Through the endless mists of smoke and ash, Rina and Kalvin continued their way through the guards in the courtyard. Most of the citizens returned to their homes, glaring through the borderless windows like a pack of crows in an empty wheat field.

Sylvster stayed behind them, his spectacle gripping the edges of his cheek, and his eyes pondering around the road ahead. “Paris!” He called for her, taking her away from the backline.

After walking over piles of unconscious soldiers, she stumbled over towards Sylvester, yawning and tired. “Is it my turn now?” She moaned, Oscar right behind her.

Sylvester nodded, “There’s a back route around the courtyard that leads straight towards the castle walls. Use Oscar to get there, and go inside a small wooden door by the front gates.” He glanced around, wiping his eyes from the constant exposure to smoke. “From there, split up. Find Cairo and Tesla, and get them out of there. Don’t worry about the king. I trust Cairo to do what is right.”

Paris sighed, deprived of any sort of motivation or energy. “You trust that walking corpse to do what’s right? Does he even know what’s right?”

Sylvester flicked his mustache upright with his forefinger, “Perhaps not… However, my Deception never lies. It is the one and only thing I can count on. That, and the trust I receive in return.” He paused, distancing his eyes from the castle, “Cairo will do the right thing. Or he’ll die trying.”

Following Sylvester’s commands, Oscar and Paris sped off to the frontmost gates of the castle. Fortunately, this could only work due to Oscar’s gift of Speed. A Gift that not only breaks the artificial sound barrier for quickness, but one that uses an insane amount of energy and body temperature. So, Oscar had to be very careful when using his Gift, for if he raced too much, he could risk freezing to death.

Paris strapped herself to his back, tightly gripping her hands onto his chest as if she was riding a horse. Before she even had time to blick, Oscar was already at the front gates, with a trail of wind and pressure fuming behind them.

“Huuugghg,” wheezed Oscar as he leaned himself against the stone foundation of the castle, his heart beating nearly five times a second. His face turned pale, while his skin began to flush. It has been far too long since the last use of his Gift, turning him into a pile of mush on the ground as he desperately gasped for air.

Paris jumped off his back, her hair in a complete mess from the drastically short trip. “What in the hells’ the matter with you?” She snapped at Oscar, “You didn’t have to go that fast!” She grappled his arm around her shoulder, feeling the cold touch of his skin against hers, despite the blazing heat beneath the sun.

Sweat began spilling through Oscar’s pores, soaking his skin in a salty, cooling liquid. His legs began to shake from the aftershock, and goosebumps began popping throughout his body. His breathing had begun to get critical, and his heart toppled over 200 beats per minute.

Paris quickly dragged him into the shade as his condition worsened. “Hold tight!” She panicked, grabbing a small bottle of water from her empty holster and drenching him from head to toe.

Oscar gurgled fanatically as some drops went down the wrong pipe in his throat, but the sudden alertness seemed to calm him down for the better. “HUUUGH!” He gasped again—one last time—and was able to settle down.

“Thanks…” He hissed, his voice both moist and dry. “Gimme a minute… Or ten…”

Paris rolled her eyes, giving him a light slap across his cheek and reminiscing her objective. She shook her head, slapping her palm against her forehead to block out the blinding rays of sunlight shining down on her. “Ugh… I don’t even know why I’m here.”

Oscar knuckled his quadriceps, letting loose the cramping and knots building in his muscles, “The same reason I am… We ain’t got no better place to be… No families to go to… Ain’t no home to live in… What else we bouta do?”

Paris pouted, swaying her hips aggressively and annoyingly. “Well I—”

“HEY!” A loud, muffled voice interrupted her from the opposite side of the shade they were in. “WHO’S THERE?!” The voice called again, and in the smallest corner of the stone foundation—adjacent to the front gates—was a tiny wooden door, which burst open with a furious looking guard behind it. “How did you two get this far? No citizens are allowed past the courtyard!” He yelled again, taking a battle-ready stance.

Paris sighed boringly, “Great, another tough guy.”

“I’m warning you!” The guard raised his sword and shield in the air, “If you don’t oblige to my orders, I will inform lord Leonidas himself about your trespassing onto royal property!”

Oscar laughed, his throat tight and winded. “What a clown.”

Paris rolled her eyes again, gesturing for the guard to come at her, persuasively. “Can we just get this over with, I just want my damn wish.”

The guard readjusted his helmet and buckled up the loose strapless on his heavy armor, “I’ll have you know that I have sworn a code to never hit a woman! Therefore, I will only accept a duel from the gentleman on the ground!”

