“Hah! Hng! Ouch, damn it!”

  “Wrong. Wrong, wrong and wrong!”

  For the umpteenth time that day, Tristessa’s trusty hunting dagger escaped her grasp, bouncing several times off the rocks along the banks of the Maturin River. Her attempt to retrieve it left her back—and practically her entire body—at the mercy of her opponent, who shook her head in disappointment and tripped her.

  “AHH!”

  Tristessa twisted sideways, trying not to fall face-first and crack her teeth on the rocks. She covered the side of her head, and the side of her torso felt the hardness of the uneven ground. The impact sent a sharp pain through her right shoulder, ribs, and hips, causing her to let out a prolonged groan.

  “You could show me a little mercy, would you?” The girl sighed, her eyes squeezed shut to ward off the ache.

  She turned her body sideways, leaning her back against the rocks, and when she opened her eyes, the endless gray Nekromian sky stretched before her, slowly preparing to unleash a storm.

  “No mercy, kitten. Turning your back on your opponent is like signing your own death warrant.” Blocking her vision, Astoria Silverthorn approached and offered her the hand that wasn't holding a dull, lighter great sword. For practice, rather than her own, which lay sheathed and jealous against one of the boulders a few meters away. “Come on, we still have time before it starts to rain.”

  “You're bloodthirsty, Tori. I like that.”

  Tristessa accepted her temporary teacher’s hand, unprotected and full of calluses. Unlike her usual armored self, that dark afternoon the platinum-haired knightess wore light armor that protected only her limbs and chest with hard leather layers.

  Her black cape was the only piece of distasteful fashion she was forced to wear, by which all citizens of the Empire identified her as a Blackguard.

  Which was far better than being insulted, spat upon, and cursed for bearing one of the most hated surnames in all of history.

  “How do you expect me to learn anything if you attack me with a great sword?” Tristessa asked, this time without taking her eyes off the ruthless knightess, now gripping the hilt of her weapon with both hands in a defensive stance. She raised the dagger from the ground and mimicked the Arachnion stance she had learned from Katriel Strauss. “I will never reach you.”

  “Indeed, that’s one of the advantages of this kind of weapon: its reach gives me dominance of my surroundings,” she explained, turning halfway around just as Tristessa tried to reach her with a quick dash, slashing horizontally through the air so that the girl had to stop dead in her tracks to avoid being struck on her aching arm. Now Astoria was gathering momentum, delivering rapid, dizzying blows, advancing toward the girl and forcing her to retreat toward the river. “Come on, do something! Fight back!”

  “What do you want me to do?! My footwork is awful, there’s no way I can find an opening!” she shouted back, glancing over her shoulder several times and calculating how many more steps she could take before her feet sank into the river water. “Are you seriously going to force me to commit suicide?!”

  “Stop crying and attack, you fool!”

  “Damn it!”

  Tristessa leaped forward at the last moment, trying to slip under Astoria’s arms as she flicked her weapon in an arc above her head.

  For a moment, she thought she had a clear path to her back, and perhaps she could land a harmless jab to claim her first victory. But unfortunately, her teacher was two steps ahead of her and proved it by raising her left knee and driving it down into Tristessa's abdomen.

  “Ugh…!” The blow knocked the wind out of Tristessa, and she lost feeling in her legs. Inevitably, her knees buckled, and she had to drop her weapon to the side to clutch the spot where Astoria had struck. “W-Was it necessary…?”

  “If your weapon of choice is a dagger, it’s not enough to mimic the movements of a blade dancer: you must expand your horizons, use more than your Divinity-enhanced memories. Use your mind for more than just remembering.”

  “Well, I also use it to think about how beautiful you are, hehehe,” Tristessa joked.

  She received no reply from Astoria. She was staring west, at the military carriage parked in the middle of the field. The gray-furred, armored vilecross dozed with its arms crossed and head bowed, while the driver and her co-pilot—both armored Imperial Guardswomen armed to the teeth—silently patrolled the surrounding area.

  But none of that was the focus of the red-eyed woman's attention: a dark hooded figure stood atop the carriage. Eclipsed by the few rays of the setting sun that managed to penetrate the mass of clouds stretching to the horizon, preventing Tristessa from seeing his mask, not even by squinting.

  She was certain that, up until that very moment, Sylas Roy Khan had been following their every move. Without breaking shadow-shrouded eye contact for a single second, obeying Aurelia Eramisaptor's strict order to deny them any privacy whatsoever.

