• Stunning cover designed by -wanderes and banner made by me but inspired by her work •

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He's still breathing.

The voice in my head scrapes against my senses, like a blade against rough brick. I discard the leather gloves, soaked with blood from the corpse now cooling in the muddy street of Warroll.

Look. He's alive.

I huff, frustrated with the continuous arguments of the voices. He's dead, the pooling blood and glassy sheen over his eyes is all the evidence I need of that fact.

But they just can't help making me distrust my own senses.

The black gloves look like dead animals in the mud, bloody carcasses that've been thoroughly abused, like the rest of us.

You shouldn't have turned back. He would have hurt you for your stupidity.

The demanding voice doesn't like to be ignored, the grating tone of it raking down my spine.

Stop it. She needs to focus.

I clench my hands into fists and let out a breath, focusing on the tickle of the breeze against my knuckles, something that shouldn't be such a foreign feeling. I glance down at my clenched fist, my right hand etched with the golden markings that have haunted me all my life. No, bare hands shouldn't be strange, but I continue to try and pretend to be ordinary by hiding them behind gloves.

Ordinary? No killer is ordinary.

"Az?"

I blink at the whisper, almost convinced that it's another noise in my head. "Are you hurt?" I question, my voice abrupt in the silence of the alley, the aged brick throwing the words back at me.

Look what you've done. Look at it.

"You killed him," the boy says.

I tear my gaze away from the gloves and turn to Dax, those wide hazel eyes and quivering lower lip softening my gaze. I should treat him with the same cold indifference as everyone else, but Dax is... Well, it's Dax. I've spent too many sleepless nights fretting for the small boy, hoping his weaknesses won't kill him. I won't be here to save him every time.

They broke you. Broke you like they couldn't break him. Who's the weak one?

"He knew who you were, knew your connection with me," I murmur. "You would be dead if I hadn't turned back for you." I shove my offending hands into my pockets, wondering if they'll ever be clean again. I don't know why I bother wondering.

Ruined and bloody, like home. Like him.

What home?

"Keep going, Dax," I command as I shake myself enough to turn back towards the darkness of the alley.

"But—" Dax begins, inching away from the dark and towards the flickering light of the muddy streets, no one but the soldiers braving them at this time of night.

"We finish this before it all amounts to nothing." I glance behind me with narrowed obsidian eyes.

The boy shakes his head.

"Go, Dax."

You're scaring him. Stop scaring him. He's not like you.

I resist informing the gentle voice in my ear that the only reason Dax has survived on the streets this long is because of someone like me. The kid would have died long ago if he hadn't sought me out. If he hadn't offered me his food and if I hadn't taken him to Jile.

You made him suffer.

"If we pull off this score then we can leave this shithole. Think about that carefully before you make your next choice." I watch him over my shoulder as his gaze darts about like he expects a blade in his back at any moment. Then they settle on me, settle and stay.

Dax steps over the corpse between us, sealing his fate.

It will be his ruin.

If I'm not careful, this will ruin us all.

It's too late to turn back now, blood has been spilt and we need to get out of this rat infested town before the manhunt commences. If it hasn't already. My likeness is plastered across town, printed with scary accuracy. It's becoming more and more difficult to find enough food for Dax and I, to scrounge enough coin to give to Jile to keep a roof over our heads. A street rat's main boon is being invisible, take that away and it's only a matter of time before we end up as another body on the barge to the ocean.

We keep our heads low as we move through the alley, my heart thudding with each splash of my boots through the murky puddles.

I keep a hand clenched around the blade tucked into the belt of my trousers, the metal pressed against my lower back. I know I'll have to use it again before the night is done. It's a small price to pay for freedom.

Freedom is a lie. A foolish hope.

This lie is the only thing I have left anymore.

Only because you didn't join him. Like a coward, you went into the ice instead.

She had to survive.

I have to resist slamming my head into a wall to stop the arguing voices in my ears. It's never worked before.

We slow as we reach the end of the buildings, the alley falling away to reveal a darkened landscape of mud and hills. The scuffling and squeals from a pig farm ahead are the only noises that pierce the night. No whistles from the Watchmen, no dogs yapping as they follow our trail, no thud and clatter as the Sharlik soldiers trudge through the farms in their heavy armour with their heavier swords.

The hunt hasn't yet begun in earnest. We still have time.

"Come on," I hiss and duck through the shadows, staying bowed. We scamper towards the tree line, footfalls muffled by grass and sludge. Dax stays close behind me, his breathing uneven. Sometimes I catch a snippet of his erratic heartbeat, but that might just be my own.

The trees wrap us into their cold embrace and my hand tightens around the blade.

We run, crunching on dead leaves and leaping over mossy logs. The trees creak and crack with the wind, their own quiet language.

There's a shuffle ahead, movement in the dark, the rustle of fabric and inhale of breath the only indication I get that we're not alone. I whip out my blade, stumbling to a halt. Dax runs into the back of me, throwing us both forward and I gasp as we tumble to the ground, rolling in wet leaves. The blade slips from my grip.

Fool. He would hurt you for that.

