanted to) and, with the rustle of stiff canvas as it was shoved aside and the hollow tinkling of the belled hem as it fell back into place, disappeared from the ramshackle apartment on the quay.

You mith’ganni, the voice sighed as Nyx moved like a wraith through the shadows of the dockside sprawl, You look to the stars for comfort and yet you are ruled and tormented by them, too, aren’t you?

Shut up!

It’s time, isn’t it? That’s what all of that was about…

No, Nyx shook his head and realized when he reached for the cowl of his cloak that the garment was still on the chair in Cay’s place, I do not hear you, he added, glancing back at the building he had recently left behind.

More than that, then, the voice persisted as Nyx dismissed the idea of making a trip back to retrieve his cloak, Hmmm… and all this time, I thought we hated the little slitch…

Nyx’s fingers lifted to the place on his neck where Cay’s unsteady hand had cut into it with his own dagger. The wound tingled with the effects of the poison in which the blade had been dressed and the blood still trickled from the thin slit. His eyes fell to the blood on his fingertips and he touched them to his tongue… Shut up… I’ll listen to you no more tonight…

And he didn’t. Instead, the night passed by Nyx as, after making his way to the Grey Arm Dock that Cayrimsa had designated as their meeting spot, he found a spot along the pier to sit and watch the stars. He found a bit of peace and respite as he lost himself in their contemplation and, he was sure, somewhere in that night’s sky, he found a new constellation that mirrored an earthbound representation that he had witnessed earlier…

Still fixed to the spot where he had landed only Nyx’s eyes moved; following Cay’s form as she separated herself from the tree-branch wings created by the tapestry at her back and eased herself back down onto the palette, watching as her slender fingers caught the blanket that slipped from her shoulder and drew it back into place. When those fingers moved to dance over the purpling marks on her own neck, though, and her eyes fluttered closed for an instant, Nyx took advantage of that brief moment and touched his tongue to his lips… remembering what that skin had felt like in his grasp… remembering the taste of her lips…

As if she had caught herself in the act of possibly enjoying the sensation of her fingers on her neck, Cay’s eyes suddenly snapped back open and immediately focused on him again. “You did do this,” she murmured hesitantly, “it seems only right that you fix it.”

A yes, then? The assassin was somewhat surprised at her tentative response, especially in consideration of the all consuming hatred she professed for him and her numerous admonitions that he would never touch her again; given that, he had been all but certain that she would have refused, without thought, any assistance from him. If that surprise showed at all though, it was only in the curious lifting of one brow and a subtle shifting of his smile into something less than acerbic. His hands moved slowly, deliberately, as they pushed the drape of his cloak behind him and moved to step around the clay pot at his feet.

“I do not trust you mith’ganni,” she informed him unnecessarily, wrapping the blankets more securely around her as she did.

And, in most cases, it is likely wise that you do not, little cousin, He offered what might have passed as an understanding nod, pausing in his tracks long enough for her to reconsider her choice…

“I…”

Nyx wondered if he had perceived correctly when her cheeks flushed pink… I make you blush, nwalmaer?  

“…I am unarmed…”

His gaze tracked Cay’s as her amber eyes flitted to the heap of her discarded clothes for a second before returning to take him in again. When their eyes met again, the mith’ganni’s smile had possibly softened a bit more still and, as she finally allowed herself to break contact with the wall behind her and edged forward on the palette, he had taken another couple of light steps closer to her and was now easily within reach of her…

His eyes broke from hers, though, and his cautious advance stopped again when one of her hands slithered out from beneath the coverlet and, palm up, stretched towards him. “Your dagger,” her rasping voice demanded.

The ever-present grin almost faded completely from the Twilight Elf’s face, then, and his moon-colored eyes narrowed suspiciously as they flicked between Cayrimsa’s face and the injured palm of her outstretched hand… I think not, he almost laughed, you’ll not trick me into letting you kill me with my own blade whilst I tend your injuries… The words failed to make it from mind to mouth, however, and the internal conflict that had begun to brew within him over this decision was evident behind his eyes when they lifted to search deep into hers again…

Her words from moments ago repeated in his mind; I do not trust you, mith’ganni.

