Emeral In Shadow

Cloak and Dagger [#15]

    Gustaaf left the Palace at noon. He'd need some time to prepare before he drew the last breath out of the Muted Blade's masked facade.

    He took long strides out of the carriage he was in, an insistence by Marcellus to ride at least halfway across the city before going on foot, saying nothing to the driver as he slinked down the road. He had changed into something less royal-like; a dark brown tunic over a black linen shirt, black pinstriped pants, dark green lines cascading down his legs.

    After a bit of rummaging around in a dusty storage room, he had adorned a black cloak that was just as ragged as his old one, though missing the white zig-zags. It'd do. He glanced at the stores and homes as he silently swept down the street.

    The *Chef Bordeaux*, it's customers lined out the door. The house of the client of that job he has done a while ago; he had to cut off the man's pinky, if he recalled correctly.

    Suddenly, Gustaaf was hit with a wave of guilt, and resentment. He stood in front of a certain wood and stone shop, it's wind chimes making a sad clinking.

Evelien's parents shop, *The Noa's General*. The lights were off inside, a note on the door reading;

*'Temporarily closed during grieving. Please come again soon.'*

    Gustaaf winced as he read it. He resisted against the flood of emotions that rose inside him, beat against the limits of his skin, begging to be released, until a single tear fled his eyes.

    He breathed in shakily. Maybe for Gustaaf it was time to change. For Evelien. For Maddy.

    He stopped resisting, breathing out. All the built up tension, the repressed anger and sadness, broke out. Tears ran down his face as he fell to his knees.

    Her parents had taken him in, he remembered them well enough. Her mom, wispy light brown hair and her wide nutty brown eyes, Her dad a short and muscle-filled man, with thin brown hair.

    They were skeptical at first, like any good parents, but they let Evelien tend to his wounds, let her nurse him back to health.

    He now had the wish, against all of his instinctual resolve of self-preservation, that he had been left to bleed on the street to be eaten by dogs and vultures. Then Evelien wouldn't be dead.

    Evelien. His best friend on the dark, bloody side of his life. He loved Madelief, fully and entirely, but Evelien deserved more than to be another body on the gallows.

Deserved more than to be strung about by the strings of her love for him, to be denied and ignored time and time again.

More than to be another life he'd destroyed.

    He cried out in sorrow, garnering a few odd looks from nearby.

He leaned his head against the door of the store. The cold stone and metal chill against his skin.

    He would not forget her. He would burn her face into his mind, the sickening image of her cowering in fear of him. Her face would not be forgotten like all the others he'd killed.

    His body jolted to life impatiently, not aligned to his heart. He was ready to spill more blood, watch the Muted Blade bleed under his foot.

    But would it stop at him? Every time he killed one man or woman, he had to move to the next. What if... What if whenever he settled with Madelief, he couldn't quench the need to kill?

    What if, at the core of his being, all he is, is a hollow vessel meant to be filled with the blood of men?

    He shook off the thought, and straightened his posture. He took off the road, passing the tailors that made his suit to the Masquerade Ball, and towards another relic of his recent adventures in the Bramblehaven district.