  “He hasn't moved an inch since we arrived… Since I met you, Tristessa, I've seen more Wraiths than thousands of people do in their lifetimes,” Astoria told her.

  “I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing,” Tristessa whispered, as she caught her breath and the pain in her abdomen receded. “Perks of meeting a Stranger, I suppose.”

  “Don’t say that out loud! Auron told me he overheard Lady Eramisaptor arguing with the Demon of the Fall,” Astoria remarked, her gaze fixed on the motionless yet deadly masked assassins, still as a scarecrow. “He insisted on sending only Imperial Guards to watch over us, but she refused: she wanted him to be the one keeping a constant eye on us. He even argued that he was her Hidden Shadow and shouldn’t be separated from her.”

  “And what did Aurelia say in response?” the gray-eyed girl asked once she was standing.

  “Lady Eramisaptor told him that she had no use for having a shadow that was easily deceived and didn’t protect its mistress when she needed it most.”

  “Ouch. That man frightens me but I also feel a little sorry for him.” That comment puzzled Astoria, and she frowned at Tristessa. “What?”

  “Do you feel sorry for a killer who murdered other Strangers? It’s just rumors, but…” Astoria rested both hands on the hilt of her practice greatsword, her face flushed with caution. “If it weren’t for Lord Youngblood, Sylas wouldn’t have even waited for a decision on whether or not to send you to the Imperial Capital for questioning: he would have killed you without a second thought.”

  “T-thankfully, I have you all and a Wraith in love with me watching my back.”

  “In love? More like addicted to your Discord.”

  Tristessa’s lips formed a mischievous smile, seeing the perfect opportunity to tease Astoria a little.

  “At least Vektra is honest about her feelings, however twisted they may be… Speaking of feelings and dishonesty, you tend to chat a lot with Auron, don’t you? You’re quite the little…”

  The knightess didn’t let her finish, grabbing her by the collar of her trench coat with one hand and squeezing tightly. She dropped her sword to lift a shocked Tristessa and, with a grimace of rage and blazing eyes, threw her into the air.

  “AHHH, FUUUUUCK!”

  The good thing about the stretch of river where Tristessa sank was the combination of a slow current and shallow depth. Moreover, it was a perfect spot for fishing, with waters so clear that Tristessa could see the sandy bottom with crystallized rocks before she surfaced.

  “Cough, cough! That just proves what I said!” she yelled at the woman who had turned her back on to pick up her practice weapon from the ground. Tristessa ran a hand through her hair and scrunched up her ponytail, which she still wasn't used to. Although the current wasn't strong, it took some effort to drag her legs to shore. The wind from the approaching storm intensified the chill that had seeped into her damp clothes. Ironically, the girl's face burned with anger. “Hey, did you hear me?!”

  “If you have time to talk nonsense, then you have time to practice.” Astoria assumed an attack stance. Without any intention of showing Tristessa mercy, given the way she glared at her.

  “No, I think it would be best if we rested a bit… Let me help you sit that nice ass of yours down!”

  Anger was a powerful trigger for both bravery and foolishness; two psychological elements that, in the right or wrong hands, could define the fate of places, people, and even entire geopolitical structures.

  In Tristessa's hands there was nothing but river water and damp sand when she ran as fast as she could toward her teacher. Raising her hunting dagger from the ground, she had the means to try and stab her in the left shoulder, the most exposed spot in her current position.

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  A predictable attack that was easily intercepted by Astoria. The blunt edge collided with and stopped Tristessa's dagger in its tracks, the impact spreading a jolt of soreness along her arm. Without any effort on her part. Without even blinking.

  “You're going to have to do a lot more than that to...”

  “Come forth, Dullahan!”

  Seeing Astoria's eyes open in surprise made Tristessa smile, her dark soul releasing excessive amounts of Discord. Of course, her intention wasn't to harm this woman for whom she harbored conflicting feelings within her heart. She only intended to give her a taste of her own medicine; a non-lethal blow, without a weapon involved, from the dark knightess emerging from the tongues of darkness that danced around them both.

  Behind Astoria, ready to attack her blind spot with her bare hands.

  “…!”

  What happened next was so fast that Tristessa’s eyes couldn’t process it. In truth, her vision was incredibly slow. So slow, in fact, that she only saw the flash of the dull greatsword guided by Astoria’s skillful hand.