And you would be a fool to trust her, the other inner-voice warned, knowing that Nyx was actually pondering giving the witch his blade, Leave this place, now, and let the half-breed manage her own wounds. The instant she’s given the opportunity, she’ll slip that dagger between your ribs and…

Nyx shook his head, his mane lashing the air behind him as he silenced the voice in his mind. Let us be fools together, then, he growled inwardly, Had it not been for our mutual contempt and lack of trust with the Gracchus contract, we might have finished that job sooner than we did, no? The smile returned to his face, then and, the decision made, one alabaster-skinned hand reached slowly for the black-hilted dagger lashed to his belt.

Amada! the voice protested as the slim-bladed dirk whispered from its scabbard, What are you doing?!

“You may never trust me completely, Cayrimsa Etellenya,” Shyndyn said in a hushed tone as he took hold of the weapon’s cold blade, the bloodruby set in its pommel pointing at the half-elf, and laid it gently atop the yawning gash that marred her hand, “and for that I cannot blame you… trust is not a thing easily found in either of us… but let us hope that this, perhaps, imparts enough to, at least, allow us to work more efficiently together, yes?”

He waited for the sorceress’s fingers to close around the wire-wrapped hilt of the dagger before releasing the blackened blade, relinquishing full control of the weapon to her. In that breathless moment that followed, while he waited for her to stick him in the chest or gut with his own blade, Nyx couldn’t help but notice that Cay, for the first time since he’d met her all those months ago, didn’t reek of sea-spray and rotting fish and the realization of it began to restore the grin to his thin lips. When she refrained from immediately gutting him, the smile expanded a bit more, and with his hands held plainly before him, Nyx sank to one knee before her. His gaze remained transfixed by hers in this instant, the smile on his face as far from condescending as she may have ever seen it. When the knee settled on the curling and splintering floorboard beneath, though, he chanced a glance at the purplish marks left by his hand and was rewarded by having the razor-honed blade of his own dagger pressed quickly… and with an unfamiliar hand… to his neck. He sucked a sharp breath in past clenched teeth as the ebon blade coaxed a thin rivulet of blood from his neck and raised his hands a fraction of an inch higher but, otherwise, made no move to stay her hand.

“More familiar with spells than steel, yes,” he noted aloud, wincing a bit but elsewise ignoring the tickling sensation of the tiny stream of scarlet blood that trickled from the edge of the blade to disappear under the collar of his padded coat, “Carefully, arwenamin. The blade is poisoned and I should not care for my corpse to be dumped in the bay.”

The smile on the mith’ganni’s lips was a curious mix of nervousness and wary confidence in the fact that she wouldn’t kill him just yet; “I may continue, yes?”

When she didn’t protest, Nyx nodded shortly and allowed his eyes to fall to the bruises on her neck; his head slowly tipping this way and that as he examined his handiwork. After a moment, his pale eyes flicked briefly to meet hers as the fingers on one hand reached out and settled just under the point of her chin. Those fingers, after he glanced sidelong towards the blade held to his neck, gently urged her chin upwards, tipping her head back a bit so as to get a better look at the delicate curve where throat met jaw. At the same time, the fingers of his other hand moved to trace feather-light along the visible evidence of her earlier assault. After a moment, the fingers cradling her chin eased their gentle tension and those that had just stroked delicately across her throat withdrew, whispering across the skin of her neck to where it met her shoulder before coming completely away.

“You have herbs as well as books on that shelf, yes?” he asked, his hands moving slowly and staying within her sight as they moved from her neck and jaw, “feer’apsa, arnica, and perchance a bit of lavender?” He didn’t dare risk turning his head to indicate the shelves he meant as the edge of his blade still danced just inside the initial slice it had carved…

Nyx practically beamed when the little, clay pot full of... My intended means of death, I imagine… whatever it was flew from the shelf and then stopped before him to hover in the nothingness between them. His yellow eyes, glittering with an eerie mirth, danced from it, to the shelf from whence it came, to the graceful fingers she had raised against her bared shoulder, and finally found Cay’s eyes behind the strands of hair that had fallen over her face.

 “No,” the witch rasped in reply, pausing as a cough punished her throat for the effort of speaking, “No I have not…”

He continued to grin, and arched a dubious brow as his gaze slithered upwards from her face and admired the tapestry behind her for a moment, trying to make sense of the symbolism hidden behind the obviously implied duality. “Of course not,” he winked, daring to poke the floating implement of his doom with a finger as his eyes returned to hers, once more.

“I would prefer it if you sat down, Shyndyn… Where you are,” she added, perhaps having noticed his quick glance at the chair nearby, the little clay pot lurched at him as if to emphasize the condition, “you will regret trying to come any closer to me.”

