Sound of wheels, man shouting, and women shouting back. The noise of horse hooves, their snorting.

The sun streamed through the window, passing trough the sapphire blue curtain briefly. Her muscles were sore, and moving even just to change position was out the question. Her ears picked up everything, every sound that was interrupted by the chirping birds that seemed...

A knock sounded at the door, strong and heavy.

Gwenda jolted upright, sitting on the bed with wide eyes. She abruptly threw the blanket off and got out of the bed in complete silence, heading for the window.

Through the crack in the curtain, she saw a carriage and six guards standing at her door. Two horses stood next to the carriage, and she immediately wondered if hers was okay in the stable of the sector, where she paid weekly to ensure the best care they could provide. Occasionally, she appeared there when she wasn’t involved in a particularly heavy case and on her days off so she could spend time with her horse she had received from her father, not just use it as a means of transportation around the city in pursuit of outlaws or mystics.

The knock sounded again, and Gwenda didn’t bother to dress properly before rushing to the living room barefoot, holding her weight to avoid making noise. She also didn’t bother to run her hand through her hair to tame a few stray strands.

She grabbed the frying pan from the wood stove and hid it behind her body as she approached the door cautiously. At the same moment another knock sounded, she opened it before it finished and blinked several times because of the sun.

— Yes? — she said as her vision began to return.

— We come by order of Your Majest. — The one in front replied, the others were lined up in two rows, side by side so she could pass between them like a runway. — The king wants to see you at the Labeling this morning. — The guard held up a paper in front of her face and Gwenda narrowed her eyes to try to read it, but couldn’t — The paper said you agree to participate in the king’s investigation. Just sign.

— Your Majest already has me with the label — she replied — Tell your king to leave me alone, I won’t accept anything he offers.

— Miss, sign. — He said and held out the paper to Gwenda.

The Young Woman thought for a moment.

Gwenda could have refused all these agreements, but only because she was free. Oda she would become a citizen of the king. Not of the Capital, not of Carsany... of the king. And she was aware of everything she was about to accept by putting the tip of the quill on the parchment paper.

She took a deep breath out with the frying pan to take the paper. The guard tensed up as he saw the threat had been committed a second ago without even knowing it.

— Give me a second. — She requested and clos the door without waiting for a response.

Gwenda knew they had fired at the windows, making sure she wouldn’t escape.

The young woman placed the paper on the table and ran her hands trough her hair, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. She went to fetch a quill and found one on the kitchen counter along with black ink. She stared at the gray will be held between her fingers, staining them, noticing that the ink pot was almost empty after jotting down so many things on so many documents...

Gwenda put it bac. She wouldn’t sign that paper, shouldn’t sell herself to the king. If she did, she would be throwing away everything she had once fought to become. She couldn’t say whether her career, as Louise mentioned, was about being the Capital’s Shooter or being a detective and agent of sector 3.

Gwenda’s father wouldn’t bear to see his daughter, his only daughter, accept this bargain, accept being someone of her king’s caliber. But... would he understand that maybe she had no choice? Gwenda didn’t know.

She sat in the chair with a weight on her shoulders. She was so lost that she couldn’t move as she used to. It was depressing.

It was painful to think of her father and what he had risked to keep his daughter alive. Her father was a tough man, yet still loving. The steps Gwenda took were only to follow him, so that she could be like him, someone worth it.

The sleepless nights, the nightmare she had... they cost her temper, her patience, her very self. The world changed, or maybe she herself changes.

Gwenda would thank Kimer and Louise for cooperating with her, for standing by her side. They helped the young woman focus on herself and the present, leaving the past behind. But it was impossible to forget all that training her father had taught her, all that joy she had just being by his side.

She knew she didn’t have much choice. She couldn’t flee earlier because she knew they would hunt her down, maybe even send a hunter to do the job. And now, with the guards at the windows and the door, her last hopes vanished with the morning breeze.

Gwenda waited in the chair.

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Two guards burst through the door with their shoulders, letting it slam against the wall. Gwenda’s breath caught, and she tightened her grip on the dagger’s handle.

They drew their swords from their belts, pointing them at Gwenda, ready to tear her apart.

— Your Majesty is summoning you — The front guard growled.

Gwenda lunged. She leaped onto the table with a surge and dodged blows aimed at her feet. She jumped towards them and tried to drive the blade between the neck and shoulder of one, but he dodged, and her calf started to ache from another guard’s blow.

She spun in the middle of the room, defending herself with only a dagger while trying to strike whenever she had the chance. Gwenda kicked one in the stomach with the sole of her foot, and he grunted before falling backward and out through the open door.

