On Death's Honor

Chapter 1: Cursed Promises

One-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-eight.

That's one-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-eight contracts I've completed. Triple - no, quadruple that - and you'll get the amount of kills that stains my hands.

That's more people than most will ever meet in their lifetime. Hell, I'm pretty sure that's all Kirmund was reduced to when the snakra swept in and picked people apart like a chef shredding tender meat.

I think about that, sometimes. I was barely twenty when the caravan I was  traveling with stepped over the vibrant green hill and exposed us to the horrors of blood and bone and still-intact buildings. It was the strangest thing I'd witnessed at the time - there were no fires, no crumbled brick or wood that suggested there had been a mass panic. Just dead bodies, torn limb by limb, and a few lingering monsters still slurping their victims' brains with forked tongues up swollen noses.

Anytime I start to waver on my prey, I think about that scenario. How the snakran I'd eventually caught had been a young child of its kind, terrified and wide-eyed as the contents of a human babe's insides stained it's scaly bare chest.

The girl in front of me wasn't currently covered in blood, but I had no doubt that at some point, she had been. Her wild, manic hair was almost as dark as the twigs knotted up in it, her skin containing a strange, pale-blue aura to it that made her deep, obsidian-black eyes stand out more against a malnourished face.

Her thin, cracked fingernails scratched at the wooden table in front of her, and I wondered, briefly, what she would have been like if she'd been born human.

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the doorpost, knowing that she wasn't going to go anywhere. And from the way she slumped her bony shoulders, she knew, too.

"Today's Ruve," I informed, my voice oddly loud against the quietness of the woods surrounding us. "They'll be dancing around the totem here in a couple hours."

Once upon a time, I would have dived into this with a snarl and a demand, blades out and moving. And while most people assumed my casualness was just another intimidation tactic, in truth, I was just too fucking tired to care anymore. She'll give me what I need without me having to exert myself.

She glanced up, briefly, her eyes glimmering yellow with tears. Unwavering, I met her gaze.

"I can't let you go, Igna," I continued softly. "But you give me the information I need, I'll let you see the water sprites." One last time, was something I didn't need to say. Because in truth, I did pity her. Nymphs in general were not naturally evil creatures. Not like humans.

The control she had been trying to maintain broke just then, her face crumbling as she tried to hold back a muted sob. Seventeen days. That was how long it took us to get to this point. She looked away, pretending to study the bleak cave walls as she closed her eyes tight.

"Why?" she whispered. Why am I going to die?

They say man would go through great lengths to avoid death. No one ever said anything about creatures unassumed by age - beings that would only die when blood was spilt. Those were the ones who felt the most terror.

"Consequences," I grunted. "Your mistress coated you in blood."

She snapped her gaze back at me, her youthful face full of frustration and desperation.

"I told you, she has me under oath-" her voice cracked as she tried to speak, and she pressed her lips tight, lifting her hands to bury in her face.

Fucking hell. I hated dealing with nymphs. If I'm ever involved with a nymph, it's because of shit situations like these. It was like looking into a life that could have very well been me if I'd been born as anything else.

Because it is.

"But you still had a choice." The words didn't hold nearly the amount of power in them as they once did.

The girl took in a great big gasp of air, lowering her hands, but she kept her eyes firmly on the table.

"I don't want to die," she whispered. Then I asked the dumbest question I could ever ask.

"How old are you?" 

She stilled, as if I'd just asked her what her deepest, darkest secret was. As if she'd rather tell me where her mistress was instead of revealing anything personal. I don't know why I asked it. It wasn't as if I wanted to know - I didn't need a guilty conscious - and I wasn't exactly expecting an answer, either. Seventeen fucking days we've been at this, and she only told me her name two days ago.

I didn't even want to know that. She gave it to me like a dying man getting the last kick.

Horrible analogy, Wren.

"I'm fifteen." I barely heard her, but she might as well have punched me in the gut. How the hell did-

Don't go there. You still have to kill her.

Experience kept my face clear. I wished it did the same thing to numb the conflict I felt inside.

"I'm sorry," was all I had to say. Sorry you were taken so young. Nymphs didn't normally mature until well into their fifties - but that was only because they were meant to live for centuries.

It didn't take long for it to click. She was probably kidnapped as a baby, and then the bitch that took her stripped decades from her very life essence.

Forest nymphs did not make very good liars - their eyes instinctively shrunk back within their skulls when they did, no matter the age. This girl in front of me did not so much as flinch.

"I can make her pay," I said after a few moments of tense silence. Once again, the girl paused before looking up at me.

"You can?" As if she doubted my skills. Not that that's her fault. She hasn't lived in this world long enough to experience the kind of terror my kind can bring.

I shoved myself from the post I leaned on, striding over to her as if I had all the time in the world. When I reached the table she sat behind, I pressed my hands against the edges and bent forward until our faces were only a hair's width apart. She could bite my nose clean from my face with those razor-sharp teeth of hers, but I wanted her to read me. Wanted her to know that yes, I'm a monster. I'm a killer that's going to send her straight to the afterlife within the next couple of hours.

But I'm a capable monster, and while I generally give those I was sent to hunt a quick death, I also knew how to drag them out.

Igna's face paled further beneath my expression, but she didn't flinch back.

"I can bring bloodwraiths to their knees in less time it takes to cut off their heads," I breathed, then tilted my head slightly. I paused, letting the fear sink a bit further, then continued. "I will have no problem making a nyphtan curse her mother for ever bringing her into this world." This part I ended in a snarl, shoving myself away from the girl so that I could glower down into those dark eyes of her's. Let her see that while my own eyes were as dark a gray as rolling storm clouds, my heart was every bit as black as those obsidian orbs.

"I will kill you, Igna, before the night's end. But you can die knowing your mistress will suffer far more than you ever have. Now tell me where she is."

The small girl swallowed, yellow tears resurfacing her eyes yet again.

"Can I still see the water sprites?" she squeaked. I gave her a curt nod.

"I'm of my word."

She released a slow, trembling breath.

Then she told me.

~ 1339 Words ~