A single and faint nod was his initial reply, accompanied by a placating smile as he spread his own hands wide and, with the animated pot following, sank cross-legged to the floor. Once settled, he glanced upwards at the stars visible beyond the skylight, over his shoulder at the work in progress on the loom at his back, and finally, back to the blanket wrapped Cay.

“That’s better,” she rattled after a moment, “You caught me off guard before…”

And again just now, I would guess, he thought, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together as he leaned forward a bit, judging from the pace of your breath and the sheen in your eyes, little cousin.

“…it shan’t happen again. I am sure you wonder why I have not disposed of you yet.”

I debated that some time ago actually… Still silent, Nyx offered what might have been a shrug and lifted his eyebrows inquisitively …but, yes, please do enlighten me.

“Unlike you I find killing merciful, and I do not wish to grant you that mercy. More importantly though,” Cay paused here, raking in as deep a breath as she could manage, “more importantly, your actions were due to my mistakes. I should have better control, even when dealing with hwandi such as yourself.”

Which was the point to begin with, he agreed, outwardly responding with only another nod and a somewhat satisfied smirk.

She gained another, rattling breath as she, too, fell silent for a moment and just stared at him from across the room.

I could soothe that, Nyx thought. For some reason, as he listened to the wind rasp in and out of her, he felt…Guilt?... Surely not…

“My prior warning, however, still stands,” Cay intoned, breaking the moment of quiet and the beginnings of what might have turned into a perplexed expression on his face, “Don’t you ever touch me again…” the warning coming out in a slow growl. “I will work with you, because I have been ordered to, because being a Hellkite is something I have worked toward and something I will not throw away because of some adenedehl. You may think you know me, Shyndyn… but I promise you do not. Nor shall you ever. I do despise you and all of your kind. If that is clear… we should arrange a more appropriate place to meet tomorrow and begin this job.”

He sat there for a long moment, his eyes regarding the Tree of Duality hanging behind her and rubbed thoughtfully at his chin, seemingly contemplating what she had just said. Finally, he blinked, nodded shortly, and returned his gaze to hers. “Your warning is duly heeded, nwalmaer,” he said quietly. His smile still keen as he rose fluidly to his feet without awaiting her permission to do so, he sketched the semblance of a bow that, if she cared to notice, was nothing like the mocking one he often presented to Dmitrova.

“Now,” he offered, still fixed to the spot on her floor where he had landed, “as to your loathing of me and my kind, if I may? There are no others of my kind, Cay… what remained of my clan I dispatched to their end with my own hands after your beloved humans had killed or enslaved the rest…” His gaze lifted skyward, studying the night sky for a second as he continued; “There may yet be other mith’ganni out there but my clan and my kind are at an end with me.”

His eyes flashed as they let go of the sky and fell back to her. “As to the job… it has already begun. I believe I know where we may best start our surveillance, which was to be the point of this visit, yes? You require your rest, though,” he said and waved a hand at the still looming pot, “Put away your crockery and I shall leave you to it…” He turned, peering up through the skylight as if determining precisely where he would latch on and pull himself back out into the night when he left. “Tell me where and when you should like to meet tomorrow and I shall await you there.” Without waiting for a reply, the elf assassin sprang upwards and, in a flutter and whirl of shadow-hued cloak, was gone through the hole in the roof.

Not gone from the roof all together, though.

Nyx had paused just at the outside of the skylight and listened to her breathing in the room below… Yes, that inner voice conceded with a sigh, She’ll need better voice if her spells are to be of any use…you may as well offer…

“I forgot to mention,” Nyx grinned as he poked his head back through the hole in the roof and regarded her upside down, “Your weaving is exquisite. You’ve really quite captured yourself in that piece over your bed…”

He almost laughed when she gawked back at him in what could only have been shock and bewilderment. He held the laughter when the surprised breath she had just inhaled brought on another wracking cough, though. Instead, Nyx invited himself back in, landing in the same spot as he had just vacated but not showing any intention of moving any farther… yet…

“Also,” he said, lifting his fingers to his own throat when she glared at him, “I can perhaps fix this… but I may have to touch you to do so…”

He had approached the place with due caution. To physically assault a sorceress – or any magic-wielder, for that matter – and leave her alive, let alone uninjured enough to work her spells at a later time, was a fool’s gamble. You may escape unscathed in the moment but, the odds always held, you would chance into that self same magic user in a time to come and Prien’s Axe be swift if she saw you first.

