The client is someone I sincerely hate, but I knew when to put my vendetta aside when it came to a job. I had to meet him about a mile west of the walls where the Alexandria Dukedom is. There was a reason why Evol had not told me any more than I needed to know. Parked in front of me was a royal gold state coach with the red logo of the Rubinoff family's symbol plastered on the door—a symbol I recognized anywhere. When I was a child, his guardsmen working in the red-light district wore it on the back of their maroon uniforms. I didn't know if they changed their uniforms because the guards outside the doors wore something different or more elegant or if the change concerned rank.
I approached them, holding up the note given to me by the mage. The man took it, identified it, and opened the door to the carriage. I met the grand duke face to face as I sat across from him. When he looked into my light brown eyes, his blue ones drifted to my hair color with surprise. It was uncommon in these parts but not so much as to surprise someone. Blonde and brown hair colors are more prominent in these lands, but a red tint wasn't. My hair was short, naturally curled inwards to my chin, and a strawberry blonde hue.
He quickly hid his surprise by clearing his throat. "Good day to you, outlander. I am De Yashar Rubinoff, Grand Duke to the empire within the walls."
"Likewise, now, tell me what I'm getting into."
I like getting straight to the point and avoiding small talk in conversations. The grand duke didn't like my approach or attitude toward him, but I saw no point in bowing to his higher rank because I had not been a citizen of the walls—not since the age of ten.
The duke snapped his fingers, signaling the coachmen to steer the horses to a destination. "An introduction would suffice; you outlanders don't know much about common etiquette."
Actually, he's wrong about that. The ten years I spent in the high-end brothel were for naught, as my education in noble etiquette started when I could walk. It wasn't uncommon for nobility to rent one of the courtesans from the high-end brothels for the night to attend a ball or soiree. My education ranged from noble etiquette to sexual education. Nothing in sexual education was taught by action but by books. I never cared about it, but at the time, I thought becoming a whore was my only future. Then I started learning the language from the woman who had been trafficked from other countries to be sold at the whorehouse. The system granted me an ability called [Language Acquisition]. Through that, my brain began picking up on words I overheard. The more I hung around them, the higher my ability grew. When it came to writing in different languages, I was a lost cause.
I can only write in Northarian because it is this world's version of English, and I reincarnated only knowing that language. I learned many cultural habits and philosophies by hanging around foreign girls. Maybe one day, it would serve to my advantage.
"Donis."
"No last name?"
"Don't know it."
"I see. From now on, you shall be known as Donis Rubinoff, daughter of my deceased son, Damien. Your cover story is that you have been born of a mother of unknown origins and have been found outside the walls."
"Is there anyone else with this knowledge?"
"None of the family knows of your existence as you must play the part of the long-lost child. This cover story will serve as your ticket for the Consort Invitational, as every unmarried female of nobility is required to attend, with no negotiations."
I cross my legs and whistle. "Damn, the queen must be that desperate to find her prince a wife."
"The queen is dead."
My eyes widened, and I realized Evol would not like that news. "What?"
"I have reason to suspect that this Consort Invitational is a revenge plot. Your purpose is to protect my granddaughter, Hattie. I want her to be safe and to return without capturing the prince's heart. If anything, you must intervene if such a thing happens. Do whatever is necessary to keep her out of the hand of that monster."
I have reason to suspect that the queen was not human, meaning she was powerful. Whoever killed her must have caught her off-guard or was even more powerful. I shouldn't bring up the part about her not being human because I'm not sure if this man knows that. "Revenge plot? Is he blaming the nobility for killing the Queen? Was it an inside job?"
"The details are unknown, and the culprit is still roaming free—details are unnecessary for you to know—your purpose is to protect my granddaughter."
"Aye, aye, captain."
The older man sat back, looking out the window. I kept my eyes on him, taking in his impression. His eyes had bags under them, signaling stress. He looked like every other nobleman I come across, wearing an ebony trench coat underneath a vintage suit comparable to my first life's Victorian Era clothing. His hair was slicked back with gel, and his sharp cheekbones and stern personality hid behind it all.
