'ᴡᴇ ꜱʜᴀʀᴇ ᴀ ꜱᴇɴᴛɪᴍᴇɴᴛ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ʙᴇ ʙᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴠᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ.'
Only one month has passed in Daliah Viper's life trying to reintegrate at court and follow the uneasy trails her eyes have caught.
One month filled with blood, tribulations, and l...
-the process of something absorbing or of being absorbed
-interception of radiant energy or sound waves
-entire occupation of the mind
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I return to the Viper mansion at dawn.
I walk among the empty road, hands in my pockets, no weapon needed. I descend from my trip over bridges, taking transports for only half the way, walking my soles off. The road is a safe path in the midst of West Archeon. Only a fool would walk down their tower at dawn and attack a bypasser that is clearly silver. And they are too busy with themselves.
The lights beside me begin to buzz and glitter in their electronic, pale grace. The lanterns bow to me as I strut past them. When the world turns dark, the lights that guide the way shine in bright, celebrational colors. They are searchlights for the stupid and the proud.
A few moths and other, small black insects that haven yet died in the coming autumn air, flurry around the lanterns. They steal the light and throw their small, inconsequential ominous shadows down.
I stare past them.
The sky is gushing in grey, filled with deep red clouds spreading thin like a slit throat bubbling in a puddle of blood.
It's as bloody as the tiny splotches on the tip of my shoulder. The smallest hint of a day's work hidden under my jacket. Just for me to know they are there, a secret I don't have to share with anyone.
No one knows about the small dip of taint on me. And no one will ever know, because I am in full control and I am in full perfection.
I wouldn't murder anyone in the safety of their home in West Archeon. The buildings stand too vigilant and high. And even if I can count on cameras in the palace being controlled if needed, this is still a warzone of the elite and their mansions out here. They stay insides their homes, and you only walk inside their homes if you feel safe enough.
No, this was about something to close one more chapter of betrayal. One final arc for a botched coup, for a botched assassination. A botched takeover that has ended well, except for the fact that all the public enemies are still free. But a cog is simply one bit of machinery, even if it is an important one, just as a hand has five fingers.
Just like Blonos, like the red servants that made the spectacle convincing, just like every person that knew or doubted about the involvement of the rulers of this country, this one needed to be removed. Last week, it was an old man, and I disliked that I had to suffer through his memories before it was over. Half of them were warped and unreal, but still. This time, it was not a murder.
I didn't do anything to her. She just coincidentally slipped at the end of our discussion. The splotches come from her wrath. She spit on me. And even though the aim of a badly maimed woman at the end of a spiral staircase in East Archeon is not the greatest, she hit the side of my face, with a few straggling drops of her red spit sailing on my clothes.
