The Edge of Memory - Aikura

[Aikura]

-As Dust Through My Fingers-

It seems that every time I find something in this world to hold onto, it is taken from me. Such moments are a rare enough occurrence in my life, that to sweep them away so swiftly seems the height of cruelty. It is like repeatedly spending every effort to ascend a mountain peak, only to be systematically washed down by the mocking avalanche. It is easy to give up in the face of such definitive rebuking, to expect defeat every time. I was sure I had stopped climbing long ago.

Nevertheless, I somehow found myself standing again on that lofty zenith. It would be a typically brief stay. It was a time when I felt like I held the Coast in my hand. When renowned killers courted my favour, Banite lords danced unawares on my strings, and even saints and nobles were not safe from my blades. It could never have lasted. Heart Attack had stirred the hornet’s nest. My enemies leered up at me, unified in bellicose envy. Now, once again, what had seemed as solid and immutable as diamonds disintegrated before my eyes, and ran wistfully as crystalline dust through my fingers.

They came for me first. They had tracked me, watched patiently as I had backed myself into a corner. Laying their trap carefully, they surrounded me—together with my apprentice—in the Frost Keep. Knowing full well that prey struggling in the net tends only to further entangle itself, I waited still and patient for my opportunity to escape. The moment came soon, afforded by the insipid gloating of my would-be captors. They had blown their chance. I slipped away, blazing an apparently random trail from the Keep, never stopping until I was well clear. I escaped. My apprentice did not.

They went after my sister next. I had immediately sent out a warning, but it took time to communicate information out here away from our networks in the city. They got to her first. Forsaking all discretion following their initial attack, they waited and ambushed her on the Trade Way, cutting her down in broad daylight and in front of many witnesses. Not one of the bystanders made a move to help her. They merely looked on in subdued compliance, giving their tacit consent. Fools and cowards, and monsters. I would make them all pay.

They went after my mentor last. She had sought them out to find out what was going on, to reason with them. They were beyond diplomacy, beyond reason. They met her instead with bloody steel. Such ruthless, mindless violence. And for what? Had we really angered them so? We had been the executors, not the architects. I suppose it did not matter to them; they were blind to the hand that held the tools.

My mind raced as I made good on my escape, my thoughts outpaced only by my hastened step. Traversing first the lesser-known paths of the wilderness and—after a time—the secluded and undesirable backstreets of Baldur’s Gate, I made it to the relative safety of the darkened building I called home. When I entered I was confronted with the bodies. It took all the willpower I could muster not to break down and cry at the sight of my sister, bloodied and broken. Keeping hope firmly at bay, I knelt at her side and pressed my ear to her lips. It sent a jolt through me to find she was still breathing. Even then I hardly dared to believe, though I knew exactly what it meant.

They had left them all alive, if only barely. Furthermore, they had allowed us to recover the bodies. It had been a less-than-lethal blow, and deliberately so. It was a message of the crudest sort. They wanted us to know that we could not hide from them, that they could hit us again with deadly force if there was ever a repeat of Heart Attack. Hapless fools, they were all fire and no thought. By allowing me to escape, by identifying themselves through their indulgent, premature gloating, they had presented us with a solid target for retribution. Their arrogance would start a war, and any bloodshed would be on their hands, not ours.

I knelt on the floor with my sister, and the others. They would all be okay. I held her tightly, simultaneously swearing to never again let anything happen to her, and swearing vengeance.

They had hit us hard. And yet, it seemed that blood was not enough for them. Days later, they would come for my home, and they would take that from me as well. As dust through my fingers.

I cannot help but wonder if it ever crossed their minds, what I would do if I had nothing left to lose.

[Aikura]

-The Dream Redux-

Every night it starts the same. Walking down familiar corridors, past the walls that run with the blood of deeds past, stepping over the corpses in their face-down repose. I sense the ominous cold approaching, and soon feel that frigid wind manifest from nothing, filling my chest. An icy cavity for an icier heart.

It started the same, but tonight something was different. I emerged into the cavernous chamber surreally filled with that flooding crimson light, intermittently divided by imposing spinous pillars. I looked to the familiar corpses strewed across the cold stone floor, and to the same blood blamefully staining my hands. All the right elements were here, the scars of my past chasing me in my sleep, snapping vengefully at the heels of my waking conscience. All the same, everything around me felt slightly off, as though this dream redux was a reflection of the original, misconstrued and distorted through a twisting mirror. And of course, something was missing. Something important…

I heard a loud click as someone let light into the chamber; a narrow spear desperately piercing the dark. From a single hopeful beam, it expanded with the creaking door to become a liberating flood. The freezing cold desisted and was replaced by that amiable coolness, a timely yet overdue relief. She stepped cautiously into the chamber, silhouetted beautifully against the blazing light at her back. She surveyed her morbid surroundings, her eyes effortlessly piercing the dark and soon falling on me. She approached with careful steps.

“You’re late.” I said, unable to repress a slight smile. “Um…you’re expecting me?” She enquired hesitatingly, that same old puzzled expression playing across her face. “You are always expected here.” I replied. She continued to gaze around in apparent confusion. “But…I have never been here before.” She said. I watched her familiar cautious footfalls with mild amusement. “You say that every time.”

I walked over to her and obligingly held out my hands, blood-soaked palms facing upward. Gasping at the sight, she unhesitatingly took out her water flask and emptied it over them. I felt the cleansing cool of the water lift the sanguine stain and wash my hands clean once more. Pre-empting the next inevitable cue, I then took my sister’s hand and led her through the door and the winding, labryinthine corridors beyond, promptly heading outside.

