I spent my childhood running through Gryaz, the city was preferable to the pampering I'd receive in Castle Black. The years spent eluding or sometimes escaping the guards and the city watch educated me in many things. Navigating the streets became just another game to me. The warrens etched themselves into my memory, there's few paths I don't know, very little I haven't seen. This isn't Gryaz. The walls of this new city are made of smooth black stone that twists and writhes and sings. The paths twist and change just ahead of me, like a stick being dragged through mud. The stone laughs at my confusion, threatens to split beneath my feet. The rose is the only remnant of normality and even then my mind detects something wrong with it even if my eyes refuse to. Something from it bleeds into my skin, numbing the flesh like ice yet despite this I still cling to it.

I can read the structure of the city's denizens easily. They show me how skin is merely an incredibly large collection of incredibly small molecules consisting of different smaller molecules performing dozens of queer reactions all held within a skin of their own. I never knew that before. I never knew skin naturally had gaps noor how organs looked when still functioning. I never knew what a soul looked like either. Never knew how widely they could vary. Never knew they could speak. Some burn brightly and take the shape of a fire, burning through blood vessels, illuminating minds and screaming unendingly. Some are great headless serpents, slithering all around the body, wrapping round and round the brain and whispering secrets so fragile they’re ripped to pieces by my attempts to unravel them. Certain people possess souls so fat and so bright they can easily be seen writhing within their cage of meat, too fat to slip free. Others are so lacking the soul is dispersed so widely, finding it is almost impossible. I have to gaze deep into the blood to find vague wisps of blue fog or one or two grey maggots.

The vindictive streets force me into quiet back alleys. The walls, like trees, grow higher and higher until they block out the sun. From newly formed windows a cold unnatural light is provided. To substitute the crowds the shadows form hundreds of empty beady eyes that follow me constantly. A man lies in the gutter, he’s so small I almost trip over him. He’s been stripped of everything, clothes included, caked in filth and is bleeding quite profusely out of a large hole in his neck. There’s nothing I can do to help him as he gurgles and dies so instead I take a minute to stop and watch. The heart pumps at an outstanding rate, maybe beating three or perhaps four times a second. The lungs gasp for air but only get blood to cough back out. As it is deprived of blood bit by bit the brain begins to cease function, everything else follows shortly afterwards.Some of his spirit leaves with the blood. It doesn’t detach itself and float into the sky like smoke as the church preaches, nor does it sink deep into the earth for the old gods. Instead blood spreads across the flagstones, oozing into a drain painfully slowly and soul follows. Pathetic dregs remain within the corpse, inactive, dead too perhaps. Maybe this is why the dead are ritualised, to better feed gods. The greyness somehow stares at me accusingly without eyes.

Should we take it? How do we take it? Why do we want it?

I drop to one knee and touch its forehead, feeling the warmth bleed from him.

“Don’t look like you were worth robbing,” I say to no one. “So what did you do to deserve this?”

I notice something odd about my fingers, something odd shifting beneath the meat. It hurts to look at, like a finger gently pressing into my eye. By the time I recognize this anomaly to be migrating from me to the corpse me it's too late to take my hand away. The result is surprisingly anticlimactic at first. What’s mine simply becomes this corpse’s and I barely notice. It swirls around his skull, brushing against his soul. I sit there part intrigued by this odd occurrence, part terrified by what may happen if I take the hand away and sever the connection between me and…

Then the thing returns, and I regret everything. I feel something deep within me, a nameless, formless organ that's been with me for years. It ruptures and the toxins it retained spill throughout my body. Agony sears through my throat and lungs. The edges of my vision go dark, I try to gasp but the air has turned to tar. I fall to my knees, my mouth tastes like copper. My blood hurts. It flows through my body so slow it may as well be sap. Every moment stretches out to an eternity.

My Name is Kent

An odd thought to have at such a time but somehow reassuring. The words feel right.

I was just a beggar.

Blood spurted from my neck like a fountain, filled my lungs too. Drowning in blood, someone once said to me, is an ironic way to go. Now having been in the position I’d gladly allow the fuck to experiance the irony too. Each breath sent waves of agony through my chest and did little to assist with the constant screaming for air. I managed to cling to the hand for a few seconds, to keep that piece of steel blocking my windpipe. Someone once said to me that you shouldn’t take out blades and shit. Told me you’llI just bleed, bleed and bleed till you're empty like what just happened. Fat lot of good that piece of advice did for me. There were other bastards to help. Hit me twice in the gut before taking out that knife like it was stuck in some butter. Left me here to bleed, incapable of even cursing at their backs. Never let a man die alone, my father always said to me, I know why now. Face down in the gutter alone there’s no time, no mercy, no hope. Alone, there's only the dread of the next breath. Never trust a stranger was another favoured saying of father. That one always made sense to me. I was just sitting against the wall when they came. They talked about how some rich bitch would pay them good, cunts didn’t even notice me till I stood up and asked for a coin. Didn’t feel too kind after I interrupted. One fucker stuck me like a pig the moment I was close enough.

