“I suggest execution, Your Sapphire Highness.” The throne room felt colder than before, perhaps because Hideo was here to be scrutinised by every high-ranking fang currently present within Darkfall, but it was Xerxes and his cadence that made his skin freeze. The Thane had rested his lion helm on the jewel-encrusted arm of the Empress’ throne. She did not seem to care or have use of it. She was hunched forward, twirling her silver circlet in her hands, considering every word, every suggestion, and every testimony each fang had to offer. When Xerxes spoke, everyone listened. “You explicitly ordered them to only silence the mark, but now every mercenary is dead, and even some villagers.” Unfortunately, the young brother that Hideo failed to save was not the only casualty. As he and Amaya were being escorted back towards the Tandra, he had sighted one elderly villager in the snow that could not handle the stress of the situation and another that also fell victim to one of the mercenaries’ iron arrows.

“It was reckless,” agreed Karo, one of the Night Fangs that intervened at Salmonsing and witnessed the entire event, much to Hideo’s shame. He was thin of face and his hair was as long and droopy as his solemn eyes. “She released the reptile intentionally. We know her not to be incompetent with her shot.”

Hideo wondered when he would be allowed to speak. It was still unclear to him whether he himself was on trial or not. He knew that they did not consider him responsible for freeing the Nanuqsaurus or for premeditating to kill the entire mercenary unit. If they did, he would be in the darkest dungeon near the bottom of the mountain, along with the troubled Archer. Yet he was the one standing in the middle of the throne room, below the throne’s stairs, seemingly at the mercy of the Empress. There were Night Fangs from the night in question, steel samurai watching in judgment and wise wizened veterans of the fraternity watching from the shadows.

Takeda, the captain of the steel samurai guard, was the next to speak. He marched past the Empress’ throne with a cocksure smugness that already irked Hideo inside. His imperious demeanour was somewhat justified. His face was sculpted from a tapestry of the gods and his silver armour made his appearance angelic. His hair was long and dark, and his face and jaw were chiselled and youthful despite being several years senior to Hideo. “Execution seems rather rash, My Thane. They did end Alker, after all. The archer was even the one to do it.” Hideo appreciated that Takeda vouched for Amaya’s life. Hideo did not appreciate the derisive look the samurai captain glanced his way as he made his point.

“Only a samurai would be unperturbed by a Night Fang acting like an ungraceful boar,” Xerxes replied contemptuously. “She will need more than a slap on the wrist. Night Fangs are meant to be shadows in the night. We don’t ride giant snow lizards into battle for fun.”

Hideo had to object if there was to be any chance of keeping the Archer alive, although he wondered why he was putting his neck out on the line for her.

“Xerxes you know that’s not true. I didn’t agree with the method, but she freed the lizard in order to keep the marauders busy whilst we freed the captives.”

“It is not your turn to speak, Craven Brother!” Xerxes bellowed back, his emerald eyes beaming.

“Let him,” the Empress casually cut in. She twirled her silver circlet around in her pale, ghostly hands with a blissful grin, the embedded sapphire gem pulsating. She appeared entertained by their arguing.

“When we saw what they were doing to the villagers it enraged her,” Hideo continued. “She couldn’t sanction their deeds and retaliated hastily and ungracefully.”

“Is this supposed to make us feel better?” Xerxes asked with a snarl that replicated the one on his lion helm

“I’m not denying it was ill-done,” Hideo said, taking a step closer to the stairs. The row of silver samurai stepped forward and pointed their spears in his direction. Hideo swiftly raised his hands and stood back again before making his point. “She made a mistake. It was her first assassination.” With the Night Fang Clan. Only the spirits know how many people she has already slain with the bloody sisterhood. “I’m imploring you to give her another chance, like you’re doing with me.” He directed the last part to the Empress, who seemed to be more intrigued by the circlet in her hands than by his plea.

“Feral wildcats have their uses,” Takeda suggested with a smirk. “You just need to be judicious with when to use one.”

Tora was the next fang to speak up. The more experienced assassin had adorned a blue breastplate with studded silver spikes. A blue bandanna covered her hair that had been dyed blue down at the tips. Hideo had heard that she was a pirate in her previous life, even earning her the clan name “Pirate Prowler” after assassinating a notorious Crimsonarion naval captain. Hideo dreaded whose side she would take in the discourse. “She reminds me of myself before I joined,” Pirate Prowler said with a smile that showed a missing front tooth.

“You would have me spare her?” the Empress asked curiously.

