Chapter 1
꧁Chapter One: The Treachery of An Assassin’s Blade꧂
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Run.
I beg my legs to run through the ache spreading up my thighs, burning in my throat, through the soot clinging to my white stays, scraping it down my lungs, setting them ablaze with each breath and pant my body screams for.
Run. Run through the torment, run through the searing pain, through the blood of our mother soaking the earth beneath our feet.
Run.
Smoke mixes with the fog, shrouding our path in a disorienting haze. I choke back the urge to retch, my stomach roiling at the scent of soot and blood caking our skin.
Cyra struggles to keep close behind me, her breath coming in ragged gasps for air as we burst through the dense fog, our feet pounding against the moss-covered earth littered with treacherous sharp stones and twigs.
Their footsteps were closing in, one deadly stride after another. Their heavy boots slammed against the moss in a loud thump, their daggers glinting in the moonlight, honed to a lethal edge, poised for the killing blow they so very itched for, and I knew they would not hesitate if they caught us.
Escape to any other capital or town is impossible—we would be hunted relentlessly until we reach the next kingdom and killed if found. And worse than that was the horrid truth that outside of Aspye, nowhere is safe.
Every city, every town under their control offers only betrayal or capture. Running to the next kingdom is a gamble, the kind where losing means a death far slower than the one their daggers would grant us.
And even though all knew this—
We still foolishly run. Because stopping means facing the truth: Aspye’s runners don’t survive. And even if they did, all they ever knew would only be left to dust, and sooner or later they would join it.
However, this? This was only a game to them.
A game they were destined to win.
The forest erupts in a blaze of light, flames engulfing the trees and painting the night sky in hues of hellish orange and red. Overtaking homes and families in its wake, their shrieks echoing through the trees in a chilling symphony of terror
But amidst the horror, a single thought burns brighter than the flames.
There have to be others. There has to be someone else alive.
“Nazira!”
Her voice stops me completely. I have to stop myself from falling over as my vision wavers. My voice cracks as I scream over the sound of the burning trees, crackling and falling, “Cyra!”
I cough up the soot stuck in my throat, covering my nose with my arm as I weave through the fog, my other hand reaching out and grasping. Oak trees groan and shake under their own weight The heaving groaning of wood seemingly all around me, I move over quickly weaving through the trees and out of their reach
I barely miss the ignited branch as it falls to my side, lighting the grass beneath me as I stubble backward gasping only to find coal-laced air enter my lungs as I go lightheaded.
Yet in the mix of chaos, a sharp bone-cracking sound echoes through the forest louder than any scream.
I can barely make out the sound as she thrashes wildly, her eyes disbelieving—almost horrified—her ankle twisted and bruised in a trap of vines and yanking against her skin, sending red blisters up her leg instantly.
I drop to my knees, feeling around for her desperately. I knew they could hear her. My hand wasn’t enough to stop the sounds that had echoed through the trees, and it was only a matter of time before they found the source of the noise
I looked over my shoulder, a newfound paranoia taking form in me. We were running out of time, and quickly.
Small daggers and poisons, maybe even blades, would soon turn to ignited arrows and toxins, and soon enough even that would turn to ash in its own heat and the soul it buried itself in.
Cyra cries out as I finally grip her, almost clinging to the fabric of her gown; her body twists in agony, yet she can only mutter out the words I can barely make out, sweat dripping down her forehead in the heat, flames only growing behind her.
I cough up the soot burning my lungs. “S-stay still, Cyra,” I force the words out, the voice more raspy than even I can recognize.
I pulled against the vines as they cut and scraped my fingertips, drawing blood with every thorn. I grit my teeth, waving the fog desperately from my face.
Then, something much worse took form in front of me.
Hemlock blooms.
Their white petals intertwined with the poisonous green vines wrapped around her legs were renowned. Born from our ignorance and foolishness, they had become the root cause of the plague that tormented Apsye, sending the masses into hysteria and, soon, their deaths.
It would have claimed our mother’s life too, and soon it would claim hers.
I will not lose Cyra, not like this.
Not with my hands covered in her mother’s blood.
Her voice is a strained whisper; her strength fading fast.
“I’m not leaving you.” I wheezed. My hands desperately tearing at the vines, ignoring the agony in my shredded fingertips. But the harder I pull, the tighter they grip. heat searing against my back. The world narrows to the sounds of Cyra’s gasps, the crackling fire, and—
A whistle.
Sharp and unnatural, it slices through the air, chilling me to the core. My head jerks up, and my breath catches.
An arrow strikes a birch tree mere feet from us, the shaft quivering where it lands. Another whistle follows, then another, each one closer, faster, deadlier.
They’ve stopped chasing.
They don’t need to anymore.
This wasn’t a meaningless massacre of an empire driven to terror for the simple crime of living or execution by a corrupt blade that once hounded and shaped our own, because that would be a mercy.
We were no longer an empire to be conquered but one to be hunted
This was war
And Aspye would surely burn to ashes in its path.