Emerging from the darkness of my mental prison, we were met with a serene grass clearing of vibrant green shades, illuminated by the erratic cantaloupe flicker of an open campfire. I looked around and blinked wildly, suddenly and unexpectedly inheriting the puzzled expression that had only moments ago occupied my sister’s face. Something was definitely different tonight. What strange dream was this? My sister wandered out and collapsed happily in the long grass near the fire, cushioning her head in her hands and gazing up in a child-like fascination at the night sky. “Wow, you should see this.” She said, her voice coming in awe-filled tones.

Sighing, I went and sat tentatively next to her. “You know I do not look at the stars, sister.” The image of the campfire embers filled my eyes as I spoke, lending them the veneer of fiercely burning coals; little candle vigils to defeated aspirations. “After everything that has happened, all we have lost, all they have taken from us. If I ever had any hope, it is now vanquished utterly. I could look up, but we both know that all I would see is more clouds.”

She echoed my sigh and turned over slightly, continuing to gaze skywards. “I think you still have hope.” She said. I yielded a grim laugh. “Oh really? And what would make you think that?” I asked. She gave me a coy, sideways smile, never shifting the focus of her gaze. “Because, someone without hope could never dream a sky like this one.”

I would not have looked. I would not have dared to look. But the dream redux had already caught me off guard. Against every screaming instinct, I lowered my defences, just for a fleeting moment, and glanced upwards. An unwilling gasp escaped my lips. I was confronted with a million brightly burning lights, scattered across the sky as countless specks of eerily glowing dust. As I lay back and gazed at the heavens in sublime disbelief, I felt my sister’s hand find mine and grip it tightly. “See? Tomorrow has not yet abandoned us.” She whispered.

I could not shake my dreams of the past. But from now on I would dream of the future as well.

Night after night I have the dream. And night after night she comes through for me.

[Aikura]

-Falling Like Rain-

Rain-swollen clouds built in dark, violet plumes, spreading outward and touching both horizons. The thickening sheet of cumulus filtering the evening light, the remaining spectrum an annoyingly mood-setting palette of reds and purples as though the elements conspired against me in an almost-knowing taunt. This time there was no silvery curtain between us, nothing to shield the unwilling tics, to hide the unwanted emotions that now surfaced and threatened to lay bare all my plans and intentions, falling like rain at his feet.

Here we are again, standing that cautious distance from one another, yet gladder for each other’s company than either of us would care to admit. Standing close, but not too close. Exchanging guarded looks, but not too guarded. Careful word follows careful word in the reciprocal ebb and flow of our intrepid game. Each poised for the second act in our dangerous play, hovering ambivalently on the genre divide between spy thriller, romance, tragedy or, perhaps, a comedy of errors.

My lapses in attention accumulate. A touch offered in condolence lingers slightly too long. The light in my eyes shifts and betrays what lies beneath. My original plan for him had already been turned by my own volte-face. Still I had kept him close, the shroud of my secret weapon dispelled. Looking outwards, I had aimed him squarely at our new enemies. I had since been given the order to put him into play, on no less than two occasions. Yet I did nothing, except play for time in my conflicted hesitation. I made excuses for everyone’s benefit. He was my best resource, my Ace. I would not throw him carelessly at an unknown foe. I convinced the others thus, and myself. Did I even know what game I was playing anymore?

This was what I had feared all along. I was swiftly losing count of the rules I had broken. My once-solid designs, now thawed and melted, flowed freely around my head in fluid streams of indecisiveness. I was no longer certain of what it was that I wanted, and he was to blame.

So many puppets on so many strings. It was only a matter of time until one of them pulled back. Damn him.

But in the end, one remains…rising like ether, falling like rain…

One indeed.

[Aikura]

-Wretched Whim-

So many puppets on so many strings. It was only a matter of time until I had to cut some of them loose. But I would make damn well sure I was dangling them over a ravine when I did.

Calmly awaiting the inevitable conflict, I scornfully examined my surroundings. The room was framed by curiously oblique architecture, resplendent with opulent furnishings and drapery, and bathed in that unnatural azure light that seems endemic to wizard towers and comparable arcane haunts. The cold and underwhelming light struck an appropriate tone for what was to follow.

Of course the meeting would be here. I probably knew it even before he did. I had followed and watched him for a long time, putting my agents in his path, allowing him to surround himself with people loyal to me. Over time they had become entrenched in his confidence. Each was a string, ostensibly kowtowing to his every wretched whim, while in fact surreptitiously allowing me to make marionettes of his desires and ambitions. With discreet tugs and whispers I had created conflicts in his ranks, turned him against those among his following that I could do without. He had obediently shed them like bloody refuse. Always I had kept my new tool sufficiently dull to be safely controlled, yet still retaining just enough edge to be useful.

However, when the time had finally come to employ him in effecting a purpose larger than petty grudges, he had fallen drastically short of the desired mark. With this most recent and explicit directive he had become dawningly aware of our arrangement, and now pretentiously sought to challenge it by calling a meeting and setting an obvious trap. But in reality, and true to form, his trap for me was really my trap for him.

A door burst open and he came marching purposefully in, the dull sheen of his armour further dampened by the pool of pale blue light flooding the tower interior. Around him slinked his henchmen and lackeys, each thinking themselves invisible in their own way. I counted them off as they filed in and took up positions around the room; one…two…three…four... Not enough. Not even close.

