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But there is no sign of anyone.
I am alone.
I think.
2
THALI
Ileave the center of Pyrthos after midnight, covered in blood.
My dark clothes are wet with the viscous liquid that just recently spurted from the body of my latest target. “Fuck, I need to invest in enchanted clothes,” I mutter.
I grimace as I walk through the dark streets. The only people awake are the humans who run the factories and the patrons of the clubs in the Red District.
My preferred method of killing is usually a bow and arrow, and while I am as skilled with a dagger as I am with a bow and arrow, I am quite fond of not getting too close to the targets I am killing.
Not because I don’t like killing. I do very much. It is a great method of relieving stress.
But I hate getting myself dirty.
However, this particular job took place in close quarters, and I had no choice but to use a dagger. Or three.
What made it messier was the fact that my targets decided to fight back.
The sun is nowhere near close to rising when I reach the Lowtown of Pyrthos. The blood on my clothes has begun to congeal, and every time I inhale, all I smell is the salty, metallic smell of dark elf blood.
The human community is awake already, and smoke rises from the factories and mills in the distance. I don’t walk down the main street, even though I am quite sure I could go completely unnoticed if I did, even covered with blood.
That is a skill I learned a long time ago, at the very start of my career.
Instead, I walk down a side street, which is little more than a dirt road, and head for one house in particular.
I grin to myself. “Good morning,” I whisper to her, knowing I won’t be revealed yet.
If I know her, she is already awake.
And she is. There is a light on in her tiny, ramshackle, yet neat house. The morning air is cold, and the sky is still dark, and I am not sure that the slowly rising sunlight can compete with the lingering dark of night.
I don’t wait for her. I know where she is going, and I want to be there before she gets there. I move quickly when I hear the creak and rattle of an old makeshift door swinging open. I am in the forest behind the houses in Lowtown before she even stepped outside her house.
She won’t come here immediately. She’ll stop to talk to her friends and listen to the news of the morning.
Then she’ll come to forage in the forest for root vegetables and seeds that can be planted in the little garden outside her house.
“Brielle,” I whisper. “Brielle. My Brielle.”
I like saying her name. Every time I say her name, I know that I own her a little bit more.
My Brielle.
I have been following her for weeks now. Following Brielle, staying just out of sight, slipping in and out of the darkness, is the most satisfying thing in my life now.
I haven’t even taken on a job outside of Pyrthos because I don’t want to leave her too long.
Most of the jobs I have done lately have revolved around the nobles closely related to the King. Killing them has been quick and easy. And while it has been boring – nothing can top the elegance and drama of the last job I did in Vhoig – it is a living.
I scale a tree trunk when Brielle comes to a stop in the clearing of the forest.
