Chapter 3
Huntyr
“Tyla, I’m home!”
The small apartment I share with Tyla isn’t much, but it’s just enough for the two of us.
A cramped kitchen with the essentials, a washroom that’s modest but always spotless, and a bed with well-worn cotton sheets, perfectly sized for us to share.
Truthfully, I could afford more, much more, in fact, but Tyla insists on us saving every extra cent I make.
She argues that if one day I ever decide to walk away from the business of killing, she doesn’t want money to be what keeps me tethered.
Sometimes I suspect she isn’t exactly proud of what I do for a living.
Not that I’m proud of the blood on my hands, but…
Killing is what put a roof over our heads when we had no one else to rely on. Killing is what pays for the tonics that help Tyla manage her pain. And frankly, I’m good at it. I’m notoriously good at it.
So, no, I don’t plan on quitting anytime soon.
“I’ve already prepared a bath for you,” Tyla calls from the bed, her frail body barely visible beneath the thick comforter pulled up to her neck.
“You shouldn’t have gotten up!” I chide, rushing to her side. Even hidden under the blankets, I can see her arms trembling with shivers. My palm presses against her forehead. She’s feverish as usual. Sweat plasters her dark hair to her brow, and her sunken eyes flutter open at my touch.
It’s getting worse.
With clinical precision, I pull back the blankets and examine her. The dark tendrils in her veins have crept higher up her arms, extending further than they had just this morning. That inky blackness is spreading over her skin faster than it ever has before.
“What are sisters for?” she murmurs, managing a weak smile as she avoids looking down at her arms.
We aren’t sisters by blood, although with our similarly dark hair and high cheekbones, we might as well be. My complexion is darker from more days spent in the sun, and my eyes are a bright blue in comparison to her dark ones, but it’s not uncommon for us to be mistaken as relatives.
In truth, I found her two years after I started training with Kristona. I was sent to deal with a husband accused of adultery, and while I was efficient, ruthless even, for my age, I was still just a child. A curious one at that.
So before leaving, I wandered the house. That’s when I found Tyla, two years younger than me, huddled in the corner of the kitchen, terrified. The husband hadn’t been a cheater after all; his wife simply couldn’t stand that he had adopted a little girl without her permission.
We bonded instantly, and I begged Kristona to take her in.
He took one look at her small frame and declared that the training yard was no place for a girl like her.
At seven summers, though, I had already learned the art of stubbornness and threatened to gut every one of his acolytes if he didn’t let her stay.
So, he agreed, on the condition that she worked in the kitchens.
The arrangement worked for a while. Until she started complaining about pain in her ankles.
One night, I awoke to her whimpering in the bed across from mine.
I rolled up her pant leg, and we discovered the black veins for the first time.
It only got worse from there—the pain, the cough, the fever, the fatigue.
That’s when Kristona told me she couldn’t stay any longer.
There was no place in the League of Assassins for a girl who couldn’t contribute.
So I bought this apartment, took on every job I could, and made it my mission to take care of her.
Because that’s what sisters are for.
“I brought you something,” I whisper, pulling the pain tonic from my pouch. Gently, I lift it to her dry lips, helping her take a sip. Her sigh of relief mirrors my own when the potion begins to work its magic.
“Thank you, Huntyr,” she mumbles, resting her head back on the pillow. Her dark eyes flicker closed, the pain easing just enough for her to rest.
This has become our routine: I come home, give her a tonic, and she drifts off to sleep. If I really wanted to, I could just let the scene play out again. I could let her dream and go about my night. She wouldn’t even know about the other vial, the one that still sits in my pouch.
I slip the amethyst-colored tonic out, staring at it for a long moment before gently shaking her awake.
“There’s something else.”
Her eyes open slowly, taking in the vial. “Another miracle tonic from Joneson?”
“Something like that,” I force myself to swallow, trying to keep my voice even. “He says it’s from the Fae lands.”
Her eyes widen, darting from the vial to my face. Tyla knows better than most how much I hate the Fae, how much I distrust them. And she’s smart. She understands the significance behind my offering this to her.
She understands this gift implies a sense of urgency.
“You think I need that?” she whispers, her voice thin.
Her eyes flash with sadness as I place the vial in her hands, folding her fingers around it. I won’t force her to drink it. If our situations were reversed, I’m not sure I’d want to drink it either.
But I will allow her to make the choice on her own.
