A dark, twisted tree of blackened bone rose from the center of the white stone floor. It was not a natural growth, but a cruel sculpture of agony, its branches like grasping claws reaching for the molten grey orange sky.
And from the highest claw, she hung.
Her beauty on the left side was a stark, heart-breaking contrast to the horror on her right. That side was still pristine. Soft, fair skin. Matted but still golden hair. A delicate ear. The tattered remains of an elegant blue silk dress. Her left eye, though clouded with pain, held onto a fragile hope, a belief in her trusted knight.
The right side of her body was a monstrous, living wound. Her arm was a morbid, pulsing sculpture of deformed flesh. Thick purple veins throbbed like diseased rivers under skin the color of a rotting bruise. The corruption had crawled up over her shoulder, snaking across her neck and temple in a violent purple web. It pulsed with a slow, sick rhythm, as if something terrible was trying to beat its way out from inside her.
Her hands were pinned above her head by cruel, barbed spikes of the same blackened tree-material, driven straight through her wrists. Blood, a chilling mixture of vibrant red and deep, corrupted purple, streamed down both arms, the two colors swirling together before dripping to the ground.
She was suspended in a silent, screaming picture of transformation, caught between the princess she had been and the Unfaithful beast she was becoming. Watching her, even with her usual detached calm, Ayame felt a pang of pity.
A man approached Ayame. He was dressed in simple, black suit.
"Number Four," he said, his voice dry and precise. "I trust you will succeed in the mission this time."
"Yes, Sir Silas," Ayame replied.
"I remind you that failing this mission will result in a third warning." He paused, letting the words settle like stones. "I trust you know what that means." Silas gave her a thin, empty smile.
Ayame stood before the dark tree. Around her, a group of dark-robed individuals had gathered. Next to them were the people from Fenshore House, the allies they were forced to work with.
"Yes," Ayame said, her voice flat. "I will eliminate him, even if it costs my life."
"Oh, is that so?" Silas walked to stand beside her shoulder, his hands clasped behind his back. He leaned close, his words for her ear alone. "Then I guess the Red Lotus Clan is at risk, then."
She clenched her fist. Veins throbbed under her skin. Her eyes took on a faint red tinge. She said nothing.
Moments later, she found herself wandering the burning inferno of the rift, through the endless maze of crumbling white shelves. She thought about him. Lucid. Just the thought of him lit a small, dangerous spark inside her. Hope. But hope was dangerous for her. Hope was nothing but a trap. Still, she couldn't exactly deny that he had shown her what it meant to be treated like a human, even if she wasn't one herself. Smiles. Compassion.
She closed her eyes.
'Such a kind soul, whom I was tasked to erase.'
'He showed me warmth and kindness.'
'Then his death will be a way to show my kindness.'
She had left the clearing with its circular wall of shelves behind her. Now she was moving down a narrow path where the endless white shelves themselves began to smolder and burn. The air grew harsh and hot, thick with the scent of scorched knowledge and brittle, burning paper. It was a punishing heat, one that would have driven others back.
But it wasn't anything she couldn't handle.
Her people, her tribe, her clan, had endured far worse. They had weathered ash-storms that scoured flesh from bone and silent, freezing nights that could stop a heart mid-beat. This was just another trial, another path to be walked. The fire around her was merely an echo of harsher truths she had already survived.
Something was close. A dark, shaped shadow, the same B-grade monster she had fought when she first met his group, the group of students that seemed to know Lucid. When that orange-haired girl had said his name, something had sparked inside Ayame. He was gathering allies. Meeting people. Making connections.
She couldn't let that happen.
She unsheathed her dagger.
She was ready to kill the beast or meet her own death. A part of her hoped for death, if it meant the mission would be over and her clan would be safe while leaving Lucid alive.
The dark shadow stopped just in front of her, evaluating her.
Then it simply turned and carried on, ignoring her completely.
She looked at it, indifferent.
'I live to see another tomorrow,' she confirmed closing her eyes, whether out of relief of acknowledgement it was unknown to even herself.
What followed was a blur. She was running. She had details on where they were from the intel of fenshore's house apparently the head house name Miguel could control unfaithful beats tracking and pinpointing their locations, where he had gone. He seemed to be in one of the buildings, the ones scattered like silent sentries in the endless maze.
Then she saw someone. Or rather, she *scented* someone.
His scent. It was intoxicating. Familiar. She knew he was there.