“This had better be important.” I snapped at him. He crossed the room and stood before me, his whole expression wrought with barely contained anger, undiluted by the arrogant smile playing on his lips. He tightly gripped the imposing mace at his side, its globose head visibly exuding a corrosive broth. “I am afraid there is a little problem with our arrangement, dear child.” He said. The fury in his eyes reaffirmed the intent I had already deduced. Only one way for this to end, it seems.

A moment of familiar cold stillness preceded the first strike. I heard the words begin to form, the resonant echo in the enunciating voice, the building scintilla of chromatic lights as the Weave breathed life and gave effect to the first spell. I reacted fast, darting into the shadows and narrowly avoiding the magical beam that fired to my left, a luminous, grasping hand at its head. Tumbling back onto my feet, I drew blades and looked upon my betrayers with vengeful intent.

As their eyes searched desperately in the inadequate light for their coveted prey, the shadows circled. I watched with malevolent joy as the darkness closed in around them, and my trap was sprung. With perfect synchronisation they struck, efficiently cutting through the would-be trappers in a harmonious concert of murder. Our enemies fell in seconds, the leader at my feet, the knives in his back belonging to the very one he thought his most trusted bodyguard. I held his gaze the whole time, as he drew his final breath, my mocking expression the final thing he saw. My parting gift to him.

The proverbial dust settled on the scene, the victorious shadows standing triumphantly over their incapacitated victims. Weapons were kicked away, hands and feet were bound, tongues were cut out. One of the shadows, his now tongue-less victim firmly subdued beneath his foot, looked to me and spoke. “What do you want us to do with them?”

I surveyed the carnage around me, of which happenstance and stupidity had been the architects, and which now fell to me to rectify. I felt cold inside. They had sought to trap me. Impudent, credulous fools. How dare they. I hesitated a moment, searching for a recalcitrant bastion of mercy in my heart, yet finding none. “They are no longer useful to me.” I said. “Kill them all.”

We dangled them over the ravine, and cut the strings.

[Aikura]

-The Right Thing-

I sometimes wonder how much simpler the world must be, as seen through the dogmatic lens of the slavish devouts and zealots I see stumbling blindly about the Coast, secure in their pathetic, encompassing fictions. In reality, simple answers are elusive, the world is far from black and white, and the right course of action is unfailingly and messily embedded with the wrong one. In their simplifying and unproblematic logics, they devalue the raw and often horrific struggle of trying desperately to extricate the one from the other. What if you had to inflict the deepest possible wound on one you love, in order to save her? To drown her within an inch of death, in order to preserve that last diminutive inch of life? As it happens, doing the right thing may well be the worst thing I have ever done.

The air in the forest seemed unusually thin this evening. The trees lay bare, stripped naked by the turning of the seasons, their discarded amber leaves now carpeting the forest floor. A broken circuit of overgrown rail-track snaked out from the abandoned mine and curled up at my feat in a subtly twisted sculpture of metal and rotting wood. The surrounding trees and rock formations were discoloured by an ominous blood-red haze, seemingly unmoved by the soft breeze catching my robe and billowing its loose, atramentous folds. Perhaps that crimson opaqueness was entirely contrived by the subconscious resignation in my heart, the grim acceptance foreshadowing the deed I would inevitably commit. Whatever it was, it seemed to me as though the woods themselves were braced for murder.

“You take a great risk in meeting with me.” I said, leering down at the man slumped despondently against a long-disused mining cart, still weighted in place by its neglected load. “I do not really care…” He replied, his voice broken and defeated and cracking with emotion. “Do you wish to kill me then? I doubt I could even begin to stop you right now…” His armour was tattered and worn, his face sunken and sickly, his eyes like dark, shallow portals set against his pale skin. Were it not for the betraying tells of his breaking voice and his pleading looks, he would be but a hollow visage devoid of any humanity. He had shed all but its last vestiges in a corrupt and desperate trade to return to this plane.

“Does she know you are alive?” I enquired sharply, looming over that pathetic, weeping shell of a man. “I don’t know…” He replied. If she did not know, then there was still time. Stirred with resolve, I spoke again. “Then it would make sense to kill you. You have brought her nothing but pain and heartbreak and loss. And now it seems you would inflict that on her a second time.” He flinched as though slapped across the face by my words, looking sadly up at me as would a stricken, cowering animal. “Perhaps you are right…” He said. “But I want to make it right…after all I gave to come back and see her…my magic…my god…and much more…”

“So what? Just because you have destroyed what was left of yourself does not make you any more worthy to be in her presence. You have even less to offer her now, and you will only bring her down with you.” I made no effort to disguise the venom seeping into my voice. “I will not let that happen.”

He gazed dejectedly at the nearby cliff edge. I wondered for a moment if he was considering jumping. It would make this a lot easier if he did. “Perhaps you are right…” He said again, his tone weakening with every breaking word. “I never wished to harm her…ever…and I only wish to see her once more…just once…but perhaps you are right…”

I sighed wearily. He was so pathetic, a blubbering, huddled mess. I pitied him. It was not much, but it was enough for me to offer him one last out, one final chance to save his worthless life: “If you love her, as she once loved you, you will leave the Coast and never return. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before your selfishness consumes her.”

There was a long, painful silence as he considered my words. Glistening drops began to fall from his eyes and coalesce in lachrymose pools on the ground. He looked up at me, his face now visibly wet from the tears, and he began to sob uncontrollably. “I...I cannot do what you ask. If you believe that it is in her best interest then please kill me now...I can’t...and won’t stop looking for her...” He stammered amid the sobs. “She is the one thing I cared for...”