Why, then, did you let her live? posed the recently-irritating inner voice as Nyx, of his own volition and not an hour after having taken that fool’s gamble, slinked through the malodorous murk of the wharf towards the ramshackle shop house where Cayrimsa lived.

She would be of no use to me dead, he answered, his eyes warily sweeping the spray-eaten quay before committing himself to scrabbling up the side of the building, and killing her was not the point.

Use to you? The point?! The voice laughed at him as Nyx pulled himself onto the roof of Vergal’s Sea port and stole, whisper quiet, across the faltering shingles to the edge of a hole, neatly cut likely by the witch herself, that opened into the apartment that Cay kept here. Do you truly think that she’ll consider your use should you find her here, now? The self-goading continued as, oh-so-carefully, Nyx lowered himself and swept the darkened room beyond the portal. Do you think she’ll have considered your point at any greater length now than she considered it when you thrashed her in that alleyway… when your tongue danced past her lips?

“Likely not,” the assassin whispered into the air, having confirmed that Cay had not yet returned to her lair, “if I know Cay as I imagine I do.”

And, yet, here you are, the voice, beginning to sound less and less like his own, groaned, delivering yourself to the Executioner by your own hand. And for what? To deliver a snippet of meaningless information that she may find important to your task for Dmitrova?

 You should have killed her…

“Probably,” Nyx finally agreed, slithering away from Cay’s self-made skylight. His keen-eyed gaze swept the piers, streets, and alleys below before he slid cautiously into the deeper shadows lain across the roof by a crumbling chimney.

And you refrained because?

“It was not in the stars,” Nyx hissed at the voice, wrapping himself in his cloak against the salt-laden wind that blew in from the harbor.

Ah, yes, the voice cooed, the stars! You Twilighters and your stars… they guide your lives and your souls, don’t they? Let us gaze upon those stars, then, Shyndyn, and in them find the truth that you refuse to tell even yourself… You can, of course, find the axe?

Stargazing wasn’t a difficult thing to talk a mith’ganni into – even one like Nyx who had long ago left the plains and his people behind him – as a people, they seemed to rely on it, and those of them who had ever been denied a view of the open sky at night, were known to have gone mad for want of them before they finally died. The elf’s eyes drifted towards the heavens and easily located the dim, red pinpricks in night’s veil. “The Threadcutter’s Axe,” he nodded.

Yes… your guide for all this time. And, now, Uelaereene’s Eyes?

Nyx’s gaze shifted, not quite as far as it had to when picking out these stars from the Three Gates, and found them, much brighter, and just below and southward of Prien’s dim cluster. “She who finds the way,” Nyx’s lips mouthed the words more than let a breath drive them into the air…

Indeed… or used to, at any rate, the voice seemed to sigh.

And there, it continued as it guided the elf’s vision towards the far eastern sky, Is that not your precious Moon Horse?

“Teu'kelytha!” The words did escape his lips and shoot into the night, this time, and in somewhat more than even a surprised whisper. The shock at seeing that particular formation of stars, shining so brightly and in such proximity to the other two, very nearly hauled him to his feet and sent him flying from the roof.

The inner voice that was not his laughed loudly, calling him down and taunting him all at once; Yes! You have just now noticed, eh? Not in the stars, says Shyndyn. Something in the stars that the Shyndyn missed, says I.

 When was the last time, mith’ganni, that you witnessed the Moon Horse galloping proudly ‘neath my axe towards Uelaereene mismatched Eyes?

Nyx blinked in disbelief at the sky that now hung over the ocean, his gaze jumping from one constellation to the next for a long while before he answered in a shuddering whisper; “Another lifetime ago.”  His mind chased back through the years; the sky as he saw it now bidding him to recall when last Teu’kelytha, The Threadcutter’s Axe, and The Eyes of Uelaereene had aligned just this way… it had been over the steppes rather than over the ocean… and there had been sweet air and grass beneath his feet, not the clinging stench and cobbled filth of the cities of men…

The humans had found Nyx’s clan on the steppes that day, when he and two others had been out hunting. Killed those that resisted or were too young or old to be of any value and herded the rest into cramped wagons to be taken into the cities of the Empire where they were bound to be sold as slaves or worse. When they had returned to discover the carnage and did not find the shaman Jolbane amongst the murdered, Talo and Calan had looked to Nyx for guidance… He was to wed Jolbane’s daughter come the Festival of Rebirth, after all, and, in the absence of the shaman or any others, that made him responsible for the clan.

