Even shelving my primary business, I have not strayed too far from my skillset. Simply avoided danger like an infection. Nothing that would need to end in tying off the loose ends.

Not being actively pursued was a novel experience. I’ve grown accustomed to it.

I busied myself with the little things. Burglary, mostly. Sneaking in for the valuables, but taking a peek at the documents by habit, too – even if I couldn’t sell any of it right now. Staying in the loop was mandatory.

The income exceeded anything a petty thief would make. Such sentiment somewhat calmed my restless ambition. Somewhat. Just staying alive wouldn’t prove anything to anyone. I was better than that. I could do so much more.

Balance was hard to find. Especially with moderation as lacking as mine.

Either way, I kept my head down and stuck to the mundane. Today that meant robbing yet another wealthy snob – or at least their high-rise digs.

Wall-wide windows invited to peruse the riches, as well as the trappings meant to safeguard them. Few, if any. These people trusted their status to keep the riffraff out. The technology they employed usually worked for my benefit, too. The building’s computerised eyes let me know when the owners were absent.

I ran up the disused stairs. The ambiance wasn’t alarming. In fact, the quiet was overwhelming. Shrugging, pretended to fuss with a handbag as if looking for keys and unlocked the door.

I held my breath as I continued listening to the unforeseen.

Nothing.

The only sounds of life came from an apartment behind me. Muffled speech. Couldn’t make it out. Not unusual. Normal, really. My ears weren’t omnipotent. It made my back crawl nonetheless.

I slipped inside.

The air was grave still – as it should be. A relieved exhale left me. I must be twitchy from that sprint upstairs.

Best not dally.

Penlight in hand, I stalked to the work room. A drawer barely open, I heard a sound. Papery. Like turning of a page.

No, it can’t be. I just ruffled something without noticing.

Still, the anxiety spiked up again. Fingers shook. I forced myself to stop and just breathe.

Four people were strolling down the lobby. It was normal. Just the neighbours. What exactly was agitating me so?

Very heavy-booted neighbours.

Before I could delude myself any further, a book slammed shut. It was thundering, soul-penetrating clap of an unmistakable doom. All comforting lies I’ve been telling myself fell away, leaving me all alone and completely unwilling to deal with reality.

Somebody has been home. Reading a book, even. In a complete darkness. As though a visit has been anticipated. My visit.

When the occupant got up, my legs also sprung into action. There was no conscious thought. I just needed to go.

A figure stood in the opposing doorway.

I shone the beam at the face. The blinded man stifled a hiss, ripping something off his face and smashing it down with force. I hoped the harm was permanent – this guy wore infrared goggles. To read. In an ambush. What a douche.

Nobody gave chase. I successfully reached the front door, yanked it open… and was faced with four brutes, standing shoulder to shoulder. They completely blocked the way out. I slammed the door back up, and locked them for good measure.

Window.

I just needed to pass the sword-juggling douche. One-handed throws were hypnotisingly controlled. Relaxed. He was in no hurry. A deeply sickening detail.

Betting everything on the ambusher’s vision loss, I noiselessly stepped to the side. Point of the blade turned to follow me. Neither the blinding, nor this room’s inherent darkness impeded the Kalantan highborn. Perhaps people like him had indeed been raised to fight the unfathomable beasts on an even ground. Monsters to fight monsters. The improbable myths started to seem real.

I was overthinking it. Panic and fear would do me no good here. He just had enhanced hearing or the eyes. Like me. Nothing magical about that.

Shone the beam into the man’s eyes again and dashed sideways. The fighter seamlessly mirrored my approach. I made a feint, but got punched all the way back into yesterday. I smashed into the door, slumping down.

It was hard to breathe. A rib might be broken. Good thing I didn’t feel it.

Rather than get skewered while I was down, I was graciously allowed to recover. He just juggled the sword again.

I grit the teeth. He said he’d remove my limbs first.

No way around it. If it was between my life and his, I’ll gladly kill the bastard.

Still. If junior managed to dig me out, General Raktkalis wouldn’t even struggle.

A problem for later. I’ll go live with the radicals out back, or something.

Nightly dimness was working against me. Getting up, I smashed a light switch. The room lit up in cold blues, grotesquely accentuating Raktkalis’s sickly paleness. How someone looking that much on the deathbed could be so limber was unexplained by science.