I looked down at him, my eyes misty but fierce beneath my hood, as the moment closed. I was out of options then. This was the only way I could save her. His lover. My sister. “If you will not do the right thing…” I said, drawing my blades with a soft metallic whistle “...then I must.” He looked despairingly up at me, his expression contorted with pain, unrelenting tears now streaming down his face. I tensed slightly as he reached into his tunic and drew out an unsealed envelope, together with another small object, gripping the latter tightly in his hand. “…If you believe it is best...just...please...give her this...” He placed the envelope on the leaf-covered ground before me, and then tightly clutched the other object with both hands. I felt the tears well in my eyes, some part of my mind still searching for another way for this to end. But I knew there was none. His life was forfeit. I was resolved. “I will.”

He gazed momentarily upwards at the swiftly darkening sky, visible through the barren forest canopy. Another gust of cool evening breeze blew through his hair, and he closed his eyes for the last time. I drew in a deep breath, mustering every last reserve of willpower I possibly could. In a flash I lashed out with my blades, spattering long arcs of his blood across the leafy ground. As he fell limp to the ground, his hand unclenched and released the object he had been so desperately holding. It rolled a short way and came to rest on the forest floor. A finely wrought silver wedding ring…her name ornately engraved along the band in a beautiful flowing script…

He really loved her… What have I done? The pool of blood spread quickly through the carpet of leaves, and the ring was soon engulfed and submerged, disappearing with the crimson tide. Choking back tears, I stared in horror at the spot where the ring lay, and then at my blades that now dripped with blood. “…I will make sure she keeps only the best memory of you…I promise…” Flicking the blood away, I sheathed my weapons and collected the envelope. I turned and began to walk away, not daring to look back. As the horror and sorrow and guilt began to merge in my mind, I broke into a run. I ran as far as I could, giving no thought to where I was going, giving no thought to anything but the grim carnage behind me, and the torturous heartbreak that awaited her.

After a time, breathless, exhausted and hysterical, my legs gave way, and I broke down and wept.

[Aikura]

-Damning Specific-

It was the night her world fell away. Our hopeful stars were veiled by a ceiling of foreboding cloud, spanning the night sky and shrouding us in darkness. No mesmerising lights glistened on the surface of the water, no dancing reflections or illusory floating candles to offer comfort or reassurance. Corrupting black waves lapped sibilantly upon the darkened shoreline. After tonight, she would never be able look at me the same way again.

She waited for me at the water’s edge, her back turned, as I approached with tentative, dreading steps. I held clutched in my hand the harbinger of her immanent suffering; the contents of the envelope he had bequeathed me mere moments before I had ended him. It was something far more terrible than any weapon I could command, more cutting than any blade. It was a symbol. One half of a wretched pair. And it would burn a hole through her heart. Still, I had to give it to her, to tell her what happened to him. What he did. And what I did. She could hate me forever. She could try and kill me, and I would not stop her. She deserved to know, and I deserved to die.

“Sister...” The word that escaped my lips was scarcely more than a broken whimper. I remember her expression as she turned, her familiar smile swiftly fading as she registered the emotion in my voice, glimpsed my wet cheeks, my tear-swollen eyes...my bloodied hands. Her expression changed and contorted, from surprise to confusion to dread. She could sense what was to come, her next question loaded with the damning specific. “What have you done?” I raised my clenched fist, coagulated blood caked between my fingers. As I slowly opened it, her eyes caught the flash of silver that seemed bright even in the moonless dark. The name engraved along the band unmistakable, even when partially obscured by the stain.

I would give anything to erase the memory of what ensued. Words cannot describe the agony that manifested in her eyes. I rushed to her side as she collapsed on the waterline, doing my best to hold her head above the mocking waves. She was drowning anyway. Her screams and sobs will haunt me forever. She was being tortured in my arms and there was absolutely nothing I could do to ease her pain. No matter how much she cried and pleaded, the blade twisted ceaselessly in her heart.

As I rocked her back and forth amidst the lapping water, all I could do was weakly apologise over and over. “How could you?! I want to hate you!” She stammered as she wept uncontrollably. “I wish I could hate you for this...” The pain in her voice was overwhelming. “...but you are all I have left now.”

I swallowed hard. I had taken everything from her and yet she could not even hate me in return. I had trapped her here, held her down while I stripped pieces from her soul. Guilt mingled with regret, and yet still the selfish thoughts surfaced. Had I not done the right thing? Had I not saved her? Will she ever love me again? I would do anything now to relieve her anguish. It is unbearable.

Gods I cannot even write this anymore.

[Aikura]

-Shadow Syllables-

She was getting worse, more so with each passing day. It had been several weeks since my damning revelation, since I had killed the one she was set to marry and scarred her irrevocably. After her initial breakdown, which had been terrible, there had been no more outpourings of anguish, which was even worse. There had been little emotion from her whatsoever. She had buried the pain, deeply. She had become cold and hard and worryingly reckless. I had seen the way she leered at the others; she was looking for an excuse to snap, to destroy everything as yet untouched and draw it into the vacuum of her nightmare. I needed to find an outlet for her, a distraction. We needed to do something both profoundly foolish and relatively innocuous. We needed to break a rule.