“I love you, Tyla,” I say softly, brushing her hair back from her forehead, trying to ignore the sudden familiar ache forming in my own temple. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make you better. If this is what it takes, so be it.”
She stares at the vial for what feels like an eternity, then finally nods. “Bottoms up, then.”
With trembling hands, she uncorks the bottle and brings it to her mouth before taking a few tentative sips.
“I think that’s enough for now,” she murmurs, re-corking the bottle and setting it on the wooden end table beside her.
“Do you feel any different?” I ask.
Tyla shrugs. “I’m not sure.”
She extends her hand towards me, turning her wrist towards the ceiling. The dark veins stand out in stark contrast against her otherwise pale skin, and I run my thumb along the path of the largest one before gasping.
It’s… fading.
My lips part while I as watch the darkness on her skin recedes slightly. It’s working. It’s actually working!
“That’s impressive,” she muses, turning her arm over and watching the magic take hold.
Reaching across her, I tuck the vial into the drawer of the end table. “We’ll save it for emergencies?”
She gives me a slight smile and nods encouragingly before patting the bed next to her in invitation.
With a happy giggle, I flop down heavily, running through my mental to-do list. Dishes need to be washed.
The dining table needs to be tidied. I need to bathe and prepare for the dinner at Kristona’s but…
“You look exhausted,” Tyla notices, glancing over me as a yawn claws its way out of my throat.
I think of how far I’d had to walk to get from Froggy’s house to Kristona’s. “Long day.”
“Headache too?”
I nod, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Tyla pulls back the covers, unfazed by the dried blood that lingers on me. “Come on, then. There’s plenty of time for a nap before your party.”
Rain.
It batters against the walls, against the windows, howling through the cracks in the shutters. Thunder roars.
The world is too dark, the kind of darkness that seeps into your bones.
I step forward, my tiny feet padding across the cold wooden floor, my nightgown whispering against my ankles. Lightning flashes and for a heartbeat, the room is bathed in white.
Then the darkness swallows it whole.
“Daddy?” My voice is barely more than a whisper against the storm.
Another step forward. The wind screams against the walls.
Another flash of light—
And I see it.
The bed.
The sheets.
The blood.
A sob tears from my throat, but I don’t stop. I run.
Slick warmth coats my feet, my hands, my nightgown. My stomach turns, bile rising in my throat. I slip, hitting the floor with a hard thud.
“Daddy!”
He doesn’t move.
He will never move again.
Something behind me shifts.
Footsteps. A voice.
“Come, girl, out of here.”
Arms circle my waist, squeezing too tightly around me as they tear me from the floor. I don’t want to go though, I want to stay with Daddy. I thrash. I kick, I scream, I fight.
Chesain drags me from the room, through the hall, past the shadowy figure of my stepmother.
Her voice drifts toward me, sharp and cold. “What could have done this?”
Chesain sighs, tossing me into my bedroom and shutting the door firmly behind him. The latch clicks shut from the outside.
“I ain’t ever seen nothing like this, ma’am.”
My stepmother’s breath catches. “The Fae. What else could do something like this?”
She isn’t crying.
She isn’t mourning.
My father is dead, and she doesn’t care.
The realization shatters something inside me.
Her heels click against the wooden floors. “What am I going to do, Chesain?”
For the first time, her voice wavers. But not with sorrow. Not with despair.
With fear.
“We should get the body out of the house, ma’am. Until you can arrange a proper burial.”
No.
They can’t mean—
Daddy can’t be dead.
“Yes, yes. You’re right. I trust you can arrange this?”
“Of course.” There is a beat of silence before Chesain continues. “There’s also the matter of the girl—his daughter.”
I don’t even dare to breathe.
My stepmother scoffs, and I can feel her glare through the door. “Put her out. She’s been nothing but a nuisance to me. I cannot bear to deal with her now.”
Chesain hesitates. “She’s but a girl, ma’am, not even six summers.”
My stepmother laughs.
Cold and unfeeling.
“If it eases your conscience, sell her to Madame Cruella, then. She will buy girls that young to train them, and at least she’ll make sure the girl is fed.”
The room is too small, too tight, my lungs constricting as I stumble backward.
I won’t go to Madame Cruella.
I won’t let them take me.
I turn. Run.
My legs burn, tremble, slip in the blood still sticky between my toes.
The window. I shove it open. Rain slashes at my skin. The wind howls.
Jump.
I don’t hesitate.
The night swallows me whole.