i. d a u n t l e s s ;
___
A single beam of moonlight trails through a window, the light glinting off of Adelia Kiyoto's blade as she runs a finger across the cold, smooth surface.
Two eyes, one blue and one golden stare back at her.
The door behind her opens, and she spies the silhouette of a man on the shining surface of the desk. Her heart beats faster, and every muscle in her body urges her to move away from this dangerous man.
Even so, she remains still.
"Miss Kiyoto. What a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting you back so soon. Please, feet off the desk."
Amorus Nevrone, at first glance, does not appear to be an intimidating man. But as Adelia had found out the hard way, his power lies not in his muscle, but in his brain.
It is not a mistake she is willing to make again.
Nevrone sits down behind his desk, watching her with his intelligent green eyes. "What of Morkenov?"
Adelia slowly swings her feet off the desk and stands up, resheathing her knife. She reaches into the burlap sack by her feet and empties the contents onto his desk. "The rest of him sleeps with the fishes."
A slow smile spreads across Nevrone's face as his gloved hands lift the severed head to eye-level. "Good."
Leaving the head on the desk, Nevrone rises and moves to stand behind Adelia. She remains still, even as he brushes her hair aside and his breath tickles her neck. "You cannot imagine how I feel every time I see you back inside of my office after a mission, safe."
Goosebumps crawl up her spine. On the list of things Adelia wanted touching her body, Nevrone ranked beneath spiders and slugs. She exhales slowly, holding back her shudders. "How else am I supposed to collect my pay?"
He chuckles softly. "I know that that little thing isn't the only thing keeping you here. And this isn't either."
His rough fingers scrape across the back of her neck gently, directly where the bomb inside of her lies.
Adelia stiffens and sets her jaw, remembering her failed escape attempt from the Institute. He isn't wrong, but his guesses for her staying isn't right, either. Adelia would sooner have her head blown up than kill another person for this vile man, but she couldn't leave.
Not yet.
Nevrone moves away from her neck and returns to his chair behind the desk. Adelia exhales with relief.
"Don't get too comfortable, Miss Kiyoto. I have another mission for you."
"Tell me about it." This is strange. Usually, he gave her a few days between jobs to recuperate. And he always gave her choices about which assignments she chose to fulfill.
"I've been attempting to recreate the shapeshifter serum."
The world stops and then starts again as Adelia processes what he is saying. She looks down at her hands, flexing her fingers. Over twenty years and hundreds of casualties, she had been the only person to ever survive a trial of the shapeshifter serum, and it had changed her in unimaginable ways.
"Why?" Is all she can manage to say. She had risked her life destroying his research, and she had paid for it dearly. For weeks on end she had been trapped in bed, every movement causing her excruciating pain, driving her to the edge so many times that she had prayed to the gods for death.
The Gods have abandoned this world, a place full of prejudice and hatred. Adelia wasn't surprised that her wishes went unheard.
Nevrone's knowledge of anatomy is unparalleled and he used every part of it to make her pay for the destruction she had wrought.
"The King is working on a project. Something big. The shapeshifter serum will be of great use to him. Only, something went wrong and someone from the last group of test subjects escaped, led by a dangerous prisoner. I'll be needing you to find him, and bring him back to me."
Nevrone stands up and walks towards a chest of drawers, using a small key to unlock the top one.
Adelia takes a deep breath. "Very well. How will I know who he is?"
"You'll know."
His cryptic answer isn't reassuring in the slightest. "When do I leave?"
Nevrone closes the drawer and turns around. The hair on the back of her neck rises. He walks towards her, his palm cupping her elbow. Nevrone moves too fast for Adelia to see, and the syringe is in her arm before she can move back.
No. Adelia tries to pull the syringe out, vividly remembering the last time he had injected something inside of her, something that had morphed her body in incredible ways.
Her vision darkens at the edges and Nevrone eases her body to the ground, ensuring she is safe.
Even as the world darkens, the irony is not lost on her.
His wicked smile is the last thing she sees.
"Now."
___
Adelia's fingers curl slightly, grasping at the moist dirt between her fingers.
Her eyes flash open, her pupils adjusting to the freckles of light that creeps in between the trees above her. Adelia keeps her breathing steady as she sits up slowly, careful not to make a sound. She doesn't know who or what is near her.
