After a night of nightmares, only the loneliness in that old barn filled Lys' mind with the memories she had so long wanted to hide in the depths of her mind. She felt fear, a lot, she feared the repercussions of her actions wherever she went and, above all, she feared her own powers.

That which was considered magic was the force of the soul projected through the body and manifested on the mortal plane through the will, it had a strong connection with the mind of its practitioner especially for those who were akin to extravagant elements, her case was one of these.

There were more than a dozen elemental affinities that had been discovered up to that time, yet having one affinity was normal, and there was one that did not stand out in anything special like all the others, usually called common affinity. The vast majority of people had it, however this did not mean that they were useless or unable to use their affinities for actions that could break the limits of physics and logic.

Lys had three affinities, possessing two was outrageously rare, three was already a very particular case possibly one in a million, and one of those was... troublesome. Each affinity was tied to different feelings that could unleash or enhance it, controlling those feelings was the way to control that power, something that not many people in the world were capable of doing, no matter their soul’s affinity.

Although considered prodigious for her age, it did not matter how much dominion she had of the power of her soul, or how many affinities she had, her cause was lost, she did not know how to fight against her enemy, there was no other option but to escape, to hide everything that she once was and try to live with it, with the burden of having possibly murdered two innocents, with the burden of having helped a corrupt organization of the kingdom that saw her be born, which she swore to protect and help with pride, as if when they recruited her, she would have felt the call, that would be her job until the end of her life.

She was almost right, it almost became her last job, but that wasn’t the case, she was still alive and now she had to deal with the consequences. Having escaped to the outskirts of the kingdom, the young woman was now seeing the first rays of sunlight through a window in that barn, on a farm far from any city or town, near the borders of the Kingdom of Takya.

She had been living in that place for about three weeks now, she was beginning to feel nervous to stay there, fearing to endanger those who had welcomed her. A kind and old couple almost reaching fifty years with their young son who was about to reach fifteen, however the latter seemed much younger due to his small size and stature.

Weeks ago when hiding in the nearby town, Allyson witnessed what looked like a robbery. A young man who, at most, seemed about ten or twelve years old, even slightly feminine in appearance, small in stature, with hair as golden as the sun and clear blue eyes, had been forcibly dragged into an alley in that town with clear bad intentions, it was dusk and the reality was that in a town like that so close to the border, the law was almost null, the guards never meddled unless it was too notorious, and by a lucky coincidence, Lys heard what was happening.

But it was clear that she couldn’t alarm the guard, after all the young assassin was not only unjustly sought by the law but was also unable to speak, and the chances that a simple night guard could write or even get a paper to write to convey what was happening ... were low, very low.

How to act? She asked herself at that moment. She heard the young man's initial cries before his mouth was covered by those who had captured him. Maybe she was going to make a mistake, maybe it was a simple game, maybe they were going to leave him and only stole some coins and nothing serious would happen ... She knew well that acting there would leave her presence in evidence and if the rumor spread it would not take such a long time before someone ended up there looking for her, they just had to follow the trail and knew well that the crows had informants in almost all parts of the kingdom, she had worked as an informant on several occasions, simply living in a remote village listening to all rumors of criminals or actions against the kingdom to help avoid such actions.

Concentrating the energy of her soul in her ears, Lys was able to increase her hearing almost twice as much as a person trained in it, becoming an excellent tracker because of that ability. Even though she was several houses away, she could listen exactly what the raptors were saying, and what she heard ... scared her, a lot.

She felt fear, and when she did, a few of the nearby stones begun to tremble and disintegrate. She needed to calm down or worse things could happen. At that moment and by pure instinctive reflex she left, beginning to run with great speed down the street, at the sight of two simple boxes that worked perfectly as a staircase to reach the roof of one of the homes there, gave two simple jumps treading with a subtlety and precision worthy of a trained assassin, reaching the roof and then jumping to the next one. Just below her were those two criminals and the boy they had taken captive.

They were ... they were about to abuse the boy, two larger men probably drunk and fresh out of the local tavern, and just as if nothing, as if it were the most common thing in the world, they were about to cause one of the most complex traumas to a simple young man who just happened to pass by. She had to do something, she felt the obligation to do something, she couldn’t bear to live with herself letting that just happen as if nothing, hoping that he could save himself or someone else helps him when she knew perfectly well that it wasn’t possible.

However, How does a woman with her training solves that kind of situation? Without a voice there is no easy way to scare the criminals into leaving the poor boy in peace, in fact even being able to speak didn’t assure any success. The reality was that they probably would ignore her or threaten her too, it was a difficult time to be a woman, times where they were only seen as the representation of weakness, unable to become a soldier, unable to even get some important position in something, the cases of this were extremely scarce and the general view was that of disrespect.

She had to stay cold-minded, stay calm and control her emotions, think the best way to solve that situation without causing excessive harm to anyone. After concentrating, she finally decided to lean out that roof, stopping at the edge to let the shadow formed by the full moon behind her serve as a warning, in her hand was already her throwing knife, simply pointed to the two criminals, hoping to see a reaction...

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Nothing happened, they were still struggling with the boy without even being aware of the presence of Lys, the young assassin sigh, felt his heart speed up as more time passed, she was nervous and it showed, but she couldn’t let fear overtake her or It would happen again, she didn’t want that to happen ever again. At that moment, she took a deep breath, moved her fingers with speed and precision, taking the knife by the cutting edge while pushing back the left arm, throwing the weapon instantly in a sudden impulse of the hand forward.

