Chapter 2: The Grim Reaper's Friend

The old woman's flesh began to warp and shift, the sickening crunch of breaking bone echoing off the ancient trees. Her spine snapped backward, her posture straightening as her wizened features melted away, rearranging into a twisted, instantly recognizable face.

I dropped into a low, aggressive stance, my right-hand hovering over the hilt of my trench knife as I steeled myself for whatever hit she was preparing to drop. A few yards to my left, Lady Amelia trembled violently. Her breath came in shallow, panicked gasps that whistled in the quiet air. Her personal knight, Sortitas, remained glued to her side like an iron shadow, his hand resting on his broadsword while he kept up a stream of rushed, desperate words to keep her anchored.

"You're Sortitas, right?" My voice practically tore out of my throat, loud enough to cut through Amelia's hyperventilating. I kept my eyes pinned to the shape-shifting figure ahead, not daring to blink. From my peripheral vision, I saw the knight flinch and snap his head toward me. "Take the princess! Five hundred meters to your left, right past the Rainbow Eucalyptus—there's a hidden portal that routes directly to the capital! Go, right now!"

"What about you—?" Amelia's voice pitched high into a desperate complaint. She tried to step toward me, but Sortitas didn't hesitate. He swept her off her feet in one fluid, practiced motion, tucking her against his armor as he pivoted toward the left.

As the knight sprinted for the eucalyptus tree, Amelia looked back over his shoulder, her wide, tear-filled eyes locked on mine.

I managed to steal a half-second to glance back, forcing my tense facial muscles into a warm, confident smile. "Don't worry, my princess. We'll meet again soon. I promise."

BOOM!

A shockwave ripped through the clearing before I could turn fully back around. The sheer blast of displaced air blew dirt and dead leaves directly into my eyes, and before my vision cleared, a heavy boot slammed into my ribs with the force of a battering ram. The impact hurled me sideways through the underbrush. My back clipped an old pine—stripping bark and knocking the wind cleanly out of my lungs, before I crashed into the dirt, skidding several feet.

"Didn't the organization teach you to never turn your back on an opponent?"

Blodywyn stepped through the settling veil of dust and debris. Her tongue casually traced the fresh smear of blood on her upper lip, her eyes wide, glassy, and completely unhinged.

I spat a mouthful of metallic crimson onto the grass and wiped a deep gash near my cheekbone, my knuckles turning white as I scrambled to my feet. "Blodywyn... why are you here? Why did they send you?" I kept my voice cold, suppressing the sharp spike of adrenaline in my chest. "This was explicitly assigned to me as an individual contract. So why is another operative trying to hijack—"

"Oh, please!" She broke into a high, shrill cackle, her smile stretching so wide it looked unnatural on her pale face. "Don't give me that look, you traitorous Grim Reaper. It doesn't matter anyway! Since you're about to die in this dirty patch of woods, I might as well indulge your stupid curiosity."

"What are you—"

Before the question could fully leave my mouth, she blurred out of sight.

A sharp breeze warned me a split-second before a twin pair of daggers whistled toward my throat. I threw my head back, feeling the icy cold of her steel brush the tip of my nose. Taking advantage of her forward momentum, I drove my palm directly into her sternum. The blow cracked against her chest plate, breaking her charge, but she spun seamlessly with the force, sweeping her right leg out to take my knees out from under me.

I leaped clear off the ground, drawn knife coming up in a mid-air arc. CLANG!

Metal scraped against metal, sending brilliant sparks flying between our faces. I landed hard, immediately twisting her inner wrist with my off hand to break her grip. I slammed my weight forward, driving her back-first into the trunk of a massive oak tree. Before she could reset her footing, I buried the razor edge of my knife half a millimeter into the soft skin of her throat.

Breathing heavily, I pressed my shoulder firmly against her chest, pinning her to the bark. "Give up," I snapped, my eyes searching her manic gaze for any sign of reason. "Give up right now, or I swear to God I'll end this."

"Hah... as if I'm the type to go down so easily!"

A sudden, terrifying spike of heat exploded from her right hand. My eyes widened as I caught the scent of ozone and burning skin. Instinct took over; I threw myself backward just as a roaring crest of orange flame erupted outward from her fingers.

The heat singed my bangs and scorched my leather vest as I rolled across the forest floor to break the line of fire. I popped up into a low defensive guard, wiping sweat from my forehead, but the moment I looked at her, my stomach dropped.

Blodywyn was leaning against the tree, laughing softly, holding her left hand out in front of her. Blood was gushing from her knuckles. One of her fingers had been severed clean at the joint, the stump dark and cauterized by her own magic. She hadn't just cast a spell—she had offered a physical sacrifice.

"Vigilant Goddess of the Red Planet!" she shrieked, her voice cracking with pure mania as blood dripped onto the dry leaves. "Grant me the fire to incinerate this traitor!"

Thick, violent plumes of fire ignited along her forearms, instantly spreading to the surrounding brush and dry grass. She whipped her arm through the air, sending a cresting wave of white-hot fire soaring straight toward me.

I didn't try to block it. I lunged up, grasping a high oak branch, and hauled myself into the canopy just as the ground beneath me turned into a roaring sea of molten red. Moving on sheer muscle memory, I bounded from branch to branch, putting distance between us to break her line of sight.

"Where are you hiding?" Blodywyn's laughter echoed from below, muffled by the crackle of burning wood. "You can't run forever, Ellaina! You know I've always loved a good hunt!"