Leaves rustle nearby and Adelia's wrists snap towards her back, grasping at air. She frowns, rising to her feet cautiously.
A quick inspection of her body reveals she has been left in the middle of nowhere, weaponless.
Adelia grits her teeth together, straightening up. Nevrone must be giving her some kind of test. Leaving her in the middle of nowhere, defenseless, with no idea how to return home, was exactly the kind of thing Amorus Nevrone would do.
It's dark. Adelia shifts her eyes, trying to change them to suit the darker climate, but nothing happens. She narrows her eyes, trying again. Nothing.
Nothing happens when she attempts to shift her skin colour, or extend the length of her hair.
The realisation causes her chest to become tight. Somehow, he had taken away her shapeshifting abilities or dulled them. Adelia hadn't even known such a thing was possible, and having a part of her taken away causes her to feel vulnerable in a way she hadn't felt in many years.
This is most certainly a test. And Adelia doesn't want to find out what happens if she fails.
She scans the nearest trees for something she can use as a weapon. Thinking quickly, Adelia scales the slim branches, thankful for her light weight. Being small often had its disadvantages in fighting, causing her to rely more on skill than body weight, but it did have its perks.
Balancing on the highest branches, Adelia takes in the view, frowning. She is surrounded by a sea of green, the dense canopies set closely together. The trees stretch as far as she can see in all directions. Recalling a map of the land, she tries to think of all the places in Tantus she could be. Somewhere up north she suspects, in the Forests of Calaisis. These forests shrouded its secrets with the largest expanse of greenery in the land and quite possibly the world, each tree growing close to its neighbour. Their existence was considered an oddity; in the dry land in the North where the growth of a sprout was considered a miracle, such a forest was considered to be born from pure witchcraft.
Even though people had been living on this land for hundreds of years, the contents of the forests remained a mystery to almost everyone. Few people ventured inside and even fewer came out, forcing the citizens of nearby towns to become the 'guardians' of the Forest, offering grave warnings of the Forest's dangers to curious travellers and tourists.
Adelia raises her face upward, scanning the sky carefully. Based upon the position of the sun, it was late afternoon. Nightfall would be coming soon, and with no cover in an unfamiliar environment, things could go downhill quickly for Adelia.
She slips down the highest branches, enveloping herself in the thick leaves. Adelia pauses on the final branch above the ground. It is too heavy to dislodge by simply breaking it off. She drops her entire weight on the branch, causing it to fall to the ground. Adelia lands carefully, picking up the branch and testing its weight in her hands. She breaks off the smaller branches that extend off the limb. The branch ends in a hundred sharp points, the result of her unorthodox method of breaking it off.
It wasn't her sword, but it'll have to do for now.
As she walks, Adelia lets out a breath of dry amusement. She remembers the first time she had visited here. Nevrone had left her in the forest once as part of her training, on the outskirts where light still filtered through the trees and where rare medicinal plants grew.
She had had nightmares for months after.
He is one of the most powerful men in the land, and even he didn't dare to enter further than that.
The Gods only knew what she was going to encounter so far deep into the forest.
___
Night falls, and Adelia is thirsty. A dead rabbit hangs at her belt, the result of the messiest kill she had ever performed. She licks her lips as she looks down at her waist. Eating meat raw invited all kinds of diseases into her body. Yet, there was no chance of making a fire with such moist air.
The points of her stick had been blunted by her kill, the stick useless unless she was planning on bludgeoning someone. Adelia would need a new one soon.
She must have walked miles in the afternoon. Originally, she had been fuelled by adrenaline and terror, but now she was just exhausted. Miles and miles, and the only sign of life had been that stupid rabbit. Definitely no sign of Nevrone's crazed prisoners. Adelia slumps down against a tree, her body heavy.
Some assassin she is, losing all energy only after a few hours. Despite her guess of it being late afternoon when she had originally woken up, it had felt like days had passed until the sky had finally begun to darken.
Maybe the meddling of time was the other thing this stupid forest offered, millions of identical trees aside.
Perhaps it was her exhaustion, or perhaps it was because everything in the forest never felt quite dry, but Adelia doesn't realise the tree is damper than usual until the moisture has sunk into her tunic.
Adelia scrambles away from the tree, turning around hurriedly. Her eyes flicker from her tree to the neighbouring ones. The wood seems to be a shade darker, and Adelia's fingers probe her back hesitantly.
