❝ 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... ◥✥◤
Azura and Ari talked, Azura questioning the validity of her powers. Ari stole a report from Palmira's office, proving that what happened to Jile had—indeed—happened. In the process, he also stole a letter from Palmira questioning events that occurred eleven years ago with the Sharlik Empire destroying a village in Yetok. Azura was panicked by this discovery—repressed memories surfacing—but it was overshadowed by another discovery; Ari revealed he was the prince of the Tacree Kingdom. Before they spoke more on it, Azura was summoned to Palmira where Azura reiterated that she won't assassinate the emperor as she had people she cared for.
༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛
I watch Suri and Lilja argue over the answers in their book, a smile tugging my lips as they rehash the basics of magic, Suri's hands flying in the air as she tries to get her point across.
It's been a few days now since I declined Palmira's job for me yet again. Everything within me seems to have settled because of it, like the river has finally stopped rushing.
But it doesn't last long. Bad things happening is an inevitability I'll never be able to deny.
A clatter from outside draws my attention and I raise my gaze to the balcony doors. The girls fall silent as the noise continues, a rhythmic clank coming closer. I jump from my bed and the girls are right behind me as I throw open the balcony doors and step into the night.
What I see chokes the breath from my lungs.
Lit torches scatter across the land beyond the school like stars in the sky. But they illuminate hundreds of figures, their armour jostling, their marching footsteps a steady beat coming towards us. And their banner—the deep crimson and black of it—makes bile rise in my throat.
"The Empire!" someone screams, other students standing on their balconies too, witnessing what we're witnessing; the inevitable death of us all.
I'm surprised something like this hasn't already happened.
The pounding on our door makes me jump, but I turn to see Ari burst through it, his eyes wide and hair ruffled.
"We need to go," he declares.
"Go where?" Lilja asks, clinging to Suri's hand.
"To the training room. They're not here for tea."
I bark out a startled laugh, my nerves rising. "Right then. Let's go."
We dash through the halls, other students flocking around us. We converge on the domed ballroom, all of us desperate to find our orders, to find a direction in this chaos.
There hasn't been the threat of battle like this for so long, not since the fall of Tacree. Most don't know what the edge of a Sharlik soldier's blade feels like, but then again, most weren't street rats in Warroll.
