The night felt deeper than usual. Basile couldn’t place it. There was a strange, uncanny feeling that he was walking through a fun house. The sort with strobe light and warped mirrors. The corridor felt impossibly long, gray walls and vaulted ceilings, pillars which repeated on end and end. Basile wondered, briefly, if he had mistaken what he had heard. A yelp, a thud, the spray of something wet. He could picture it, warm blood fanned across cool stone walls. His legs started moving without permission. At the end of the corridor was a doorway which lead into a chapel. This particular palace played host to many a private Penumbral sermon. Basile knew what he should expect in the chapel. Rows on rows of pews copy and pasted much like the pillars in the corridor. Opposite the door would be an altar, behind the altar would be an ostentatious carving depicting the 10,000 year Interstellar Conflict. Hoards of Salz clamoring against a Devonic warrior brandishing a mirror blade.

Basile’s hand was on the door and he pushed gently till it gave. Air rushed from the chapel, bright with the smell of death. Basile saw the spray of blood first, the way it arced beautifully around the Devonic warrior as if it were a halo. Then he saw the body, disemboweled and strung up by its innards. Basile stood entranced, eyes frantically taking in the scene before him. It was beautiful, a poetic masterpiece. He was so enraptured that he almost missed the shadow in the corner of his eye followed by the cut of a sword made of nothing.

Not nothing. Basile’s body lurched back on instinct, his own sword drawn and glinting in the waxing light of this planets moon. The twang of metal on metal echoed around the pews. Basile put distance between himself and his opponent. He was taller than them by at least two heads, maybe more if one were to include his antlers. They wore black on black on black, the sleeves of their tunic kept snug around their forearms by cloth bandage, hands wrapped in leather. Basile never liked handling his sword with gloves, but he got the sense that this dev needed their gloves. Needed the distance between them and the weapon they brandished.

It was as if a piece of the room never finished rendering. Where a mirror blade would reflect the light, this blade would absorb it completely. It was nothing but perfect darkness. It made it difficult to block in the meager light of the chapel. If Basile did not dedicate all his attention to the opposing blade he would surely miss it and find himself stabbed through. So focused on the blade, he was, that he just barely caught a glimpse of its wielder. Black on black on black, Basile caught a peek of stark white hair and a pale face behind a mask of teeth. Wide and wild eyes, not frantic, but crazed like a fanatic.

Basile could barely keep up with the blows, heavy against the thin blade of his rapier, and blindingly quick. If he kept this up, his sword would fail before he did. He couldn’t shake the feeling, despite how impossible it was. Nothing could shatter a mirror blade, they had survived for millennium, through the hearts of stars and after endless rains of plasma bombardment. Not even stars were safe, though, they too could blink out of existence. Swallowed by the gaping maw of black holes.

He couldn’t shake the feeling.

To continue this fight would be the end of him and his blade, and that wouldn’t do.

His opponent charged, aiming for his rapier, Basile let it slip from his fingers and lunged forward. The dev wasn’t able to correct fast enough. Basile slammed the dev into the door, blood spraying into his face and down his chest. He heard the nothing blade clatter to the ground followed by a gummy moan. Gingerly, Basile put his hand on the center of the dev’s chest and yanked his antlers free from their flesh. Basile looked down upon them curiously. His horns had pierced the devs shoulders, deep but not life threateningly so. They were staring up at him with those crazed eyes and Basile could feel the rapid beat of their heart in the cage of their ribs.

They were paralyzed by shock, Basile decided, for they did not move and did not blink. Despite their rapid pulse they weren’t so much as trembling. Basile took away his hand and watched the dev fall limp to their knees, their pretty white hair turned pink. Basile supposed he could put them out of their misery but he found his eyes wandering back to the altar. The disemboweled fellow was a merchant, one known for making clandestined deals behind the Emperor’s back. If Basile recalled, he had recently been accused of selling Perronyev star craft on the Frontier. Perhaps Saros had hired him to do that. Basile felt an excited tingle crawl up his back.

It passed soon after, however, with the understanding that Saros would never do something so bold, would never desecrate a place of worship like this. He would never give an assassin enough room to make such a personal touch. Basile looked back down to the shadow before him, in his black garb, arm twitching but unable to move properly in an attempt to take up his sword.

And then Basile walked away, finding his rapier and letting the chapel doors close slowly behind him. His blood would not be found at the scene, so it wouldn’t matter. He was certain that as soon as the assassin remembered how their legs worked, they would be long gone. He wanted them to give chase. He wanted them to follow Basile somewhere all alone so that they could confront each other properly. He knew it would happen that way, as if someone had told him it would. And perhaps someone had.