Stupid Kent. always begging in the wrong street.

No. not my fault. I couldn’t have known, I never chose this, I never did wrong, I prayed when I could. The gods abandoned me. Gods killed me. Gods were too busy laying golden eggs for the great king and bastards are too eager to use their blades. I didn’t notice when my sight vanished, wasn't much to notice. It was only when the sound of my heartbeat began to slow and weaken that the oblivion became apparent and fear set in. I tried to rage, to scream and thrash. I tried to fight death but all I could manage was weak twitches. I tried this for what felt like days until my body refused to obey. Then came the begging, I’m good at begging. I have begged my whole life, know all the tricks. I know how it works. I knew it’s the best option for those lacking in pride. Someone once said to me pride is like armour, inconvenient for everything other than one purpose. I dropped my armour in the ocean long ago but oblivion still had nothing to give, it only swallowed my tears. Ate them for years and years before I began to search of an escape. I tried to enlarge the wound, to die faster, to go to the gods or even demons if they'd take me away from here but my arms cruelly refused my command. I don’t even believe a finger flinched. I tried lifting my head to bash it in but nothing. Hundreds of attempts were made. I tied nooses in the darkness and allowed myself to hang for hours but I could not even elicit a sensation of pain. When I returned to the oblivion hollow and dejected it was just as accepting of me. It swallowed my tears, my fear, frustration and anger. It loved me, held me in a tender embrace and consumed me. Then the invader came. It rifled through the temple, uncaring of the sanctity of my abandoned mind. Sifted through memories, tossing away precious bits of childhood and family to be forever lost to the void choosing instead to steal the agonies of death. I shrank away from it but still it found me, dark tendrils shredded the soul into millions of pieces, stuffed the choicest cuts into a maw of razor sharp teeth and obliterated what little remained of Kent and left,

I jerk upright gasping deep breaths. I rub at my neck, finding only wounds I inflicted upon myself with fingernails. I roll over onto my knees, vomit into the drain and rise to a standing position. My face is wet with tears. Kent’s memories still mix and warp into mine. The walls and floors look just as twisted through his point of view as they did through mine, possibly worse. There’s this odd effect where normality appears to poke through the insanity, like it’s just been crudely painted over. At least this… experience provided some useful pieces of information.

Four men. Four knives. Walked north

I turn the opposite direction only to find a mess of twisted brickwork blocking the way I came from. It looks almost organic. Like black stone flesh

Just the drug, I tell myself and begin to walk forward. Just as I’m about to collide with the wall one of Kent’s memories recalls itself.

“She watched him.” one man says, bearded, gruff. “He’s coming this way. He’s barely walking straight. It’ll be the easiest title anyones ever earned themselves, I guarantee it.”

“What if it isn’t?” a small wiry man asks. “We’ve planned this for weeks, your telling me the gods grant us this luck after all the shit we just went through? We should stay with the original plan. It-”

“Which do you think will impress the lady more?” asks a third man, he carries himself confidently, has dressed fine and shaven recently. “A letter saying we poisoned the wine and some scraps of evidence or our king’s head served to her right on a platter?”

I stop inches away from the black stone, double over and vomit a final time, seeing specks of Kent’s soul within the bile. I no longer feel him crawling about my blood, only his memories remain with me.

Intelligent. Planned poisoning. Somewhat skilled. Capable of getting close to us. Believe themselves to be capable of getting away easily too. However overconfident, vain. Combat prowess undeterminable however most certainly possess some aptitude for murder. Employer is rich enough to hand out titles. Could be a duke or important religious figure.

"Or a prince or princess," I spit though not quite sure why.

They could become a significant threat if not removed.

They've insulted us, find them and plant the heads on spikes, side by side.

Ensure they suffer. Cut pieces away till they beg for an end.

Each thought uses a different voice. None of them feel right. None feel like they belong to me yet still I turn around and walk the path they desire. I draw my stiletto, the sword will be unsuited to combat in tight spaces, this will work just fine.