“What a man of honor,” laughed Paris, flinging her hair out of her face. “Well,” She gave a light kick against Oscar’s shoulder, “You heard the man, go fight.”

Oscar placed two fingers against his jugular vein, slowly counting to fifteen seconds in his head as the blood pulsed through his neck. “Let me see here…” He began to count numbers across his fingers like a small child learning mathematics. After a few moments, he finished counting across his pinky, and sparked a smile, “134!” He shouted, “134 Beats per minute!”

The guard was just as confused as Paris, but it didn’t stop him from charging at Oscar. With a battlecry of the ages, a wobbly helmet, and the balance of a camel, the guard launched himself against the wind towards the hyperventilating man in the shade.

Paris sighed, kicking the sword straight out of the guard’s hands and sending it flying into the air. “You can’t be serious?” She shook her head in confusion, “Who in the hell taught you to hold a sword like that?”

With only a shield, the guard dropped to his knees with his hands in the air, “Please don’t kill me! I’m just a wall watcher!”

“Wall watcher?” Oscar and Paris both said simultaneously. They gave each other a quick look, followed by a secret giggle.

Paris barely managed to pick up the heavy sword off the ground, only to realize it was dull and rigid. It had enough sharpness to cut an apple at best, but not anything greater. “The hell kinda weaponry are they giving you?” She asked, “And where the hell is the army? There’s like, I don’t know, maybe a couple hundred or so at the courtyard? Aren’t there supposed to be thousands?”

The guard clasped his hands against his chest, wobbling out of fear. “Please, I don’t know anything!” He lied, but Paris was too lazy to interrogate.

“Whatever, I don’t care. Just makes the job easier for us,” She said, kicking the poor guard on the ground and stepping over him towards the small wooden door. “You comin?” She raised a brow at Oscar, her expression as dull as the sword.

“Nah,” Oscar leaned back towards the shade, “Ima stay here for a bit, nice and cozy.”

Paris rolled her eyes again, grabbing a pebble off the ground and throwing it at his face. “Ow!” Yelped Oscar as a ringing sensation stabbed through his forehead. “Fine, I’m comin’.”

Paris held the door for him, sarcastically and with a grin, “Trust me, I don’t wanna be here either.”

…

After passing through the tiny door, Paris and Oscar scurried off towards the inner walls of the castle. At first, dozens of guards blocked their path, but that didn’t stop them in the slightest. Paris took care of them with ease using her Gift—no weapon necessary, and considering the fact that none of the guards had any experience of fighting whatsoever. In fact, it seemed as if they weren’t even guards at all, but random strangers with suits of armor.

Once Paris and Oscar passed through the tiny blockade of armored nobles, Oscar split up by taking the giant curved stairs to the upper floors, and Paris continued her straight path into a monstrous-sized hallway.

With a ceiling as high as the clouds, and walls as wide as a farmfield, it was tough to even call this a hallway. However, there were no doors, no windows, and no secret passageways she might have missed. Only torches, massive chandeliers with candles, and thick pillars of stone and timber.

Every step Paris took echoed through the hollow space as if she was alone in a cave. Even her breaths were loud, and she hadn’t had any coffee, so her breaths reamined shallow and flat.

“Looks like the kitty kat came out to play…” A voice echoed throughout the pillars like a whistle in a crowd. Meaning it had no specific identification, but lurked and swept through the atmosphere in a soothing display of sneakery.

Paris loosened her posture, her bodyweight planted on the bottom of her feet, and her mobility shifting to her bent knees. Her breaths became deeper, her eyes galloping around every pillar around her. “So you finally came back to return my blade to me.” She taunted the voice, well aware of whose face the voice belonged to.

In the far distance, Jackals stepped out from one of the tall columns, Paris’s stolen blade by his side. “Looking for this?” He unsheathed the feather-light blade, listening to the sweet whistle of the edge carving against the holster. “I would like to give my greatest gratitude for you returning my prized possession. I don’t know how I would live without it.” He grinned, gripping the handle tightly.

Paris started walking towards him, “I’m surprised you made it out alive after the explosions. You’re a weakling, you don’t deserve such a weapon, so I took it with me.” She mocked him, riling him up as best she could.

A vein popped on Jackals’ forehead, “Remember when I said you’d regret spitting in my face?” He growled, chipping his teeth. “I take it back… You won’t regret it. You’ll wish you’ve never met me.” He snarled, charging at full speed, the red blade holstered in his fist.

Before Paris could respond, Jackals swung the blade so fast it swished through the air like sails in the wind. The blade was so thin it was like a needle in a haystack, practically invisible, and yet, Paris dodged it with ease.

