Chloe: Around 13 Years old

She hated people. 

Most people. 

Sometimes, after a day without food or a beating that left her half-conscious, she wished that they'd all die. Wouldn't it be kinder if the parasites that called themselves the face of civilization just stopped existing, rather than spreading their misery? 

She lifted her chin to look up, studying a sky with no stars beyond the lamplight, her calloused feet cold on the cobbles.

She wished her heart would callous like that. To no longer wish… Or care.

Chloe had seen the very worst of everything. She hadn't experienced all of it herself, thank tears, but she'd seen it. Heard it. And tonight her mind kept dwelling on the only being who'd ever loved her. 

Sneaking out hadn't been hard. 

After getting some major information for her uncle to sell, he'd celebrated by giving her a whole half loaf of bread and a thick slice of cheese to eat. Then he’d drunk himself into a stupor.

While he celebrated, she'd watched. 

She was always watching, absorbing every bit of information she could. If she had it in her head, she could avoid beatings and eat more.

If she understood where the danger was coming from, then she could avoid it. 

Her feet took her to the outside edge of the city. Of course, the gates were supposed to be locked and guarded, which they were. She could never figure out why. With everything under the Empire, and Evelyn so far from the borders, it just didn’t make sense to her that they’d bar the gates every night.

Especially when there were more criminals inside than out.

Maybe one day she’ll find out the reason.

For now, she skipped going to the gate altogether and slid into a sewer.

Except for a faint glow in the wrong direction, there was no light down there. But Chloe didn’t need the light. She found her way by brushing her fingers along the wall, feeling for the right notches and counting the turnoffs. In a few years, she’d be too big for the sewers, then she’d have to make this trip in daylight.

When she emerged, the hole she crawled out of was hidden beneath a tumble of thick bushes. The shrubbery clawed at her arms and pulled at her clothes.

She ignored them.

The attack of plants was nothing to her.

It only took a few more minutes of walking to enter the main attraction outside these gates.

The cemetery was as still as a bad man’s heart. It didn’t bother Chloe. She regularly found herself in places that made a normal girl’s breath stutter. Between the fear of being caught by the people she spied on and witnessing intense suffering, she’d decided that no matter what ghosts or ghouls might be here, they couldn’t be worse.

Memory led her to the right tombstone, and she crouched in front of it.

For a brief second, she simply stroked the old stone, feeling it crumble under her fingers with the movement.

Mages set spells into the tombstones here, and there was a graveyard guardian who came to activate them once a week. Instead of constantly digging deeper or expanding the cemetery into noble-owned lands, the spells made the bodies decompose quickly so the graves could be reused.

From memory, Chloe found her mother’s name etched into the stone. It was one of dozens of names, including two, no, three now, added since she’d been put there.

One day, she’d be only another forgotten name, fading until it can’t be read.

Hi, Mama, she thought.

Closing her eyes, she tapped her forehead to the stone and held it there. The longing to feel her mother’s arms around her was suffocating, and her shoulders shook. But there were no tears.

She didn’t have any left to cry.

A sudden noise made her stiffen and cautiously raise her head. She knew better than to bolt or move quickly. If it was someone bigger and scarier than her, she didn’t want to draw attention. It helped that she still passed as a young boy, but the depraved cared only slightly less than if she’d been a girl.

Her best chance would be to hold still. Blending into the shadows had saved her many times because people didn’t expect you to be in the shadows.

The sound came again, a rustling, then a very clear, “Ouch!” followed by a stream of curses.

“Shut up,” someone hissed. “Do you want to draw the Guard?”

She flinched. They were closer than she’d thought. Thank goodness she couldn’t speak, otherwise she would’ve been talking to Mama aloud and given herself away. Now that she knew to look, she could see two shadows moving cautiously through the forest of gravestones.

“Did it have to be here?” grumbled the one who’d hurt himself.

“The Prefect has been checking all the shipments.”

“But—”

“This is the only way. Come on and shut up.”

Chloe waited for a moment, torn. On the one hand, they hadn’t seen her. She could slip away safely and no one would ever know she’d been there.

On the other hand, tonight had been the first filling meal she’d had in weeks.

The idea of going weeks again without a proper meal overcame her reluctance and she followed the two men.

Her steps were silent, her breathing shallow. They didn’t notice her.

After a few minutes, they led her to the nicer end of the graveyard. This one didn’t have overgrown grass and wilted flowers on half the graves. In fact, it had very little grass at all, and the smells of vegetation and dirt gradually vanished as she cautiously stepped into this world.

Here, she had to use the buildings themselves and their shadows for cover.

Dozens of them. Most of them were single mausoleums, since the family usually had their own family plot somewhere.

