It was too cold outside for death. The act of dying really should be reserved for warm weather, beneath the sun, where you can see the beauty of the world one last time before passing on. These were Rina Sarsys' thoughts as she made her way, quietly, around the stone building. However, upon listening in on the soldiers' interrogation room she quickly decided that these men deserved to die on a winter's night. Not even the thick walls of such an enormous fortress couldn't conceal sound from Rina's ears.

She had to listen. Attacking too early would mean too many deaths. Attacking too late would mean too few. There had to be a perfect time for a perfect death. So, she listened. Rina scaled the outside wall of the identified interrogation room and perched herself on a stone ledge where a part of the tattered, canopy ceiling was tied down.

The room jutted out from the inner workings of the prison halls nearby, with a ceiling that was nothing more than flimsy fabric held down by ropes and stone. Out here, prisoners were questioned. The guards were dressed warm and armored fully, while those being interrogated wore nothing but rags, subjected to whatever weather seeped through the poor excuse for a roof.

Rina was skilled in the realm of sound, and could silence herself whenever necessary. Sneaking around the army's fortress and making her way to where she was now, to where the girl was being questioned, required little effort. Scaling the wall was simple. Perching herself atop the edge of the room, hidden by the fabric between her and the people a dozen feet below required little thought.

But the more difficult task came next. She had been exposed to the elements, the chill of the rain soaking her clothing, making her slower, her movements louder, her mind more distracted.

Her black hair fell in front of her face and stuck there, getting into her eyes. It was okay, she didn't need her eyes. Carefully, she felt her body with her mind... the muscles that would move the bones in the right positions; her entire body tensed and she released the muscles that weren't needed and focused on listening in on the eventual interrogation; she did her best to ignore the shivers and whimpers of the lone girl down below, waiting in the rickety chair.

In small motions, like a sunset, Rina shifted her body to one side, sliding one foot forward on the small stone pillar, the other foot back just a bit. She cocked her head just so, leaned one way, then the other, then found the right lean. She focused on locking her muscles into this crouch. Once attuned to the sensation and the pain, she could stay there for years if needed.

Rina breathed. Slowly. Silently. Her heart slowed. It slowed even more.

It slowed until a flash of cold struck her and she reached her duality-point, a skill that was invaluable to those with a Gift. Rina eased into complete and utter calm in the body with intense focus within the mind. The purest composure that could be achieved.

When her duality-point was reached, Rina could hear everything. The shifts of the wind. The conversations deep within the walls of the castle.

She could hear the force of gravity.

The groan of the Earth in rotation.

She brought her attention to the room below. Through sound, she could mentally paint the picture of what was unseen.

The poor girl was seated at a wooden table, wrists bound behind her. Judging by the squeak of the material and the sound of it scraping against her skin, it must have been rope. The room was small, nothing in there except two chairs, one table and one human.

Every staggered breath of the captive trembled against her eardrums. The whimpers the girl suppressed in her belly made her cochlea vibrate and her brain was set aflame with agony. The girl to be interrogated had a heartbeat much like her own – filled with pain and anticipation.

Three men approached but only one entered. His breath was alarmingly calm, his heartbeat a dark stream of focus. Rina breathed, the gentle rain chilling her to the bone. Her gloved palm held a gentle firmness upon the dagger at her side.

Rina continued to paint the scene with sound alone. Pouring liquid. Footsteps. The man had served himself a glass of wine at the table at the far end of the room and brought it over to where he'd sit across from the prisoner.

"I will be handling the rest of your interrogation," the man said. His voice had a tone of haughty nobility, as if the girl should be grateful for his actions. "You may refer to me as Task."

More footsteps. The brushing of flesh on flesh, Rina knew the sound well, and the dripping of water, distinctly different from the raindrops. Task placed a hand upon the girl's tear stained cheek. There was a strangeness to how his hand moved across her face. A bruise or some kind of warping of the girl's flesh. Raised and contorted.

