A door slams in my face as I walk into the street, a dark dread enveloping everything around me. I nurse a wound on my wrist as I trudge through the night, nothing but the moon and a distant radiance to guide me. Eventually, I stop, sitting down on a bench and curling my legs to my chest.

How bad could one night away from home be?

I reach up to touch my cheek, finding my cheeks stained by tears. My slacks and shirt are a bit damp as well, but mostly from my having fallen asleep in an alleyway more than anything. I look down at my right hand, finding that I had inadvertently marked my skin with the texture of the wood.

Nothing new, in the end.

I push myself up and I bite my lip as the memories of the day before come flooding back.

The assassins. The men I had likely killed.

Lissa.

The rest of the day had been a bit of a blur, mostly from me running around towards any scent that somewhat resembled that of an almond. I started off somewhat accurately tracking the odor, running into people eating almonds or street merchants selling them, but before long, I had started losing track and making mistakes. When I finally lost track of the true nature of the target, it was beneath the light of the silver moon that I found myself unable to carry on any longer.

I plopped down right then and there, leaving myself somewhat defenseless against those who lived upon the streets. Thank the gods a disabled Half-Kagna woman is a terrible target for potential thieves. One of the few benefits someone like me has in this damn city.

I had been a teeny bit too caught up in the situation yesterday, all things considering. Doesn’t particularly help that I completely refused to accept any resistance the guard offered me whenever I ran into them. Maybe not the best plan I’ve ever had.

I do tend to have a lot of bad ideas though. I wonder why that happens so much.

Stepping out of the alley’s shade, I grimace and raise a hand to cover my eyes. The morning sun is particularly rough on days like this, especially since I lost my hearing. I glanced out into the streets, finding that I had managed to get out of the slums right before I crashed. The final straw in my chase being particularly pointless, an illegal bakery of all things, didn’t exactly help my perception of this place.

Why even make some bakeries illegal? People down on their luck need bread as much as others do. Probably some stupid noble power plays.

Following the street to the east, I step out onto the grand promenade the entire city is connected to. Despite the moon still being up, there are already merchants out and about, setting up for a long day of work. Nothing particularly special about anything I can see or smell, but I do decide to just walk towards the imperial palace in the north to see if anything is particularly special today.

Carrying a couple boxes of fruit upon her shoulder, a rather heavyset human woman confidently slams them onto the ground beside a rather well dressed dwarven man. Twisting his mustache, he examines every single apple, plum, and peach the woman brought. A set of elven and halfling kids run out of a printing press, carrying a satchel full of newspapers with them. Well, I’m guessing they’re kids. There’s a reason that they’re the ones who tend to be hired to do the hawking you need to sell papers. Humans are honestly usually kinda dumb, but they’re still by far the most populous people in the country.

Sometimes I find myself envious of them.

As I near where one of the major streets intersects with the central promenade, I pause at the sight of a caravan rolling towards one of the public plazas. I run my tongue over my fangs, then click my cane on the ground twice before I follow behind them. Maybe it’d be something interesting. Stepping onto the edge of the plaza I find a whole group of people rushing around as an imposing human woman, who wears an extravagant magenta dress, looms above the crowd atop a box as she gives orders. The most stand out feature of her though, is definitely her jewelry; Any skin that would be exposed below her head is covered in gold.

I shake my head, then walk away. From experience, traveling merchants with outfits like that were bad news.

I walk back out into the center of the city, heading farther north as I do. A distinct feeling of unease begins to fill me though, so I speed up my pace dramatically, at least until I can see the capitol guard headquarters in the distance. As unfortunate as it is, it’s something like home.

I hold my breath as I walk inside, peering around to see that thankfully, Kellan is nowhere to be seen. I hastily approach my office, leaning down to dig a key out from beneath the mat outside the door. I fumble with the lock, then step inside and lock the door behind me. I finally exhale, shaking my head as I do, then turn and freeze.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

{“You know, Fiora, you caused the guard a lot of issues yesterday.”}

I bite my lip, giving a small bow to the woman sitting in my chair, behind my desk, fiddling with the ink-dyed paper rose I had accidentally made.

“Honor be to you, Princess Gloria.”

The princess presents a shallow smile, her perfect heart shaped face framed by her cropped blonde locks. She pushes herself back from the desk, standing up as she slowly struts towards me. She is in her crimson military dress uniform as normal, her wildly ornate wand strapped to her belt. With one of her hands behind her back, she smirks as she twirls the flower in her hands.

{“I’d say it’s unusual for you, but we both know better.”} Gloria steps forward, looking down into my eyes with her emerald stare. I clench my fangs as she places the rose into my shirt pocket. {“So, our faithful hound, what scent have you caught this time?”}

“Lost the trail,” I mutter, then quietly continue with, “Got caught up.”

