I could feel it then, as steel cut past bone, the vibrations carrying themselves through my fingertips. She struggled, well as far as the occasional kick and claw can pass for struggling, of course. It was all I could do not to sit down then and there and start caressing her form, exploring the ridged, hard skeleton beneath.

I wasn’t always like this, though I’m not sure when it began. Perhaps the wooden figurines my father would bring back from the kingdoms, or maybe the emancipated body of my little sister drinking tea with Head Maid, Hilda? A much more likely culprit, now that I think of it, would have been the weight of her corpse hugging my chest in her final moments. That very same sister of mine deciding the night of my seventh birthday as the perfect time to pass in her sleep.

Having to wrestle her form from my chest with all the strength my seven-year-old self could muster, unsurprisingly turned out to be much harder than one might expect. At the time, she was practically a skeleton with skin pulled over top, providing ample stimuli for my impressionable brain to soak in.

A disease is what took my little sister, “incurable” is what the priests called it. “Lazy and dim-witted” is what Father called them, once they had left, and he was sure they were out of ear shot.

Nearly 15 years on and I’ve long since realised the disease didn’t quite stop with my sister that night. Having carried it on in a different way, the steel of my blade taking lives just as well.

Her heart has stopped now, I turned her face down, hoping the blood wouldn’t soak through the floorboards too much. A twelve-inch steel blade would spell the end for anyone no matter where it travelled, especially so when it finds it’s way past your shoulder blade, perforating your lung, and is as wide as three knuckles. My favourite tool, hand forged by Jeralt Breggar himself. He even designed a saw on one side of the thing, after I had said I was a carpenter by trade. The blade has yet to taste wood.

She first caught my eye when I was visiting Silfer’s Artificers. Wearing an open back leather piece, her shoulder blades screamed at me. The way they glided under the skin, the pronounced insertions of muscle rippling between its shape. I had to know what they felt like rolling under my palm, the form of a person laid bare. Unfortunately, anyone who visits an Artificer, is almost always someone on the Road to Glory. No easy prey, be they man or woman.

Then again, I am no normal man. The Road to Glory is impartial, always beginning the same way, from the heart. Whichever desire you follow, if you pursue it long enough, the ‘Road will reward’. You grow keener, your senses double, the world expands. If you’re lucky, you might find you can do something no one else you’ve ever met in your life can do. Suddenly, the arcane might not seem so untamed to you, or a distance you once thought great can be crossed in a single bound.

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In my case, I got lucky on my third. He had the thickest collarbones I had ever seen; I doubt even seven-year-old me could have wrapped his hands around them. After I had positioned the body just right, as if designing the stage for a city play, the Road rewarded me.

The strongest of odours attacked, as a great crash of fatigue threatened to collapse my body and mind. It was after reeling on the floor of my chosen’s home for hours, that I could finally open my eyes to a whole new world. I could feel each individual grain of wood touching the hand propping me up. My entire body felt limber, almost like liquid. I gained an instinctive understanding of body and form. It was jarring, knowing your next move and every other that came from it. Depth of field increased incredibly, along with something else. Something that wasn’t there before. A horrible cocktail of smells.

I had known it wasn’t uncommon for senses to increase across the board, but what I smelt wasn’t anything natural, my instincts confirmed those thoughts quickly. At first, it came in flashes whenever I ran into a new scent. Eventually, I came to learn their differences, like one would learn a language. Sadness smelt like mist, thick and cold. Elation was a spice unkind to the nose, I recoiled at my first encounter, and anger was acrid, like a swamp of corpses.

A sweet aroma accompanied my mark, this woman was sombre before her death, and despite the sudden nature of her passing, the feeling quickly returned as her breath slowed. Perhaps she didn’t mind it ending there, a question I never heard the answer to.

My Reward came in the all-encompassing feeling of bone under skin, after I positioned her in a high back chair in the corner of the room, flanked by a coffee table and chase. Angling her head in such a way as to tease the observer a curious glance to her object of focus, a teacup filled with her blood. With a firm grip around her wrist, I manipulated the hand to reach for it. The precise articulation holding steady just as intended, even as I withdrew.

She now sat like a wax figure, forever frozen in a moment of mundane delight. No doubt the house maid would make conversation without realising she’s talking to a corpse. The thought made me chuckle.

Alas it was not meant to be, a familiar rhythmic thud reverberated through the floorboards. Even light footfalls did not go unnoticed when you could feel the grinding of individual grains of sand below your feet.

With precise steps that would put any dancer to shame, I crossed the room in a haze. Vaulting through the canopy of the red velvet bed, hardly rustling its perfectly folded sheets. By the time the door clicked open, I had already bounded out the window locking it behind me.

Peering between the curtains, I watched the maid intently. Her silhouette imposed along the bedroom wall. Illuminated by the lone candle across from the poor maiden I had killed. The murmurs of the maid were all it took to elicit a grin from me, her head frozen, waiting for a response. The hurried steps to the corpse ended in a loud shriek as she no doubt discovered the bloodied visage of her master.

I leaned into the crack of the window, taking in a deep breath. I couldn’t help it, the pungent stench of fear irradiated from her. The odour a deep chocolate, almost intoxicating in its richness. My eyes fell back, savouring the smell. In my pleasure, the maid had turned to face me, stricken with horror.

Damn.

I bounded across the rooftops and down the shingles. The maids scream running along with me, waking the neighbours.

A sigh escaped my lips as I darted into the sewers. Another night in hiding it is.