"I am truly sorry my men were so cruel to you," he sighed. "Some of us are desperate in our search for the Heretics. Some of us seem to use it as an excuse to perform crimes against the Gods."

The very bones within the girl's body shook.

Rina breathed. Resisted. Listened.

"Now then," Task said, "tell us where you saw her." He brushed back his hair and walked over to sit down in the chair across from the girl. He had to keep a stern yet inviting face and voice. He had to be someone trustworthy. As far as Rina could tell, the man was true in his politeness. A masterful liar.

The nameless girl glanced up. Perhaps looking at the door.

"You don't need to be afraid," he said, offering his warmest smile and pulling aside his cloak. "I'm not armed. And those men out there are under my command. I have no intention of having them hurt you."

The girl stared at Task. Glanced down to the table. Silence. Task shuffled in his seat. He fumbled with something metallic on the other end of his belt he didn't reveal earlier. Rina knew the sound of a blade in its sheath anywhere.

"You'll kill her," the girl finally mumbled. Then spoke louder. "If you find her, you'll hurt her and kill her." A sudden jolt of heartbeat, quickened breath – the girl regretted speaking.

Task raised his hands in defense, shook his head and lied. "No, girl." His voice was jovial. Playful. "We want to help her. Besides, I'm sure you've heard the rumors. She cannot die, even if we wanted to kill her."

The girl nodded.

Task chuckled. "Tell me what you saw, girl. And when we're done, you'll be set free."

"I can go home?"

"Of course you can."

Breath. Heartbeat. Shifts in movement.

He told the truth.

The girl shook again, obviously cold from the night air seeping in from above.

"Here," Task said, grunting a little as he stood, "I'm not that bad, trust me." He slowly removed his cloak and circled around her. The girl's heart could have sprinted from her chest in that moment. She flinched but he continued with a grin. He laid the cloak over her shoulders. She hesitated. Then pulled it tighter around her, now a small face poking through royal fabric.

"It smells like honeybuns," she commented, breath in her voice, a small smile on her lips.

Task laughed, scratching the back of his neck as he walked around and settled back into his seat. "I pass through the royal kitchens in Shieldhome quite a lot. Now then," he said, placing a hand on the table, leaning forward, "your fellow villagers say you had a firsthand encounter with her."

Their eyes met.

"The High-Priest rewards those who comply very generously. Not only will you go home, but your family will be given a generous gift in coin. Enough to buy as many honeybuns as you want."

She smiled at that. The girl pulled the cloak even closer and began.

"I first noticed the silence. It became so quiet in the fields." The girl paused. Task was patient, as was Rina. The one being questioned was just a child. It would take some time. "The fields outside Gnosh are always so alive with glowbugs at night. Crickets too. The wind makes the grass and the leaves of the trees all around move. But this time there were no glowbugs. No crickets. No nothing. I got scared. So I quickly called for Yellow so I could pick him up and run back home."

"Yellow?"

"My puppy."

"Ah."

"I lifted him up but before I moved there were footsteps coming up the cobble-road. She came out of nowhere. I was so scared I fell, and I stayed on the side of the road with Yellow, unsure of what to do. I thought I would die."

Task nodded. "You knew who she was."

The girl was troubled. Chest convulsing, holding back tears. "Yes, sir. Everyone in Gnosh had heard stories of En-Maer. And I felt death on me when I saw her. It was a deep feeling in my heart. A feeling that I would disappear. She was tall... face covered by night."

Task's position tightened. Rina noticed his discomfort at the description of the legendary figure.

The girl continued, "Step after step, she walked so slow. Then, she stopped on the trail right in front of me. She turned her head." The girl shook some more. "Her lips had scars. In the moonlight I could see them. Then I remembered how many more were supposed to be hidden beneath her clothes and I shuddered. I could see more of her face as the moon was uncloaked by clouds." The stretching of skin signalled a smile on the girl's face. "En-Maer was grinning at me."

"Did she say anything to you?"

