When she opened up her eyes she felt like she was no longer in that barn, dragged into a deep sleep, a memory, a nightmare ... Again forced to remember the life she most wanted to leave behind, what she had considered as the great lie that she had lived in total ignorance for so long.

Deep in a mansion, in what appeared to be a gigantic inner maze underground was the secret base of the Bloody Crows. There she opened her eyes and stood up, feeling an absolute terror at the sight of that place she so easily recognized, the feeling was ephemeral because it was clear that it was not reality, only a dream, another nightmare.

Soon she would see Sauvre approaching to greet her, extending his hand towards the girl who at that time still had his hair completely black, that assassin had not only been his companion in missions, he was also his teacher and one of the best and highest ranks of the organization. His position was not very important at the decision-making level, but he was known as the best of all at work and when someone failed he was the one in charge of ensuring that nobody knew anything and everything followed the course that had to be followed.

Rising and smiling a kind smile towards her teacher, that Lys didn’t feel the pressures or the fear she would eventually feel, it was a strange tranquility to remember the times in which she could sleep. Sleeping only two or three hours a day due to nightmares and the fear of being ambushed wasn’t very healthy, and it left its mark on her face.

"The time has come Lys, no more training, today will be your first mission out of this prison. I hope you're ready." The veteran-looking man with several marks crossing his face, incipient beard of several days without shaving and short brown hair began to walk making a slight signal with his hand towards Allyson, telling her to follow him.

"The mission will not be difficult, or it should not be difficult with our abilities. We will travel to a tavern that according to the information that has been collected, holds meetings in its basement, meetings where they clearly speak against the current monarch. Rebels." While Sauvre was talking, they both continued walking. They passed through a room full of torture tools, fortunately empty at that moment, then through a long corridor that seemed to go up, until finally reached a door.

What looked like a door on one side, was in fact a wall on the other, going out in the middle of the night from that secret passage that led to an empty alley, the famous "Cursed Alley". They had created the story that there was a curse there and that every time someone approached he or she appeared dead weeks later to prevent someone from approaching, it was effective, no one but a member of the bloody crows entered the place.

The girl patted Sauvre's shoulder to try to get his attention, while she began to make a series of signs with her hands, strange signs of varied forms trying to communicate through them, however the assassin went his way a little more, waiting for the door behind them to close and kept walking until the edge of that alley, then he turned.

"Sorry, I didn’t hear you there. What did you just say?" A picaresque smile was drawn on the face of the man, who was clearly teasing the poor young woman, she looked at him with a clear expression of anger beginning to make the same signs with great speed, she went mad.

"Hey, Hey, I said I was sorry!" The veteran crow gave a slight laugh at his partner's anger, denying to himself.

"Come on, calm down, slow down so that i can understand you. Start from the beginning." The girl sighed heavily and moved her hands with more precision and less speed, trying to make her partner understand what she wanted to say.

"I hate when you do that. What will we do when we get there? Shall we go in secret or in a normal way and I'll have to try to hear if there's something wrong underneath?" That sign language was his only way of communicating, something only Sauvre understood.

Through the rumor of a language like that among servants of the nobility of a remote kingdom, the veteran of the crows had decided to look around and learn that language to facilitate the training of his star pupil.

"Of course we will do that. The second clearly. How else could we act?" The man said with a sardonic smile, he liked to annoy his beloved apprentice, knowing that she couldn’t do much about it.

"That's why I said it would be an easy mission for both of us, we go in, I make a little distraction, see if I can make the bartender talk and you just stay in your corner and pay attention." The girl just stood there staring at him still mad for his joke. The truth is that she was a little nervous and Sauvre had noticed, that's why he distracted her by bothering her to forget that they were about to go on a mission, the girl worked much better when she was calm, and he knew it.

"If we're lucky, we'll grab them in the middle of a meeting, otherwise, we'll have to do this for several days until we get them." He finally said as he pulled up a simple hood that rested on his shoulders, it was not necessary to cover themselves so much for that mission, not yet, after all they had to pass as simply two ordinary people who were going to drink something at that tavern, nothing more.

After a few hours of walking to reach the remote tavern in the area of the docks, the two of them went inside, it was past midnight by the time they arrived, the perfect hours for a hidden meeting.

Sauvre went to the bar and asked for the table in the far corner, the place did not seem to be very busy, there were some drunks in the bar and the local bard already had several glasses on top, so he was lying in a corner with a lute in hand and a smile from ear to ear. He ordered two beers and pointed to the desired table, meanwhile he stayed at the bar to wait for the drinks.

The young woman moved with shyness and nervousness about that place, it was the first time she was in a place like that one, as far as she knew, and people did not seem to be the kindest of all, after all the docks tavern had its fame.the place was rumored to be filled with pirates who were posing as corsairs to enter without risk of being imprisoned. Fortunately, there weren’t many people that night.

Lys took a seat at that table away from everything, was distracted by the excess of noise that was in general, the screams of drunks, a sound discussion in another of the tables filled with half a dozen men looking like crooks. Meanwhile, Sauvre after asking for something to drink at the bar decided to play a little to see how much he could get from the bartender.

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"So ... beautiful night, ain’t it? Place looks a little empty though..." the man had charisma, he knew how to speak calmly and appeal to the instinct of others to want to tell what was happening to them, his picaresque smile was answered by a spit from the bartender to the pitcher where he would serve a drink, passing a rag inside to clean it up.

"Yeah. A few idiots tried to leave without paying and ended up beaten by that guy" The innkeeper pointed to a man in a corner, somnolent, sitting in front of a wooden door, a large man perhaps seven feet tall, extremely muscular, it was clear that he was not just any guard.

