*Cass*

“So Ilhue is dead?” Cass snorted, “Can’t say that I will miss him.”

Rowig had delivered the news as Cass was waking up, according to him it seemed that Ilhue had been keeping some people, probably kids, locked up in his basement. Clearly they got loose and killed the bastard, Cass did not really care, though it did annoy her to lose one of her contacts.

She sipped at her tea, considering how this would affect her plans. Her biggest worry at this point was that Matron Terresa would think that Cass was targeting her. Cass did want to kill the bitch, but she didn’t quite think she could pull it off currently… Cass also noticed that Natalie was hiding around the corner, listening in, but that was fine. Normally Cass kept these talks with Rowig away from Odal and Nat, but Nat would be included eventually. May as well let her sneak in now…

“This will not affect my plans in any significant way,” Cass set her tea down and continued. “Once we have the pass- What is that?”

Cass frowned as she was looking out the window, there was smoke rising from the Warrior district. She rushed to the window and stuck her head out to look towards the Merchant district, smoke was rising from there as well.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Cass swore, moving back into the room and calling Nat out of hiding. “Rowig, where are we in our preparations?”

“Not as well as I would like, but we’d survive.” Rowig said gruffly, grabbing various items from the room to take with them. They’d be more organized, but Natalie and Odal were not aware of the overall plan… No time for regrets now though.

“Where the hell is Odal?” Cass growled as she lifted a large chest of supplies and quickly began moving towards the stable. Of course he would choose this day to be late…

“He said he had some things to check out in the Warrior district,” Rowig yelled over his shoulder.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Cass cursed the idiot, then she heard Natalie scream.

“Lady Cass!”

Natalie was ahead of Cass in running to the stables, because Cass had to stop for certain items, but in her way were a group of thugs dressed in tan. When they saw Cass come out the groups smiles twisted.

“Oi! There is the bitch!”

Terresa had stabbed her in the back! Cass poured power into her glyphs and lept the distance between her and the group, landing between them and Natalie before using the chest she carried as a weapon. For all the Matrons cunning, she had severely underestimated Cass. The last man was trying to drag his broken body away as Cass approached him.

“Ha,” He stopped trying to crawl away and looked between Cass and Natalie. “Even if you kill us here, we’ve already dug the knife in. That family you wanted looked after? I filleted them myself!”

He laughed and spat blood at Cass, who merely stepped on his chest and crushed him like the insect he was. He did not die quickly, but he did die painfully.

“Ca- Cass?” Natalie was trembling staring at the dead man. “He, he said my family…”

“He might have lied,” Cass said as she took Nat’s hand and dragged her away. “Though I won’t lie to you, he probably didn’t. That whore Terresa has stabbed me in the back, you’d think me leaving this country would count as getting rid of loose ends, but apparently not.”

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“Rowig! We are leaving without the idiot!” Cass tossed Natalie into the back of the carriage as Rowig drove the horses forward. Cass herself was faster on foot and didn’t bother to get on herself, instead jogging forward and drawing level with Rowig.

“Your original plan is fucked then,” Rowig growled. “We need a diffrent way out.”

“You would be the expert, just remember who is in charge here.”

Rowig snorted, “The rebels will want to kill me too. Odev might have been in on that shit, but I only helped run the brothel. We will head to the Priest district, the Warriors will likely be pulled from that gate to help quell this.”

All over, more and more people were becoming aware of what was going on. Strioi various states of dress were rushing around trying to organize and reinforce the Warrior district. No one had time to stop Cass as she and the carriage shoved their way through, and Cass did not stop. The group nearly ran over a few people who were not paying enough attention in their haste.

To make matters worse, most of the Stone’s population was running away from the fires and the battle, clogging the roads that they needed to navigate and slowing them down considerably. So much so that by the time they reached the Priest district the rebels had already pushed past the Merchant district and began to assault the Priests.

Through gaps in the chaotic crowd, Cass saw Elder Klein throwing nets- no, those were webs- at the rebel forces. These nets seemed to be special though, because wherever they touched cloth or flesh they smoked and hissed and the poor fools caught in them screamed as they were dissolved.

But he was greatly outnumbered and a single arrow in his shoulder, undoubtedly slathered in magesbane was his end.

“At this rate we will have to push through the rebels to make the gate!” Rowig shouted over the screams and clash of metal, and even a few explosions from Stioi. “I hope you are ready for this!”

“Natalie,” Cass shouted to the inside of the carriage. “Get down and cover yourself with whatever you can, stay small and stay safe!”

The Priests were not as ill-defended as they seemed to be, more than a few were wielding staves with incredible skill, fighting six to one and winning. However, the bows and crossbows were the deciding factor. The priests would get pinned down by their opponents and then an archer would take their shot. The Strioi were being handled in a similar way, there were hardly any Warriors in the district likely having been successfully cut off by rebel forces attacking the Warrior district.

Into that fray, they plunged. Rowig simply ran down anyone foolish enough to stand in front of the carriage and Cass dealt with any rebels who had makeshift pikes or spears to prevent them from harming the horses. With her glyphs glowing she tore through the crowd as a dagger would through flesh. Technically Cass was unarmed, but she had used the same system that she had applied to cut Odal on all of her nails, and so her hands struck like the claws of a large animal, ripping flesh from bone in sprays of blood.

They managed to get through the line of rebels, and although Cass looked like she taken a bath in a pool of blood, no one was really hurt. They hurried forward, except…

“Oh, this is too good to be true.” Cass’s smile could only be described as ecstatic evil. Her eyes radiated cruelty, and her demeanor was of one who had decided not just to kill someone, but to take their sweet time and enjoy it.

Matron Terresa was leading a ragtag band of Sand and Stone caste, with a few Warriors mixed in, at the front of the main temple. At the top of its steps stood dozens of Warriors, Priests and Strioi, led by Cushan Klein, who was leaning heavily on his cane.

“Terresa,” Cushan Klein’s voice was louder and sharper than Cass would have expected from an old man. “To think you would rise from your grave…”

“Should have done a better job of putting me in it before you took over, Brother Klein.” Terresa spat, and Cass realised she had been making a mistake the entire time. When Terresa said that Klein ruled, she had always figured it was Elder Klein, the Strioi. But no, it was his brother, the frail and kind Cushan Klein who had ousted the Voni and seized control of the country.

But frankly, Cass did not care about that. What she did care about was that the bitch who had betrayed her was right in front of her, but Cass could never get to her before being cut down. Rowig was trying to get her attention, but Cass was seething with rage, unable to hear anything but the blood pounding in her ears.

The system Cass came up with was crude, and it consumed Mana so quickly that even she would have trouble keeping it up for long, but to the eyes of Rowig and anyone else who was watching, it seemed like Cass had vanished.

Rowig continued on regardless, and managed to catch a glimpse of Cass appearing before the Matron a few dozen seconds later and ripping her throat out.