  In an instant, it was all over.

  The darkness vanished like a bad dream. All traces of Discord disappeared as well. Tristessa was utterly confused, blinking in an attempt to understand what had happened and why her [Divinity of Nemesian Summoning] had just been nullified. Or why she had lost feeling in her right hand, losing control of her fingers and therefore her grip on her dagger, which fell to the rocky riverbank for the third time.

  “…huh? I-I don’t understand, w-what…?”

  Or why she suddenly felt exhausted to the extreme. Weakened, so worn out that her bones ached and felt as heavy as lead. The very blood coursing through her veins seemed to pull her down. Standing and resisting the world's gravity was an immense effort.

  There was no way her body could hold, and Astoria saw this, abandoning her training weapon to catch Tristessa in her arms.

  “Tori? W-what's wrong…?” Her mind raced, exhaustion pulling her eyelids down, threatening to plunge her into the world of dreams, which, since Tristessa's arrival in Nekrom, had been filled with nothing but nightmares. Astoria didn't seem worried, but there was a hint of understanding in her crimson eyes. “Tori…”

  “Relax, kitten. Nothing happened… I just defeated the Dullahan with one single blow,” she explained, so cold and deadly that Tristessa's heart leap with scared pleasure. “You won’t surprise me like you did with Lady Eramisaptor. Besides, the Dullahan is very weak now compared to the monster we faced at Burnt Fort Hexel.”

  “Hey! Don’t be rude, you’re talking about me, you know?”

  “That’s exactly why. Weakling.”

  “Shut up.”

  Astoria princess carried Tristessa to the carriage, a walk of several minutes as she took her time so as not to compromise her fragile condition. Above, the gray clouds were turning black and beginning to roar with bottomless hunger, ready to unleash an orchestra of lightning and a rain of thunderbolts.

  It was yet another message for the platinum-haired woman that practice time was over. It was time to go home.

  Or, rather, back to house arrest.

  A place she couldn’t leave without supervision. Always watched by that masked man who leaped from the carriage and touched the ground as softly as a crimson leaf falling from one of the unnumbered titan trees on southern End-World.

  Sylas didn’t utter a word. His presence alone was enough to make Astoria, once she stopped before the door of the military carriage, feel a nervous emptiness inside. The darkness in his eyes and the demon painted on his mask fueled her unease with every passing second, a natural effect of the Wraiths.

  “Go get our weapons, please,” Astoria asked one of the two Imperial Guards who had approached to take orders from the assassin, not her.

  The woman, armed with a rifle, gave Astoria a look of disgust, but reluctantly agreed, driven by the intrinsic fear she felt for Sylas and the way he nodded.

  Then he opened the carriage door, his dark gaze following Astoria as she helped Tristessa inside. Astoria ignored him as best she could and untied the knots of her black cloak.

  “Rest for a while,” she told the weary girl, covering her with the cloak and sitting beside her, embracing her and drawing her close.

  She sought to share her body heat, an indirect way of apologizing for throwing her into the water and causing her current condition.

  “Hey… Tori?” She heard Tristessa calling her name in a whisper close to her ear. “If Vergil were here, he’d be licking my hands, you know? And he’d be sleeping at my feet.”

  In the dimness cast by the curtains that covered the carriage windows, the corner of Astoria’s lips formed a tentative smile, hidden and shy.

  “You miss him terribly.”

  “Yes... What about you, Tori?” Tristessa asked, finding her ally’s warm fingers in the dark. The idea of ??intertwining their fingers seemed appealing for a moment, until the ghostly memory of that same woman smashing her head against the wall resurfaced. The trauma forced her to back away, to not tempt fate like that. There was a less terrifying way to anger the expectant knightess. “Do you miss your family?”

  The semi-conscious, gray-eyed girl had been captivated by that woman's icy demeanor, her physical prowess, and her iron heart.

  Damaged by that woman's alcohol-fueled violence and the despairing existence she concealed within, as a prime candidate to become a Virgin of Sorrow.

  Whether due to the simultaneous attraction and fear she felt for her, she had never, in any timeline, attempted to delve deeply into the Silverthorn family and their fall from grace. She hadn't asked about her father, her mother, any possible brothers or sisters. Nor about her grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother. And so on, until reaching that ancestor who, to this day, served the Shadow Queen.

  Valthiel Silverthorn, the Valkyrie of Darkness.

