“Intestines is a deadly blow, slow and painful. Femoral and Carotid arteries, quick death.

Thorax, plexus, temples, and the meridians here, here and here, temporary paralysis or loss of consciousness.”

Ra’fa was speaking like Marke. Most likely because what she was teaching could very well have been a lesson from the Legio.

The little girl did not understand exactly why the Legio was not giving her this lesson in the first place, so she asked about exactly that.

“M’a? Why are you the one telling me about all this?”

“I know the human body better than your father, that’s it. This knowledge will be useful in your training, so he asked me to teach them to you. But I’m also doing this so you can learn first aid. Now, repeat what I just told you.”

The girl did as she was asked.

“Good, now organs. Then I’ll explain how to put on a bandage and use disinfectant.”

“The burning alcohol?”

“Yes Nay.”

The child shivered.

Ra’fa’s lesson.

Nay rushed towards Joanna, sword and dagger unsheathed. The man in black backed away with no words, pushing his victim into Nay’s arms. He sheathed his weapon and raised his hands.

He was a skinny man that seemed almost fragile. His posture betrayed the truth. He was lean and fit, hiding his physique under a long dark cape. His face was nothing special, with lots of angles. He had to be in his forties.

Nay felt his Rreico, he did not want to fight anymore.

“My contract is done, and there is no price for your head…anymore.”

She did not listen to him.

“Jo?”

“Hey Nay…” A bloody cough interrupted her.

“Yeah?” The Legio looked at her friend through a weird torpor.

“Could you tell Murik that…” Blood was flowing abundantly from her punctured chest. Nay’s hands were desperately trying to stop it, in vain.

“…I love him?” A smile, the first real one Nay had ever seen on the lips of her friend.

“At first it was just so the other boys would stop…you know…but…he’s really…”

“Jo, please.” Nay began. She stopped. Her friend’s Rreico had taken a shape she had never seen before.

Joanna laughed. “Shh.” And her Rreico flew, escaping from the Legios fingers.

Nay hugged the body in her arms, then stood up. Her ears were filled with the sound of torrential rain.

The assassin had backed off very quietly and was now hanging on the edge of the precipice.

“This is all very moving, but I have a bounty to get. To the pleasure of never meeting you again, Monster of Gite.” And he jumped.

His cape opened, like big dark wings.

Nay could see his victorious smile.

“No.”

The sky burst open.

Lightning fell on the linden tree, shattering it in a million pieces. The swing flew far away and fell for a long time, probably to be lost in the raging sea forever.

The assassin was looking at her, age-old terror deep inside his eyes.

He was not falling.

He was not moving.

Gravity had ceased to exist.

“I…this is impossible…no one can do this…no mage, no Touched…everyone knows…” He mumbled in pure horror.

“Come.” She said.

As if pushed by an impossible wind, his body glided to her.

Then, as if nothing had happened, he collapsed at her feet.

He did not try to get his weapon; he did not try to flee.

He smelled of rain, urine, and blood.

“Mercy…Mercy oh great mage…I am just an underling, I do what I’m asked to do, that’s all. She did not suffer; I don’t make them suffer.”

A flash of thunder illuminated the flooded garden.

“I will not kill you.” Said Nay’s shadow.

The man screamed, watching the darkness under the woman’s feet move around him.

“I…thank…you?” He managed to say.

Another flash.

Another shadow talked.

“Why not? He deserves it.”

Dozens of voices, all Nay’s, started to giggle.

“I won’t kill you.” The real Nay had spoken this time. “But you will never hurt anyone, ever again.”

“I…of course, I swear.”

She felt his Rreico. Felt the lie.

“It was not a question.” Said all the Nay’s as they laughed.

Nay woke up. The nightmares had spared her sleep for once. Maybe because they had become real life, they did not need to haunt her dreams anymore. She felt her friend on her. Daylight was beginning to pierce the clouds of the vanishing typhoon.

Everything around her was drenched and destroyed.

Except her. The blood of Joanna was dry on her clothes. Impossibly, she had been spared from wind and rain.

Her friend had her head on Nay’s lap. Nay’s bloody and filthy hand was stroking her hair.

The Legio only remembered until Joanna’s last words. After that, everything was blurry.

She delicately laid her friend on the ground, then she began looking for the assassin.

He was not hard to find.

Laying on the remnants of the linden tree, the man was there, if you could still call him that.

His arms were stumps, cauterised to the shoulders. Most of his teeth were missing, easily seen as the broken thing was blissfully smiling.

The most horrible was his eyes.

He had none. A black void, defying reality itself, had replaced them.

“I habe to ell…no-one…no-one may ouch ‘e Legio. Neher her or her family, friensh…I habe to tell…no-one…” He was repeating, over and over, the same crippled words.

Nay did not remember.

But she knew.

She was the one who had done this.

She remembered a word he had screamed at her.

“Monster”

Ocean eyes.

She fell apart, crashed on the ground, and vomited. Once her stomach was empty, she burst into tears.

She had failed. She did not protect her. Her friend was dead, and it was all her fault.

Hours later, Nay stood up, legs trembling. She fell back immediately.

She thought about her friend, their first meeting.

Joanna had gotten up.

To honour her memory, Nay promised she would do the same. Always.

She rose, straight, washed away snot and tears with the back of her hand, and went to look for help.

