His first “true” memory was of a two-story tall window. It had billowing curtain drapes made of a royal purple silk. The sun was high in the sky, shining brightly down on him.
He averted his eyes, instead looking down at himself. He was dressed in a simple, white maid’s uniform. It felt a bit loose-fitting around the chest and hips, yet tight around the shoulders. They felt like someone else’s clothes.
He then took a look at his hands. In his left hand, he was holding a small thrusting dagger, a dirk, by the handle. The handle fit perfectly in the palm of his hand, though he had no memory of how he’d acquired it. The dirk’s blade tip was stained with dark red blood.
His right forearm was coated with the same dark blood as on the blade, though it didn’t reach high enough to stain his clothes. On both the blade and the limb, this blood seemed to shimmer in the bright sunlight from the window. Strangely, it didn’t seem to directly reflect the bright sun, but rather, it seemed to collect the rays of light and play with them, twisting them like the reflections of a polished diamond.
He watched as the blood glistened in this way. As he did, the blood slowly disappeared. It was sinking into his right hand, leaving behind pale skin.
It also sank into the blade he still held. As it did, the blade seemed to melt, turning into a black cloud. The cloud quickly disappeared into nothingness. Curious, he opened his fist to find all traces of the dirk to have disappeared.
The man wondered at this. He lifted this hand, and he tried to visualize the dagger once more. As he did so, he felt something shift in his body, as if his very veins were redirecting blood towards the raised hand.
Out of his palm came out a new black wisp. This wisp thickened and began to match the dark cloud that had disappeared just moments prior. It took the form of a dirk, the cloud’s soft edges sharpening to points. The man gripped the cloud with his left hand, and it solidified into a new dagger, identical to the one from before.
It’s a blade crafted from mana. Somehow, the man knew this, but he had no recollection of how he did.
If he did have amnesia, the man could not tell. Although he had no earlier memories, he did not feel that anything was missing from his psyche. If anything, he felt like a newborn, entering the world with a clean slate for the first time. He was simply a newborn with more knowledge than most.
As the man contemplated this, he began to feel a strange sensation. He was standing still, yet he began to feel as if he was floating. He rapidly lost feeling in his hands and feet. This numbness advanced up his limbs like a chilled wave, gently pushing his consciousness to retreat towards his head and chest.
This wave of numbness was neither harsh nor forceful. Though it spread with incredible speed, it exuded calmness in its smooth flow through his body. In just a second, he could no longer feel his knees, though his feet did not give way under him. He could no longer feel his elbows, though his hands did not fall to his sides. The numbness began to envelop him, but he felt strangely safe. It was as if, rather than his body shutting down, he was simply trusting his body to take care of itself.
This all happened in a sudden, short moment, and now the man could only feel anything in his head and chest. He took in a cool breath of air, and the numbness seemed to fill his lungs. As he lost feeling of his chest, he still felt his nose dip slightly as his body breathed out. He closed his eyes, letting the chill numbness wash into his brain.
When his eyes reopened, his pupils were of a strikingly different color. Just a moment ago, they were a sheer black, without physical hues or tints. Despite this darkness, those pupils had been alive with faint glimmers of curiosity.
Now, they shined like small gems. Each pupil was composed of an uncountable number of splinters of color all spliced together. Black, amber, blue, hazel, red, gray, green and brown splinters, varying in tints and shades, merged together to reflect the sunlight like the crystalline reflection of a polished crystal. From a distance, the eyes would have appeared silver in color.
Yet those eyes were dead. There was not the slightest glimmer of emotion behind those crystalline orbs.
Behind those orbs, the man was still alive, but he could no longer command his body. He had been compartmentalized and stored in a corner of his own being, now simply viewing through the lenses of his two new eyes.
Despite his helplessness, he felt perfectly calm. He knew that this pleasant numbness would not kill him. The man watched as his body turned to the left, away from the window. The window had simply been part of a much larger bedroom dressed entirely in a royal purple. His body turned its eyes toward the bed immediately next to it.
On the bed lay a tall man with a white veil over his face. The bottom of the veil was bloodied, with the stains spreading around his neck. He was motionless.
The man must have killed him, though he had no recollection of doing so. He could see no other possibility. They were alone in the room, and the bloodstains on the veil were still fresh and spreading.
Just as with the blade crafted of mana, the man knew the name of his victim.
