The dim lamps flicker, blinking on and off as it illuminates the small room. Behind the thin walls, a person is slammed against the sheets of metal, a coarse scream of pain muffled, slightly muted by the barrier. The exposed pipes squeak from the impact, trembling as if on the brink of collapse. Next to the room’s old, bare-bones bed, a crude alarm clock rings intermittently, its cracked display showing the date: 8, 16.

Kavlina lightly taps the clock, silencing the ringing as she slips on a hooded vest, then a cloak over her black tight-fitting clothes. Fastening on a belt she had stolen a few weeks earlier, she inserts a knife into the attached scabbard, hiding it safely inside the rough leather pouch.

Finally, she takes out a case, the mark of the Confederation’s insignia still deeply etched on its worn-down surface. Inside, sheets and layers of nearly spotless metal lie patiently, waiting for her to call upon their aid again. With refined, almost mechanical speed, she attaches the layers one by one, utilizing the plain tools as she has done for years, until a fully constructed blade appears before her eyes. The metal gears twitch to her command, synchronized with her nervous system. What little bits of rust are pushed out, replaced, regenerated with new parts emerged from nothingness. The magic is already a natural part of her, seamlessly connecting her flesh and blood to the cold metal of her blade and prosthetic arm.

She takes a quick look at the date as she always does before every mission. Although it’s just another night, somehow she feels a kind of heaviness in her chest, her eyes involuntarily blinking a little before a single tear drops to the hardwood floor. It’s never happened before to her memory, the fact that she has unconsciously exposed a sign of vulnerability.

This is strange.

She picks up her mask, the dark surface now painted over with only a single thick streak of crimson from the left eye slit. She has no time to ponder such trivial matters. As the mask is firmly held to her face, she swiftly leaves the room, turning off the lights, plunging it to the darkness again. A mission awaits.

Slipping through the dark alleyways past the same miserable faces loitering on the streets, Kavlina soon finds herself at a rather dingy, unappealing shop hidden in the shadows, the shutters half shut, the sign’s colors long faded into grayness.

“Money,” she whispers, scratching the shutters with her blade. Cautiously, a scarred hand slides a few sheets of paper, the pictures dirtied with grime but the neat handwriting on them clearly visible.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Maiden,” a gruff male voice inside says. “Business isn’t very profitable without you even though we’re placed between several destroyed towns. A fine thing it is, having a new camp set up in Pos with all those new rotten soldiers inside it.”

“What crimes have they committed?” Kavlina asks.

“The left, Rotur, a squad leader, killed his friend for a meager amount of money,” the man answers. “The middle, Taiel, a medic, chose not to heal his battalion leader in exchange for his friend replacing said leader. And the right, Los, is that friend. Rotur and Taiel should be similar to the petty criminals you’ve disposed of, but Los, being a battalion leader, is guaranteed to have some sort of a personal guard. All three are currently encamped in the southern section of Pos.”

“Confirmed?” She stares at the pictures, imagining her blade piercing their bodies.

“If you trust our scavengers.”

“It’s always them,” Kavlina says, hiding her anger. The childless women, losing their maidenhood long ago to survive in these rough conditions. Women that, despite their weakness, form the backbone of this wretched society, the source of economy for all who have made their temporary shelter here, a lawless shelter in an increasingly violent battlefield.

“I trust you’ll eradicate those parasites, Maiden,” the man says as he slides a few coins. “Your advance payment.”

“I’ll take it all once I return.” Kavlina grabs the papers, stuffing them in her pocket. “Thanks for providing these targets.”

“Thanks to your weird obsessions, I have a proper income,” the man returns.

“The corrupt ones must be removed,” she states. With that, she leaves, her footsteps muffled by the sandy ground beneath her.

“Good luck, Maiden of Justice… or Black Maiden, as they call you,” the man calls out.

“Kavlina. That’s it. Don’t call me by those names.”

And she disappears into the darkness once again.

“Squad Leader Rotur?”

“Yes,” the voice inside the small tent replies. “Is there anything you need—”

Kavlina cleanly stabs her blade into the soldier’s unarmored torso, hearing the satisfactory squelch as the metal squeezes its way past the ribs and out of the body. Her gloved hand quickly covers Rotur’s mouth, muffling his last gasp. Simple, effortless, efficient. And the first target is dead.

Kavlina looks at the corpse, a mess of red littering the ground. His mouth is frozen in shock, yet his eyes are already half-shut, the eyebags particularly deep. The soldier is not of particularly outstanding stature, the features all quite plain. In his hand is a singular coin, nearly identical in appearance to the ones in the slums.

There is no need to bury the body. Quietly, she carves a small mark mimicking the Confederation’s brand of treason in Rotur’s neck before she departs, her clothing barely stained with blood.

It is already late into the night, Kavlina realizes, the next day perhaps having already arrived. With the soft snores from sleeping soldiers covering her footsteps, she quietly weaves through the camp, avoiding the sparse patrols with relative ease. Soon, she finds herself arriving at a guarded tent from a safe distance, two soldiers standing stationed at its only entrance. Despite maintaining an appearance of vigilance, Kavlina notices a pile of canteens near them, some opened and and already emptied. One of them picks up a still full one, taking off his helmet and placing down his pike before pouring its contents into his mouth with a wobbling hand. His face is already fully red as he belches in satisfaction, his partner looking at him in envy before receiving what remains of the liquid in the canteen.

