Lady Of The Night

02| the dark fury

chapter 2: the dark fury
date published: 01.01.23

East of Naluna, rain rips into the cobblestone roads of Varkov square.

The city that once proudly claimed the title of capital of Valeria now sits in blatant disrepair. The roads are broken in ways that endanger the lives of carriage occupants, and the streets have barely enough lighting to see ten paces ahead. The thick smog and constant rain do not help. Neither does the reek of animal faeces and rotting food from the garbage dumped outside houses.

A figure walks past Ellis Avenue, a cloak drawn over her black clad figure. Her gait is light, her footsteps quiet. Varkov Square is a complicated place to find oneself in. The roads are choppy, disjointed. They do not wish for safe travel. One stops much before another starts. Ellis Avenue picks you up only to drop you into an overflowing drain. Sorrial street splits into another fifty little lanes—lanes that have derelict buildings so identical that it is rumoured those who go down it never come back. Lumos, ironically has no lights. Dark clad figures stand behind buildings—awaiting ignorant prey. Only those who wish to be pickpocketed or murdered walk down Lumos Avenue. Constantine boulevard—named after a pompous duchess who bequeathed herself Varkov Square's saving grace—hosts a collection of deep holes. In fact, one of them is rumoured to have ironically killed its namesake. Varkov Square is a maze of confusion, a signed death warrant for any amateur. The hooded figure however, is no amateur. Orphaned at five, she had grown up on these streets. She knows the secrets of every corner. She lovingly embraces them.

Varkov is home.

She turns down Constantine and closes her eyes. For if one relied on sight to cross the boulevard one was more foolish than the king. She counts her steps and neatly strides across, listening for foreign footfalls or stupid carriage drivers who thought they might be first to tame Constantine. But the torrid downpour muffles all noise. Entering Alnwick Street, she walks past the graveyard, reciting a small prayer as she did so. Alnwick Street stood parallel to a graveyard that spanned two kilometres, thus having its own reasons to send fear down pedestrian spines.

Down Alnwick Street, past the graveyard stands The Beheaded Prince. There are posters everywhere of a royal dinner party leading up to the Snow Solstice. A week of celebrations. Caricatures of peace and harmony between the states have been etched into them. The posters line the walls, lamp posts and even some cabbies. Most of them were clogging the drains. The figure hurries into the pub. When she pushes the door open, a burst of warm air hits her. She slips in and then shuts out the cold. The front room is bathed in the soft yellow glow of the gilded lanterns.

"Fury!" calls the man behind the table.

Tipping her hood to him she says, "Mev khayra, Bokhar"

Bokhar laughs, "No evening at the Prince is good, Fury. It is either profitable or hellish." A man of many words, Bokhar was tall and stout; the thirty years he'd spent as manager of The Beheaded Prince gathering right at his belly. He wore a suit that was probably as old as he was, and time had stolen away most of his hair. His round face and chocolate brown eyes however, had always been a welcoming sight. So welcoming in fact that one didn't notice when he poured a judicious amount of sleeping draught in their drink. Or gave them the key to a room that they wouldn't come out of alive. He always argued, "Better happy korcha than suspicious korcha." Korcha being Varkovian slang for a dead man walking.

She rolled her eyes and threw a glance at the stairway, "Someone asked for me?"

Bokhar pulls an iron key from under his desk. Its bow is fashioned to look like a crown, and the ridges designed in a way impossible to be pressed into clay. The best that money could buy. "Two men came in, clothes very expensive looking. Asked for your room. I gave them key, and sent you note."

She takes the key from him, and places a bag of novae in its place, "Ukhra, Bokhar. For your services."

"Yevera, always good business with the Dark Fury."

The Dark Fury, that's what they called her. It was extremely racist considering the fact that her face was the colour of chocolate. Chinna chocolate mousse, he mother once called her when she had come home crying because Himash Kirtuvaty had told her to go wash her face.

As for being called the Dark Fury—she chose to focus on the part where they feared her. Which they did. Very much so. She tips her hood to him once again and heads toward the stairway. Before ascending it, she sends a longing glace to the doorway at the other side of the room—the one that lead to the pub. Her stomach grumbled.

As she headed up, she patted her stomach.

Food is reward for a job well done.

It was an old Sithayan proverb—back when the city was not clogged with mine dust and asphyxia. People would wake at the crack of dawn and head to work. When they came home, The Spice Cabin would welcome them with delicacies one could enjoy only in the orient and the emerald Isles. Spicy beef gravies, crispy fried Chicken, Jikayen noodle soup served with a broth that had been simmered to perfection, and garlic buttered naan that came with mouth-watering fried fish and cheese curries.

Her stomach emits a mournful cry. Soon she reaches a room engraved with a torrid thirteen above it. Sliding the key into the lock, she takes a deep breath and opens the door. Pressing her mask to the bridge of nose—a force of habit—she enters the room.

Everything is in its usual place. The fire place is lit, and the heat bears down at her temples. It was a bloody inferno here. These could not be Valerians. Crescentian, however, adored the sweltering heat, maybe it was them.

There is a chair by the fireplace, a man sat within it—enveloped by dancing shadows. At the table by the bed was another man—he stood and a pair of purple eyes met hers. A Celestian Healer.

Bokhar had told her about them during one of their 'business meetings'—as he liked to call it. The information of course had not been free of cost, but she was grateful for it now.

"Welcome, Dark Fury," said the healer. He motioned for the chair opposite to him; "Please, have a seat."

Naeyla, her mother had named her. Her father had hated the name. In ancient Sithayen folklore, the Nays were a class of dragon that had terrorized the Emerald Isles for centuries. They would slip into towns in the dark of the night, their obsidian scales masking them from sight, and breath violet fire down people's throats. Quiet, undetectable and deadly. That was how her annaah described them. By naming her Naeyla, her mother crowned her their queen.

"My Naeyla is bound for great things," she said.

As she sat down at the table, extremely aware of the man by the hearth—a man who wore clothes of jade velvet and black opal, who held himself in a way that did not just scream of wealth, but of someone who soaked in wealth for generations—the weight of her namesake had never felt so heavy upon her shoulders.

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