I roll onto my back and look up only to find an arrow pointed at my face, the glinting tip a breath from my eye. Muscles tensing, I don't move, staring at the arrowhead and waiting for it to finally finish this.

A quick death would be too kind for you.

"You must be Az," a girl says. "And Dax."

I manage a stiff nod, hands splayed by my head, waiting for her to react, to scream for the Watch that could be patrolling these woods, to collect the hefty ransom. The only thing that's saved me from such a betrayal has been the promise of freedom, but even my sway has limits.

The girl tilts her head, her face bathed in darkness. Then she lowers the bow and sticks out her hand. "Emera," she greets. "I'm the one that sent you the letter."

I narrow my gaze before standing, ignoring her hand to focus on pulling leaves from my black hair. "Named after the Goddess of Wolves."

Emera snorts and drops her hand. "Didn't think anyone cared about those stories anymore with the state of things."

I turn, glaring down at Dax as he continues to suck in deep breaths on the forest floor like a gaping fish. "Emera sided with Lucifer in the Great Rebellion," I mutter as I swipe up my blade and tuck it back into my belt. The stories were just another thing that helped me take my focus away from the chaos.

Never escape it. Never escape us.

"Well," Emera says, her voice cutting through the noise in my skull. She slings her bow over her head to let the string settle across her chest. "Seems I've got a little bit of rebel in me too. Let's go, the others are ahead."

I stick out my hand to Dax but he just stares at it, the golden markings that crawl up to my wrist on full display. He's glimpsed them before and it makes my gut churn to know that everyone will see them tonight, but I've never had enough coin to spare for another pair of gloves.

I kneel by Dax, Emera turning her back on us with a sigh.

"I am sorry, Dax," I murmur, keeping my voice low, only for him. His hazel eyes are wide and fearful, like a petrified deer. "I'm sorry you had to see what you saw back there." I glance the way we'd come, back towards town.

Dax takes a gulping breath before he nods. "I shouldn't have chickened out." He brushes leaves from his hands, still looking up at me. "You always have to save me."

"It's okay," I say with a shrug, though sometimes it's not okay and he's part of the reason my face is everywhere, but I prefer that to letting him die. "But stick close to me from now on, yeah? This is the last time we have to do something like this." I offer him a smile, my lips stinging from the cracks that split. "After this, we're getting out of Warroll and going someplace else."

Dax rubs his nose, the vibrant glint of fear in his eyes beginning to dull. My heart warms a little to see it. "Somewhere... that doesn't rain so much?"

I chuckle and incline my head. "Sure. Somewhere with plenty of sunshine." My smile fades as I see such sunshine in my eyes, a faraway land, far from the cold shadow of the Empire. I clear my throat and stand again, stretching out my hand for him. "Come on, I've got you."

Dax clasps my hand, the feel of bare skin on mine jarring up my arm. Dax scrambles to his feet and I let go of him, brushing my hands on my filthy trousers.

"You two done?" Emera asks and at my nod she begins trudging forward. We follow Emera, someone I've not had the pleasure of meeting until now even though she's the one that began all of this.

The pigeon came to my corner of the warehouse—perched upon the rotting beams that offered the street rats shelter—and studied its surroundings with its beady, dull eyes, its head twitching. I'd slung a rock at its skull and killed the bird before I realised it carried a letter. A letter that promised to change all of our fates. After I had Dax read it to me as I plucked the pigeon of its feathers, I began to plan. I dared to begin imagining the future again with that letter.

We stumble upon more kids, hunching in the forest with their gazes focused ahead, the crackle of nervous energy evident in the air. Dax and I split up as he goes to the others and he's greeted with hushed rebukes. Hopefully after tonight he won't ever have to face their scorn again.

I approach one of the older boys, his stringy hair dangling around his dirty face like torn rags. My insides twist upon seeing him, but some situations force me to work with such a bastard.

He glances at me, his blackened teeth gnawing on a toothpick. "You find Dax?" he asks, his voice nasally from his crooked and lumped nose. I would have liked to see his nose get broken, but I'll have to settle for imagining it every time I look at his face.

"I did," I reply, keeping my voice low.

"Any trouble?"

I bury my left hand in the wet leaves and clench my fingers around them, crumbling the leaves in my fist, reminded once again of the blood that bathes them. "None."

"Good." He turns away from me. "This wouldn't be a good time to fuck things up."

"When is it ever a good time to fuck things up?"

Jile's cracked lips quirk around his toothpick, his smile more like a snarl. I turn my gaze away. Looking at his cruel features for too long always makes the scar at my throat ache and it takes a lot within me not to run my fingers along it, just to make certain it doesn't bleed like it does in my dreams.

Jile's renowned malice is evident in the unstable glint in his gaze. Then again, I've heard the whispers that I carry the same look.

I brush my hands of the leaves and the thoughts. "Let's get this business done."

"Agreed." Jile tosses the toothpick to the ground and slides a blade from his belt, a broken sword taken from the remnants of a skirmish we'd both dared to loot together on the border of the Midland. I still have the scar across my back from that particular lapse in judgement. Just another one to join the array. "Your new friends have some nice gear. Funny that they've agreed to work with us."