I dressed in middle-class hunter's clothing when I wasn't on a mission. I spent most of my money on my mission outfit because having a durable outfit was important. My typical outfit consists of an asymmetrical fur cloak. Under that is a black leather doublet that covers a long-sleeved coal-coloured gambeson in the shape of a tunic. I have a black leather belt at my waist that allows me to store a set of Quillon-type daggers. For pants, I wear black trousers that the gambson covers to mid-thighs. My pants legs are tucked into light-weight dark brown leather boots that lace up to my mid-calf. Around my neck, I wear the guild's ring with the Nightshade, the Belladonna flower, engraved on it, as it is my guild's symbol.
After checking out the man's outfit, I resigned to look out the carriage's window. The closer we got to the walls, the more my heart raced—I couldn't help it; I had lingering trauma here.
Treading deeper into the district to get home, Donis unconsciously silenced her footsteps, hoping no one would notice her. Her hazel eyes peered in every direction, hiding her impending fear. She passed a woman waiting for her customer outside her shit-stained brothel, smoking a cigarette. The woman gave her a sinister wave of good luck, knowing she was trying to find her way home. Across the walkway was a guardsman exploring himself in another’s mouth. Down another path was a drugged boy being led by an older woman. If there was one thing she learned in this district, it was to mind her own damn business. As much as she wanted to help him, playing the hero would only get her in a worsened state. She’s an adult, but only mentally. Physically, her body is small and weak.
Gulping, she forced herself to turn her head in a different direction.
A cold, loathing expression sneered across her face— guilt, sorrow, and hatred for the predators in this defiled district.
She kept walking, knowing her ten-year-old body dressed in her attire wasn’t helping her situation.
She wore the standard apprentice clothing of her brothel. That should keep defiling hands off her. Everyone knew that apprentices were not to be touched—
The familiar uniform of the red-coated guardsmen came into view as we approached the heavy metal gate made of strips that formed a grid. These kinds of gates, portcullises, were mounted in grooves in the castle walls and could be raised or lowered quickly using chains or ropes. My eyes wandered from the gate to the uniform of the guards. Red is the primary color of this humongous dukedom. It serves as a symbol to all to recognize the military fraction the Grand Duke held separate from the Queen. The guardsmen wore white-collared shirts with cuffs and black trim. Over that was a dark red military jacket with black decorated buttons. The jacket’s sleeves had black cuffs that went up to the elbow. They also wore white gloves, a brown leather belt that held their swords in its black casing, black pants, and brown boots with the pants tucked in that went up to the calf. Their uniforms were the yearly wage of a commoner.
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When the guardsmen cleared the carriage for entry by glancing at the man inside of it, I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the view. In order to get to the main part of the Dukedom, we had to pass the district I had grown up in.
Not even an entire block later, talon-like hands snatched her arm, dragging her into a dusty alley. She tried to run, but the calloused hand was too tight around her forearm. Her eyes look up at the nameless assaulter dressed in average nobleman clothing— a short front tailcoat suit.
His soul-snatching amber-colored eyes bored into hers. “You’re a pretty thing; whom do you work for?”
She bit her lip with bated breath. “I’m not for sale.”
Laughing, he runs a finger on the right side of her chin. Her eyes trembled when looking at that finger. The anger inside her panicked brain imagined it between her teeth. Thoughts like these kept the toughened front she was attempting to display. Her spine stiffens when his eyes glimmer darker with a predatory lock on her. Plans run through her head like a train. She imagined her foot digging into his mouth and a scenario where she was stabbing him with a sword that appeared out of thin air. Thoughts like these kept her shield up and stopped the fear from showing on her face.
Her gut sinks to the ground as he pulls her deeper into the alley. She kicked and screamed, hoping someone would help her.
But everyone knows better than to get into others’ business, the deep part of her mind reminded.
He swings her into the brick wall of a building— her back throbs with pain.
