“If we don’t do this, who’s to say you won’t kill us next?”

Amon jolted, kicking her legs out and knocking over a trash can. She leaped forward, catching it before it could crash to the ground.

As she readjusted the can, ignoring the smell of moldy food and the maggots that slipped onto her gloved fingers, she listened intently to her surroundings. This had been the best sleep she’d had in months—who dared to interrupt it?

For the past week, her home had been an alleyway in the markets between a garment shop and a cafe. Mice and other small critters called themselves her companions—sharing the scraps from the end of business days in a huddle away from the sight of the streets. Light barely graced them during the day, but the streetlights threatened to reveal them once night fell. That’s when they would become almost one with the discarded trash, her tattered clothes helping her blend in to look like nothing more than a pile of discarded fabrics.

She brought her cloak closer around her as she peered deeper into the alley, towards where the markets met the slums that she tried so hard to steer away from. Yet it seemed fate had other plans, pushing her closer to its shrouded depths that she may never return from.

Three figures stood under a small lamp at a back entrance to some establishment. A brothel? Amon shifted a bit closer, leaning against a chain-link fence that served as a physical border for the change in districts.

Two women dressed in overextravagant finery leaned over a mousy fellow. He extended his hands out to them.

“No, listen, please. I promise it was nothing like that. Just let me go. Let me go and we—we can all forget about this, right?” His voice heightened to a higher pitch at the end.

Amon winced, rubbing her ears. Gods above, she missed the glamours her fellow agents would conjure for her. Being in her true form left her too sensitive for the world in the skies. Still, she watched the interaction, her stomach tightening in trepidation.

One of the women scoffed and pointed something at him. He recoiled, squealing. Amon narrowed her eyes, noting how the object reflected the light.

A gun?! Her heart raced.

“Look, it was just one whore. None of you liked her anyway. Why would you ca—“

BANG!

Amon’s eyes widened as the man’s body slumped forward, headless. The woman not holding the gun gripped what remained of his head. Only then did Amon notice the sword at her side.

The women knocked on the back entrance. It swung open to reveal a burly fellow who waved them in. They walked with a skip in their step, twirling the man’s head in their grasp.

Once the door closed, Amon moved away from the fence, only to be ripped back and almost fall onto her arse. She looked back to see the glove of her left hand caught in the metal chains.

Cursing to herself, she wrenched her hand away. But the fence fought back and took her glove, leaving her skin bare and her Mark out and proud for everyone to see.

I’ll deal with it later. It shouldn’t prove a problem tonight.

Amon sidled over to the body. She wasn’t proud of it, but she hoped he had something on his person that would help her eat something that didn’t have insects or mold in it.

She knelt on the ground, nose scrunching at the blood clinging to the clothes. She certainly wouldn’t be able to sell the suit—a shame, as it looked quite well-made now that she could see it in better lighting.

She paused as she realized just what she was doing. She wanted to curse the skies, the RKC—hells, her brother. She used to be a hero, an agent who kept the multiverse intact; and now here she was, rifling through the remains of a dead man in the hopes of finding something worth enough so she could have a proper meal.

Shaking her head, Amon fiddled with the lapels of the suit, flipping the jacket open and running her fingers against the inner linings. They brushed against something hard. A bit more inspection revealed a metallic card.

Bringing it more into the light, Amon dropped it with a gasp, recoiling from the body as though it had come back to life.

She cursed under her breath. The Gods must be laughing at her. She needed to leave before—

“Ambassador Ailadon?” A voice called from the end of the alleyway in the slums. “The Council has requested your presence on the Surface.”

Amon scrambled away from the body. Her heart thundered in her ears, draining out all of her other senses. The need to go, to run, coursed through her. If she didn’t, then they would think she did it. She would be brought to the Guard for judgment, and they would recognize her. Then she would be turned over to Parliament and—

She released a long breath, forcing herself to calm down. She couldn’t spiral. She wouldn’t spiral. Right now, she needed to get out of there.

“Ambassador?” The person called again, a hint of worry in their voice.

Amon scrambled for the other end of the alleyway, towards the bazaar that boasted its nightly crowd.

“Uncle?” She heard just as she broke through the exit. “Uncle?!”

She weaved her wave through the masses, keeping her eyes forward.

“Do you smell that?”

“By the Gods, have you ever heard of a shower?”

“This is surely in the jurisdiction of the Guardians, right? Why would they let rodents out on the streets?”

Amon ignored the murmurs, though her face betrayed her as it grew several shades darker until it resembled a plum. She tried to move to the less-crowded sidewalks, but a bouncer for one of the late-night clubs pushed her. She fell to the ground, her hood falling back and revealing her face.

She winced as pain spread across her bottom. Months of malnutrition left her slower than normal, but still, she needed to go before—

The bouncer narrowed his eyes. “Horns?” He whispered to himself. “Violet eyes like the Void itself…”

Shit. She hastened, clambering back upright and bringing the hood back over her head.

Before she could step away, a large hand grasped her shoulder and pulled her backward.

The bouncer leaned over her, a wicked grin on his scarred face. He appraised her, a knowing light in his eyes that had Amon’s stomach curling inwardly.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the false heir,” he sneered, bringing himself close enough to sniff at her. He grimaced. “Needs a bit of a bath, but I know quite a few people out there who would pay a pretty price for your head… among other things.”

Amon thrashed against his grip to no avail. If this were before, she would have smashed his face into the building and sprinted off, but now she struggled to even keep herself on her own two legs. Gods below, she wished she could rip that smugness right off his face and feed it to a valhound. 

“Now, how about we get you into the—” Just as he pulled her closer to the club, a shout from down the street paused the crowd.

“Stop!”

A tingle ran through Amon’s body as she looked in its direction—finding everyone around her, including the man holding her, frozen in place.

At the end of the street, close to the alley she had come from, a younger-looking man leaned against the brick wall of the garment shop. Sweat lined his brow, but his gaze never left Amon as he stood taller, wiping what looked like blue blood away from his mouth.

The Voice. A form of magick very few could command. To the point that in her half-a-millennia of living and so many worlds traveled to, Amon had yet to see someone else wield. With just a simple command, they overtook a person’s control of themselves. To do so to an entire street… Amon didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out how powerful they truly were.

She took advantage of the bouncer’s stillness, ripping herself out of his grasp.

The Guardians on either side of the Voice-user seemed frozen as well. Amon reckoned in his haste he hadn’t considered directing it properly. And by the way he struggled to walk in a straight line—repeatedly falling into frozen bodies and tripping over his own feet—she figured she had a better shot at running now than she did before.

Amon rushed through the crowd, weaving between the bodies. The further she got, the more she saw telltale signs that they were regaining control of themselves. A few muscle twitches here, an eye-rolling there, and even a gasp escaping one person. 

From what she remembered from the arcane books she would study alongside her brother—rather than completing the mundane work her superiors insisted upon—those subjected to the Voice were fully aware of themselves even when they were under its spell, they just couldn’t do anything. The thought alone of it happening to her left a queasy feeling in her stomach as she reached the other end of the street.

“Stop!” Another rush washed over her, but she continued to move.

How am I unaffected?

She reasoned that it didn’t matter as she ran into a nearby side street.

Yet it continued to linger in the back of her mind as she rushed further into the heart of the city—the man’s voice continuing to echo until it eventually died out.