  “I…”

  Tristessa heard that hesitant murmur, the anticipation giving her a small rush of adrenaline that, unfortunately, wasn't enough to keep her consciousness afloat. Not when that corner of her soul that gave rise to and sustained the Dullahan was maimed.

  “Tristessa? Kitten?” Astoria called when she felt her head rest on her shoulder. There was no answer, only the weak but steady breathing of someone who had fainted.

  Sylas climbed into the carriage and closed the door behind him, which activated the interior lighting. He arranged the two great swords along the rack on the ceiling and pointed Tristessa's hunting dagger at the knightess of red, distrustful eyes. Almost menacingly, he then spun the weapon between his fingers with perfect skill, as one would expect from an assassin of his kind, and tucked it inside his uniform alongside the other knives.

  “…”

  The Wraith sat in the opposite seat, facing the two women huddled together, and knocked twice against the wall. Outside, the driver's command was heard, followed by the roar of the Vilecross engine that gave the initial jolt to start the carriage.

  The next few minutes were a silent exchange of glances between Astoria and a man who had more than one reason to slit the throats of both her and the unconscious girl beside her and flood the compartment with their combined blood. The rain had already begun to fall, pounding against the windows and roof, creating a constant rumble that was occasionally drowned out by flashes of lightning overhead.

  But when Sylas decided to speak, Astoria stopped hearing all the background noise, as if his voice commanded even the elements to be still.

  “The rumors that you don’t use your Divinity… Are they lies?” he asked, flashes of the storm’s fury filtering through the curtains, giving his mask a supernatural appearance. Demonic. “Answer me, Silverthorn.”

  Astoria drew Tristessa closer to her without even thinking.

  “What you saw was a slip-up. It won’t happen again,” she assured him, watching with growing paranoia as Sylas tapped his right knee with his fingertips. In perfect sync, the sharp edges of his black nails like claws nearly digging in.

  “A shame. To waste a gift from the Gods like that is despicable.”

  “A gift? No…” Astoria couldn’t hold back, her mouth betraying her, revealing the primal emotions associated with her Divinity. “It’s a curse.”

  When she finished speaking, she tried to regain her stoic composure, but instead swallowed hard, watching Sylas nod in understanding.

  “That warrior made of solid darkness. You struck her down as soon as she materialized. Why could you, and Lady Eramisaptor not?”

  “She didn’t know that Tristessa had such skill. We capitalized on the surprise factor. That’s all there is to it.

  “…I see. Very well. I will state the obvious, then: if you ever attempt to use your Divinity near Lady Eramisaptor…”

  He left his threat unfinished on purpose, giving Astoria the opportunity to finish it herself, to confirm that they were both on the same page.

  Something of which there was no doubt.

  “You will kill me,” was her reply, and the Demon of the Fall leaned slightly forward, both to agree with her and to provide morbid details she would never forget:

  “First, you will choke on your own saliva, turned to venom. Only when your heart begins to pump rotten blood to every corner of your body, only then will I grant you the courtesy of casting you into the maw of the Abyss.”

  “…”

  “Nothing to say, Silverthorn?”

  Astoria thought beyond that death threat, and what came to her mind had nothing to do with it.

  “Could I ask you something?”

  To her surprise, the Wraith nodded.

  “You still can’t wrap your mind around it, can’t you?” She waited a moment for Sylas to say something, certain of what she was speaking about. He remained silent, so she continued. “You don’t understand how Tristessa managed to do what she did. Gathering us, bringing Stormcrow to her side, ruining the Coven’s plans, and defeating your mistress.”

  “And you do understand? Do you really think that Divinity she owns, with its anomalous effects, gave her an advantage over everyone?” he asked, leaning back against the seat. “You can predict when it’s going to rain, but if you’re out in the middle of the wasteland, you’re not going to avoid getting wet.”

  Outside, the storm raged, and the carriage lurched as it made its way toward the southern entrance of Entrana.

  “That girl was lucky. Take care of her,” Sylas urged, a hint of vengeful anger in his sinister voice. “Luck is a double-edged sword: one day it’s on your side, the next it’s against you.”

  “Indeed...”

  That was the last word. Neither of them spoke again for the rest of the journey, and Astoria simply continued to hold that lovely girl, soaked from head to toe.

  The one who was going to help her fulfill her wish to redeem her family name.

  Her kitten.

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