“Shut it, you child whore,” he barks at me. “Apprentice or not, your job is getting fucked and liking it. You whores do anything for coin.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks as he forcibly pressed their bodies together as if they were in a warm embrace. Her shield disappeared, allowing fear to wrench through her face. His hand drifted from her cream-white apron to the back of her lilac purple, slightly puffed-sleeved dress. His hand slithered into her undergarments.
Her struggles seemed to feed his disgusting ego, no matter how hard her effort to break out of his embrace came.
Looking at the buildings, nothing changed. Houses were unkept on the outside, except for the higher-end establishments.
Those with the best technology were born into wealthy houses. In this district's case, they had the outdated kind. The nobles were the only people with running water and oil lamps. The middle class used candles to light their way and pissed in an outhouse. However, people were lucky if they had one of—most used chamber pots in their rooms and had the lower-ranked whores or apprentices empty them in the morning. I could barely stand the smell of it half the time, but I got used to it. Growing up as a prostitute's apprentice had been one of my many jobs. I emptied the higher-ranking whore's bed pots into the river that coursed through the district, which gave it its shitty smell.
Because of the social hierarchy this country's people believed in, people like sex workers had no dignity or rights in the eyes of others because of who birthed them. It was a caste system, even among the common people. Even though my establishment was on the higher end, that didn’t mean people didn’t look down on them—most outside the profession viewed the workers as people who only do shameless acts. They viewed sex workers as unmarried people exposing themselves to others. Society dictated that one’s private regions are meant for only one other person to see, but it's okay for someone with a dick to screw around. That's how fucked up the society within the walls were.
This district, known as the slums to some, had the nickname 'red-light' district because of the red lanterns that lit the street at night. When the red lanterns are lit, and the sun goes down, all beliefs and morals are thrown out the window. Every fetish was praised, no matter how immoral they were. Nobody could walk anywhere in the streets at night without seeing people feeling up to each other.
He leaned in as he lifted her body from behind, his thigh traveling between her legs. Her arms are smashed between their chests as her head rests on his shoulder. She felt the heated breath from his mouth ghost down her neck as he pulled down the shoulder of her dress. Then, his tongue slicked itself across her skin.
The world seemed to freeze when she caught sight of a bulging vein on the side of his neck—a vital spot. No matter how strong someone was, the neck was a vulnerable spot. She realized that this might be her only chance to escape. Either that or get raped.
Berated thoughts of keeping her chastity overlapped with the fear of knowing what would happen if she didn’t take this chance. Fear turned those thoughts into reality. My only option. Her brain those words until the words force her nerves to comply with her subsequent movements. My only option—
Her mouth opens with a wide crack; then, she clamps down hard. Flesh sinks beneath her teeth as blood draws into her mouth. A metallic taste crossed her tastebuds. Through each breath, bloody bubbles popped, splattering blood onto her face. Donis felt the predator’s hand dive into her short strawberry-blonde hair, pulling strands out. He tried to yank her head back, but her teeth were like sentient hooks.
His pained grunts felt like music to her ears, but it was not enough. Until it became a screaming, she crept her tiny fingers through the wound as the pressure restricting her arms dissipated. She ripped it, digging nails into the damage her mouth clung to. They wrapped at the edge of his neck wound and began to tear the flesh apart. Blood poured down her white apron, dyeing it a new color. His hand sunk from her hair down to the side of his hips. She felt his body lurch backward, and she refused to let go even as he went unconscious from the pain.
She lurched forward, going with his dropping body.
Her mind thought of the boy from earlier— that lugged and drugged gaze peering into her soul. She used that memory to keep herself going. This was revenge against the people of his kind. Donis loathed anyone who paid to get a woman for a night. Most of the time, it is against their will.
His body hit the ground as she released her victim with a glob of flesh and blood in her mouth. She spat it out and wiped the back of her hand across her shallow breathing lips. Then she stood up, glaring at the trash beneath her. Strangely, she blended into this district more than I thought. Her morals were thrown out the window once this man dared to assault her. There was no remorse lingering in her mind.