It did not take much to seed the idea in my head. It was impulsive, spontaneous and with permanent consequence. The prerequisite ingredients were easy enough to come by: some black ink, a couple of sharp knives, clean bandages and—of critical importance—some very strong drink. We chose the beach south of Candlekeep as the setting for our intended masochism. The prominent full moon cast a romantic pale blue light on the white sand, dim yet still easily sufficient to work with. The mood felt just right, one of melancholic, yet nuanced, resignation.

I drew the symbols in the sand first, so she could practice and perfect them. Two layered characters, together composed of sixteen fluid strokes and perhaps a dozen smaller particles. They were Shadow Syllables. Complex hand signals, used to silently communicate tactical information in the field, translated into the emblematic written codex of the Order. Beautiful for something so insidiously tarnished by its purpose. An obsolete lexicon of which I was likely the sole surviving curator. After all, I had murdered all of the others.

“What do they mean?” She asked me. I glanced at her and laughed softly. “Now it would not be any fun if I told you. Do you not trust me?” I retorted. She yielded a slight chuckle and began memorising the characters. I watched her drawing in the sand with her blade, mimicking my strokes perfectly, settling into a meditative rhythm of calligraphy. It was the first time in weeks that I had seen her so calm and focused. Minimally, this was all a very welcome distraction. Perhaps things would not be any different tomorrow, but at least for now there was a marginal easing of the corrosive inner pain that had been eating at her these past few weeks. We would substitute with some comparably healthy outer pain.

“Ready?” I asked her. “I will do yours first.” She took a long swig from the fire whisky and, through the splutters, nodded wordlessly at me. I prepared the blade and the ink, coating the former generously in the latter. I was not even sure that this would work. The cut would have to be deep enough in the skin for the ink to permeate the wound, but shallow enough for it to settle and heal over. She stripped to her waist, laying bare her back and shoulders, and sat ceremonially facing the water’s edge, gazing out at the stars’ reflections on the waves in trance-like anticipation of the blade’s first touch.

The moonlight made her skin appear even paler than usual as I searched for the right spot. I pressed the knife to her left shoulder blade, marking the starting point for the first stroke, and began to cut. I could sense her body quiver from the pain as I began to etch the first character, yet no sound or complaint escaped her lips. Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, she was as strong as ever. Stroke followed stroke and the tattoo began to appear, its black lines contrasting vividly with her pale skin.

Not until the very last stroke did she yield the smallest whimper, followed by a relieved sigh as the ordeal came to an end. I sat back for a moment, admiring my own work. It was truly beautiful. She winced again as I poured some alcohol on the wound, before applying the bandage as gently as possible. She stood up and tentatively felt around the bandages, as if confirming the reality of her new feature, and then looked to me. “Your turn. Ready?”

“Wait.” I said. I popped a new bottle of whisky and gulped liberally. Oh gods, what had I gotten myself into? I stripped in the same manner and sat in the sand facing the shoreline, nervously awaiting the sting of the knife. I recall a moment’s hesitation, wondering if she was still lucid enough to undertake such a delicate operation. I wiped a drop of whisky from my chin and steeled myself. “Ready.”

I gasped as the blade entered my shoulder. The pain was blinding. I have been wounded more times than I can count, though that pain was always dampened by the adrenaline of battle. This was quite different. My mouth opened in a silent scream, it was all I could do not to writhe around as she unrelentingly carved each stroke. The cuts were unfailingly smooth though, her hand never wavering or faltering in the slightest. I gasped again and breathed deeply as she completed the final stroke. “How is it?” I asked. She smiled and spoke with complete humility. “Perfect.”

She patched me up and we sat together in silence through the depths of the night. I could feel the calm emanate from her again. I had no need to explain the meaning of the characters to her, because she already knew in her heart what they symbolised. This was exactly what she needed right now. It too was an irrevocable scar, but of quite a different sort. More than a roguish distraction, the tattoo was a timely reminder of all that she had yet to live for. The shadow syllables were a reaffirmation of the oath we had made so long ago, of our commitment to each other above all else.

Two words, two perfect images. Sisters first.

[Aikura]

-Waiting for the Rain-

I returned to that place often, to the spot where that shadow-grey curtain of rain had been drawn between us, a seemingly incomparable divide. A barrier of air and mist, and fear. It had seemed impenetrable, not just a wall apart, but worlds in between. He was a mark, a resource, and I was his manipulator only. Or so it should have been. Somewhere in the awkward confluence of emotions he had evoked in me, I had lost sight of my purpose for him. Likewise, he had shied away from what he so obviously wanted. We had been afraid to touch, trust, love. Had we been too cautious? Were we cowards? I supposed now that I would never know. I would bury the agonising uncertainty, along with everything else.

As far away as he had seemed then, it was nothing like this. He had left without so much as a guilty word, and the confession in my heart said he would not be coming back. With each day I was more resigned to this fact. All the same, I returned to that place often and gazed longingly up at the unyielding clouds, waiting for the rain.

[Aikura]

-Inamorato-

A cool spring breeze caught the few tails of hair that escaped my hood, blowing them at odd angles across my face. We stood amidst that small meadow of wild flowers, overlooking the mine fortifications, holding each other’s gaze. He was unfalteringly confident, neither blinking nor blushing as his eyes met mine.

I could make excuses. I could say it was during a tough time in my life. I had ended lives and wounded those I cared about the most. I had lost everything, been rendered homeless and watched my dreams disintegrate and run as dust through my fingers. I could say I felt alone. I could say it was only natural in the circumstances to look in hope for the comfort of another. Hells, I could even say that my morbid excuse for a childhood had left me an emotionally disabled wreck whose list of psychological pathologies is sufficiently heavy to make suitable catapult ammunition. I could say these things, but they would do naught to obscure the yearning in my heart. Yearning that is as palpable and real as anything I have ever known.