Her fingers are coated in the substance. Adelia rubs her thumb and forefinger together and raises her fingers to her nose.
Her blood runs cold and every instinct tells her to run.
It is blood. And when there is blood, there is a body.
She is not alone.
All of Nevrone's training comes back to her in that single second. She exhales slowly, straightening up. The hair on the back of her neck prickles as her hunger pangs disappear, replaced by pure survival instinct.
She moves through the area quietly, her eyes scanning the area for any sign of life.
And when she hears it, she freezes.
A growl. Inhuman, but not entirely animal. Something else, something greater than them both.
Exactly the kind of thing Dr. Nevrone would cook up in his lab.
The sound comes closer, and Adelia's knuckles turn white around the branch. Her mind is completely empty, completely focused on getting out of here alive.
The rabbit smacks against her thigh as Adelia turns on her heel sharply, pushing her stick through the abdomen of the stranger.
Thin, scarred hands wrap around the stick and Adelia gasps as she looks into the eyes of her victim, stumbling back. Her fingers break off pieces of the bloody branch as she falls, landing on her back. "Mum?"
Of all the absurd, impossible things Adelia had seen in her life, this had to take the crown.
A strip of moonlight divides them, creating a physical barrier for the tension between them.
Aiko Kiyoto scowls, her face conforming to a grotesque expression that seems so foreign on such a usually loving face. Aiko watches as her daughter struggles to her feet, and tugs the branch out of her abdomen. Adelia swallows, taking a step closer. "How is this possible? You're- You're-"
Aiko throws the branch with inhuman strength, causing it to snap against the tree and break. Before Adelia can push another word out, Aiko surges towards her, grabbing her by the neck and pushing her up the tree.
"Mum- You're h-hurting me," Adelia gasps out, her hands clutching at her mother's wrist. She musters all of her strength and kicks forward, Aiko's fingers coming loose from around Adelia's neck.
Now that Adelia can see her up close, she wonders how she could have been so mistaken. Her eyes are dead. Her chest doesn't rise and fall. Her skin is a deathly, pale shade of white, so different from the glowing skin that Adelia remembers her mother used to possess.
Adelia doesn't know who, or what this is, but it is not her mother.
She can't afford to waste valuable seconds pondering over how this could have happened, or trying to seek answers from someone who wants to kill her. Nevrone's lessons of self-preservation and strength overrule family loyalty.
She runs.
Fortunately, this Fake-Aiko doesn't seem to be as fast as she is strong. Adelia sprints ahead, her light feet easily avoiding all the rocks and roots that obstruct her path.
Once she is confident she has left the Fake-Aiko behind, she leans against a tree, stunned.
What on earth is Nevrone cooking up in his lab? Bringing dead people back to life? Because whatever that was, it wasn't life. It wasn't even a cheap imitation.
It was evil, plain and simple.
And Adelia could only imagine how many more of them were out there.
___
The cold air prickles Adelia's skin as she runs, not wanting to stop. Running is her escape, a way for her to pretend that she actually can be free. She didn't have to think about anything, just focus on the movement of her legs.
She needs to find a way out before she came across any more of those monsters. And she figures that if she keeps running, she simultaneously escapes them and can push down ages old memories of her mother resurfacing.
She can't run forever. Adelia can feel the hunger pangs return, and the weight of all her leathers press down on her. She's still tired from her recent mission, and that drugged induced darkness Nevrone had given her didn't do anything to alleviate her exhaustion.
Adelia narrows her eyes in curiosity as she spies something in the distance that does not look like a tree. She slows down, nearing the object. A wave of relief washes over her.
It is a hut. Wooden, held together with dried mud. It didn't seem to be rain resistant, much less monster resistant, but it was something. At least it was someplace for her to recuperate, and figure out what on earth to do.
The door is ajar, indicating that she isn't alone. Her fingers wrap around the door handle, listening. No voices, no signs of movement and most of all, no growls.
The door creaks as she pushes it open, and Adelia pauses, regarding the room with suspicion. A small fire in a stone fireplace reveals the room is empty, it's only occupants discarded pieces of furniture.
Adelia walks towards the fireplace, scanning the coals. It seems to have been lit only recently, at her guess, approximately an hour ago.
Signs of a struggle litter the room; knocked over chairs, broken plates, smears of blood on the floor. The fresh blood suggests that the fight had happened not so long ago, which meant that there could still be monsters in the area.