Enigmatic soldier kept on tossing his dagger up in the air with visible contentment about him. His thoughts were entirely transparent. Unsympathetic predator’s stare. He was deciding on the best place to start this vivisection.

Man’s non-existent eyebrows shot up and he looked at the weapon as if just seeing it. The awfully low hoarseness chuckled.

“Don’t worry. There’s no way I’d kill you that quick.”

I thought I remembered how grating the cadence was, but I was wrong. Timbre has sown seeds of malice under my skin anew. The old threat has never felt so close.

He stuffed the blade back onto the belt in one swift move. Even with that out of the way, my chances did not improve. I could sneak up on people, but a fair fight? Not something I could do. Certainly not against someone who professionally annihilated rabid beasts. Not in a million years.

Stuffed my hands into the pockets. He watched the moves fixedly. Lashless eyes were wide, engrossed. Fervent.

My thumb caressed the voice box. Should I just beg? Explain, shift the blame? Call him clingy, ridicule and demand he piss off already? Ask how he had found me – just in case I manage to survive this?

I should already be paying for my insolence, but the soldier stood still. Waiting. Courtesy? I suppose, in this back-and-forth game, the ball was in my court now. He wanted to see what ridiculous trick I was about to pull next. My life was but an entertainment to this bored highborn.

Fuck! Why do I need to endure the weight of expectations – even in this situation? I’ve already given up. This ballgame was way out of my league. I was scared shitless, and have been backed to the wall for much longer than this. I never aspired to be a common burglar, for fuck’s sake!

However, man’s arrogance has given me breathing room. Perhaps an opportunity.

I don’t even think Raktkalis was underestimating me. The opposite, and that was the problem. Cocky bastard was looking forward to something exiting. Preferably life-threatening. I could do that. I just need a little distraction. Nothing exceedingly obvious.

My thumb ran over the buttons, “If only the state affairs would be tended to so fervently.”

His head tilted to the side upon hearing the electronic noise. I pulled out the phone out of a pocket to reveal the curiosity.

“An Order assassin going around unchecked is a state business,” the officer imparted with an unpleasant grin. He must have thought himself so brilliant.

“I’m not of the Order,” I hastily typed.

The statement wasn’t questioned. Of course that’s what an assassin would say. And technically, both of us were right. I’ve left that establishment so many years ago, it hardly counted.

I began assembling words again in a new, less questionable direction. A flash of movement and a crash discombobulated my thoughts. I must have blinked, for all I saw was Raktkalis settling back where he stood all along.

“Speak when you’re addressing me,” contemptuous lordling demanded.

I looked down and saw my fingers all twisted up. He kicked the phone away with the steel-toed boot. I found the remains of the expensive device scattered across the room, just like the goggles before this. Growled in anger!

This walking insult to everything of value did not deserve to keep drawing breaths. He was a disgrace of a human, and had be stopped from destroying any more of my fucking things! With a cracking scream of fury, I sloshed the blight from my most secured bottle straight at the man’s face.

He dodged it gracefully. Would have, if not for the pollen weightlessly floating around the room, then settling blackly on the surfaces. It was a wrong vial. Wrong fucking vial!

Instead of lamenting the misfortune of grabbing a simple irritant, I dashed towards the window through an opening. I hadn’t stopped to consider improbability of this act – the juke, the handle, the leap, the dozens of floors below. Only when an iron clasp crushingly paralysed my nape, reality started coming back.

There was no way for me to survive.

He smashed my face into the glass. It rained shards. Tiny forms of sentries waited in the yard just for such unlikely descent. There really was no chance of escape whatsoever. The obsessive asshole has been preparing just for this. For years.

My healthy hand helplessly rummaged for the right vial. One that actually carried the lethal solution. If I could at least kill him...

And then what? Countless many waited for me outside.

Doesn’t matter. I refuse to go out like a candle.

A glove sickeningly gently slid down my forearm and crumpled these frantic fingers like paper, too. Bones cracked. Fragile containers fell apart. Even more shards sliced into me.

Raktkalis forced the mangled palm upwards to examine it. To relish in the sight of a broken enemy.

“Don’t worry. You won’t need it anyway,” he whispered maliciously. Almost tenderly.

Pain feedback was dull, but the implications were absolutely chilling.

Darkly glistening particles decorating my cuts were gritty, and distinctly lacked oiliness. The poison vial kept on eluding me. This won’t be fast, nor will it end well.