Remember

I shrugged. “If you want, you can call me Mora. My father . . . — I mean, I prefer being called that outside training.” I tied my hair back into a braid so that it would stop falling into my eyes. “It seems a lot of people have heard of me,” I added.

“Mora,” she tested the name. “No. You should keep Morana, don't you think? Isn't she a Slavic goddess of death? Ironic, considering you never kill. But there’s always hope. Keep the name.” She looked at me pointedly. “And a lot of the tutors have heard of you. You are the best student here, after all. Why is that, then?”

“I train for a purpose?” I said with a shrug.

“And that would be...?”

“Revenge.”

“Ah.” She smiled. “Funny thing, revenge. In the end there's usually more to it than you think. And I wouldn't recommend it to you. I know this is a fighting school, but revenge is seldom the best route to take.”

“Thanks, I'll bear that in mind when the time comes,” I muttered, having no intention of paying the slightest heed to her words of wisdom.

“I know you will, despite what you’re thinking right now,” she replied, her smile widening. I glanced at her suspiciously. Could Slasher read minds?

“I'm the last tutor people ever see here.” Her manner had become brusque again. “Then they either become tutors themselves or return to the world. What will you do?”

I shrugged yet again. “Probably go back.”

“For the revenge.” It wasn't a question. “And what would that be, exactly?”

“Get rid of the person who made me want to come here.” My voice sounded tight. It always did when I was forced to remember that day. I was ten. Blood snaked along the tiled kitchen floor, from the head of my dead father to my socked feet. The man jumped out the window, his dark hair bristling out from beneath his hat. His eyes, so empty, so cold, so grey.

“Morana? Focus only on this moment.” There was no concern in her voice. It was as ever, expressionless, not betraying the slightest of emotions.

A year passed under Slice’s training. Neither she nor any one else could make me kill anybody. I knew how, I could do the moves, but I never actually followed through. I never pulled the trigger, never threw the knife so it would hit the heart, never drove it home, or delivered the final blow. Nevertheless, I passed my exams.

I bought a camper van and tracked down the man with cold, grey eyes... so empty, so cold, so grey as he jumped out the window, his dark hair bristling from beneath his hat. Blood snaked its way along the the tiled kitchen floor from the head of my dead father to my socked feet. I was going to make him sorry he had ever set foot in my house and hurt my father. He was going to pay with his life, and I wanted him to be my first and last kill. I had trained for this for the past 15 years.

Snap out of it! I told myself. I was 25 years old, I had time. I wasn't about to drop down dead, or anything.

I hunted him relentlessly and tracked him down at last, to a small wooden house near a stream. Noiselessly, I prowled through the woods, a knife in each of my boots, three hanging off my belt, along-side some arrows on my right, and a bow slung over my shoulder. I know, slightly old-fashioned, but I never had gotten used to holding a gun of any sort. They left your opponent no chance, and I thought that unfair.

What a nice place for such a horrible man, I thought idly as I walked through the forest, keeping my eyes peeled for the small wooden house and my ears open for the sound of flowing water.