Of course this is not the way it should have been. Aikura ought to have been antonymous with romance. My would-be suitors would sooner find themselves at the bottom of a cliff than in my arms above it. Yet twice now, against conscious will and common sense, I had opened my heart to someone and shown him exactly where to put the blade. It seemed that, despite successive graduations summa cum laude from the relationship school of hard knocks, I simply refused to learn this lesson. Perhaps third time’s a charm.

This one was different though, for better or worse. Though I looked deeper, I could not see through him like I could others. Where most were transparent, he was opaque. Where most were uniform, he was mosaic. With threads of boyish charm he wove the part of type-cast scoundrel, a cavalier inamorato lost in his endless conquest of the fairer sex. He wore it well; a mask that adorned his true thoughts and feelings and cloaked them from my interrogating stare. He buried them deep and, though I could feel them there, I could not clearly distinguish them from the shrouding facade.

The tinniest of cracks begin to appear in his stage make-up. Mischievous devilish grin laced with undercurrent genuine smile. Crass and lustful leer imbued with subtle caring gaze. Where did the game begin, and where did it end? He played a character playing a character and he never broke more than one at a time. He teasingly allowed me mere glimpses of his soul that were fleeting at best. He was a puzzle wrapped in an enigma, rolled up in a misleading answer sheet.

The curse of puzzles is the way they engage curiosity. Curiosity baits failure. They generate frustration, which is then recycled into persistence. They fascinate and entrap, and persistence soon turns into addiction and folly. To me, he seemed like a worthy opponent in this dangerous game, and I was all too keen to play. Nevertheless, I promised myself I would stop well before it got out of hand.

As we stood there amidst the wild flowers, holding each other’s gaze, I was struck by a moment of lucidity and remembered this promise. I tucked the rogue tails of my hair back into my hood and averted my eyes. It was a wise move. After all, if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will come right out and kiss you.

[Aikura]

-A Different Sort of Regret-

The first thing I saw as I opened my eyes was a searing flash of pale blue light, splitting the darkness that was hitherto entrenched in my head. I was momentarily blinded by this unbidden flare engulfing my field of vision, sensory overload plunging my unprepared mind into a deep confusion. As my eyes desperately strained to adjust to this sudden onslaught, the material world gradually began to manifest, though it all appeared to be in unceasing motion. It swam around me in a disorienting aqua haze, its seemingly free-floating objects unfamiliar and indistinguishable in their nauseating orbit. As I blinked frantically in a vain attempt to tame my surroundings into focus, the pain hit. An agonising ache that came in tortuously throbbing waves, as if a smithy-heated hammer was laboriously beating in my head. Whatever had hit me, it had hit damned hard.

My eyes reluctantly began to focus and adjust to the light, the turbulent maelstrom slowing and costively settling into a gentle whirlpool of vaguely identifiable shapes and objects. I blinked disbelievingly as a couch, a wall hanging, a dining table, a fireplace and a chandelier all swam past me in a surreal parade. I briefly tried lifting my head, but the abrupt worsening of the awful throb therein swiftly convinced me that this was a horrible mistake. Breathing awkwardly through the pain, I glanced down at my unfamiliar clothing, set against the still-blurry background of...the Weave Masters Tower? The swimming objects gradually stopped swimming and settled into their appropriate niches. And then, finally, the smug culprit of my incapacitation was revealed, betrayed by the unmistakably foul aftertaste in my mouth of fire whisky that had gone both ways. Ugh...now I remember.

Following an unsuccessful attempt to swallow the taste away, I rested my head back and closed my eyes again, controlling my breathing and letting the events of the night before begin to filter through my mind. Images lazily surfaced from the mist of my hangover, faces and voices, some familiar, some not. One by one the images slotted into a sequence of events that gave explanation to my present condition. A letter, a warehouse interior, many hooded figures, a change in the roster, a careful path through the streets to that tall building, separation, a diversion, some fast talking, more than one kind of treachery, my own brand of mischief, and a hasty escape with the prize and more. And then of course, celebratory drinks; the fateful instigators of my current predicament.

As I lay there and reflected, a satisfied smile crept involuntarily across my face. It had been a good plan. It had proved to be versatile, and I had proved myself with it. With success came new status; a title that not only gave effect to the resources I would now command, but also to that trait for which I was becoming increasingly known. Even through my dry mouth and the foul residual taste of the previous night’s lapse in judgement, the word rolled off my tongue imbued with its own elegance and ever-seductive mystery: “Whisperer.”

Allowing the celebration to progress to the umpteenth round was an undeniable error, but this was a different sort of regret. The headache and dizziness were attenuated by the pleasantly resurfacing memory of how they had come about, and with whom I had shared this folly. It was a feeling of warm calmness that cosily wrapped itself around my throbbing mind and conferred a most unexpectedly gratifying consolation.

In a few hours, the aching and nausea would evaporate, and leave only light-hearted felicity.

[Aikura]

-Shades of Silver-

Amidst the dark broth of the crucible of shadow, there resides a name. Behind that name is a choice. Behind that choice is a memory. Informing that memory is a past. This past is replete with deeds, each compelled by another choice, which in turn was consequential to an action before it and so on. For the consequences my actions have already had, and for those yet to come, the answers may lie here.