The knife was buried in the wall behind the thugs, both were startled to hear the noise, turned to observe the woman and as expected to throw dozens of insults at her, prompting her to get down. No matter how well-trained in hand-to-hand combat she was, two men with greater height and greater weight in a thin alley against her alone ... was troublesome to say the least, also she wasn’t going to simply fall for their taunt. If she wanted them both to be scared, she had to show them something incredible, something that made them really afraid, and to do that ... she had to control her own fear first.

Fear was what controlled her affinity, specialists called it entropy, magic capable of destroying everything around the user, extremely dangerous and in the hands of someone uncontrolled, excessively destructive. It was known as one of the rarest affinities of the soul that existed and Lys had the luck, be it good or bad, to discover that she was akin to that element. Controlled by the desire to impose oneself over whatever your target was, wishing to cause it the worst of fears, and uncontrolled by feeling fear.

Her expression became severe, she tried to concentrate as much as she could, stretched out her hands... To the naked eye a woman with a body that little by little was starting to lose the glory that she had once after years of forced physical training, perhaps a little bit higher than the common female, wasn’t someone who could really be imposed over two uninhibited drunkards, who began to laugh at the woman.

One of them turned and removed the dagger easily from the wall where it had been nailed, pointing it towards the woman threatening to throw it at her. However, suddenly that same dagger in the man's hand began to slowly disintegrate from the tip to the handle. The man got scared, dropped the knife. "Witch!" They both shouted, the young man they had caught stood there in complete shock, then in front of Lys two daggers began to be created from thin air, she instantly took both throwing weapons and pointed them at the thugs.

They looked at each other backing up a bit, they were drunk but they weren’t that stupid, fighting unarmed against someone they could not reach and was using magic ... it was a very bad idea. Finally, both withdrew leaving the boy there, pushing him with brute strength away as he crashed into the wall, making him shout of pain. That was the son of the two elders with whom she would later live.

When she saw them leave, waited for a few moments for them to get far enough away, then descended and tried to see how the young man was, he at first backed away, fearing that maybe she could hurt him, but Lys approached anyway and checked that he didn’t have any real injuries, noticing that they were only blows and nothing major, she turned to leave, the young man nervously tried to stop her, he wanted to at least thank her before she left, however soon the light of a common lamp carried by a guard and the barking of a dog trained to track began to be heard.

Allyson stopped and turned to watch the other side of the alley, her expression of fear at the idea of being trapped there gave her away, and the young man with great courage approached his silent savior, took her by the hand and began to run. That's how she ended up sleeping in the barn of that impoverished family, every day thinking about leaving to avoid causing problems with her presence, but she did not want to feel ungrateful with what they had offered her.

She helped in whatever she could do within that simple farm. Almost all the work was done by the young man, the father of little health and old bones because of a life of hard work, couldn’t do much to help, and the brave young man for his small size wanted to keep up with his true age, It was not a healthy life but it was the only life they knew, they were good people who only had suffered the injustices of a tyrant monarch.

Those lands where the farm was located were officially from the neighboring kingdom of Takya, the kingdom of Narselles. Currently there were no conflicts between the two kingdoms, but five years ago there were some skirmishes along the borders, Narselles was going hungry and had no choice but to go to war to try to capture some of the territory of Takya which had a richer soil for agriculture, the latter ended the war by signing a peace treaty when the current monarch ascended, inheriting his father's lineage of fire and showing mercy to the problems of his neighboring kingdom, delivering food as part of the treaty, since then both kingdoms have had good relations.

Before that conflict, in that farm, it was not just a simple boy who did all the work, the old couple used to have three children but the two of bigger age were forced to go to the war and both lost their lives leaving a great void in that family. The youngest of the brothers tried to fill that void, but it wasn’t something easy to achieve.

His name was Jerre, and it was the main reason why Lys had stayed there for so long. Although initially accepted to stay for a few days out of pure humility and not to pass as ungrateful after the boy took the risk of hiding her at home. When she finally decided to leave, the night she was about to escape she saw something that surprised her, Jerre had left the house with a lamp, but on the way its handle broke and this made him almost lose his only source of light, however the lamp remained hanging from the only left part. With the broken handle, the young man looked everywhere, muttering and bringing his hand to the part where the handle broke, and instantly the lamp fixed itself...

She decided to stay after seeing that young man use the power of his soul to repair the lamp, the next day she tried to communicate with hand signs, but after a long time of not being able to understand each other in any way, the young assassin took the boy to the barn, where she took a simple piece of wood and broke it in half, in front of a confused Jerre, she concentrated and as he had done that night, Lys reconstructed the piece of wood again without much effort.

That affinity was known as creation or energy in some other kingdoms, an elemental affinity that allowed to modify the matter or even generate it with enough training. Creativity and logical thinking enhanced it, while nervousness made it out of control. It was a very strange affinity to see uncontrolled, but was known to be at the same time the most difficult of all to master, that boy was like her, a prodigy, the mere fact that he could concentrate enough energy to fix that lamp it was proof that despite not having any training he could already execute at least simple tricks.

The boy had already seen that skill in the assassin the day she saved his life, but it was she who did not know about him, at that moment Lys pointed to the restored wood and then pointed to her eyes and finally to Jerre, it was clear what she wanted to tell, she saw him use his magic. The young man denied acting as if he didn’t understand, retreating with clear nervousness at the fact of having been discovered. As he drew back his hand touched a poor fork, and when that happened it began to bend completely.

It was the first time in a long time that the girl laughed, she smiled for the first time since she had escaped. Her silent laughter took the boy by surprise who first cursed for his mistake and then simply smiled innocently. Since that day almost two weeks ago, Lys has been secretly teaching Jerre how to control that power...