"I found you," she whispered. Her upper and lower lip twitched into an uncanny, instinctive grin that showed the sharp points of her fangs. Was it because she had missed his company? Or was it just that she was hungry? She hadn't drunk from a normal source in a month. The thought of his warm, vital blood lit a fire in her hunger.
But something didn't feel right.
There were others. She could sense others around him. Allies. Witnesses. A whole group.
Her first impulse was to charge. To drop into the middle of them, dagger flashing, and complete her mission in a storm of violence. It was simple. It was direct. She set that impulse aside. A direct attack on a group was suicide, and suicide before the mission was complete was failure. Failure meant her clan.
Her second thought, a cold memory, was to wait. To watch from a distance for days, studying patterns, waiting for the perfect, isolated moment. She set that aside, too. There was no time. The rift was collapsing. The mission clock was ticking.
A hot twist of emotion rose in her chest—frustration, and beneath it, a strange, protective spike seeing him surrounded. She pushed the feeling down. It was useless.
She chose an option that shared no pattern with attack, with patience, or with care.
She moved not closer to the group, but upward. She scaled the sharp, curved exterior of the archive building in silence. She found handholds in the ornate stonework, her sharp nails biting into the white rock as she pulled herself sideways along the wall, her dark hair flowing in the hot, ash-filled wind.
On the second floor, she found a long, narrow panel of thin glass. She hooked her fingers into a groove and hung there, sideways, peering in.
There were about eight people inside. And there he was. She found him instantly. That mist-obscured face. The way he stood, arms crossed, deep in thought even amid chaos. Her eyes scanned the others. Two of them seemed to be training—a girl with a dagger that looked similar to herself, and a bald boy with a rusty longsword. Four others sat talking, while one more sat apart, holding his head, looking shaken.
Then she found the source of the strong, formal scent. A blue-haired young man, maybe in his early twenties. Crisp. Sharp. Crystal-blue eyes. Minimal armor, a sword at his hip. A knight. A strong one.
But her eyes drifted back to Lucid. He was safe. He was unhurt. The loud human with the loud internal thoughts was still standing.
A small, quiet smile touched her lips. Not for the knight. Not for the students. For him.
She had trailed him ever since he came to Vex. Through the citadel, through the shops, the blue forest and now into this hell.
A flood of simple, clear thoughts ran through her mind as she watched him, a secret spectator.
'The restraint cost me more than any battle. Every instinct screamed to silence you, to pull you into the shadows where no one could hear us. I craved the stillness of a place where I could fulfill my duty, where your end and mine could be the final, quiet act, a shared death that would not doom my clan, but save it.'
'I watched you from a high window when you slept in that manor. You seemed so alone in that big room. It would have been easy then.'
'It would be so quiet then. Just the two of us. Let it end here. Let us be the last thing the other ever sees while I can enjoy your warm vitality for the last time, till death separates us. Let it be quiet.'
'But then came the academy. A group. Friends. A quiet, normal schedule. I watched it all.'
'I watched you walk with the ginger-haired girl who bumped into you. I saw you stand beside the knight in the courtyard.
'I watched you stand up for her'
'I watched you from rooftops as you moved between classes, just another student in a crowd.'
'Every day, it got harder. The mission was to erase a variable. But you stopped being just a variable. You became a person who helped a clumsy girl pick up her books, a person who cheered up another when they were self loathing, someone who tolerated someone's ego of their artistic value. Who stood silently beside a knight as if you belonged there. Who walked with your head held up high, thinking those loud, complicated thoughts I could almost hear.'
'And now you are here. In the middle of a Rift that is supposedly, the destruction of Vex, and you are not alone. You have made a place among them.'
Her smile faded. The observation settled into a cold, hard fact. His death would not be a simple deletion of a problem. She would have to kill him and then herself... for that was her final act of kindness.
The knight was a problem. The others were witnesses. The situation was all wrong.
But she had her orders. She had her price.
She remained there, a dark shape against the glass, unmoving. She would watch a little longer.
Until his gaze went up to the window.
'How…' she thought, a flicker of surprise piercing her calm.
It wasn't Lucid. He was still looking down, lost in thought. It was the knight. The blue-haired one.
His crystal-blue eyes were fixed directly on her shadowed form. They weren't wide with shock. They weren't narrowed in suspicion. They were simply… aware. Calm. Knowing.
A cold, clear realization washed over her.
'He noticed me long before I arrived.'