Shadow of Mind

Chapter 3

  - 🌌 T a l i a 🌌 -

Flicking my cash-card towards the bartender, who removed ten units from it, I chased after the spy, my hands immediately curling into fists and draped with my shadows. I followed him out into the alleys, and squinting my eyes, found his skinny figure climbing over the fence as he ran. Not a chance.

Summoning the shadows by my side, I launched myself into the air, throwing myself straight in the path of the spy. He stumbled backward before he pulled out a gun with shaky hands. "You're from Robus. There are no firearms in Robus. That means you stole that from one of the Imperial guards, which means that I am at liberty to execute you. Theft is a crime on these streets."

He didn't bother to answer before he fired two shots at me. I ducked the first one and used my shadows to block the second one before I rushed at him. He was surprisingly agile, as he ducked my first two kicks to his head, and punched me in the midriff. I jumped over his arm, landing on his shoulders, and I wrapped my legs around his neck, strangling him tight as he attempted to smash me into the wall. Instead, I grabbed onto the window frame of the wall, and curling my body up, I flipped us onto the balcony of some poor unsuspecting civilian, and he slammed into the cold, hard concrete.

I grabbed him from the balcony and threw him onto the ground below, and he groaned, his body curling into a fetal position. "What kind of woman are you?" He whimpered. "I know about the gems. I've never seen a dark-gem that used the shadows to move, especially a girl."

"The kind of girl who was brought up to a perfect warrior. You have no business in Peritia, Roban filth. Why were you here?" I snarled against his ear, my shadows forming a lasso that tugged on his neck.

He chuckled. "Kill me, little girl. I know you don't have the guts to. Because you're a woman. And all of you are weak. You'll never get anything from me. And I thought Queen Fantina banned manslaughter on these streets."

"I don't need you alive." I hissed. "And those laws don't include infiltrating spies, or the princess of this country." He flinched when I said princess. "Yes, princess. You just had the worst luck, taunting me."

"Yo-you're the princess? The people out there, they call you- they call you Nightdew. Be-because you work in the night, and the next morning you're everywhere, and then you soon fade. The Manish... they call you Nightwitch. The Dark Sorceress, the Dark Enchantress that corrupts the minds of the young princes that enter Peritia with your beauty."

"They sing my songs of praise, do they? Then you would know exactly what I'm capable of." I said. "You'll know that I don't need you to speak for me to tear upon your mind, feast on your tears when you beg me to stop, to stop the pain. Or do you want me to do it with a surgeon's precise hands? Maybe I could even keep you controlled, let me watch as you return to your superiors empty-handed. Now, little man, what did you come here for? I wanted one night of freedom, away from the paparazzi and my parents, and guess what? I find a spy."

"All we wanted was your weapons. We needed a gun. The outside countries, have you seen us? We're like savages again. Medieval knights fighting with swords and shields. All because of your country; Peritia plagues our earth with your psychic-gems. You wipe out our armories, wipe our minds of any technological memory, leaving only a sliver of hope in us: that we know it's out there. But that's not very hopeful is it, when you realize that the big old country of Peritia is blooming because of it? We just wanted a gun."

"And you failed your mission, spy." I tightened my pull on the lasso, and as I pulled back for the killing blow, he whispered one last thing.

"You'll never get anything out of me."