The sounds of flesh over uneven flesh rung in Rina's ears. The girl was rubbing the scars upon her forearms. Her palms brushed against the twisted areas of her face.

"'Nice scars, kid.'"

Silence overtook Rina in a strange way. She could still hear the girl speak, but nothing was as clear as it once was. Panic entered her chest, uncertain of what was happening.

"And then," the girl said, "She kept moving, walking to the East, down the trail that headed through the woods."

"Toward Shadowrock then," Task said. "Thank you, Svana. That's all I needed from you."

A sudden surge of heat jolted Rina as sound exploded in her ears, the deafening from earlier bursting into an explosion of awful music. Her eyes snapped open. She drew her blade and jumped down cutting through the tarped sealing.

Task had his blade through the girl's chest. The table had been knocked away and Task was pushing her body into the wall with the point of the sword.

Rina was in silent rage, only for a few racing heartbeats. Her duality-point left her, and after the explosion of noise, her sensitivity to sound faded in and out as she struggled to maintain it. She didn't know what was happening to her or her abilities but she had little time to worry about it.

Rina lunged, swiping her blade at the man's back. Task removed the blade from the body, twirled around, flashing a grin, meeting her strike with his own. The child collapsed.

"I thought I heard something," Task scoffed, keeping his stance true, his strength threatening to overpower hers.

Rina was speechless. Blood boiling.

How, was all she could ask. How did she not hear him move before he did? How was she not able to stop him before he attacked? There was no warning. Rina could hear everything. But she was deaf to this man's hidden intentions. And now, her abilities were faltering.

It was only the questions that made her fight. She was supposed to listen in on the Divine Force's intentions and save the captive girl. Success at one, but failure in the one that mattered most. Rina leapt away and quickly moved forward again, spinning, faking a swing in one direction and with near-inhuman control, her body unnaturally halted and moved in the other direction. She was positioned at Task's shield hand. He was vulnerable. She sliced upward. It carved him from the bottom of his chin up through his right eye and the man squealed like the disgusting animal he was – one of the only sounds Rina wanted to revel in for the rest of that night.

Before Rina could kill him, the sounds of feet warned her to move away and protect herself, her hearing coming to her aid for only a moment. She spun around and knocked away an incoming swing from one of Task's guardsmen. In the moments of ricochet she sliced through another attacker's neck, beheading him. She caught his head before it fell by the hair and the other guard tripped over the fallen body as he thrusted forward to attack. A swift kick to his plummeting face left the man groveling with a shattered nose, and probably some broken teeth from Rina's steel toe.

Three more men rushed into the room. She blocked one sword with the severed head, the enemy blade sticking into the face of it, and she sliced the soldier across the chest, blood splattering out before him.

She stepped, swaying to the side to avoid one attack, collided blade with blade with another combatant, then when the two were reeling back for another attack she reached for her belt, crushed up the black eggs, cutting her hands with the newly created shards, then flung them outward. They both were sent into coughing fits from the cloud of sharp dust, their eyes bleeding and their voices desperate. With a simple twist, her blades sliced them in the necks and they fell to die.

The last soldier met her blade for blade, much more skilled, arriving through the door, alerting her senses. The screams of Task could still be heard in the corner. Rina made sure to pay attention to all present sounds while her enhanced hearing was still intact.

And now, the only thing that kept her going wasn't only rage and questions – it was the soft sounds of a child's breathing beneath the clashes of metal. A glimmer of hope. A potential chance to fix her mistakes.

The final enemy got in a good hit with the hilt of his sword after the come-back from a lunge, striking Rina in the side of the face, momentarily disorienting her. She shuffled backward, paying attention to sound rather than sight. She closed her eyes.

His blade whistled through the air slightly to her right. She ducked down, hearing his breathing, following it, slicing him in the back.

Her sight returned. He was still standing, grimacing, his armor cut down to the flesh.