Adelia wouldn't be able to stay here long.
She adds a couple of sticks and dry leaves to the fire, causing it to dance higher. Probably not the best idea inside of a wooden house, but she didn't have much choice. The chill had set in, and it was either burn or freeze to death.
At least if she were to burn, maybe she could take out a few of those monsters with her too.
Adelia works quickly, taking inventory of the room of everything that could possibly be useful. Both metal and woven rope, an axe with a wobbling head, a strange silver disk. Adelia smiles slowly as she finds a handful of coins. Once, she wouldn't have thought that they could cause a person a lot of damage, but that was a mistake quickly corrected.
Adelia impales her dusty rabbit on a spit on the fire as she tears off a length of rope and begins to divide the fibres. An appropriate stick is easy enough to find- She is, after all, in the middle of a forest. Adelia attaches the string to both ends of the stick, pulling it tight so it curves. She wraps the rope around the middle of the stick, creating an arrow rest. A collection of similarly sized sticks attached to sharp rocks and stray pieces of robe fibres create arrows. Adelia picks one up, weighing it in her hands. If Aiko's strength was anything to go by, these arrows would in no way harm a monster. But it might stun them long enough for her to get away.
A bow and arrows. It was weak and would probably break after a few tries, but at least she wasn't completely undefended now.
By the time she is done, her rabbit is finished cooking. And as she eats, she allows herself a few minutes to think.
There was no possible way that that monster was her mother. Adelia had seen Aiko die herself, at the hands of her father. There had to be another explanation for what she is seeing. Wiping her face and fingers of grease with a torn piece of her tunic, Adelia has the suspicion that there is a correlation between the monsters and her inability to shapeshift.
Adelia throws the piece of fabric in the fire. She could think about this later. Right now, she had to focus on getting out alive.
___
It's the heat that starts Adelia awake, sweat on her brow. She props herself up on one arm, massaging her temples. Adelia takes a deep breath. Her head is pounding. She is so, so thirsty.
Her eyes dart towards the makeshift alarm at her door, composed of rope and coins to alert her if anyone attempted to get in. Everything is still in place.
Adelia eats slowly on the last bit of rabbit leg as she wraps everything up in her undershirt and attaches it to a piece of rope to carry it with. Slinging her bow and makeshift quiver over her shoulder, Adelia pauses at the doorway and looks almost fondly around at the hut. "Well, thanks for keeping me safe for a night or something."
Talking to inanimate objects. She had to be going crazy.
The canopy seems to be trapping the heat inside and Adelia is sweating like a dog. She feels like a dog- Her tongue darts out to lick dry lips, and all she wants to do is collapse. Adelia had been in a lot of uncomfortable situations before, and in retrospect, this wasn't even that bad compared to the Burning Plains of Al-Hakim, or the frozen tunnels that made up Wyrdham. But there was something about here that made it seem so much more unbearable.
If she ever saw Nevrone again, she would wring his neck.
Hours pass before she hears another growl.
Adelia is ready, an arrow nocked in her bow and ready to fly. She squints, her eyes widening in realisation as she recognises the figure.
Adelia loved art above all else and had devoted many years at the Correctional Institute perfecting her talent at Nevrone's insistence on her pursuing a creative outlet. Standing before her is Emmalisse, the sweet, young art teacher.
Adelia's resolve falters as she looks at the woman who had become a family member to her. But as she watches the salivating lips, the pale stature and dead eyes, it becomes easier to remember that this is not the real Emma.
Adelia shoots one of her arrows, catching Fake-Emma in the eye. She runs forward and jumps, using Fake-Emma's knee as a launchpad and slinging her legs around her neck.
Unlike Real-Emma, the Fake-Emma is strong. She pulls at Adelia's legs, her fingers gripping so hard Adelia knows there will be bruises.
Breathing heavily, Adelia wraps the metal rope around her neck and pulls tight. She had only done this once before, thinking this method of killing someone gruesome, messy, and unnecessary. But with all the tools at her disposal, she had to make do.
With a final strained groan, the rope slices through her neck and Adelia falls off the decapitated body. She rolls out of the way as Fake-Emma's torso crashes to the ground, breathing heavily.
Adelia winces, looking down at her hands. Rope burn. It wouldn't be comfortable, especially whenever she used the bow. But it was better than giving up her life.