{“Tch, tch, tch.”} Visibly emphasizing the clicking of her tongue, the Princess begins to pace while looking right at me. {“Kellan was absolutely panicked about you, just so you know. He sent the entire force out to assist with the search.”}

After a moment, she chuckles as she shakes her head. {“The utter fool, absolutely caught up in the wake of a uncaring dyke.”}

I roll my eyes, then ask, “What do you need, your highness?”

{“You’re no fun.”} Gloria clears her throat, then takes a more serious expression. {“ Fiora Turi, under the terms of your contract with the royal family, you are hereby assigned the task of finding and weeding out the ‘Omega’ organization, who have been charged with the attempted murder of the Grand Duke of Gaeashire.”}

Gloria continues after I give a nod, {“You are allowed to use whatever resources you wish, whatever methods you deem appropriate.”}

Sighing, the princess moves to just beside me, all pretenses gone as she whispers, {“If it were my prerogative, I wouldn’t have chosen you. Watch your step.”}

Neither of us say anything more, and I re-lock the door behind Gloria after she steps out. I walk over, leaning my cane against the desk as I plop down, breathing in relief at being alone.

This is… an interesting situation to be sure.

As it is, I have no idea who decided giving an independent contractor this kind of job was appropriate, nor who would benefit from my failure. My entire tenuous relationship with nobles and the guard is basically entirely a coincidence, one perhaps helped by the lessons about high society that Bianca drilled into me. Gloria isn’t explicitly hostile to me, thank the gods, but she definitely has the wrong idea about some things.

For one, I might be objectively the perfect choice to run this investigation, which makes the appointment all the more suspicious to me. Second, Kellan definitely isn’t in love with me. Knew that for a fact, taking into a few things I know about him.

Finally, and the one that surprises me the most, is that whoever passed Gloria the orders either doesn’t know the true name of the organization, or intentionally held it back for some reason. It might be prudent to look into that; Both options are actually rather convenient for me in different ways, but the latter could be rather important. The end result is the same though, since it wasn’t like I needed to search for the name.

I idly take a piece of paper out, considering what I want for a second before I make my first fold. It’s a bit of a situation to be sure, but I’m not too worried about someone figuring out that I have a connection to the entire situation. Well, somewhat at least. Regardless of what I want, it’s not impossible for someone to look into me if they send people to Turi. The people there certainly wouldn’t mind telling them everything about me, that’s for sure.

Carefully selecting my moves, I bite my upper lip. There is a lot to do now, a lot of different ways for me to make progress in this situation. Finding Lissa… The culprit through their smell fell through yesterday, but might come in handy later. I could get a few helpers and set them on the task of finding rumors of ‘Omega’, but I honestly wasn’t too thrilled about the concept.

Something I’ve noticed is that, unfortunately including me, people simply miss things. Having an extra set of eyes helps, but isn’t exactly consistent anyways. Also, people kinda suck, it can be really awkward to start working with someone only for them to treat you differently after they learn a bit about you.

I unfortunately don’t really have a choice in working alone this time. Worst case scenario, a noble or someone in power singles me out for working alone, only to force me to use their people to try and take control of the situation. If I wanted to actually get a chance to talk to Lissa, it simply wasn’t going to be something I could risk.

So that’s my first step, what’s next?

Taking on my intended shape, the paper's form is more cylindrical than the rose in my pocket. I need to look into the various groups that have entered the city recently, but that will likely be a dead end, if they’re smart. A job for the helper I end up finding, I guess. If anything, it’d be more prudent to look into if this wasn’t an isolated event.

I stop folding and grin, a realization hitting me. Licking my lips, I take a second piece of paper, beginning to twist it into a stem. That is going to be delightfully fun, considering the previous… experience I had with it. Karma, as my mentor would put it, is a bitch.

Doing my best to not ruin the flower, I begin to wrap it around the stem, forming a paper tulip, or at least, momentarily before I accidentally poke a hole through one of the petals. I grunt, then open my drawer to toss the ruined flower into my pile. I blink at the sight of a mysterious letter ominously sitting upon the pile of bad origami.

Cautiously, I slowly pick it up, flipping it over finding the gauntlet of the organization ‘Omega’ printed right upon its back. I gulp, then open the letter to find- A single piece of paper, with just a few words printed upon it. Still, it’s enough to make me tear up, memories flooding back.

“The eastern slums, midnight. I have the music box.”

I stare at the letter for a moment, then lift it to take in the scent of whoever left it.

Almonds, and blood.