"Desperate times, Jile." My dark gaze flits back to him. "Unlikely alliances are always formed between the desperate." But he's right to have doubts. Emera hasn't told me where she or those she brought with her hail from. They're certainly not street rats.

Jile hums, runs his tongue over his rotting teeth, and twirls his blade. "You know, you and I could start something with this small fortune."

"Start what?" I ask, shifting and not daring to give him a glance, not daring to give him any indication that I care for his unsettling words. I'd rather eat my own heart than partner with Jile. I've already given him too much of myself.

"We get away from the Empire. We start our own little venture into this new world of espionage you've introduced us to."

I continue staring into the trees, face as blank as can be considering how my stomach churns. "No," I whisper.

Jile shrugs. "I had a feeling you'd say that. But killing and thieving suits you, Az, like you were born for it."

A girl born a monster, not created.

Something dark and hot rears within me and the blade is in my hand before I can think properly, the steel glinting in the moonlight. Jile's breath hitches as the metal presses against his throat, just as he did to me two years ago. Except I know he doesn't have the fortitude to survive a cut throat like I do.

I bring my face close to his, nose flaring as his stench wafts over me. "You don't know a single thing about me," I sneer, lip curling. "Once this is done, I'm gone. If I ever see you again, I'll string you up by your own fucking intestines."

Jile snorts.

I press the blade harder against his throat, drawing a droplet of blood from him. "Do you hear me?"

"What I did to Dax wasn't personal, Az. No one lives in the warehouse for free, you know that."

My gut lurches, plummets to the bowels of Hell and stays there. The wails of Dax echo in my ears, like a wounded animal trying to escape the fatal blow. Death would have been a kindness for what Jile did to him, what I tried and failed to save Dax from. Death would have been a kindness for us all. But none of us received the mercy of death.

It's a price we all have to pay. Give Jile a piece of our souls and he gives us shelter and protection, he'll get us out when we need help.

I'd seen too many kids go to Jile, wide-eyed and tear-stained with nowhere else to turn, trading one nightmare for another. But Dax... Dax had hurt the most. He trusted me to save him from such a fate and instead I'd made it worse, unable to do anything as I lied in a pool of my own blood, trying not to choke on it.

I was a different person when I'd first arrived in Warroll with nothing but a burning need to survive, to see all the beasts destroyed for what they did to my brother. But everything changes and Jile has ruined each of us.

He destroyed you.

The guttural voice tempts me, urging the knife to sink deeper into Jile's throat.

He took from you what you should never have had to give. He betrayed you..

I should kill him for what he's done to us, what I've let happen. It won't fix any of it, but it's a start.

"Oi," someone hisses and my knife is back in my belt before anyone can see. Emera sidles up to us, her face still bathed in shadow from her hood. "The convoy is here. It's time to act."

"Let's go," I say and shift through the woods without looking back at Jile. If I look back I know I'll finish what I started by plunging a blade into his eye just to watch him scream like he's made so many kids. Imagining such a thing is the only way to make his sneering and sweating face in my nightmares seem less terrifying.

One day. One day everyone will pay the price for every scar they've given me.

I reach the line of the other street rats, huddling amongst the leaves and shadows, almost invisible with their dirt smudged features and rags for clothing. Emera settles next to me, her bow in hand, an arrow already notched. But instead of a gleaming metal arrowhead, the end is wrapped in cloth.

"I hope you're right about this," I mutter, eyes upon the darkened road ahead where all is still apart from the cold wind that crawls towards us.

"My information is never wrong," she defends. "This convoy will set us up for life."

"I don't know about you, but usually I like a little bit more 'information' with my information," I reply.

"I've been told that it contains more loot from the rubble of Tacree. Imagine the riches within an entire kingdom."

I can also imagine the amount of corpses left behind from what the Sharlik Empire did to the shape-shifter kingdom. They call the south's waters the Blood Ocean for a reason. It's said that the heads of kings and queens can still be seen bobbing upon the surface.

The wind reaches us, licking at my face, dashing away my thoughts. It lifts my hair from my neck and whispers in my ear. Run, it seems to say. Run and don't look back. But it could just be the voices in my head.

Ahead sounds the whinny of a horse, breaking through the silence. The crack of a whip follows and the galloping hooves thunder towards us. My pulse flares, blood rushing through my veins.

I've spent days waiting for this moment, anticipating coins and food and clothes and freedom. Hope is a dangerous thing, the edge of a blade. Hope can get even the smartest people killed.

As the convoy appears amongst the gloom, I know not to let hope sink its claws into me. People are too unpredictable for this to go smoothly.

"You ready?" Emera asks, her hand tightening around her bow. I glance at her, pale and pockmarked skin evident beneath her hood as she lifts her head.

"Are you?"

"This will be easy," she replies with a smirk.

I grind my teeth but nod and look back to the road where the carriages of riches rumble towards us.

If this fails, there's nothing left. Nothing but blood and shit and nightmares. I wrap my hand around the hilt of my blade and count the beats of my heart.

I've lived with nothing for too long.