Someone kicked behind her knee, ad she almost stumbled before spinning around and advancing. Advancing, advancing, advancing. Her retreated with backward steps, and she just followed him while striking. The sound of the blade through the air was the only one amidst panting and gasps. The guard behind tried to attack, but she kicked him and returned to the one in front.

Gwenda defended against the sword and moved to his unprotected side, burying the blade in the guard’s waist. He groaned and fell to his knees before leaning on one hand while the other held the wound.

The young woman froze. Blood had splattered everywhere. Her hand was dirty, and she just watched what she had done.

Gwenda trembled and shrank back, her shoulders slumping forward.

He was a guard. And she had just wounded one of them.

She couldn’t bear the pressure they exerted, the laws she had to follow... but that didn’t give her reason to even hurt one of them. This could bring her a punishment she wasn’t willing to pay.

She tried to reassure herself by saying they did this to the people, but by orders of a king.

Gwenda didn’t understand what happened after her stomach churned and bile rose in her throat. Maybe she muttered something like an apology before feeling dizzy and reaching for support on the table, blood covering her vision like a stream.

Her throat began to burn. The scream in her skull spread through her body with a shiver.

Footsteps sounded near the door.

Her vision started to blur, and her knees buckled, so she took a hesitant step to the table and held on, knocking over a chair on the way. Another bile rose to her mouth, and Gwenda trembled.

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She prayed for every death on that wall, for every soldier... but she had just hurt one of them. Nothing could lift this unsettling weigh that began to shape on her shoulder, like a shadow.

The dizziness was... just how her body reacted to most of the deaths she caused, but it had been a long time since she felt anything like it, long before she stopped going on hunts, as Darcy practically forbade her from participating.

Her cases always involved the mystics lost in Carsany. As much as she avoided pulling the trigger for any race, when she did, nothing could stop her.

She looked to the side, where the guard with blood covering his abdomen was being lifted by two others, their screams leaving her ears as quickly as they arrived.

She would have regained her strength and vision if a shadow hadn’t suddenly appeared in front of her and knocked her out with a punch in her face.

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The people on the street infiltrated food or object stalls. Some still smiled as they left.

There were young people walking in a singe direction, following the carriage in which Gwenda was confined, but they were slower. Their eyes glued to the ground. They were newly 18, Gwenda noticed. She knew how some of them felt.

They put her inside the darkened carriage, and when she woke up, with her head on the shoulder of a guard, she just stared at the window on the opposite side of the carriage, paralyzed for a long time. She sighed several times just to let he air in faster.

When she moved her hands to her lap, she dared not look at the handcuffs, dared not look at what had made that sound of metal against metal.

The young woman swallowed hard and accepted the cold touch as she had done once before. But the metal seemed to burn her sore wrists. She didn’t need to check to know that her hands were still stained with blood, as was her beige, loose-fitting coat that reached halfway down her thighs. At least the blood was dry and didn’t smell.

Gwenda said nothing during the journey to the square in front of the castle wall, a wall at separated the king from the people, a barrier. She remembered well where and how the Labeling was done. A tent that caught her attention passed by, and she frowned. A woman sat behind a low table on the floor that held a crystal ball supported by a kind of golden stand. Purple and dark blue cushions were scattered on the floor.

Gwenda had seen this oracle before. It was pure pretense, but till. The black hair fell in a curtain down her back, not a single strand over her shoulders.

A man rested his hand on the back of a little boy, both seated on cushions in front of the Oracle. She smiled friendly as she spoke.

Gwenda looked away.

The Oracle never smiled, even to show her perfect teeth and long canines. He would never allow himself to smile at anyone, especially not himself. The mirror was her enemy, the reflection that was there. But the Oracle looked at himself every day, challenging with his own gaze.

He lived with mirrors all around him, like a curse... And more and more seemed to disappear from the stories told by historians. The books said he dug a hole in the wall and stayed there curled up, waiting to scape from his own reflections that always imitated him, always. He had even clawed out his eyes to stop seeing, so he would be alone in the darkness. Regeneration was slowly getting worse.

No one ever went to see him again. And for centuries he remained alone, totally.

The carriage stopped.

Gwenda let them look at her. The two guards in front of her and the other two on her side. The she allowed them to take her out carefully. As angry as they may be inside, as devastated as they may be, they took her out with care. And then she wondered where the guard she injured would be.

She couldn’t tell if it was because Gwenda was a woman or for some other reason, like an order from the king that echoed in their heads in a way she thought it was. Keep her alive and treat her accordingly. Maybe a curse or two, and then a command with the hand.

She told herself she didn’t deserve this. The redness that was about to turn purple on her face was just the beginning of what was to come.

It’s raining, Gwen.

She stiffened.

A hand was clenched around her bicep as she was led toward growing line. Her wide-eyed gaze bounced from one young person to another. She didn’t remember there being so many.