She did not have to say a thing. The Virnyl guard watching over the Academy, on his own during the holidays, immediately understood what kind of situation she was in. Only minutes later, ten guards followed the Legio inside the Ja flower fields.

She answered all their question, not bothered by the potential repercussions: She and Joanna had left the plateau, visited Joanna’s father, did not get spotted, deposited the money. The storm forced her to jump from the swing, and she had reached the summit only to watch her friend die. She only ceased to talk when they asked what happened next.

The scene was as she had left it.

Joanna’s lifeless body was peacefully resting on the tall grass that was reigning over the garden.

The thing that had been one of Gite’s most dangerous Assini was repeating, tirelessly, the same warning.

Nay saw the Virnyl guards’ behaviour change.

When they understood the barely audible mumbling, Nay felt their fear. One of them, a new guard Nay knew well, deliberately took a step away from her, his hand now resting on his sword.

Nay could even remember his name, Gherir of Kordelieu.

But she was not looking at him, could not have described his face, all of her focus was on Joanna.

Nay, still standing proud, was crying in silence.

When her tears finally ceased, the guards had finished their investigation.

“Novice…you did not lie to us; I shall not forget to tell that to the Commandare when he’ll decide on your punishment. You will need to explain to him what happened here though. I see the signs of a God-Touched. If you are one, it will signify that at the end of your apprenticeship, maybe even before, you will have to enter one of Leïn’s church.”

The Legio did not even register who was talking to her, she was fixated on the ground, watching the grass revivify itself from the previous day’s typhoon.

“It was Joanna.” Nay lied.

“Joanna…?”

“She’s the one who did all…this.” ‘Or at least’ Nay thought, ‘Her death made me forget everything that happened.’

“How do you explain Yarrin warning us about you, then?”

Nay dodged the question.

“Yarrin?”

“His black wings on his cape leave no doubt about his identity. There was a significant bounty for his capture. You are lucky.”

The young adult laughed with no joy.

“I am lucky…”

“Disciple Nay. Answer the question. Why is the Assini warning us about you?”

Nay finally raised her eyes.

She saw that she was talking to professor Barric. She liked him, even though he was quite a big fan of Redrick.

“I don’t know…Why not ask Jo?”

She had answered with a smile, but anger was escaping her lips. She was herself surprised by how much hatred resided in her tone.

Professor Barric put three steps between him and her and unsheathed his sword.

The other guards looked at him in surprise.

“Barric? Is everything all right?”

The teacher came to his senses and put his weapon back.

“I…yes, I am fine…Disciple Nay, you shall tell the truth to the Commandare, even if you are obviously not doing that with me. You are fortunate I am not the one in charge of punishing you, because I believe we would be better without you in our ranks, or in this city.”

If their relationship had been cordial before, it obviously was not the case anymore.

She wanted to apologise, but the words remained frozen in her throat. She did the Legio gesture, left hand on neck, right hand on heart.

The Virnyl guards looked at her with even more apprehension.

Nay had shut herself in her room. The school’s director, Regimus, had instructed for her to stay inside the Academy, but nothing was stopping her from leaving if she wanted to. The door was not locked. The Commandare was back from his mission the next day, and she was to wait for his return. Normally, this news would have terrified her.

But she felt nothing. Let him come.

She even hoped he would be able to understand her. From a monster to another.

At dawn, a noise woke Nay from her sombre reverie. It was a key, locking then unlocking her door. Trinne must have forgotten her door was always unlocked.

The Legio had not moved, curled up in the corner of the room opposite to her big window. She was watching the sky of a setting sun.

She barely gazed upon her red-haired friend.

“Nay.”

“Trinne.”

The two women did not say anything else for a while.

“Joanna knew.” Trinne broke the silence.

“What?” Nay finally met her eyes, her voice feverish.

“She told me when I revealed my father’s plans to kill us. She knew already that she was…condemned.”

Nay tensed up and stood up.

“She’s wrong. She was safe. We had resolved everything.”

“Nay…She’s wanted for murder, Lower-Gite soldiers are on the look-out for her. Assini wanted her dead and the Duke as well. If not for her being so stubborn, she would have fled the city and made a new life somewhere else, but well, it was Joanna.”

“…murder?”

“Assini apprentices have contracts as well. She had to have gotten her hands dirty one way or another.”

“You know a lot.” Nay looked at her with dark eyes.

Trinne’s voice heightened, angered.

“Yes. Too much, even. My father forced me to write some of the Assini contracts myself. And Joanna was my friend, I did everything I could to prevent her death. At least I did.”

The words shook Nay hard, she felt tears come, held them back.

She wasn’t angry anymore.

“I…I…yes…I should have protected her but…”

“I don’t want your apologies, Nay, I don’t believe it is your fault, well, if the rumours about you being a God-Touched are untrue.” Nay felt Trinne’s gaze scrutinize her, waiting for an answer.

She could not lie to her.

“I…I can’t control it, or I would…I would have…”

Rage crossed on Trinne’s face.

“I see.” She took a long, sharp breath. “So, you could have done something. I will keep that to me, in memory of our common friend, but I do not want to see or hear of you until the Mission. You did not forget your promise, did you?””

Nay nodded once, she could not take it out on Trinne for the sudden hatred, she felt the same towards herself.

“Good then.” The Duke’s daughter continued. “We’ll see each other next month, if the Commandare decides not to exile you at least. But we both know that won’t happen.”

Without a goodbye, Trinne left the room.