He had looked to the skies then, and, through the smoke that rose from the trampled and smoldering ruins of their yurts, spied Teu’kelytha galloping westward towards the Eyes of Uelaereene where they winked above the Ellisian Coast. Above and between the constellations most revered by his clan was another formed by dimly flickering red stars – the Threadcutter’s Axe – and it was in his reading of these heavenly portents that his decision was made. As suggested by the Moon Horse and She-who-finds-the-way, he ordered Talo and Calan west in pursuit of the slave caravan whose wagons were certainly burdened with his kinsmen – he did so with a heavy heart as he knew that Lyssa was surely in one of those slave-carts and he desperately wished to reach her himself before it was too late… But the presence of the Threadcutter’s Axe and the fact that Jolbane – a wielder of magic powerful enough that the humans wouldn’t purposefully have left alive – was missing, demanded that he stay behind, tend to the dead, and find the shaman.

The stars of the axe had grown brighter and brighter as the funeral pyre ushered the spirits of his clansmen into the sky, and brighter still when, after the last body had been placed on the bier, they revealed Jolbane’s tracks in the grass, running for the safety of the rocky hill, not too far from the camp, that stabbed up through the prairie not far from the now ruined camp. The tracks led to a tiny cave near the top of that hill wherein he discovered Jolbane, weeping and trembling, huddled against what appeared to once have been an altar.

“What happened,” was the only thing Nyx could think to ask of the pathetic figure, then.

“I… I don’t know,” the shaman sobbed, refusing to look up at him, “I saw the round-ears coming and… and… I ran…”

“What?!? You ran at the very sight of them?!?”

“Yes,” Jolbane sniffed burying his head in the rough fabric of his coat, “before any of the others even saw them, I ran…”

“Ran,” Nyx repeated flatly, “not warned… not stood and fought… not even cast so much as a single spell… ran?!”

“Yes…”

“Why,” Nyx demanded, swallowing the fire that threatened to burst from his chest and surely lit his eyes. A hissing voice, too, had began to whisper in his head, but the singing of the blood in his ears muffled whatever it was saying…

“I am the Shaman,” came the whining but still somehow indignant reply, “if I didn’t survive, the clan would be lost… I had to… escape…”

“The clan is lost,” Nyx snapped through grinding teeth, “more lost, perhaps, than it might have been had you stayed… what of your magic, Jolbane?... What of your power?...”

Kill him…

Nyx shook, his yellow eyes tearing angrily away from the sniveling form of the shaman he had once thought to be brave and powerful and finding in the darkness beyond a lichen and slime laden skull hewn into the walls of the cave... “What of your daughter,” he whispered, unable to look at Jolbane, now, and manage any respect, “my betrothed… What of Lyssa?”

 Kill him… failure… betrayer…

“I… I… do not know, Nyx,” the shaman wept, at last uncurling from where he cowered in the gloom and weakly reaching out a hand to the mith’ganni warrior, “I could not allow myself to look back or to even think of what might happen… I am the shaman… I had to survive so that our clan would…”

“The clan ended before your death, old one,” Nyx snarled. He watched, seemingly from outside of himself, as his blade lashed out and lopped off the hand that reached for him… smiled when Jolbane squalled in shock and agony… and laughed as he descended upon the wizard and carved him to bloody ribbons…When he emerged from the cave, the Threadcutter’s Axe veritably blazed the sky with it’s brightness in his eyes, its light as red as the blood that soaked him to the skin.

He had caught up with Talo and Calan a short time later as they spied upon a tiny wagon train that had stopped to rest their beasts and mend a broken wheel-spoke… He made no answer when they asked if he had found the shaman… and killed them both when they explained they hadn’t attacked this stalled caravan because it wasn’t one of those that had belonged to the slavers… killed the last men of his clan and, without any further thought or caution, strode into the fabric merchant’s roadside camp and slaughtered every round-ear he found… When he was done there, he turned his eyes west again and his feet followed…Searched for Lyssa and, when she was not found, slaughtered in every human settlement he came upon… by the time he reached Drasnia, Nyx Shyndyn had all but forgotten what had brought him to Prien to begin with… Forgotten that his love and his loss of Lyssa -  Lyssa of the amber eyes and russet hair – had been the impetus for his coming here…

The creaking of rotting stairs under the weight of angry footsteps, followed by the rustle of heavy canvass and the tinkling of cheap bells as Cayrimsa returned to her home broke Nyx from his reverie. His attention snatched from his reminiscent star-gazing and the voice in his head silenced by the surprise that he had not seen or even heard her approach the place, the mith’ganni assassin shoved those memories from another life away, extracted himself from the heavier shadows near the buildings chimney-stack, and crept once more to the makeshift skylight.