She flicked her hand casually, launching wild, untargeted fireballs upward. Massive pine trunks groaned, snapped, and crashed down into the undergrowth as the fire rapidly consumed the lower canopy.

Thick, suffocating smoke flooded the upper branches within seconds. My eyes burned, and my lungs screamed for clean air. My strategy of keeping the high ground was completely ruined; I had no choice but to drop back to the forest floor.

I hit the dirt with a light thud, coughing into my elbow as I crept through the blinding grey haze. The situation was spiraling out of control fast. If this fire kept spreading, the smoke column would be visible from the capital gates within twenty minutes.

If the Royal Guards responded to an attack on the princess's route, they'd find the kingdom's most infamous hitman standing in the middle of the ashes. Ellaina, a name spoken in hushed, terrified whispers by corrupt nobles and common criminals alike. My reputation meant they wouldn't ask questions; they'd execute me on the spot.

"Found you."

A shape breached the smoke wall to my right. Blodywyn stepped out from behind a wall of flame, a swirling, compressed orb of superheated fire hovering directly above her bleeding palm.

"It's such a shame, really," she purred, her eyes sunken and rimmed with red. "I'm about to turn that lovely face of yours into absolute ash."

She hurled the burning orb. The air distorted around its path. I ducked low under the wave of intense heat, driving off my back foot to close the gap. Before she could ready a second spell, I lunged inside her guard, drawing my trench knife in a reverse grip and executing a lightning-fast upward slash.

The blade sliced a clean, deep line across her biceps.

Blodywyn gasped, her concentration breaking as the spell fizzled into gray sparks. She stumbled backward into a clearing, clutching her arm.

Now that I was standing close, the grim reality of her condition hit me. Her skin wasn't just pale—it was gray, translucent, and covered in a sheen of cold sweat. Her breath rattled violently in her chest. The dark, ancient blood magic she was using to power those flames was devouring her own life force from the inside out.

"Stop it, Blodywyn!" I yelled, taking a tentative step forward, my knife lowered slightly. "Look at yourself! Stop offering your blood to the goddess! You're going to bleed to death before your fire even touches me!"

"It doesn't matter anymore!" she screamed, her voice breaking into a ragged sob before snapping back into an unhinged laugh. "I'm dead anyway! I'm dead the second I walk back into the guild hall without your corpse!"

I stopped dead in my tracks. "...What?"

"The organization... they put a massive bounty on your head!" She spat a mixture of blood and soot onto the dirt, her hands shaking uncontrollably as tears cut clean, pale tracks through the grime on her face. "A direct order from the top! Whoever turns in Ellaina's head on a silver platter gets complete immunity! Freedom! A full pardon from the elders!"

The noise of the roaring forest seemed to fall silent. The terrifying truth settled over me like a heavy weight.

We had entered the organization in the same brutal intake year, thrown into the same dark training grounds as small, terrified children. Out of dozens of orphans subjected to relentless, cold-blooded conditioning, she was the only person who had ever felt human to me. We used to whisper in the dark under our thin scratchy blankets, bonding over the shared, quiet, burning hatred we held for the King whose soldiers had laid waste to her home village years ago. Her mother had been an oracle, executed for refusing to read the crown's future.

Everything had changed after her very first solo assassination.

When she came back to the barracks, her eyes were dead. The quiet girl named Mary had vanished, replaced entirely by the cruel, bloodthirsty persona of "Bloodywyn."

Why can't you just tell me what they did to you on that mission? I had begged her years ago in the armory. If I told you, would it change a single thing, Ellaina? she had replied, her voice empty, her back turned to me. You have no power here. They'll just break you too. Mary, please— Don't call me that. Call me Blodywyn. You and I... we were never friends.

Standing in the burning woods, looking at her broken, blood-soaked frame, the pieces finally clicked together.

She hadn't turned cold out of cruelty. She had built that horrific reputation and pushed me away to keep the organization's eyes off me. To keep me safe from the horrors she was enduring every single day.

Blodywyn drew a second dagger from her belt. She slashed her own forearm, smearing her blood along the steel. The metal instantly ignited, burning with an eerie, beautiful, brilliant blue flame that sucked the ambient light right out of the air.

"That's why I have to try!" she screamed, her arms trembling under the sheer weight of the spell. "I must try to kill you! To be free from that hellhole is a... a..."

A blessing.

She couldn't even bring herself to say the word. The cold, unfeeling mask of Bloodywyn tried to slip back over her face, but I could see the terrified child beneath it, the girl who just wanted the nightmare to stop.

"So, you better give up," she whispered, raising the burning blue blade. "Just give up and let me kill you."

I looked at her. Really looked at her.

Back then, when she told me we were never friends, I had been hurt. I had retreated into my own shell, leaving her to drown in the dark while I built my own legend as a hitman. I had done nothing for her.

Mary was breaking. And she had been suffering all alone.

Not anymore.

Slowly, deliberately, I let go of my knife. The heavy iron weapon dropped into the dirt with a dull thud. I took a calm, unhurried step forward, walking directly into the circle of scorching blue heat surrounding her.

"Mary," I said softly, looking her straight in the tear-stained eyes.

Her breath hitched. The blue flames along her blade flickered wildly, wavering in the hot air.

I raised my arms to my sides, leaving my neck, chest, and heart completely undefended.

"Kill me," I said, offering her a faint, gentle smile. "Kill me with all you might."