At least she knew now that these monsters aren't invincible.
Adelia wanders along, alert.
She doesn't see the monster until he has his teeth in her neck.
It's a novice from the Correctional Institute, someone Nevrone was training to become an assassin. He was young, perhaps thirteen. What was his name again? Jonah? Of all the novices, Adelia likes him the best, simply because he used to make the best coffee.
It was quite the shame he was working for rebels and she had been forced to kill him. No one else quite made her cappuccinos like he did.
Adelia wrenches away, kicking him, drawing an arrow and firing it at him.
And watching as he pauses, still.
Adelia tilts her head to the side, his bite painless, watching as the novice refuses to bridge the divide and come for her. He seems almost hesitant.
"That can't be right," she mutters, watching him carefully. Something about Jonah reminded her of someone else- Aiko, yesterday. She hadn't been able to step in the moonlight. It was only once Adelia had stupidly crossed to her side did Aiko attack.
"You can't go into the light," Adelia breathes. She watches the stream of light dividing them with wonder. Adelia digs around inside of her undershirt-bag and brings out the rainbow coloured disk. She catches the light and moves it around, causing it to land upon the monster's leg. Jonah howls, stepping away. A twinge of guilt plays on her heartstrings, but she shrugs him off. It's not Jonah. A monster who looks like him, but nothing more. Adelia follows him with the light, landing a final blow with the axe when he falls to his needs.
The head falls to the ground with a thud.
A small smile dances upon her lips. Finally, she had something which could cause real damage to the monsters.
___
Now knowing their weakness towards the light, it became easier to fight them. Adelia broke the disk into pieces, setting them up so they formed a tight cage the monster couldn't get out off. And once they were incapacitated, they were easy to finish off. Classmates, people she had tortured and killed, childhood neighbours before the Institute. After a while, it became a game of sorts. She became passive to their faces, all these people from her past blurring together. Soon enough, it became a competition as to how fast she could defeat each one.
They all showed up, wanting to kill her. There must have been over twenty of them.
And one by one, she tore them down and broke them.
That wasn't to say she escaped unharmed. Somewhere around the sixth monster, her rib was broken. Somewhere around the fifteenth, her arm was dislocated. And without her shifting, without her fast healing, she had to live with it.
At the end of her second day in the forest, Adelia leans against a tree, exhausted. All she wants to do is close her eyes and sleep. Maybe before that though, a hot shower. Possibly some cream for Jonah's bite.
There is someone up ahead, and Adelia almost sighs. She draws herself up to her height and takes a step forward when she realises that this zombie isn't some obscure figure from her past like the others.
"Kaius," Adelia breathes, and it takes all her self-control to not run towards him. She's so relieved she could almost cry. He's so beautiful, standing there. Light falls into his light brown hair, illuminating his tall figure, and Adelia smiles broadly. Kaius was no monster. He was real, he was here, he had come here for her.
Adelia couldn't even remember when she had fallen in love with Nevrone's favourite rebel torture-thing. Perhaps it was when he had saved her from a beating at dinner, once. Or maybe it was the way he never cried out when Nevrone had his way with him and just stared back at him with those beautiful, mismatched eyes.
She suspects it's because of his laugh. How, after all he had been through, staring in the face of one of the most dangerous and terrifying men on the planet, he could still laugh.
"Kaius," Adelia calls, running towards him. Tears almost well up in her eyes, she was just so goddamned relieved that she wasn't alone any longer.
His arms wrap around her, drawing her to him. She softens, holding him tighter. Her ribs protest at this action, but she couldn't care less. She didn't have to act around Kaius. With him, she could be Adelia Kiyoto.
"I wasn't sure I was going to make it," Adelia confesses to his chest, resting her forehead on his collarbone. "There were a few moments there where- where-"
Adelia falters as she remembers her mother.
"You're safe now," he repeats, over and over, so many times that she almost believes it.
Kaius holds her close, bringing his lips to her ear. Adelia smiles, turning her face towards his.
"Complete Phase One," he says in Nevrone's voice.
Adelia jolts away, but not fast enough as Kaius lurches forward and stabs her in the stomach with his blade.
The last thing she sees is his cold, dead eyes as she falls.
Her Kaius did not have eyes like that.
And she would pay for her idiocy.
___
TO BE CONTINUED.
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