Warning: some graphic violence.

Lord Leneha looked quite startled when Hexis burst into the room. She stepped back, leg bumping into a low coffee table and causing her to stumble. Quickly, her other foot lifted, stomped straight through the table with enough force to splinter it, and landed on the floor behind her.

Of course she has an ERA.

“What business do you have here?” the lord asked crossly, brushing bits of wood from her gown and stepping back forward. The nobles around her looked similarly disgruntled.

Hexis’ dark coppery eyes met hers. “I’ll give you the opportunity to let everyone else leave this room,” they said bluntly. “I was sent to kill you, but I didn’t promise not to cause collateral damage.”

Leneha’s eyes went wide at that. “Sent to kill me?” she repeated. “By whom?”

“Sheer Miracca Zenaryx. She got word that you were making underhanded deals with another house in the interest of gaming the Empire's economy and exploiting those beneath you.” Hexis wasn’t required to tell their targets what they’d done wrong. In fact, they were encouraged not to. But they always did it anyway.

“Well, then, there’s really no need for this,” the lord said coolly. “Because I’ve done no such thing.”

“I explained what your charges are,” Hexis said in the same cool tone. “And now I’ll explain that there’s no way out. The Sheer has ordered your death, and she sent me, so you’ll be dead within the next two minutes.”

“What makes you think I’m going to give up that easily?” the lord demanded. “Did you not see what I can do?” She gestured to the splintered coffee table around her slippered feet.

Hexis pursed their lips, looking down. “I don’t expect you not to fight,” they said finally. Then their eyes met Leneha’s again as they added, “But I do expect everyone who crosses me to lose.”

The lord huffed indignantly. “If you think you can just waltz in here without being slaughtered at the hands of my guards, I swear, you… you…” she floundered. She probably expected Hexis to have interrupted by now. When they silently let her continue, she finished, “You won’t even get the peace of knowing you don’t have a chance!”

It was the other way around, but Hexis didn’t bother to say it. They knew the lord wasn’t going to hear it. So they turned to the rest of the nobles and said, “You have ten more seconds to leave this room if you don’t want to become part of this.”

Somehow, no one moved except for to glance around at each other and at the lord. It was like they thought the other people would judge them for being the first to run.

Hexis drew in a slow, resigned breath, counting to ten in their head. Next time, I’ll give them more of a scare, they decided. Maybe it would help engage the tiny intelligent part of their brains. If it existed.

They took a step forward, their white leather boot almost inaudible as it touched down on the tile. Their hands hung by their sides, swinging as they stepped and brushing past the daggers at their hips.

Leneha watched them approach, eyes darting from their face to their feet to their weapons. She raised her fists, looking angry more than nervous.

Hexis continued to walk forward, slowly, methodically.

The lord broke, jumping forward with a cry and swinging her fist at Hexis’ face. They smoothly stepped forward one more time, angling their hips and raising an arm straight out to catch the lord’s fist. It smacked into their gloved palm, stopping dead.

At the same time, the floor beneath their back heel cracked.

Leneha blinked, then swung again with her other fist. Hexis mirrored, swinging their opposite foot back and pivoting around so that their other hand once again caught the lord’s fist.

Another crack in the floor.

Hexis’ hands twitched down toward the daggers at their hips, but stopped. They didn’t want to do this. They had to. The least I can do is give her a few more minutes of life.

So when the lord’s next swing came in, they ducked under it and stepped to the side.

It’s funny. I always knew I might become someone who could gift others life or death, but I didn’t think it’d be quite like this.

“You said you were going to kill me,” the lord spat at them, fists clenched at her sides. “Have you changed your mind?”

Hexis met her eyes once more. “No, I haven’t,” they said quietly.

They walked forward again, and the lord raised her fists. She wasn’t shaking, but her eyes were.

The door behind them crashed open again, and they heard footsteps flooding the room. Guards.

Hexis clenched their jaw. They only had to kill one person. Just one. And the faster they did that, the easier it would be to save the others. So this time, when their hand moved down, it landed on the dagger’s hilt.

Hexis shot forward. Lord Leneha aimed a punch at them, but they ducked under it, keeping their momentum as they flipped the dagger from their belt and pointed it forward in the air. They swung their empty fist at the lord, who spun around just in time to catch it in a hard grip.

The force from the impact shot up Hexis’ arm, through their chest, and down the other, and then their dagger was sticking through Leneha’s stomach.

The woman’s eyes widened, and she stumbled back, both hands going to the wound.

Hexis pulled out their other dagger and slashed her throat, spraying blood in the blade’s wake.

Lord Leneha’s body crumpled to the ground, the formal gown flopping down around her, and Hexis looked up to see that most of the guards were watching in shock. The other guests appeared to have finally cleared the room while the ‘fight’ was in progress. Keeping an eye on the guards, Hexis crouched down, fingers closing around the hilt of their dagger and tugging it out of Leneha’s chest. They wiped both daggers quickly on her gown, forcing their face to stay cold and neutral. She was dead. It wasn’t like she cared.