Perhaps she has no need to kill them as she usually does to obstacles before reaching her targets.

She removes her mask, concealing it inside her cloak along with her blade. Fixing her hair, at least making herself slightly more approachable, she advances towards the two soldiers, her face completely exposed to the light of the camp.

“Hello, hic, young lady,” one of the soldiers greets as he puts on his helmet again. “What do you need?”

They’re used to this sight. Giving him a subtle smile, she continues walking silently in slow, graceful steps. She looks at him for a moment before glancing towards the entrance of the tent, nodding a little as if to request his approval.

“Ah, you’re one of them, aren’t you?” the other soldier says, tossing the empty canteen to the side before he, too, puts on his helmet. “Battalion, hic, Leader Los, isn’t in the mood to expect one at the moment, but…”

Struggling to maintain her smile, she passes by the two of them, reaching for the entrance. Suddenly, her hand is swatted away, the soldiers closing in from her sides.

“Young lady, hic, if you desire it so much, perhaps we, hic, can be of help for now?” The first soldier blocks her with his arm, stopping her movement.

“Are you nervous?” The second soldier suddenly grabs her left arm, the coldness of the metal plates sending a shiver through his nerves.

Kavlina flinches. In the end, she can’t avoid the inevitable extra casualties.

A pistol suddenly presses against her waist, the soldier still gripping tightly onto her arm.

“It’s as we expected,” the first soldier says in surprising clarity. “You’re an assassin, aren’t you?”

Impossible… It was all an act.

The second soldier opens her cloak, exposing her blade to the light from nearby torches. “A blade for an arm…” he says, completely unfazed by such a revelation. “Can’t believe the Black Maiden herself has walked straight into our trap.”

“I don’t know whose side you are on,” the first soldier says sternly. “All I know is that you’ve allegedly killed a fair share of both Confederation and our officers in this area. Surrender now, and proper justice will be delivered.”

“I still can’t believe we managed to pull this off,” the second soldier laughs. “The Black Maiden herself! And to see her face—”

A flash of movement. A bang from the pistol. And then… silence.

The two soldiers are frozen in place. Kavlina’s blade cleanly pierces through the second soldier’s torso, narrowly missing his spine. He drops his pistol, smoke wisping from the barrel.

Then the first soldier falls. Blood trickles from his burnt wound: a dark, smoking hole puncturing his armor. Groaning in pain, he shrivels into a fetal position, violently coughing as he clutches his stomach, gasping for air. It’s a relatively shallow wound, the impact and heat mostly absorbed by the armor. Not enough to kill.

Removing her blade from the second soldier’s body, letting the blood pump out in a bubbly stream, she kneels before the first soldier, examining him like one to a twitching insect. Her eyes look coldly into his, bearing no sign of emotion. With a flick of her wrist, she unsheathes her knife, the short blade glistening in the darkness.

“Help—”

She plunges the weapon into the vulnerable wound, the soldier’s cries no more than a gargle before it dies away. The events are certainly not to plan. She can already hear the shuffling from nearby tents, likely alerted by the gunshot earlier. Hastily, she puts on her mask again. There is no time.

She stands, picking up her knife from the corpse, and bursts into the tent.

Inside is Los, his figure closely matching the picture Kavlina is given. Yet instead of some panicked expression, the man calmly sits at his table with his back to her, his hands still steadily writing in a journal of some sort. A pot of cold food sits unattended, untouched, away from the table lamp that shines almost exclusively on the journal.

“The Black Maiden, I assume?” Los’ voice is firm, bearing an unnatural fortitude and peace even as Kavlina approaches closer to him.

Kavlina doesn’t answer. She strikes, lopping off Los’ head in a single clean slash. The table shakes a little, the lamp wavers as the head falls, tumbling for a while before it falls off the table. Blood spills over the journal, staining the pages in a flood of crimson. Yet, despite the fragile paper quickly shriveling, the lines on the pages burying under the flow of blood, the text remains clear to Kavlina’s eyes.

Sometimes, I wonder if I’ve made the right choice. The soldiers all knew of my ambitions to replace Iroel, yet they cheered me on. It’s wrong. I know. But… seeing their desperation then seemed to have convinced me. I don’t have anything against Iroel, but I allowed Taiel to let him die. I shouldn’t be occupying this table—My retribution is coming. Perhaps this is my punishment for allowing such a betrayal. Urte and Masl will die. The one known to kill traitors is already here.

This is what I deserve. So be it.

“Hypocrite…” Kavlina mutters. “Just like him.”

She hears the faint sounds of footsteps. It’s impossible to kill Taiel now. She quickly cuts a hole at the back of the tent, not bothering to even leave a mark at Los’ severed neck. As the blinding light from torches and flashlights flood the scene, Kavlina slips back into the darkness, the crumpled papers in her pocket feeling heavier with every step.