 “Eh ahm noeght moehr ehlven…” the witch’s raw voice carried up through the roof-hole as Nyx moon-hued eyes peeked past the edge of it and peered into the squalid flat.

He watched her for a long moment, noting that he way she moved exuded the furious state of her mind… watched as she snatched a bottle of some sort from the heavy shelves that lined one wall of the ramshackle hovel and poured a hateful amount of whatever it contained over her lips and down her throat before apparently scowling at its ineffectualness and angrily hurling it across the room…

 And the Wharf Witch rages, he smirked, Perhaps, I should have heeded my own warnings and waited this out another day or so, yes? Nyx nearly laughed at the thought but, wisely, suppressed the snickering and contended himself knowing that, had he avoided her, he certainly would have missed this oh so entertaining display… In itself worth tracking her down again so soon, he told himself, even if I don’t stay long enough to tell her…

Whatever thought it was that slinked through Nyx’s mind just then – whether he had designed to drop into her rooms or off of the roof and await another time to confront her – was forgotten, though. In the room below, Cay had abruptly stopped in her raging steps and begun to peel off her clothes...

The body beneath that rough burlap dress and stained blouse, quite honestly, wasn’t what Nyx had expected and the hair that spilled from under that battered leather hat when she removed it was far longer and not near as dark as he imagined it would have been…More elf than human, indeed, Nyx mused, unable to look away even if he had wanted to… Since their first meeting, Nyx had envisioned little more than the figure of a stick to be hiding beneath the fish-fouled sack of a dress and the hair, he had always assumed would have been greasy, sparse, and hacked shorter than her ears. To his surprise, though, behind the off-putting façade that she presented to the world with her manner of dress, the Witch of the Wharf was more than lovely. Her figure was slender, yes, but nowhere close to stickish… lean and graceful and a tribute to the elven blood that had helped to fashion it… and her hair was not the tangled, oily, smattering of black sprouts he had imagined, but long, and silken, and of a russet tone that human women could only hope to achieve through the use of dyes or henna.

He continued to watch her as she angrily scrubbed herself with a coarse sponge soaked in some acrid astringent, the fumes of which were strong enough to cause his own nose to wrinkle as they wafted past him. Nyx would deny it, should any have been foolish enough to ask on it later, but something more than simple curiosity kept him watching and stirred something more than simple fascination or physical lust deep in his core… those same stirrings kept him from dropping into the room in the midst of her bath, as well.

The opportune moment for him to have done so, in fact, would have been after she had finished scouring her skin pink, tossed aside the implements of her self torture, and, still undressed, drifted around the room, somewhat calmer, inspecting the possessions she had gathered there. Of those possessions, the one that Nyx had failed to recognize until Cay’s nude form stopped before it and tightened its ends (and the one that suddenly fascinated him more than even her collections of books and bottles) was the loom that occupied the space directly beneath the skylight. He allowed that perfect moment to lapse, too, as he could bring himself to do little more than absorb her and wonder what else the hateful half-elf sorceress hid in her little nest of secrets…

At long last, Cayrimsa – with Nyx’s watchful eyes having followed her every step – resigned herself to the simple wooden palette that passed for her bed and, wrapping herself in the course blankets that topped the thing, settled her back against the curious tapestry that hung above her bed…   

“I’ll be waiting,” he heard her rough voice whisper into the darkness…

Mmm… and I have waited, perhaps, too long… Nyx thought, the surprising spell that watching her alone had cast over him apparently broken, now. Well, he decided, hooking his alabaster fingers over the rough-cut rim of the skylight and rolling himself into the emptiness of its center, neither of us shall wait any longer, then… He somersaulted through the void and landed, without a sound, in a crouch in front of the loom she had recently tuned. The characteristic half-smile was firmly affixed to his thin lips as he rose to his full height, his moonlight gaze panning the entirety of her room, lingering noticeably longer on items such as the loom and the finished tapestry behind her, before finally taking in her blanket draped form.

“Have you missed me,” he asked, pausing for an imperceptible instant when he found himself about to call her Lyssa, “Cay?”

