Spring had died young on the Sky Star Continent.
Its final breath melted into winter's icy grasp, leaving behind a land both breathtaking and deadly much like the continent itself. Snow blanketed mountains like soft silver armor, draping cliff edges and wildflower valleys in shimmering white. A traveler might have considered it peaceful, even majestic, if not for the fact that the snowfield occasionally moved.
Massive shapes prowled beneath trees. Some were small enough to hide behind rocks. Others were large enough to be the rocks. Their eyes gleamed like gemstones in the frost, watching, waiting. A beautiful continent, yes but also a graveyard with good scenery.
And deeper within this vast land, past the mountain ridges carved by ancient battles, lay the Whispering Wilds the largest and most terrifying forest on the continent. Even winter dared not silence it. Every gust of wind carried low growls. Every snowfall hid claw marks big enough to swallow a carriage. No sane person entered.
Which, of course, was exactly why someone was running through it tonight.
Snowflakes drifted lazily through the towering trees, settling atop an abandoned mansion swallowed by vines and decades of disuse. Its once-grand walls sagged, roofs cracked open to reveal beams that creaked like old bones. Lanterns lay collapsed, stone tiles shattered, wooden pillars warped and leaning. A place forgotten by time.
But not forgotten tonight.
Shadowy figures streaked across the treetops, their feet barely touching the branches as they pursued someone with relentless ferocity. They moved like a pack of wolves silent, coordinated, merciless. Black cloaks fluttered behind them like torn bat wings.
Their target stumbled into the courtyard of the abandoned mansion, snow crunching beneath her boots. Her hood fell back as she skidded to a halt.
Moonlight revealed her face.
Or what remained of what must have once been an extraordinary beauty. Long scars slashed across her cheek and jaw, pale against her chilled skin. Yet beneath the ruin, her femininity still lingered high cheekbones, a sharp yet elegant jawline, lips pressed thin with pain and stubbornness.
She was neither slim nor soft, neither fragile nor bulky. She was simply…complete. A woman who would have been devastatingly beautiful if not for the disfigurement carved into her features.
Her breath fogged the frigid air in uneven bursts.
And her katana held steady in her shaking grip dripped with fresh blood.
Veins bulged dark beneath her skin, pulsing violently. Poison surged through her body, turning her complexion unnaturally pale. A deep stab wound marred her abdomen, blood seeping into the snow in a thick, slow stream. But despite all of this, her stance remained firm. Her blade did not waver.
The courtyard fell silent.
The kind of silence only abandoned places could produce: ancient, hollow, as though every sound made was one too many. The moonlight spilled through gaps in the shattered roof, illuminating the debris fallen beams, splintered tiles, vines that had wrapped around broken pillars like skeletal fingers.
And in the center of it all stood the woman.
Her serpent-green eyes glowed faintly from beneath the shadow of her hood eyes that held neither fear nor hope, only a quiet, simmering promise of violence.
That alone should have made any sane man back away.
Unfortunately, the men surrounding her were not sane.
One by one, the black-cloaked assassins descended, forming a ring around her on the rooftop, on ruined walls, in the courtyard snow. Dozens of them. Maybe more. Their blades gleamed wickedly, eager.
They charged as one.
She didn't scream. She didn't roar. She simply breathed out and moved.
Her katana whispered a smooth, lethal sound, like winter slicing through the air.
The first man's head flew clean off, thudding against the courtyard wall with a dull, final sound. Blood sprayed across the frozen ground, steaming slightly in the cold.
Another lunged at her back. She twisted, ignoring the agony tearing through her poisoned veins, and let his blade whistle past her ribs. Her katana cut downward clean, precise and his wrist detached from his arm like it had been waiting its entire life for that moment. He didn't even have time to register the loss before she rammed her blade straight through his throat, pinning him to a rotting beam with a wet crunch.
Three came at once next a coordinated attempt, clearly the work of trained killers.
She jumped, planting a foot on one man's shoulder, and vaulted above them. Mid-air, her sword spun in her hand, slicing a shining arc of steel through the air.
Two of the men collapsed without knowing they were already dead, their heads slipping from their bodies like loose stones.
The third spun around to look for her poorly before collapsing face-first, his spine severed with a single, contemptuous cut.
Her breath was ragged. The poison flared hotter. Her vision wavered.
But she didn't stop.
Her pupils thinned sharply.
Her serpent gaze awakened.
One assassin locked eyes with her.
He didn't even have time to scream.
WHOOMPH!
Black-green flames erupted over his body, devouring him from the inside out. He flailed wildly for a moment, then collapsed into ash.
Another turned his head too late. A serpent-shaped flare of energy coiled around him suffocating, scorching and he disintegrated with a sound like sizzling oil.
The final assassin still standing backed up until he hit a broken courtyard wall. His hands trembled violently. "D-Don't look at me," he begged, voice cracking.
She didn't.
Not because of mercy.
Just because he wasn't worth the effort.
She walked toward him slowly, blade dragging lightly across the snowy tiles with a delicate scrape. His knees buckled.
Then she slit his throat without a change in expression.
Silence swallowed the courtyard once more.
Her chest rose and fell sharply. Her legs threatened to collapse, but she forced herself upright, gripping her wound with a trembling hand. Blood seeped through her fingers. The poison pulsed like a firestorm under her skin, threatening to consume her entirely.
She swayed.
Her vision blurred.
And the.
The air shifted.
A cold, heavy pressure swept across the courtyard. The flames on the corpses flickered fiercely, as though bowing to something unseen. Even the falling snow seemed to hesitate.
She turned her head, jaw tight.
The massive wooden doors at the edge of the courtyard half rotted, half missing creaked open as if pushed by an unseen force.
A figure stepped through the darkness beyond.
Tall. Cloaked in deep crimson. A silver mask covered his face, polished enough to reflect the moonlight like a wicked smile.
His presence felt like a blood-soaked night stretching endlessly across the world.
And behind him,
The moonlight shifted.
Revealing an army.
No an ocean.
Rows upon rows of black-cloaked figures stood behind him, packed tightly, spilling out of the entrance and deep into the shadows. A thousand at least. Maybe more. Their blades glimmered like a field of cold stars.
The crimson-cloaked figure tilted his head slightly, as if admiring her stubbornness.
"Well," he said calmly, his voice smooth, amused, and unbothered by the mountain of corpses she'd created. "You killed the warm-up."
Her fingers tightened around the katana hilt.
She exhaled slowly, a thin mist escaping her lips.
Her serpent-green eyes began glowing again.