Vipersong

3 || Art of the Card

Magic, my dear friends, magic. And so we hold the world in our hands.
~Master Theron, First Enchanter of the Enchanter's Guild, moments after inventing the first illuro.

——

ON THE DAY LORD DEMARANTE DIED, Nada Zerhouni read her fate in the cards. Rising groggily, her body soft with sleep, she sat at her desk, cleared the surface with white sage, shuffled the deck, and fanned the cards out before drawing three. She first drew a card of the Minor Arcana, the Queen of Swords. Next, the Chariot. And then, with fingers trembling, she drew the last: the Wheel of Fortune.

It had been a warning then, a warning that still rang in her mind now, never far away. She had sat staring at the card for what seemed like an eternity, but no matter how hard she willed it, she could not magically change it into something else. The cards and the Fates had spoken. And so Nada wasted no time. She packed her bags. 

That had been over a week ago.

Nada rolled her aching neck, an early dawn breeze rolling across her flushed skin. She was finally finished with her sketch of a man choking to death on his tongue that she painted on the side of a small shanty-house in the Hartenresa town proper. She took a moment to step back to admire the grotesque design, daring to revel in her pride like the audacious wench that she was. Certainly, it was a magnificent piece. She had perfectly captured the naked terror in the Merchant of Dupri's eyes as he suffocated slowly, his blackened, engorged tongue stuffed down his throat, his fingers clawing at his neck as if that could somehow save his breath. As if that could somehow stop her.

Like Nada had the power to halt her own destiny, the reading of the cards. Much less the destiny of cheats and cowards like the Merchant of Dupri, who had begged for his life when he died. If there was one thing that General De Castion despised, it was cowards who begged and sniveled for her mercy. Bullies who found their end in blood and tears and vomit rather than take their death with some semblance of composure or dignity.

Perhaps they were lucky Nada memorialized them in her paintings. In the soft, delicate impressions of oil and dye, they found far more distinguished deaths than the whimpering, urine-soaked displays they often subjected her to.

Sumptuous strokes of blush-colored dawn spread across the horizon, the piercing white stars fading amid the lightning sky. Nada brushed her stained hands and busied herself with the brushes in the small cloth wrap that she always carried with her. She possessed a larger collection of paints, brushes, linseed and olive oils at De Castion House, but the demands of her profession meant she was forced to whittle down her travel set to a much smaller selection than she would have liked. It killed her to leave behind anything that could potentially turn her works—which were admittedly very nice—into true masterpieces. Still, the sparse set of brushes that bumped against her hip were a constant solace to her, as equally as comforting as the cool kiss of arrowheads that pressed against her skin.

Nada stepped farther back and cast a critical eye on the painting. There was nothing she cared to change. It was a quick, simple design, but it was a searing one. A spectacle. A horror.

A masterpiece.

Of course, she had not actually stuffed the merchant's tongue down his throat -- that would have been quite the experiment. She had dispatched him as De Castion ordered her, and his severed tongue now sat in a tiny blood-soaked bag, hers for the taking. Her clients always required evidence of her kills. It was Nico and Georgette, those trained hunters who had found her at age thirteen and trained her how to wield a blade instead of a brush, who had thought up the idea to paint the lives she took. They were behind her drawings that detailed the grisly events, a shocking discovery for the Hartenresa residents when they awoke in the morning. And it was George, that gleaming-eyed, pixie-haired killer, who had suggested painting the pieces before she took the life. Just so she could have the fun of chasing the frightened victim down on their way out of town as they attempted to flee her clutches. If you're ever feeling particularly inspired of course...