His thoughts were trying to slip away from Cayrimsa whom, judging by the sounds emanating from behind him, was still trying to regain her breath and soothe the mild injuries he’d just inflicted upon her… And trying to spit the taste of me from her mouth, I’d wager, he smirked, unable to resist a glance back as his slender fingers, at the same moment, lifted unbidden to touch his own pale lips…Pach! He scowled and crossly willed his hand away when he realized that the action, unintended as it was, showed some indication that he had enjoyed the angry kiss…

No, he told himself, willing away the thought as harshly as he had bid his own fingers to fly from his lips, it was no more than the torture it was intended to be! Her tirade had begun with her warning him, no, ordering him not to touch her again and, as her haranguing continued and he wearied of it, it had been decided that part of her punishment would to be made aware that he could and would touch her whenever and however the fancy might have struck him…

Did the throttling and incapacitating not demonstrate that fact clearly enough, then?

It did, Nyx snorted, tearing his gaze from the alleyway behind and returning it to the looming mouth of the passage where a pair of gauzy edged silhouettes – the human couple – still stood trying to peer into the dark beyond the whirling tendrils of fog that had so suddenly appeared. The mith’ganni withdrew deep into his cowl before he allowed the mists of the alley way to spit him back onto the nighted Drasnian street.

Why the kiss, then, he continued arguing with himself as he stepped from the mist directly in front of the breeder pair.

Additional proof of the very point, Nyx rationalized, pausing for an instant to enjoy the progression of expressions on the human faces…

Both the male’s and the female’s eyes initially went wide and both mouths fell agape, registering their surprise at the elf’s unexpected emergence. The female’s eyes were quick to register a mix of fear and disgust, as she dared to peer into the depths of the cowl and discovered the face that glared back was that of a moon-eyed mith’ganni; her blue eyes went even wider but her mouth snapped shut as if she feared that the lesser creature might snatch the tongue from it. The male, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes – even though the same repulsion and loathing lit the green orbs set in those fleshy sockets – and tightened his jaw as he scowled at the foreign creature before him. “What have you done, you filthy point-ear,” the man demanded, drawing himself up in a pompous display of bravado and self-perceived supremacy as his wife’s hand nervously sought out the embrace of his, “You’ve robbed, raped, and murdered that poor woman there in the alley, haven’t you?!”

An insidious chuckle, the sound akin to a harsh whisper uttered through a mouthful of grave-dirt, issued from the black depths of the cowl. “Robbed?” Nyx, once more turned an eye to the alleyway behind him, then, turned back and said; “Perhaps of her dignity, yes… Raped and murdered?” The head hidden within the cowl shook a bit and the grave dirt chuckle sounded again. “Sorry to disappoint but no,” the mith’ganni answered, his glinting eyes slithering away from the man to lasciviously regard the plumply curving figure of his woman, “but if such things fascinate, milord, I’m sure I can arrange a private showing for you, yes?” A hand shifted beneath the cloak and the sound of a blade hissing from its scabbard was distinct in the cooling night air. “Perhaps milord fancies having himself incapacitated and his eyelids cut away so that he’ll be certain not to miss the smallest detail as I skin his sow of a wife and then defile her twitching corpse?”

The woman’s eyes went as wide as they could at the same time her skin drained to a hue nearly as wan as the elf’s, then fluttered closed as what was supposed to be a horrified scream died as a pitiful squeak in her throat as she fainted away into her husband’s arms. The man’s expression, too, lapsed back to its not-long-passed state of wide-eyed horror and revulsion as his wife’s form crumpled heavily into his arms. To his credit, though, the man didn’t faint as his wife had and, in opposition to the woman’s pallor, his own features flushed a hue of angry scarlet. “Legionnaire,” the man bellowed, shuffling away with the woman’s unconscious form in tow, “Legionnaire!!! Murder!!! Murder!!! I am assailed by an elf!!!”

“You flatter yourself, human.” Laughing as if at the funniest joke he’d ever heard, Nyx turned away and disappeared into Drasnia’s shadows, leaving the non-victims behind without another thought. His thoughts didn’t take much longer to return to the job and, as partnering with the Wharf Witch was a condition of that contract, neither did it take any time for him to return to his analysis of what had transpired in that alley…

How could you even consider touching the slitch with the stench of fish oozing from her as it does, the inner-voice queried once the squalling of the human faded behind him and the joke he had played lost its humor, let alone kiss her?