She was shoved into the middle of the first ones with brutality, and when the one behind cursed, one of the guards intervened and reprimanded him, threatening to put him at the end of the line. The young man, like an idiot, fell silent.

The Shooter didn’t look at the ground, perhaps one of the few who didn’t show fear at the moment, who was pretending to face this situation strongly.

The handcuffs reminded her of who she was, of what she had done all these years and what she had been through. But now there was no other way.

There was only one end for Gwenda. And she knew it.

The trembling sigh she gave hurt her chest, and she held her breath and closed her eyes, staying that way. She felt the person in front of her move, and Gwenda did the same, barely able to stand. Her head was bubbling, dancing in all directions and not letting her think.

Her work on this case involved magic. Fairies are daughters of the Nymphs, there must be some connection. But for that, she would need to leave Carsany, pas through the wall, and still be lucy to find the nymphs. And risk beyond the wall...

Her legs trembled, and she released the air slowly upon opening her eyes. Gwenda saw nothing, only the blood clogging her vision, the blood from just a short while ago.

The weak groans of pain from the people reached her in a weak wave. Many mouths were gagged with cloth, a gag. Just so they wouldn’t scream too the entire neighborhood.

She didn’t have the strength to grit her teeth, didn’t have the strength for anything. She didn’t even feel the irritated skin on the soles of her feet. The person in front of her left for some reason, and the wind hit her calmly and welcomingly. It was when she looked ahead that terror ran through her body.

Gwenda tensed and widened her eyes at it, at the smoke that made her swallow hard. The young woman took a step back.

Guards moved behind her, taking care of the line, and Gwenda burst with terror.

— No — She murmured with a faltering voice as she tried to escape from a powerful hand that grabbed her arm. If it weren’t for that, Gwenda would have fallen to the ground due to the lack of strength that had abandoned her at the moment she needed it most — No.

She tried to break free, unsuccessfully, and when she laid eyes on the metal bar, hot as hell, she stopped. Gwenda stopped everything, from trying to stand up to not showing weakness. The weakness of the Shooter.

— Please — She whispered to anyone, to any god who might be watching from somewhere. — Please — Gwenda swallowed hard. That’s all she knew how to say. — Please.

This went against everything she believed in and fought to be.

She fell to her knees in front of the Branding Iron and watched as he prepared the metal bar to slam it into her neck and press against her sensitive skin for a long time.

Gwenda threw herself to the opposite side, getting away from him. She didn’t want to think, didn’t want to feel, just wanted to get out of there. And preferably alive and without that seal.

A guard held just below her chin, forcing her to tilt upward. He made her stand up.

— Please. — She pleated once again, interrupted, averting her gazer directly to the guard’s.

His eyes shimmered.

Before she could reason again, Gwenda was pushed and fell to her knees in the same spot as a few moments before.

Once again, Gwenda tried to get away.

Someone, she didn’t see who, closed his hand behind her neck with more force and grabbed her hair to make space for the hit metal bar, lifting her face up to see what they would do to her.

— No — Nothing more than a low noise came from her throat. She was tired and with heavy hands, yet she raised her arms, the last chance to stop it.

The Branding Iron frowned as if he were irritated, his eyes focused on Gwenda. The mask covered from his nose down and almost fell onto his chest. The hood seemed attached to I because it never hung back.

The man with the brand struck her hands with the hot metal and moved slightly to the side. Gwenda let tears fall in supplication.

Her hair strands were being pulled out. She didn’t care about the exposed shoulders, so that it would be better to hit her neck. She just reacted.

Gwenda struggled. Tried to get up and screamed.

The Branding Iron missed the spot and hit just below her collarbone. Gwenda clenched her teeth so hard she thought one might chip. It took only a second for the man to realize he had missed the spot, but he had already marked her.

The raw flesh was there, bleeding, and stinking. The young woman still pleaded for mercy or whatever it was. They weren’t in a fair fight, but she wanted the damn mercy.

The Branding Iron looked around, looking for whoever it was. Perhaps looking for what he should do since he didn’t hit her neck. Unsuccessful, it seemed. Then he turned around, and when the burning metal touched her skin again, nothing could stifle Gwenda’s scream, nothing could stop her from screaming and holding onto the metal bar tightly. It was hot, but not enough to make her let go right away.

The man with the brand kicked her hands, making her release it with a noise, and stepped on her handcuffs, pulling her hands down. The strength she was exerting to stay upright and not fall to the ground with that foot was killing her. And the person behind her was pulling her hair back, splayed by his hand. Her scalp screamed in pain.

But she muttered something to the heavens.

A word echoed through her body, she only thought of it when she closed her eyes, in lamentation. A failed word.

Sorry.