Unlike her mother’s fading and crumbling inscription, these monuments stood boldly, their names remembered in tough marble.

She clenched her fists and forced herself to focus on her quarry.

They didn’t stop moving until they reached the far end of the graveyard. By then, she’d detected the sounds of more rustlings and voices murmuring.

It took her a few minutes to find a place where she could see what was going on. When she did, she crouched lower, looking around the mausoleum with grim interest.

There were at least five moving shadows over there. No, eight. Three more just came out of that mausoleum. They were moving things from a wagon and into the gravesite, but she couldn’t clearly see what the objects were.

Frowning, she took a second to debate.

Was just the fact that they were there enough to entice a meal out of her uncle? Or did she need to find a name or know what was being moved?

Obviously, it was a smuggling operation. Any five-year-old could see that.

In the end, she waited. It took only about an hour, but by then, her legs were falling asleep and she was blessing the hot, summer night. If it had been any other season, she would’ve been freezing. The only thing that truly bothered her was the tears blasted mosquitoes!

“That’s the last of it,” someone’s voice floated to her. “Pack up and get out of here.”

The men dispersed, no more than two going any direction at a time. She held still as a pair came within six feet of her, not noticing her. One pair got into the wagon and clicked to the mule, urging it off.

Despite herself, she smirked when the mule gave a loud protest at being woken. The two smugglers closest to her froze for a second, and then she heard quiet cursing from the wagon. The beast must’ve given them all a heart attack. Idiots for bringing such a loud creature on a secret mission.

She didn’t move until at least half an hour after they left. Her body itched unbearably from mosquito bites she didn’t dare scratch as she finally stood up and approached the house built for the dead.

When she placed her palm on the lock, she felt the hum of magic. With a grimace, she stepped back.

With a tug, she opened her worn side pouch and rifled through it. When she found the tool she wanted, a metal disc about the size of an eye, she stepped closer again and pressed it to the lock. The magic backed up like it had been blown away and the hum of mana warped into a temporary, new shape. Conveniently, the tool’s spells also attached it to the lock.

She had to hurry. If she was in there too long, the tool would fall off and the lock would resume its normal function. At which point, she could get locked in. And if it was a good lock, it would also inform the owner of this place that there was an intruder.

She didn’t feel like getting caught tonight.

Carefully, she pushed the door open and then closed it behind her. It moved with the ease of use, which, for some reason, caused the hair on her neck to rise more than the idea of entering the tomb itself.

Shivering, she blindly dug around in her pouch again until she felt the light.

Resembling a tiny oil lamp, it didn’t cast much light, so she had to lean close to the crates in order to see anything. She counted twenty crates, all of them about the size of a grown man’s head. But there were no outward markings to tell her what they held.

Frowning, she put her lamp down and tugged on the lid of one crate. It creaked but otherwise didn’t budge. With a grunt, she looked around the small building, frustrated by the lack of light.

There wasn’t anything else in there. Well, other than the coffin, that is.

Doubtfully, she pulled out another tool. It looked like a mini crowbar. However, she could tell that these crates were more tightly enforced than ones she usually used this thing on. Still, she attempted it, bracing the crate against the wall with her hip and trying to put all her weight on the iron bar.

With a snap that banged into her elbow, the crate broke open. She tumbled away, her elbow throbbing, and she took a second to hold it while struggling to breathe.

After a long few seconds, she inhaled deeply and went back to the crate.

She blinked dumbly.

It was a large pot. Were they all pots? That’s what they were smuggling?

Disappointed, she felt around inside the crate, then picked up the single object out of the wood shavings. The ceramic pot, shaped similarly to a cauldron, glinted at her in the low light. But the gloss was it. Without any kind of ornamentation, it was boring.

Pressing her lips together, she put it aside and tried one more time to dig around in the wood shavings.

Still, nothing.

Well, this had been a waste of time.

Depressed, she put the pot away, banged the crate lid back on as best she could, and stepped outside to disengage the door. As the mana blew back into its spell form, she turned to leave, oil lamp in hand.

Then she paused. Unable to shake her instincts, she grudgingly stepped over to the plague beside the door and held the lamp close to it.

Ivan of House Vossel.

Vossel. Where had she heard that House name before?

Before she could figure it out, she heard a sound that sent the hair on her neck standing on end. A cackle of deep, strong laughter. She spun around.

Staring at her from a mausoleum across the way was a man lit up in an eerie glow. He sat with his legs and arms crossed, hovering in midair about as high as her head.

He cackled again, his face not even twitching, and the sound coming from somewhere other than his mouth. Then he flippantly raised a hand… and waved.