She glanced at the blood in between her fingernails. Donis never thought that she would be capable of killing someone without feeling a bit of a quilt. Before dying, she had been raised in a society where killing was illegal, but for the last ten years, she’s been raised in this defiling district where people do whatever to make an income to survive. Her case was no different. Maybe she wouldn’t make money off killing this man, but at least she could rid the world of one pedophile. Before stalking out of the alleyway, she spat on his dying body.
She wasn’t so scared anymore after going through this.
[Congratulations on becoming a citizen of this world.]
Donis's eyes widened; she giggled and spiraled into a laughing streak. Her second life had been no coincidence but planned by some extraterrestrial system or technology. What a fucking joke. She didn't know if she was hallucinating because of the situation or going crazy. It could be both, but she ignored the holographic window in front of her, mentally swiping it away as if her brain already knew how to work the system installed inside of her mind.
People would leave her alone, and she would remain untouched by her current appearance. Sadly, a child has to have blood on her dress to stay untouched by those disgusting predators. There’s no excuse that the place she is walking through is a red-light district, either. This wouldn’t have happened if those guardsmen had been doing their job. Nobody noticed her walking with blood because most were too drunk or fussing around with someone.
Even I succumbed to the nightmare of the red-light district by throwing out my old life's morals in order to protect my chastity. Killing that man sealed my fate of either going to prison for killing a nobleman or becoming a Scyftan. Luckily, Treasach had been in the right place to witness the entire scene play out at the right time. Why he never stepped in to help was beyond me, but perhaps he had only watched the part of me killing that man. I never questioned it because he had saved me from living the rest of my life in prison.
No matter the age or gender, if you kill anyone with noble status, you are thrown in jail. Before the authorities could catch a whiff of the nobleman's death, he bought me from my mother's boss, and she, with a smile on her face, threw me at him. At first, I thought that he was like the rest of the men of the district until he explained his intentions.
"I'm not into children, so please, stop acting out because I'm trying to save your ass from being booted into prison—that man you maimed was a nobleman, and even the judicial system has no sympathy for a child—even if it were in self-defense."
Then he smuggled me out of the walls without explaining what I going to have to face next—the painful, mutagen trials it takes to make a human into a Scyftan. Exiting my thoughts, I looked at the Grand Duke, who was looking at me with a studying gaze, probably wondering why the red-light district so entranced me. I had to make an excuse; otherwise, he might look into my identity by asking around the area. He was a very observant man, but even if he found out who I was, no army of his could stop me. Scyftan are mutated humans that have undergone experimentation by mages, meaning they are powerful beings made to take on the toughest monsters. One could say we had the genetics of monsters to use their abilities. A lot of knowledge was lost in the massacre caused by the Queen, leaving some Scyftan to discover those abilities for themselves. Some of the few survivors ran off, and others joined guilds to talk to the mages who created them, hoping for some semblance of knowledge. My mage had assisted the senior mages, which left very little knowledge in his hands. It had been up to the Scyftan that had kidnapped children to join the trials to apprentice the newly created ones.
I had gotten lucky in that sense; Treasach had basically raised me since he bought me from the whorehouse I had been born into.
"You seem familiar with this district," the grand duke pointed out.
I sighed, putting my chin in my hands. "Not familiar, but in awe of the lack of care put into it."
"The district is a filthy place full of lowlives," he defended.
"Only because crime is probably unmanaged, allowing it to circulate within the depths of the district—isn't the nobility supposed to care for their people?"
"You dare question my tactics?"
My eyes lowered as red lanterns lit up, pressed into the hazel color, highlighting the yellow hue given to me by those mutagens implanted within my body's written code. Once those lanterns lit up, that meant the sun was setting, and the morals were leaving. The duke got my answer with the way I looked at him. I was angry, and he knew what I was. I have no doubt, because of the political influence he has within the walls, that he knew of the shit that happened outside of them too. This was a way of telling him to kindly back off while I was being nice.