When Suleiman made the Quench Proclamation and sent his death squads to kill our parents because there was deviant blood in Keris-Raye family, I escaped with my brother.

We were playing in the rice fields of Violin Valley when we saw that our house was on fire.

I didn't know what to do, but brother knew somehow.

First we escaped to the Kaskas Forest, then to the neighboring town of Zanth Phol. We tried to go to our relatives houses, but we heard the horse bells again. Suleiman sent his death squads to every house of Keris-Raye.

Our uncles and cousins were killed. Our blood line was erased in front of our eyes.

We ran away from Crater City, we traveled past the four Phol towns, we went further than the bamboo forests of Sentinel City.

We had played orphans in the forest sometimes, but now we were real orphans.

We told our story to sheriff Viubnith at Strangling Town, but he tried to arrest us. Brother said it was his biggest mistake. We couldn't trust anyone.

The riders went to all the corners of the world to kill us.

We traveled all the way to the Ruptured Mountains and joined a group of mountain bandits. Their group was called Demonic Flutes. We grew up with the mountain bandits and became part of them. They were like a new family.

But one day brother decided to take everything. He said he had a plan. We were old enough that we looked different.

We killed our new bandit family with poison and left the Ruptured Mountains.

My brother took the name Glass Knife. I took the name Crimson Lady.

We moved to the Corelands of Om because brother wanted revenge. But Suleiman lived in the palace of Shikivan Om and never came out. It troubled brother greatly.

Instead of killing Suleiman directly, we could only kill his followers. We had to subsist on small revenges.

We lived in an abandoned house in the woods. We wore stolen school uniforms and when we went to the city, we pretended to be students from the Corelands Academy.

All the cities had been taken over by Suleiman's armies. Soldiers walked on the streets like high nobles in their colorful hats.

My brother traveled to small towns and villages at the edges of Corelands, smuggled weapons and worked with local resistance fighters. He collected information, wrote pamphlets and relayed messages.

I wanted to support my brother and help him, but I didn't know what to do. Brother always knew what to do. He read difficult books and wrote difficult things.

It was true that we had deviant blood in our family.

So I decided to kill a soldier every night.

My blood was particularly strong, brother said, so I could do strange things that other people could not.

I wanted to work hard. I wanted to use this body that could do strange things.

When we lived with the mountain bandits, I trained secretly under the waterfalls. I wanted to become someone who could protect and help brother.

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Brother said I needed a plan before going out. I was happy when we made a plan together.

After that, I went out every night to kill one Suleiman's soldier. That became my routine. I ate one meal every day, I killed one soldier every night.

I took something from every soldier I killed. Usually a button or a coin. I had a secret cache in the forest where I collected the buttons and coins I took.

I hid my bloody clothes in a different place. I had to learn how to make new clothes when everything got stained in blood.

I wanted clothes that would be easy to move in, would be easy to wash, and would allow me to get closer to the men I wanted to kill. I spent lot of time thinking how to make such clothes. Brother said he would think about my clothes too. It made me happy.

I dressed like a lady of the night. I kept going out every night.

I learned a lot about the human body.

I sneaked around in the shadows until I saw a lonely soldier smoking or urinating. If I saw a drunk soldier, I followed him until he was alone.

At first, I just stabbed them in the neck, took a button from their uniform and ran away as fast as I could. I didn't even look back to see if they died.

After a few weeks, I learned to stab them in the armpit. I took their bayonet or their krúricks. I stabbed them more than once to make sure.

I started with one knife under my skirt. Soon I carried several knives. Different ones for different purposes.

If I killed a soldier who carried a rifle or a revolver, I took it and gave it to my brother.

People started calling my brother weapons merchant. He was stealing and buying weapons, and then selling them to resistance fighters and local gangs.

One day I heard a group of soldiers talking about a serial killer who targeted young soldiers. They advised all the young soldiers to never walk alone in the streets at night.

It became harder and harder to find a soldier to kill every night.

I had to work harder. I had to do it more silently. I had to do it faster. I had to become one with the shadows.

I had to pretend I was a devout follower of Suleiman, approach them under street lights and lure them in the darkness to kill them.

Sometimes they were on top of me, sometimes under me. Sometimes we were on a dark alley, sometimes in a barn. Sometimes they were strong, sometimes weak. It didn't matter. I always killed them. Before, during or after.

I always made sure no one saw me. I became better at hiding my tracks.

Soldiers disappeared. Soldiers became deserters. Soldiers had accidents. If a body of a soldier was found, someone else was the culprit. I was just a normal streetwalker, I didn't know anything.

I kept up my act even when gang kids kicked me and shaved my head because I was “Suleiman's whore”. In their eyes, I was just a prostitute flaunting my body to the soldiers.

I didn't resist when they kept spitting on me. They helped me to stay in my role.

After the front lines of the war moved, most of the soldiers left and went somewhere else. My brother was treated like a hero by the local resistance fighters. He moved into a good house, wrote his diaries and made deals with other weapon merchants.

I was treated like a traitor. I kept living in an abandoned house for a while, but then I moved into the slum.

A gang of prostitutes called Street Witches wanted me to become their member and I said no. My head was shaved again.

It didn't matter. It was easier to fight and wear a wig when my hair was short.

When other people were watching, brother treated me like a traitor as well. But in secret, he visited me to tell me his plans, or we met in the forest to train together. I was happy.

When I slept, I often had a secret dream. In my secret dream, I returned to my secret cache of coins and buttons, and there was a secret house that was actually a secret inn, and it's secret name was House of Secrets, and secret guests came to stay there in secret –

It was hard work, but I endured.

One day, a young boy came to talk to me in the street. He told me he admired my loyalty to Suleiman. He said he wanted to join Suleiman's army and become a soldier. He said he wanted to marry me and he didn't care that I was a whore.

I told the boy we should get married. Then I stabbed him.

Our plan worked, brother.

I could now kill them before they became Suleiman's soldiers. Even before they became men.

But soon my nightly strolls came to an abrupt end.

Brother decided to follow the weapons. He moved to No-Lands to expand his trade to deviant gangs and I followed him.

I had killed hundreds of soldiers at that point.

Years later, when brother used the name Crystal Pencil and I used the name Dragon Kimono, we traveled to the Corelands again.

I heard the town kids telling ghost stories about Crimson Lady. She was a beautiful, vengeful ghost who came back from the dead wearing blood-stained dress, lured lonely soldiers into back alleys and killed them with her clawed hands just to take the second button from their uniform.

I felt brother had started that rumor to ensure my work would be remembered.

But I was a different person with a different name now.

My secret dream had become more detailed.