“No, you should put her down before she lights another fire,” Tora said somewhere between a jest and a dark judgment.

“What I am most distressed by is the mystery of where these degenerates came from.” The comment came from the Arch-Wizard Goro. Hideo was sceptical over the title, yet did not doubt the old man’s skills in alchemy. He created many useful tools for the Night Fang assassins of old over the years. Cloaking agents to hide scent, poisons to end marks without even being in the same room with them, and that glorious lightning moon armour that had been locked away for centuries, where one could both vanish in the dark or glow within it as to scare men to their core. Of course, his most esteemed position was the supervision of the Tiger Pit. The beating heart of the Monsoon Mountain did not contain actual wildcats, but the supposed blood of the thunderous beasts of legend. The pit is where novices became Night Fangs, proven warriors of the fraternity that would undertake the final trial of loyalty. One of endurance for the only way to gain true mythical power was to submerge one’s hands in the blood of the ancient guardians. Blood tainted with lightning.

Hideo was yet to see the pit for himself and after the disaster of Alker Stringer’s assassination, the pit was likely to remain above his station for quite some time. The Arch-Wizard stood as he further addressed the throne room. He wore thick robes of zaffre and his wizard’s shroud was draped over his head, with only his eyes visible. “We must find their origin to ensure they do not violate our country again and cut the head off the greater snake.”

“Is your hearing finally failing, old man?” Xerxes asked discourteously. “They came from Ravenhelm City. Did no one in this throne room listen to me or Her Sapphire Highness that day?”

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The Arch-Wizard lifted a frail finger under his long droopy sleeve. “Would the Daiymos or Khan Sano himself just allow them to sack villages across the land as they please?”

Xerxes shrugged. “They are no different to the Emperors, Kings, and Queens in the south; Apathetic and hedonistic.”

Hideo had had enough of their discourse. “Your Sapphire Highness,” he addressed, “what is to happen to Amaya? I have begged for clemency on behalf of her. What do you intend to do?”

The Empress looked up from her circlet and placed it over her blue, flowing hair. “I need to think on it, Hideo,” she said, not unkindly. “Everyone is dismissed, and I am in agreement with Goro that the reason for Alker’s company being here requires investigation.”

Hideo could only hope the Empress would be merciful. They had brought him to her to make his case for the fallen Archer, and he did. Whatever was to happen with Amaya, Kantanarro was now up to fate alone. As all company left the throne room, Hideo caught Xerxes descending the stairs. “Might I at least be allowed to see her?”

Xerxes gave him a long, contemplating look. “You are granted the same privileges you had before you last left the mountain, so you are permitted…” That signature sneer of his returned. “But I would rather you didn’t.”

Hideo went anyway.

Before he did, he detoured to the kitchens. The dining hall was empty and vast, spanning across over fifty long stone tables where the fangs feasted nightly. Some would drink until they would blackout, others told stories of their recent marks and how they met their end, and some would sustain themselves in sullen silence. Hideo fell under the latter category. He was yet to take part in any real merriment since being here. He had so far spent his dinners supping at the corner of a different table each night, hoping to be included in some chatter from nearby feasters. As of his fifth month of being here, this fantasy had still not come true. He located the iron door to the kitchens behind a stone pillar that had spiralled markings of wildcat beasts.

He found Furuta sprinkling spice over a boiling red soup. The man was as passionate about food and the art of cooking as he was about bringing just order to life and death and provided most of the temple with delicacies one wouldn’t expect to find atop a desolate mountain. Sadly, that also meant food supplies ran out quickly and were given priority on a first-come-first-served basis. Often Hideo could only obtain scraps and leftovers after the night's feast had ended. Furuta stroked his pointed beard as he glanced to see the novice standing there. “This is all for me, little fang,” the chef-turned-assassin declared. “It takes a long time to create this dish and to spice it just the right amount at the perfect point takes just as much skill as it would to assassinate a monarch without being seen.”

“Have you done both?”

The Chef laughed. “No, not a monarch, but the world is still young!” Furuta had earned his attention from the Night Fangs after poisoning a corrupt lord in Ravenhelm City who delighted in eating some of his own servants. When the Chef discovered the lord’s odious tastes, he poisoned his wine so that the next heinous meal his liege lord would enjoy would be his last. When awaiting execution in a rotted dungeon, Furuta had awoken to find a blue shadow standing over him, who made an enticing offer. Yet even after the years of assassinations and espionage, he never let his true passion die. Hideo knew more about the fellow Fangs around him than they realised. As cantankerous as Xerxes was, he liked to talk.