The events of my life are huddled together at the edge of memory; a modest concert silhouetted against a vast plane of emptiness. Yet as I reflect dispassionately on these events, I can see the cogent chain of causation that glares tauntingly at me. As I look on, my past leers back and winks knowingly. Every unwitting footfall down this path of shadow inevitably provoked the next. This fact is so damningly obvious in retrospect that the progression of events really is as natural as walking. We are all grains tumbling haplessly through the Hourglass. For the choice I made, I entered that critical nexus as one person, a slave, and came out another, a free woman.

There is little I value more than freedom. And yet as the vast chasm of fate yawns before me, I wonder if such a paradoxical thing can even exist. The choices of my past are circling restlessly, and as each falls under my scrutinising gaze, I begin to wonder if I ever really owned any of them. This is not to deny that every deed was imbued with agency; the dark, the light, and the shades of silver in between. I shed responsibility for nothing. I have killed for love, and loved for murder. Yet in every case, in every scene of every act, each choice followed seamlessly from the one before it. An inflexible narrative where the means justifies the means, and there is no end in sight.

It began with that which created me: The Order. They who so carelessly toppled the first domino in the fateful chain that made me what I am. Their first act created me. Before the escape that haunts my dreams, before the target that stayed my hand, before the years of indoctrination and training and shaping of the killer into which they would mould me, they gave me a name. They named me Aikura. Love of Shadow. How unfair.

This name is not the one of which I speak. I have walked the Coast under many names, given to me by those who have had the memorable displeasure of meeting me. Some are unkind, others fearful, and a small few are even endearing. But all are ascribed; crude descriptors given in lieu of actual knowledge. It is a curious thing, to name the eyes that watch in the dark. Muted lights and footfalls, and augural feelings. It is like naming the tingling on the back of your neck. Some names dispel anxiety, while others give effect to the thing they fear and inspire paranoia. Almost all betray an uncompromising dearth of imagination. Despite this, many are accurate and there are a few I have even grown to like.

Yet none, however fitting, are truly mine. Of the multitude of names I wear, there is only one that I chose for myself...

[Silver]

...I am Silver. The shades in between. That which straddles light and dark, absorbs neither and reflects both. She who steps lightly, fights flawlessly, and loves fiercely. The ice amidst the ashes, the shadow of the stars, the whispers that pitch above the wind. It is the name given to my wilful dive through the Hourglass, and to everything that followed, terrible and wonderful alike. It is emblematic of the freedom I so desperately cling to, and the current of fate I stubbornly swim against.

From this name sprang the choice. From this choice distilled the memory. Within that memory is preserved the past. Giving substance to that past is the multitude of deeds, and every deed therein the result of another choice, and so on. Until here, amidst the dark broth of the crucible of shadow, dwells all that I am.

At least this time, I have chosen my path.

[Aikura]

-The Second Moment-

“Well well well.” The agenda-laden whisper floated softly to my ear as I entered the dimly lit room of the Blade and Stars, the warm flicker of the hearth fire illuminating my antagonist as he stepped from the shadows. A familiar picture; slender build, dark tunic, ensnaring green eyes. After all that hopeless waiting, the rain had returned, and at the worst possible time.

He glanced down at my clenched fist and the weathered sheet of parchment that was clutched therein. “Is that what I think it is?” He asked nonchalantly, doing well to disguise the underwriting note of concern in his voice. I met his question with an all-too-confirming glare. His eyes darted from the parchment, to the silk-wrapped hilts at my waist, and back to the cold expression on my face. After a long, guarded look, he decided to test the water: “I know there is a part of you that is unsure if you can collect on that bounty, Aikura.”

A spiteful scoff escaped my lips. “You know me better than that. I would not even be here if I did not have a plan.” A conceding spark of uncertainty flared in his eyes. “What do you intend to do then?” I looked at him, the tempest of indecision whirling in my mind. Part of me really wanted to kill him. Deep down however, I knew that such anger was merely pain in a weak disguise. I had been hurt. With a heavy sigh, I threw the crumpled bounty notice at his feet.

“You left without a word.” I said, opting for honesty; a rare change of tact. “Why did you not say goodbye?” His expression softened so swiftly and unexpectedly that I was momentarily taken aback. His guilt was apparent. “I am sorry, Aik. I...did not think you cared that much.”

I gave him a long, challenging stare. “If I ever did, it was fleeting, and now long forgotten. However, we did have an agreement, remember? Despite your fine promises, when it counted you were nowhere to be found.” I paused briefly, never breaking eye contact, letting the accusation sink its teeth in. “For someone who ascribes so much importance to loyalty...you certainly have a curious way of showing it.”

He averted his eyes, hanging his head slightly and gazing at the floor. “I am sorry I was not there Aik...but I am loyal to you.” He looked back at me, his eyes sad, a picture of sincere regret. “More than you know...”

I scoffed again. “Despite all evidence to the contrary? It seems you are no longer fit to be my ally, let alone anything more.” I was about ready to walk out, to abandon this bitter chapter and confine it to the dark corner of my mind reserved for memories best forgotten.

He sighed heavily and turned away, his shoulders hunched. “You are stubborn, and arrogant.” He said. I narrowed my eyes at him. “The only traits we have in common.” I retorted. He turned back to me, his gaze level and focused, and I tensed as he reached slowly into his tunic. However, it was an entirely different weapon he produced; his own piece of parchment, formal in appearance, covered in a flowing script. I recognised the distinctive features all too well, unique to this kind of piece. It included a client...and a target. It was his trump card; an assassination contract with my name on it. He had carried it with him all this time. I was struck breathless.

