❝ Pain was my fuel, until the fire began bleeding from my veins. ❞
The girl without a name.
The black-haired fiend devoid of fear.
The sharp-tongued scoundrel always ready with a trick up her sleeve.
Thief and street rat Azura knows how to hustle a...
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◢✥◣ PREVIOUSLY... ◥✥◤
Erasmus took Azura beyond the school for private training, knowing she's holding back but not understanding why. There, he demonstrated the magical danger she'll be facing when she assassinates the emperor. Overcome by the things expected of her, she contemplated the simplicity of ending her life, but Suri pulled her back from the edge; literally.
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I don't sleep that night. My bloodshot eyes stare at the ceiling until the light of dawn begins to creep beneath the curtains, the girls stirring with the intrusion. The pain in my ribs and back keep me up through the night and they don't heal, they won't, not unless I give them the rest they need to heal.
My mind won't stop mulling over what happened last night. I've spent the last two years making sure people knew I wasn't someone they could step on, someone they couldn't swindle if they were fond of their innards staying inside. But Palmira...
I close my stinging eyes as a shiver snakes down my aching spine.
Palmira is a reminder that I'm very little without my added gifts, that I'm still just a puppet that she can bend to her will. My training with my brother, my reputation in Warroll, the blood that drenches my hands, all of it means nothing to Palmira if she's not wielding me herself.
I manage to crawl out of bed and into the bathroom where I take a long and hot shower, the pipes groaning as they dredge up hot water with their Old World inventions. Suri tried to explain it all to me but then she got distracted by the stale biscuits she found at the bottom of her bag.
I let out a contented sigh as I tilt my face to the stream of water that spurts from the shower-head, my muscles straining with each shift.
I'll make it through today, and the next day, and the day after that. As I've always done, as my brother taught me.
Survive, no matter the cost.
I press my forehead against the tiles of the shower, the water spraying my back.
That, big brother, I know how to do.
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Training is its usual brand of torture, especially with the expanse of my back covered in a colourful array of purple and blue bruises. It'd be almost pretty if it weren't so painful.
Mud splashes my calves and sweat and rain drench my hair, plastering it to my skull. With burning legs and heaving lungs, I run parallel to dense trees, leaping over mossy logs and avoiding thorny brambles, each jarring movement sending spikes of pain up my back.
Erasmus' barking voice reaches me over the patter of rain on the leaves, the hooves of his horse flinging mud at me as he rides past. I grind my teeth together as I glare at his broad back, protected from the rain with a thick cloak and hood.