Sun Emperor. That was the title that the victim had held. Just moments ago, the man had been ruler of the entire world, emperor over 3 continents and 10 kings. He had been praised as being a wise and just ruler.
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Now he was just dead.
The assassin knew all this, but there was one key fragment of knowledge that eluded him. Why did I kill him?
As the man wondered at this, he became faintly aware of something flowing throughout his body. It felt similar to the flow of mana in forging the blade, but there was a significantly higher quantity of it being mobilized. However, it did not flow outwards as it had before. Instead, it seemed to slowly permeate all parts of his body, including his head.
Although there seemed to be significantly more mana involved, the man felt no feelings of fatigue. He quietly wondered at this. It shouldn’t be normal for a human to have this much mana...
There was a mirror next to the bed. Though the angle was slightly skewed, the man could use this to observe as his body then began to shift.
The most noticeable change was on the face. The face’s cheeks and forehead began to show minor wrinkles, and the chin shrank slightly upwards. The nose became more pointed, and the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth became thinner.
Each fragment of the body’s prism pupils darkened in color and melded together to form a uniform dark brown, finishing the facial transformation. The assassin now wore the countenance of a stern middle-aged woman.
Its short black hair became slightly longer and developed waves, simultaneously fading into a tired brown color with a few traces of grey. Its broad shoulders became more rounded, and its bosom and waist grew slightly larger, perfectly fitting the formerly loose confines of his maid uniform.
In a few moments, the man’s body was gone. It had been replaced with that of Head Housekeeper Joane Hoport. The dagger she held was now slightly too big for her hand. The transformation complete, the man felt the flow of mana calm significantly, though it was still moving about within his body.
As the man thought on this, his body still operated without him. It raised its left hand, and the newly summoned dagger reverted from its solid state back into a black cloud. This time, instead of disappearing, the smoke changed its color into a light blue. This blue smoke shifted its form to become an orb of water. The orb floated in midair, the size of an outstretched hand.
The body then directed the orb with his left hand, sending it floating with the flick of a wrist. The orb drifted over to the fallen emperor. It sank into the emperor’s bloodstains and promptly lifted itself back out of the clothing. The bloodstains disappeared with the orb, which was now tainted a slight red.
With another hand gesture, the body directed the bloodied water out of the window. However, when the orb drifted into the sun’s light, the red blood began to shine brightly once more, as it had on the first dagger. Small tendrils of blue smoke came from the orb, which became smaller and smaller with each passing moment. Before the orb was close enough to pass out the window, both water and blood were gone.
Nestled within his own head, the man, for all his knowledge, had little understanding of what had just happened. A normal being’s blood should not be able to dissipate mana constructs...
He wished to investigate, his curiosity piqued. His body, on the other hand, did not seem concerned. That is, assuming it had any genuine thoughts of its own. For now, the body simply turned back towards the fallen Sun Emperor. Stretching out its left hand, multiple black tendrils extended from its palm. These tendrils seemed slightly more solid then the smoke wisps from before, but they still shared a tenuous bond with the material world.
These tendrils stretched and wrapped around both the sheets of the bed and the body of the emperor. While straightening the corpse, these tendrils pulled the sheets over the emperor. With some adjustments, the bed was perfectly set. From a distance, it would appear as though the emperor was simply taking a small rest. The tendrils then sank back into the outstretched hand of the assassin, quickly disappearing.
***
The Head Housekeeper quietly left the room, entering the imperial hallway. This hallway was an imposing pathway that stood three stories tall, adorned with gold-leaf paintings across the ceiling. Most notably, a brilliant golden sun was painted on the ceiling’s center, with shining rays stretching to touch the walls. On the ground, 100 soldiers stood guard along the walls. One man detached himself from his post, approaching Mrs. Hoport. “How fares His Majesty, Mrs. Hoport?”
Mrs. Hoport was not one to be intimidated by the guards. Keeping her back ever straight, she bowed her head slowly. “Greetings, Senior Centurion. His Majesty wishes to rest this afternoon. He is not to be disturbed.”
The commander placed his right fist over his heart. “As His Majesty commands.”
Not the slightest bit intimidated by the guards, Mrs. Hoport continued to walk down the hallway, her shoes clacking and echoing against the marble floor.
And that is how the Sun Emperor’s killer escaped, in front of 100 of the best soldiers of the Imperial Legion.
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