Now, I am the first to admit that refraining from killing someone is not the most romantic gesture of all time. One must remember though, it was this very act that set me free from the Order all those years ago; my first moment. There is no greater symbol of the freedom I cherish than to make the choice not to kill, even though everything that you are, everything you have been made to be unyieldingly dictates that you are supposed to. His choice mirrored my own. And it resonated with me, deeply.

This was the second moment of what I now call my life. He would be my first real love, and my first for many other things.

After a long drought, the rain is sweetest.

[Aikura]

-Secret Letter-

The Amnian rain beat ceaselessly against the murky window pain, doing little to loosen the densely caked city grime that had accumulated and weatherised over many years. I stood with my face inches from the glass, a patch of misty breath forming on its surface, the watery impressions of the rain casting swirling shadows running in mimetic streams down my face. It was the middle of the day, and yet this storm was such that my humble room in a side-street Athkatlan Inn lay dark. Holding back the premature night was the dim silvery light from the single window, and the pale luminescent globe of the thin-burning candle on the table, by which I had written the letter.

Hypnotised by the rain on the window, my thoughts drifted to the path that had led me here, and those I had left behind. It had been so cruel. After everything that had happened, it was just another dramatic twist to dash my shot at happiness. Following in the wake of the whirlwind of revelations, I had left in a hurry, telling no one of my destination. Not my lover, not my sister, and certainly not the Guild. Gods, if they knew where I was, and my reasons for being here...they would see that it was all my fault. Every blow against us, every ill turn of fate, everything that had happened since the Heart Attack contract. My fault.

How could I not have known that he was once a Shadow Thief? I had done my homework, unearthed every secret, delved into every dark corner of his past, and yet somehow I had missed this most critical detail. I did not want to believe it. We were both a lot better than that. Even in love, we were never so clumsy. And yet...the timing of it all. It was surely too perfect to all be a coincidence. They could have been following him all this time. He led them to me, and I led them to the Guild. It all lined up like a tauntingly obvious formation of dominos, ready to fall.

I was not here to run away. That might have been the obvious thing to do, but I would not give up on him. I was here to find out the truth. I would make sure, beyond any doubt, that his tail was clear. If this image stayed with me, it would be for his love, not for my guilt.

I looked away from the window, to the letter that lay on the table, the still-wet ink lending a subtle sheen to the curves of the calligraphy.

I strode over and sat down, reading back through the letter with a weary eye. It was a quirky poem, though not poetry by any stretch. It was the style in which I had become accustomed to writing; filled with off-rhymes, misnomers and other Cantish features intended to frustrate accidental readers. The meaning of this one though, would be relatively clear, at least to him. It was our story, what had happened, and what I would have happen. It was imbued with the last of my hope.

Chasing thieves of shadow cloak,
Taking cues from faceless folk,
So swift she left,
Her heart was cleft,
And his was surely broke.

It seemed nothing could ever last,
Her starless skies were overcast,
But as she veered,
The shadows cleared,
She found clarity at last.

She vested all for the better,
Her love within a secret letter,
Plans ran through,
Her mind anew,
Fulfilling her vendetta.

Mysteries fall and shadows lift,
Through greyly veiled answers sift,
She is coming home,
To reclaim her throne,
At the end of aimless drift.

Silencing the cruel alarms,
Capitulate to lover’s charms,
Intentions show,
Her face aglow,
She soon returns to his arms.

Arriving at this point in the letter, I paused for a moment. There were some things I still could not say. I pressed my hand to the parchment and carefully tore away the bottom piece containing a final stanza, tucking it away in my dress, close to my heart. It was a verse I would keep for myself alone, a hope I dared not share. Whatever happened here, whatever truth I uncovered, I would not give up on him. I could no longer deny that I was utterly, irrevocably, tragically, in love.

Our hopeful stars ascend the ether,
The strings of weighty past they sever,
And through the pain,
We fall like rain,
And live happily after ever.

[Aikura]

-Dressed in Lilacs-

My burden feels lighter by the minute. Even now the warm lightness grows in the wake of the retreating fear and apprehension. Calmness washes over me in slow, satisfying waves. Each one strips me of another clinging layer of malignant doubt, dragging it away kicking and screaming with the waning tide. I find myself in this place out of time, hidden snugly away from the caveats of my tenuous existence. Silver, Guildmaster, Whisperer; these faces all turn away, politely averting their eyes, allowing me this moment to simply be Aikura, a woman free of responsibility.

For once, it had been naught but an unfortunate coincidence. He could not have been the link. It could not have been my fault. Okay, so I admit I had not looked that hard. The dominos had aligned all too well, so I had defiantly kicked over the table and scattered them everywhere. Can I really be blamed for clinging to a world I had only just discovered, even if it was revealed to be nothing but a fiction? A tauntingly beautiful fiction. If I cling desperately enough, perhaps I can yet imagine it into existence. His...no, our world. Our sanctuary out of time. A world dressed in lilacs.

I cannot believe I am here, now, in this place, at this moment. All my fears fleeing, fading, evaporating into nothingness. The softness of the rug beneath me. The silhouette of his body against the flickering glow of the hearth fire at his back. The warmth of the fire caressing my naked skin. The warmer caress of his fingers tracing the tattoo on my back.

This must be what happiness feels like.