Nymia had just set the pot on the low table and was wiping her hands on a damp cloth when a shadow fell across the doorway. The cottage, warm with the lingering steam of the morning meal and the perfume of white lilies outside, seemed to hold its breath.
She turned.
A man stood framed in the doorway—broad-shouldered, his face half-hidden beneath a hood. But where a face should have been, there was a single, pale eye set dead-centre in his brow: a cyclopean stare that gleamed like polished bone. Behind him, three silhouettes filled the path—each a quiet menace, machetes glinting at their sides.
For a long beat Nymia did nothing but stare back, the cloth falling from her hands.
"Who are you?" she managed, voice thin as the steam curling from the pot.
Before the intruder could answer, the cottage erupted into motion. Ouale and Ouake barreled out from the back room and planted themselves between their mother and the doorway as if their bodies could form a shield. Their small faces, usually so bright and mischievous, had gone hard with fear and resolve.
The cyclops-man's smile was slow—too slow—teeth bared like a predator savoring the kill. He filled the doorway until his single eye drank in the tiny room, cataloguing every weakness as if ticking items off a list.
"Such adorable little girls," he purred, voice the color of oil. "Look at the defiance in their pretty eyes—such eagerness to defend their mother. Cyclops could learn a thing or two from that. Unfortunately, you won't live past today." He paused, relishing the moment.
Then his gaze slid up to Nymia. "…And you." He paused again, tasting her name. "You must be the wife of that man." His tone slicked over the words. "Prince Aloysius was right—the Blind Swordsman hides a life none of you could imagine. It took time to find a weakness, but we found you. Weakness is a map."
Nymia's voice trembled as she dragged the girls closer behind her. "Who are you?" she asked.
The cyclops barked a laugh. "Why would we tell you? Do you think we're foolish?" One of his men shifted, the whisper of metal as machetes slid free. "No need to worry about these ones. Dead men tell no tales." His voice was flat, casual.
A humorless chuckle escaped the cyclops. "True."
He spread his hands, as if outlining the plan to an audience. "We are emissaries—assassins—from the Nymph Empire. Lord Glaivus sent us. Orders are simple: by all means necessary, remove the Blind Swordsman, our greatest obstacle, and the Nazare Blade Empire's greatest warrior."
"In order to do that, we came up with this wicked plan to Kill his blood relation, any thing that can weaken him, in this case... You, display the head. The army will also be affected once he is wealened. The people will tremble. The emperor will be in doubt till his death. Within two weeks or maximum, a month, those who matter in the Nazare Blade Empire will be removed—masked, poisoned, cut down. We will be the hammer."
The words landed like a stone in the cottage's warm air. Nymia's hand tightened around her daughters' sleeves. The lilies outside seemed suddenly fragile, and the little home felt dangerously exposed.
The words landed like ice. Nymia's fingers tightened around her daughters' sleeves until the cloth creased white.
Something in her—some small bright, brave thing—flickered and flared. She stepped forward, protecting the girls with her posture. "You'll not bring your chaos into my home," she said, but her voice shook. "If Naze were here—"
"He's not," the cyclops interrupted. The eye at his brow narrowed. "You cannot bargain for that which you do not possess. He will feel the ripples, of course. But that is the point." He gestured toward the hearth, toward the lilies. "We just need to spill some blood on the road, and fear will do the rest of our work for us."
Ouale's hand went to the small cleaver hanging on a peg; Ouake's jaw set like flint. They were children, but they stood like soldiers.
Nymia swallowed. She stepped between them again, dragging them even further, whilst trying to steady her voice with something fiercer than terror. "If your Lord Glaivus wishes to weaken the Empire, he will do so with blades, not cowardice. Leave now and we will forget this ever happened."
The cyclops' smile widened into a grin that did not reach his eye. "You are generous for a dying woman." He leaned forward, as if to make the threat intimate. "We could cut you down either now, or if we're feeling merciful, in your sleep, smear your blood across the door lintel, and the story will travel. Or—" he tapped the machete at his side—"we can make it slow. Let everyone watch."
Nymia's heartbeat thundered in her ears. The cottage seemed suddenly too small, its four walls confining her like a drum. Her hand brushed her daughters' heads, feeling the quick pulse there, the soft hair, the ridiculous smallness of their bodies compared to the world that had found them.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked—not because she wanted the answer, but because she needed seconds. Words were all she had to buy them.
The cyclops smiled, a slow, reptilian thing. "Because terror is a performance. And because you won't live long enough to repeat a single word of it." His voice dropped to a whisper that seemed to stain the air. "When your husband falters, the empire will fracture. Lord Glaivus likes quiet revolutions. We prefer spectacle."
He shifted slightly, revealing a shadow moving behind him—another assassin already slipping down the lane, the rest of the strike team positioned like wolves around the home.
Nymia's heart thundered. Her mind raced through memories in flashes:
Naze's voice at dawn, the calm weight of his blade at his waist, the lilies outside their door bowing to the morning wind, the girls' laughter echoing against wooden walls, the coins he had given her "just in case."
And then—something colder, more recent.
She remembered the small metal disk he'd pressed into her palm the night before he left.
"If danger ever comes before I do, press this. Help will arrive."
She hadn't understood it then. She didn't even fully understand it now. But she had no time left to wonder.
The cyclops took a step toward her.
Nymia slipped the button from her sleeve and pressed it.
The world didn't shake. There was no sound, no flash, no explosion.
But the air bent.
A shape formed between her and the assassins—dark but solid, a silhouette made of shadow and steel. The outline was unmistakable: the stance, the blade at the hip, the face half-turned as though listening to a distant wind.
It was Naze.
And yet—not truly. Not flesh, not warm, but a projection, a magical imprint of the man himself, branded into the button like a stored memory.
The cyclops froze. His single eye widened in pure, animal terror.
"That— that's impossible," he stammered, stepping back. "He's not supposed to be here—he's miles away—"
The image of Naze didn't speak, but the sword at his waist shifted, and even illusion felt like death.
The assassins who had come so boldly now moved like men who had found themselves face to face with a storm they were never meant to survive.
And for the first time since they entered her home—
they were afraid.