My heart pounds, each beat like a drum against my ribs. Blood surges hot through my chest and arms, numbing every single fiber of my lower body. The plan was simple: assassinate, replace the blood data, and vanish. Leave no trace. No errors.
I glance toward the window; for a mont, I expect shadows on the rooftops, allies watching, guards approaching, soone—anyone—bearing witness. But no one is there. My thoughts fracture into paranoia, dragging away from the rhythm of discipline.
Still, my body moves—chanically—almost without .
I turn from Elisia, who still clutches the bed sheets in silence, and begin walking; my clothes cling heavily and are wet with warm blood. I peel them from piece by piece until only my shirt remains, streaked but passable—the rest I leave behind, fabric soaked in orange.
My steps echo down the corridor, hollow and steady, yet each one threatening to falter.
I force myself onward, deeper into the estate, toward the room where the banquet blood is stored. The knife bends as I slide it back into the watch, tal folding unnaturally, vanishing as though it was never a weapon at all.
...
I don’t know how we know about this, nor do I want to know why. Harmon is behind everything.
He moves like a shadow through every plan, weaving strands I cannot see, and sohow he knows everything about all of this—everything except the entrance of the false god. So divine aspect of a ritual by the believers of Valhena?
Perhaps I am too optimistic about the future. Most things are hard to believe; too good to be true. But without hope, how can we dream of achieving anything?
So, I push through the door. Another room, identical to a hundred others in this cursed estate of Elisia. My hands—darker, tanned-blue skin, not of my original body—are now drenched with dark orange blood. It stains as if the color itself mocks my own. Stumbling forward, I hit the edge of a box—just as Harmon described in his plan. Everything is as he had said.
He truly uses the ability of a deity! I shout it mockingly in my head.
Kneeling, I pull two blood plates, one blue drop of blood in between—from my watch, where the knife rests—with which I’ve killed the King.
Then, I carefully replace it with my own, the na of this body clearly written on the plates in orange italic text: Maximilian von Uhr.
The door shuts behind with a quiet click, and I linger there for a heartbeat too long. The reality hits only now. I’ve slain a king.
A king in na, a tyrant in flesh, but still a king; my hand trembles against the lid of the box as I press it shut, then shove it back into its hidden place. My mind feels clogged, every thought drooling in on itself, but my body wants only one thing—to escape this estate before everything unravels.
Pow!
The impact cos out of nowhere; a fist slams into my side, bursting through bone and muscle. The blow hurls into a couch, the wooden fra cracking under before it’s sent flying into the wall with crushed between.
Pain explodes everywhere, my toes twitch and fizzle, nerves sputtering. My legs go numb, as if they don’t belong to anymore, this ti entirely. My index finger jerks without my permission, and my head slams heavily against the floor shortly after.
I gasp for air, the taste of blood flooding my throat.
Bitter-sweet.
I choke it back, gulping it down before a single drop can stain the carpet beneath ; the world around drowns in shades of blue, my vision slipping into haze. My voice rattles in my chest, and every attempt to scream becos only a ragged gasp.
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