“I still don’t understand why you don’t kill her.” The words were blunt but the voice was bright. The speaker speaker towered above the crowd. The angel smiled even as they vied for another’s death.

Hers was not the first group of thugs herded here. A loose circle of Leandra’s guards surrounded gangsters huddling in terrified cliques. They formed the second ring and pressed themselves as tightly to the first as the guard’s eager blades would allow. They were that afraid of what laid in the middle.

Two slipped through the crowd and peaked into the inner ring.

“And I thank you for your patience despite that fact emissary Lux.” A tall woman replied, but she was still dwarfed by the angel. Her gaze swept past the woman, scarcely taking in her embroidered suit as she realized just how large the white-winged figure was. He was well over two metres, and his folded wings spanned that height. She could scarcely begin to fathom what the glowing mass of feathers behind him would look like.

“Well, it would be rude to press you. You are in charge here.” The angel spoke their voice mellow and warm Two didn’t look at his eyes she didn’t want to know if that glowing abyss of a pupil would return if she stared over long. She shuffled deeper into the criminal press and Turned to the subject of their discussion.

Daisy was a mess her clothes were ribbons, that scarcely served their function. The rest of her wasn’t much better off. It was as if a mob of children had went at her with paintbrushes and an indulgence of red paint. From head to tail, she was marred. From how she acted you’d think it was only paint.

She lounged on her freely bleeding coils as if they were a throne and oozed such confidence that the red covering her seemed like an extension of her diced cloak and both looked perfectly in place. Two was once more impressed by the conniving woman.

Her bleeding lips pulled into a wry smile and their gaze wandering to the suited woman were the only visible signs of her turmoil. But there was turmoil.

Violence had ruined this already abandoned place. Had torn away two senses, and it had stripped the incense and perfumes that Daisy wore. It had also taken Daisy’s patience.

When she breathed their essence came to her clear and strong and it tasted like frothing fury smothered under a lake of cold stagnant hae. It was bereft the overwhelming press that Leandra had levelled against her. Nor was it the raw bedlam of before, Yet it was no left less terrifying.

Rage, pain and so much more seized and refined into a poison so potent it defined a person wholly and completely. Not a spec of it was shown. Daisy glanced at her and smiled it was anything but comforting.

The target of Daisy’s ire spoke and the serpent’s attention was retreated. Two took the opportunity to shuffle somewhere else. “Are you sure Lady Leandra will be fine? She does not look well.”

“Yes I’m sure, Igni’s just taking his time.”

Neither figure had glanced at the new prisoners trickling into the mob. Neither Two nor any of the gang were inclined to change that. Even their guards stood by in tense silence. That changed when Anadrea reached the fore. “My Lady!” he screamed, all pretension abandoned, and sprinted into the circle of important figures. Running straight past a grinning Daist who raised a bloody hand and took a curious lick.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Two’s heart sank.

A contingent of grim-faced guards surrounded the niece and aunt. but they were insufficient to hide Deadra’s waterfall of tears. Anadrea stopped short of them, naked helplessness tore off duty’s mask. Exposing a panicked man clutching his dark hair.

Deadra was a mess on the floor leaning over the body of her aunt. She sobbed the quiet sob of someone whose voice had long broken from wailing. The sudden urge to do something for the girl shook Two. What, she didn’t know. She couldn’t even say what caused the feeling. Was it guilt, compassion?

Whatever it was it stopped her from turning and seared the scene into her memory.

Leandra’s essence was a dizzying tumult of fear and relief that pulsed in houts as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She was but a shadow of the woman that had terrified her but hours prior. Dark blood pooled about her abdomen and stained the earth, wandering through cracks in the stone. and frothing white mist obscured the wound.

It was a consequence of her choice. The price of her freedom. The urge grew.

She took a half step forward, then froze. She made a rather sad parody of Anadrea. She stepped back once then twice and continued until she was once more another face in the crowd. A silhouette blurred by the mist. Her features hidden by her hastily raised hood.

She beat the urge down. It resisted refusing to be put away, so she tore at it with every reason and excuse she could fathom. Until it was nought but a thin feeling. Still ir clumg. She asked herself a question. Her eyes swept across the gang she took in their wide eyes and rank terror. She spotted the lion brothers, Prie and Dee. The latter stood protectively in front of his senior, while Prie frantically searched for any possible out. The unit of Two was bound like all the others, She scented Terry in the mix and knew Buctch was out there somewhere.

They were a detestable lot and not one of them liked her. They’d have killed her if Daisy let them. They were all she had. They would die. That was the ultimate consequence of her choice. Would she really step into the light? Risk her prize for an impulse. Was that all she amounted to?

No, she decided and the urge was finally torn loose and cast into the abyss. It took a piece of her as it went. She reined herself in. She won the right to control herself.

It didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like a familiar ache. An apathy that grew a little deeper, hoo teeth that bit sharper.

“It’s taking a while because he’s not familiar with mortals. Give him a few more minutes and she’ll be up. An hour or so and there won’t even be a scar.” Lux chatted away merrily. Igni wondered what was going through their mind.

Was he heedless of the assembled mortal’s fear?

The criminals huddle in groups or by their lonesome. Their wide eyes tracked Lux, in awe and terror, like he was a beautiful blade hanging over their neck. The guards turned jailers were no less pressed. Their fear was hidden behind duty and the task assigned to them. But their eyes were pulled to their lady’s blood and the young miss who was so drowned in tears she couldn’t even hear Lux’s assurance.

Lux’s recent duelling partner looked like they’d fallen under a volcanic avalanche. They swayed heavily and were only held aloft by their recently arrived and older kin. The stags stood as far to the side as the inner circle allowed.

Their faces were stern, their backs straight, but even here there was fear. He could see it in how the elder whose dark skin had been leathered by time and the sun’s heat hid his junior behind them. His straight back and knotted cane poised for defence.

Only the governor and the snake were without fear.

Could Lux not see it? Or perhaps he simply didn’t care. Igni so desperately wanted to know, but alas it was not the time to pursue answers.

Gentle as a whisper he pulled his mist from Leandra’s stomach. He tugged and stitched and knitted as he went but gaping wounds and innumerable tears remained inside her. There was only so much he could do when her body fought him with as much vigour as the toxic essence Daisy had implanted.

It was poor work but it was enough.

“He’s done for now.”

“Oh,”

The conversing pair remained the only voices and Igni could only sigh as he pulled himself together.

Quiet as a whisper a soft sigh brushed her ear. Two glanced about for its source but found only churning mist. While it was not what she sought it was more than enough to hold her attention.

It began as small whirls, an inhale of mist and fog but without the slightest breeze. Then it grew. The blanketing mist that covered the floor for hundreds of metres pulled together. A vortex of undulating vapour centred on their group’s centre. By then she wasn’t the only one watching. The fog that had masked the sky came undone and fell in chunks of spiralling grey.

In moments a river had run past her, leaving only the slightest ruffle of her cloak and the memory of moisture.

An angel congealed from it all. Dark skin congealing from thick fog. A suit of blue and gold trimmed with white stitched itself from vapour. Remnant tendrils of mist sank into titanic wings of pale and dusty gold flecked with swaths of light brown. They were as tall as their white mirror. The latter was a bright light that dared one to look to approach. With a smile so inviting it was almost a compulsion.

Before stood an entirely different beast.

Gasps and sudden retreats followed his appearance. The crowd retreated and the guards threw off their surprise to hold their encirclement.

Two stayed right where she was. The person in front of her felt like a question without an answer. A wonder that could never be uncovered. A wonderful secret.

And she couldn’t look away.