It needed to be done, he growled in response, trying to chase the pestering questions from his mind and shift his thoughts to the job at hand, as I have already said! Despite his justification, though, he couldn’t keep his tongue from dancing over his lips and sampling the taste of Cay that still lingered there… it was a surprisingly sweet flavor, he decided, and, as he thought on it more, he had to admit that, in the midst of that sudden kiss, he hadn’t even noticed the smell of rotting fish guts that usually accompanied the witch…. Enough! There is work to be considered!

“Kharinya Bolstoii,” Nyx whispered aloud, hoping that the sound would set him free of the inconsequential thoughts that nagged him as he ghosted through the twisting thoroughfares of the city. “Bolstoii…” The name rang vaguely familiar as he prowled through the now darkened stretch of the North Bank bazaar and his yellow eyes slid in the direction of the distant flickering lights that marked a long span of manses on the other side of the Reyal. “Styopa Bolstoii,” he nodded, his gaze fixed on that glittering swath of noble-built excess… the name sounded familiar because, not long after Nyx had started taking contracts in Drasnia, Styopa Bolstoii had been on of the first to commission his services… This Kharinya may well be mate or progeny, then, the assassin deduced for he was aware of no other families in the Ellisian port city who bore that moniker.

Styopa Bolstoii, by most accounts that had ever reached Nyx’s ears – one of those from the man himself – had started his climb to fortune and power as a caravan guard for a prominent (and, now, long dead) merchant named Turchin who had held great economic and political sway in Drasnia and across the Ellisian Empire a generation ago. Bolstoii was quick to ascend from simple sell-sword guardsman to wagon-master in his repeated trips from one side of the continent to the other in Turchin’s employ and, as a wagon-master, Bolstoii’s reputation surged at twice the pace. Turchin, being a wise and shrewd sort, didn’t fail to notice or reward the industrious Styopa and, when competitors began to try and woo Bolstoii away with extravagant offers, Turchin was not long in offering the wagon-master a partnership in his company.

Most in Drasnia seemed not to notice that Turchin, himself, was not long for the world after that partnership had been struck, and, if they had, they seemed not to care that it was Turchin’s untimely demise that had vaulted Bolstoii to the lofty position he now held in society and among the traders’ guilds across the lands. Neither did any seem to imagine that Turchin’s sudden passing had been anything other than normal… there had been no investigation beyond the review and taxing of the Merchant lord’s estate (most of which had been ceded to Bolstoii) and not even the scantest whispering in the darkest corners of the city that the death had been contracted. Having gained employ form the man, himself, though, Nyx was almost certain that Bolstoii’s elevation from lowly caravan guard to Master Merchant and Drasnian Nobility in such a short while was less hard-work and good-fortune and more coldly-calculated and well-planned conspiracy…

Yes, Nyx smiled faintly, finding himself on Three Gates Bridge, now, Styopa Bolstoii sits like a bloated spider in the center of the intricate web of Drasnia’s information networks, business dealings, and political maneuverings, does he not? Much like Dmitrova imagines he does himself… should this Kharinya be into dealings that would shine a sour light on Bolstoii’s house, the dear Captain would likely profit well from the knowing, now, wouldn’t he?

The dancing light of the torches lining the bridge glittered in Nyx’s pale-yellow eyes as they slid from perusal of the distant noble’s mansions and towards the nearer sprawl of Drasnia’s north side wherein nested Dmitrova’s enclave. Two spiders at war over the same web, he grinned, and the younger preparing to move on the elder… interesting…

His eyes tracked skyward then, and sought out the constellation known as Threadcutter’s Axe. The stars were there, of course, but, tonight, their red glow was dimmed and the gossamer wisps of night clouds served to mute them further. The mith’ganni’s searching gaze, then, moved from the star-scribed sigil of Prien, descending a bit towards the horizon, and found the Eyes of Uelaereene… it very nearly surprised him when, directly below that cluster of stars, he found the wharf where the Reyal met the sea; Uelaereene silvery-white left eye winked above a tumbledown structure that, even from his vantage point on the bridge, Nyx knew to be the once offices of Vergel Sea Port and the now residence of a certain Cayrimsa Etellenya.

The stars called to be watched by him and, for whatever reason, they called him to watch this night from the very roof under which Cay made her home. A wicked smile curled his lips as he reached the southern side of the Three Gates Bridge and his feet turned him west towards the wharf…