Most of the guards had drawn their weapons by now, and were spreading out around Hexis to form a half circle.

Hexis stood slowly, eyes moving between each guard in turn, and slid their daggers back into place. They wanted to say something, to tell them all to just move out of the way, but their throat was closed and there was no point.

“You’ve… killed Lord Leneha,” one of the guards said weakly.

“Yes.” Somehow, the guard’s admission of failure was enough to let Hexis speak. Because that was what they were doing — not failing. And that was all they ever did.

“You… we have to arrest you for murder.” His sword’s tip lowered toward Hexis. They couldn’t tell if it was because he was trying to threaten them or because his arm was weak with fear.

Arrest me and bring me to who? they asked silently, but they weren’t really in the mood to tell these guards who they worked for. The nobles who had been in the room before knew, and that was plenty. Hexis just wanted to leave.

So leave I shall. They started walking to the door as if the guards weren’t there.

Almost to their surprise, a sword came swinging at their head. Their hand yanked their dagger from its place once again, metal hitting metal and causing an impact to hit the floor beneath their opposite heel.

It wasn’t enough to crack the tile like Lord Leneha’s strikes had been. She had almost been on Jade’s level. Almost, but not quite, which is why I work with Jade and I killed Lord Leneha.

More blades were coming their way. They tossed the dagger to their opposite hand, catching another sword, but this time the momentum carried into their shoulder as they thrust it into the chest of the first guard who’d attacked. As that guard stumbled back, they ducked forward, lunging under another swipe.

They made it to the door, and almost made a run for it, but they really didn’t feel like being pursued. So they turned back around, facing the group of guards.

“Either you give me a full minute of head start, or I knock you all out now. I won’t kill you if you choose the second option, but your head will hurt like a bitch tomorrow.”

The guards seemed taken aback by that, which was probably to be expected. Half the time, Hexis couldn’t remember why they even gave people options when they knew what they were going to choose. But then they remembered the preventable deaths — only two, but both within Hexis’ power to stop — and did it anyway.

“How about you drop your weapons and come with us… or we knock your weapons out of your hands for you,” one of the guards said, probably trying to sound brave to her partners.

“You can’t knock my hands out of my hands.”

“Well, I can cut them off,” the guard snapped. She lowered her sword toward them.

They let out a long sigh. “Option two?”

“Option three,” she growled, jumping forward and swinging.

Hexis stepped forward with both hands raised. The one holding the dagger caught the guard’s blow, and the other shot out with the force and impacted her temple.

She fell to the ground in an almost comical fashion as the other guards watched.

“Alright, come on,” Hexis encouraged them, a little bit hysterically. “Maybe you can take this as some on-the-job training, since whoever did it before was clearly incompetent.”

There was a second of silence, before one of them said, “Lord Leneha trained us herself.”

Hexis closed their eyes for a second, but not long enough to let the guards do anything. “Then maybe you can take it as a lesson in common sense.”

When their eyes opened again, they were the one moving. They closed into one guard’s close range and brought the hilt of their dagger down on her head, hard, knocking her out cold. Another took a desperate swing at them, but they slid under it, raising their dagger at the last second to catch the force from the tail end of the blow and send it into the man’s chin.

And as they moved, they felt their limbs warming up, shaking off the frigid, numb cold that had encased their body. This whole thing — the sneaking, the fighting, the winning — it really was exhilarating. Just as long as one didn’t allow oneself to think about the real impact.

A swipe came in too fast for them to make sufficient contact with, so they rolled backward, crossing between two guards’ feet and stopping in a crouch behind them. Their white and black cape flopped to the floor around them, then billowed out slightly as they stood. Everyone — literally everyone — told them it was impractical, but clearly, they managed just fine.

It took the guards far too long to turn around, and by then, Hexis had already closed on another and delivered a blow to his head with the pommel of their dagger. A flash of metal appeared in their peripheral vision, and they ducked again, tugging the now-unconscious guard down with them so his stupid teammate wouldn’t chop his head open.

Once they were near the ground, they dropped him, looking up just as their attacker brought his sword back the other way. Hearing another rip of air behind them, they stood and leaned to the side, chambering a knee to their chest. One swing stopped dead against their dagger, and the other stopped when their foot sprung out into the attacker’s face.

The guard whose sword still rested against their dagger glanced around, realizing at the same time as Hexis that he was the only one left. He quickly stumbled back, sword clattering out of his grasp.

Hexis darted forward and delivered a hard punch to his temple.

They watched as he fell to the ground, joining his teammates. If they didn’t look too closely, Lord Leneha’s body almost blended in with the others. But there was far too much color around hers — the vibrant shades of her gown mixed with the dark crimson of her blood.

Hexis sheathed their dagger, then turned away and left the room.