"Pity, I heard that things get fun around here at night, you know, a lot of people, a lot of insults, a lot of fights and some dirty jobs in some corner of the place, all that makes a man feel excited to live in this damn kingdom eh" While Sauvre tried to extract some information subtly by means of its magnetic charisma, Lys had to dedicate herself to what she knew best to do, hearing.

After reacting from her distraction by the constant noise of the place, the girl tried to leave behind the nervousness and calm down, the concentration was what strengthened the common affinity, being the lack of this what made it weak and in very rare cases uncontrolled.

She concentrated the energy of her soul directly on her ears, however at the same time she raised her hands to cover her ears, she didn’t want to be exposed to all the noise suddenly, because that could be troublesome, she had to isolate everything that she didn’t care to listen to and look for what she wanted to hear, in this case some sign that there were people gathered in the basement.

It was difficult to consider that day as fortunate or unfortunate. The young woman had just heard what they were looking for, a meeting was taking place down there, in a small basement, she could hear their voices, little by little concentrating more and more and isolating the rest of the noise, trying to discern what they spoke...

"This is horrible, every day there are more robberies, my family fears for my life every time i leave the house. How are we supposed to live like this?" A man with a worried and fearful voice made himself heard, some whispers of uneasiness were heard among the people gathered there.

"We only have to act, if the king doesn’t do it, we'll have to do it." His voice was low and imposing, but it also sounded worn like it was from an old man.

"If the guard is in cahoots with the criminals that constantly threaten us, we will have to show them that a King can’t be king without the support of his people, we will burn his barracks and hang all criminals in front of the whole dock so they know that nobody should mess with us." The same old man was following his speech, it was clear that it was exactly what they were looking for.

The speech continued, talking about the duty of all those who lived on the docks, to unite all the people to act against the guard and the king who both ignored them, that it was the only way to live in peace. However, the general reaction of the rest present at that meeting was fearful.

They were only family men who sought to protect what they loved, they were not warriors, they were not idealists or rebels, they just wanted their home to be safe, but that man was transforming them into something else.

The young woman was scared at first, she stopped covering her ears with her hands, being stunned by the loud noise around while trying to concentrate again so that her ears return to normal. By then Sauvre was there at the table in front of her, smiling at her calmly and resting his hand on hers to help her calm down.

"Your face tells me you didn’t hear something nice, Lys. What's wrong?" With a reassuring tone and a sideways smile that showed an appreciation for his apprentice, the assassin reassured the girl who, after all, was on her first official mission so it was understandable for her to be more nervous than usual.

"They're down here, they're talking about ... burning the barracks, hanging criminals, going against the king." The girl gestured with the signs that only they knew, Sauvre calmly nodded taking a more severe and cold expression, he knew exactly what to do next, he had to go into the meeting and kill all those who could oppose the king, it was for the good of the kingdom, that was his order.

"Well, your work ends here Lys, now it's my turn." When he was about to get up, Allyson took his hand tightly, trying to prevent him from leaving with a clear expression of fear and despair.

"I'll be fine, do not worry." The girl repeatedly denied with nervousness, that was not what was bothering her, she knew well that her teacher was more than capable enough to kill a dozen civilians on his own, they weren’t any danger to him, but felt a certain attachment for those people, they would die only for the words of a single man when all they wanted was to find security for their families.

Would his parents have done the same? They were innocent, they had done nothing more than be convinced by another. How was that fair for the people they were supposed to protect with their actions? Those questions tormented the mind of the girl who ended by letting go of her partner's hand, then gesturing in that sign language she used.

"They are ... they are just people who want to feel safe, it is not fair ... only their leader spoke against the king, they are afraid, but they have no other choice, it is not their fault." The girl expected her partner to understand, but an order from the crow was something impossible to ignore, they were in that meeting and therefore were rebels.

Sauvre fixed his penetrating gaze on his apprentice, stern and completely cold, denied without further ado and turned to go to fulfill his goal. At that moment the young woman got up from the table and put her hand on her partner's shoulder, when he turned around again he could not help but be surprised.

"Don’t do it." The girl's lips moved, they mentioned those words that simply could not be heard as tears fell down her face ... she was crying as if those men there had been something important to her, as if they were family when actually they were complete strangers.

The veteran crow didn’t know what to do, froze there for a moment, felt something he had never felt in many years, felt compassion, felt the pain for which his apprentice was passing, the desperation of trying to do the right thing, of saving a life that did nothing to deserve the worst of punishments.

Killing had become so natural during all those years in which he was part of that organization, he had done it so many times that he had lost complete sense of what it meant to end someone else's life. The training to become a bloody crow usually had that effect, however no matter how severe it was with Lys, she still felt empathy, felt the pain of those she did not know as if it was her own.

He knew the consequences his actions could bring, but he simply could not watch his beloved pupil in the eyes and do nothing about it. He directed his hand to the young woman's face, passing it through his tears to dry them, then came over and gave her a simple kiss on the forehead.

"It's fine Lys, you win. I will only kill the leader, if you are so sure that they are innocent I will believe you. Is that okay?" The man lost that stern face worthy of a trained killer to show his softest side, smiling sideways with kindness and a gesture of compassion for his partner.

Lys simply nodded as she wiped her tears away, her cry had not attracted anyone's attention there because she was unable to make the slightest noise, that was her eternal curse after all. They both sat down again, the girl began to calm down little by little, she stopped crying and look at her partner ... they had decided to do things the good way but ... How were they going to do it? That, they didn’t know… yet.