She smiled, “What’s the matter? All talk no bark, huh?” She dodged again, galloping back and swaying her body to correlate perfectly with her center of gravity, backing up even further.

“You damn Gifted and your stupid magic tricks!” Jackals snapped, swinging and swinging the balde to his heart’s content. He was skilled, knowing how to handle a deadly weapon with ease. But Paris was also skilled, despite not looking like it.

“Magic tricks?” Paris dodged again, kicking him in the face and sending him barreling across the ground. “I hate magic tricks, they’re clumsy and annoying.” She paused, then continued. “Fortune’s Favor, ever heard of it?”

Jackals slowly began picking himself off the ground, unresponsive to Paris’s question. He coughed, wiping a trace of blood off his lip as he kneeled to catch his breath.

“It’s my Gift,” Paris kicked him again, harder this time. “I can see everything and anything five seconds into the future.” She squatted down next to him, her eyes on the barely conscious man on the ground. “You won’t win a fight against me, no matter how hard you try.”

Blood began drooping from Jackals’ nose, his vision getting faded from the trauma to his brain. However, Paris lowered her guard, knowing she had enough time to react, but unaware of her body’s positioning in accordance with the blade. And just as she reached for the blade in his hand, Jackals twitched his wrist with the blade in a flash, barely nicking Paris’s cheek as she jumped away.

What the? Paris thought to herself, feeling a slight stinging sensation across her cheek bone. She gently pressed her fingers across the side of her face, feeling the warm red liquid engulf her clean nails. Where in the hell did that come from? How did he?.. Five seconds should have been enough...

Jackals coughed, picking himself up with a broken nose. “You seriously don’t know the power of the Blade of the Blood Moon?” He laughed, choking on the blood clogged in his throat. “The blade is infused with blood from a Gifted bastard like yourself, meaning it can break through the barrier-” He coughed again, deeply. “Of those damn magic tricks. All it takes is one cut, and your gift is useless.”

As much as Paris refused to believe it, the blade began to glow with a faint scarlett miasma, just like the ribbon in her hair. Jackals began picking himself off the floor, wiping the blood streaming down his lips.

He brought the tip of the blade to his nose, licking the drops of Paris’s blood right off with a twisted look. His limping steps turned into a hustle, and the needle-thin blade began swishing through the air in the firm grasp of his palm.

Paris, unable to predict his movements, ran straight at him, confusing and disorienting Jackals’ thought process.

With a broad turn of his shoulders and torso, Jackals swung the crimson blade horizontally, cutting through the flow of Paris’s rush. Paris, however, slid across the floor on her knees, scraping them and just barely avoiding the thin slice running above her face.

Before Jackals could redirect his momentum, Paris punched him in the groin, following with a quick, yet weak jab to his neck as she hopped up from the ground. “Pffft,” She let out a breath of tightened air, ignoring the pain creeping up to her knees.

In a world of pain and silent groans, Jackals was sent to the ground by swift kick to his jaw, and another to his chest.

A few seconds passed as Jackals held his groin in pain, swallowed through his clogging throat, and blinked furiously to accommodate his blurry vision. “You stupid wench!” He shouted as he managed to kneel, salive blubbering through his words.

No hesitation was stopping him, and his anger repelled the pains in his body as he stood, wobbling left and right with an aching crotch. He couldn’t figure out what irritated him more. The fact that Paris seemed bored, or the fact that he was being played with by an opponent without a weapon.

“Ahhhh!” Jackals yelled, fumbling and limping as best he could towards Paris. From the highest point his hands could reach, Jackals plummeted down the blade against his enemy, hoping for a clean hit to end it all.

“Luck and magic tricks ain’t the only reason I’m still standin’.” Paris dashed to the side with a shift in her stance, dodging the oncoming blow with tedious effort. “I’ve trained with that blade for seven years.” She elbowed his jaw, getting ahold of his right arm and twisting it behind him, “I survived all this time not due to my gift, or the blade I carried. I survive because I have to, and as much as I hate to admit it, the blasted good coffee Rina makes for me is worth every morning I get up.” Following the twist, she dislocated Jackals’ shoulder, kicked his back to the ground, and stopped, breathing loudly as she let go of his arm, watching as his eyes remained open, but his mind was far gone into his dreams.

Paris sat atop of Jackals, panting, her eyes beginning to tingle. She wiped them with her palm, picked up the blade, and carefully nudged the blood on her cheek with a piece of her clothing. “Thank you, Oscar, Kalvin… Rina.” She whispered, knowing that she wasn’t alone. “You were the luck that kept me alive…”

She smiled, because for once, she knew that no matter where she planned to go, her friends would always be there. Until the day they die.