He twirled his blade, showing off. A simple sidestep and fakeout left him stumbling and she embedded the end of her blade between his eyes. She let the weapon drop with the body and drew her second sword.

She focused on the harsh sounds of the breathing girl. First, she would kill Task.

Her hearing was muffled once again.

As Rina turned around, Task shoved his sword through Rina's stomach. She shook from the pain, the sounds of her muscles tearing deafening her. He stomped his boot into her and pulled the blade free, blood pouring out around her among the rest of his fallen soldiers, her body convulsing and her mouth leaking red.

"Another Heretic," he breathed, looking down at her. "Glad I was finally able to kill one of you. Fighting fair is reserved for the children of the Gods," he said, disgusted, sobbing and holding a hand to his ruined eye. Rina glared at him with anger that made her sicker than the sudden death blow. "I'll gladly take any Heretic down while they're off guard. The wicked must be purged by any means necessary. I will not bless you. Fall to all the hells, forever, you bitch."

Rina tried to move but his aim was impeccable, ripping away at muscles that wouldn't respond to her desires to move. She tried to kill him with her eyes. She prayed to Gods and Goddesses she didn't believe in to strike him down, her eyes veined and bulging with pain.

How did he, yet again, move beyond her awareness? How did her Gift, yet again, fail her?

In the end, she whimpered the word, the only word she could muster out of her mouth.

"How?" she said, as Task stumbled away.

He didn't reply. He left the room, barely opening the door in his spasms of pain.

Rina looked over at the girl who was still breathing. Her hand reached out helplessly. Her palms met the cold, wet dirt floor. She vomited blood and her body did all it could to just die. But, instead, Rina crawled. Until she was face to face with the girl who bled from the right side of her shoulder. It looked like Task, in his rage, had missed his mark, and potentially struck too close to the shoulder for it to be anything vitally endangering. Though that didn't mean the girl wouldn't bleed out given enough time.

Rina collapsed next to her. She cursed herself for letting small mistakes ruin everything. She struggled to reason with Task's ability to best her skills. She apologized to the girl she didn't know.

Then, Rina closed her eyes.

Task was covered in blood and he wobbled from the sickness and pain from his eye.

"I don't want to die," he wheezed, "Oh Gods, I don't want to die. I've been a good servant, a devoted worshiper. Please, oh mighty Divine, don't let me die... Not yet. Not yet... There's still so much for me to..." he whimpered, leaving the room. He wandered the halls of the castle looking for the first guard he could find to bring him to an Alchemist.

Instead, he fell against the wall in excruciating agony, in shock at the sight before him.

There were two figures cloaked in black, surrounded by the massacred bodies of royal guardsmen. Task stammered, sputtered, and reached out a hand in meager defense as they walked down the hall toward him. They both wielded the brightest swords he had ever seen, and, strangely enough, they were completely clean. He had a bizarre strike of awe in addition to his fear.

"P-please," he said weakly, "Don't... Don't!"

They both walked by as though they didn't even see him.

"Did you hear something?" said one of the figures, the voice masculine and cold.

"I did not," said the other, feminine and just as filled with indifference.

Task stared after them. More Heretics? More of the so-called Gifted?. He had no idea who they could've possibly been. The aura they gave off wasn't like most Gifted. It was... it smelled... it sounded like music.

He continued to press his palm into the gash in his face, praying to the Gods for survival, thanking them for another chance.

The two cloaked figures walked across blood without staining their boots.

"Let's collect them, then," said the man.

"Pity," said the woman.

They both entered the interrogation chamber to find piles of corpses. They paused in the doorway. Then, they looked at each other in surprise, an emotion neither of them had felt in hundreds of years.

"I am... unsure of what to make of this," said the man.

Rina Sarsys, was not in the room, though plenty of her blood was. In addition, the girl who was captured, Svana Dyri, was also not there. A trail of bled led to the wall and streaked up the length of it.

"She is a success," said the woman. "This is... what is the word..."

"Good."

"Yes. This is good."