“You humour me, little fang,” Furuta praised. “I shall grant you one sip from the soup, but not another sip more.”

“I was just hoping for some leftovers that might still be available?”

“Yes, you do not seem to eat much most nights, unless you are providing for another person?” The chef-turned-assassin raised a suggestive eyebrow.

It was clear Furuta could see through his intentions, yet Hideo kept up appearances. “Being reprimanded for a reptile attack has worked up my appetite somewhat.”

“That it would,” Furuta agreed, giving him a studying look. “I can only offer hard bread and leftover mutton. They were hungry tigers tonight.”

Hideo told him that it would suffice and thanked him, regardless. The bread was indeed stale. Breaking it apart was like smashing a coconut. The mutton was a darker shade of red that was usual, and the gaminess was most overbearing. It would have to suffice.

The descent into the lower caves of the mountain was arduous. Despite walking downwards on the spiral stone stairway, the journey was a long and never-ending walk. It had even been coined “the descent to hell” for dishonoured fangs that were dragged here to await execution. It was a rarity, and Hideo hoped neither he nor Amaya would fall to that fate. Nevertheless, she was to endure a fireless and dark dungeon that lay far deeper beneath the tiger pit. A Samurai was posted under the only lit sconce in the hallway that was as silent and hollow as a cave, partially because it was a cave. The walls were part of the mountain, with protruding stalactites pointing down from above them and there was a constant, tormenting dripping sound coming from somewhere unseen that could send someone mad, given enough time. “I’ve brought her food,” Hideo told the Samurai transparently. “Is that permitted?” The Samurai shrugged and stepped aside without care.

He found her in the corner of the dungeon with her hood donned over her head. Amaya was taken here the moment they arrived back at Darkfall. For the duration of their escorted journey back, she had been taciturn, and any questions directed to her by Xerxes or other fangs were only met with flippant responses or subtle japes at their expense, which most certainly aided in getting her here. “I’ve brought you sustenance,” Hideo told her as he handed her the bag of mutton and hard bread.

Amaya chuckled under her hood. “So formal.” She accepted the bag and took a bite of the bread. It made a hard crunching sound that echoed throughout the dungeon.

“Xerxes suggested executing you when they were gathered in the throne room,” Hideo reported. “I implored the Empress as best I could to keep you alive, but I don’t know what she intends to do. Why were you so foolish, Amaya?”

“Alker is dead, isn’t he?”

“And many others.”

“Many other cutthroats.” She shrugged in indifference.

“And what of Ikoma?” That had been the name of the villager that died in front of Hideo and in front of Ikoma’s own sister, who was watching with horror from behind a nearby pine tree. Hideo had learned that they moved from the Midlands to Salmonsing to live a quieter life than they had in the problematic city of Ravenhelm. The mercenaries put a swift end to that happy ending.

“You can’t be blaming me for that?” Amaya pulled her hood back, revealing strings of web dangling from her shaggy hair. “I didn’t put the arrow through him.”

“If we had gone with my plan, perhaps all the villagers could have survived, but you decided to be callous and unleash a beast.”

“Are you referring to me or the Nanuqsaurus that I freed?” she asked.

“Take your pick.”

Amaya scoffed and took a hard bite on the stale bread. “If we had gone with your plan the surviving marauders would have just returned to the village a week later and taken the villagers again and because they would be one captain down, they would each get a higher payment between them after selling every resident of Salmonsing. What a wonderful ending that would have been.”

“They could have retreated somewhere else!” Hideo could feel his voice rising and an unhealthy anger growing within him.

“Oh, I wonder how far they would have got before getting caught again.” Amaya took another bite of the bread and crunched with ardent ferocity. “Stop blaming me for my failure when it was our failure. We tried to save them all, and we failed. Not every innocent gets out alive, Hideo, and sometimes bad people get to live longer. After all, we’re still alive, aren’t we?”

“We’re assassins, but we end the evil and corrupt-”

“Of course we do,” she said in a patronising tone. “Right now, a tavern wench in New Jade City is singing about how well you did, how you had slain the beast, defeated the mercenaries and saved all the villagers and bedded the attractive one who was filled with lust by your heroism.”

Hideo had heard enough. “I pleaded for your life and brought you food and company, and in return, you chose to once again belittle me.” He turned to storm out of the dungeon.

“I didn’t ask you to do any of that,” he heard her calling out from behind as he left, “and it doesn’t matter what they do with me. I’m just a weapon and so are you.”