Trigger warning: self harm

Kara had killed him.

I had loved him.

I will never be the same.

And so, hatred and vengeance boiling in my blood, I stood on the dark, shadowed street and, raising my knife to the moon, I plunged it into my hand.

My blood ran down my sleeve, staining the white red. 

It dripped onto the rain-soaked cobblestones, my skin slashed but feeling no pain.

"Aeti Aeito Amnada Asara," I chanted, tracing a circle on the ground with my good hand, drawn in my own blood.

"I, Akiko Marsadi of the house Ryderson, hereby swear the following..."

I traced a moon on the ground with the splattered blood inside the circle.

It was new year's eve, and magic was strong.

The knife, ornately decorated and stolen from my father's house, lay beside me, unneeded, a copper color covering the sharp edge of the blade.

"I will not rest until I avenge him."

I squeezed my cut hand, blood falling to the stone, making three dots around the moon-circle.

"I will not rest until I have done my deed."

I reached into my pocket, removing the bones of a bird I'd killed three days before, on the second full moon.

The light of both moons poured on my back as rain began to fall.

I crushed the bones and sprinkled them around the circle of blood.

"And I will not rest until I kill Kara Hasana, the woman who ended the life of my mate."

I grabbed a blue-bladed, ceremonial knife, knelt by in front of the circle of blood, and holding it to my chest, began to chant.

"Aekan Asam Faran Jara. I will not rest till I kill the killer of my lover."

And, with a deep breath, I stabbed the knife into my chest and cut out my own heart.

*****

I held my heart in my hands, still beating but slowly turning blue.

I'd done it.

I'd sworn the Murderer's Oath.

No one could kill me without taking my heart first.

It would be stored out of my body, kept in a secret box of some kind.

I already had chosen one: an unassuming steel box that I'd found in the shed I was hiding in.

My heart turned sapphire blue and glowed a little as I tucked it in a wooden heart-box, a special creation made just for this.

I put the heart-box in the steel box, wrapped a chain around it, and snuck into my father's house; a big manor on a bigger hill overlooking a small, tumble-down slave town.

I climbed in the window, my short, silver-white hair blowing in the wind.

I changed into a black, enchanted leather vest, packed it with knives, and set out into the night, hiding the box below a secret trapdoor in what had once been my bedroom.

No one would guess it was there.

***

Six years later

***

I had become a ruthless, angry killer.

I killed for him.

For him.

I had never found Kara-- she vanished a while ago, soon after killing him.

But I never stopped.

Blood and bone and broken hearts.

I was only blood and bone and broken hearts.

I didn't have a heart.

The townsfolk feared me for it.

They had every right to fear me.

"Heartless Killer", they called me when no one was looking.

I'd been to six villages looking for Kara, but without my heart, I had no mercy, no remorse, no need to spare a single soul from the bane of my blade.

"Secret Stalker."

"Blade Holder."

"Haunted Lover."

"Dangerous One."

"Girl Without a Soul."

"Demon Daughter."

"Heartless Killer."

They had their names for me, and I had my names for them.

Fools.

Victims.

Idiots.

Jerks.

Bleeders.

I didn't care about them.

At all.

I let them all die.

I made them all die.

***

Three years later

***

I heard the screams from the other side of town.

Kara was back, looking for me.

She'd hunted me the whole time.

As I had hunted her.

I ran towards the manor, where I knew she thought I was.

It was a terrible sight.

Kara had developed an army.

Or maybe she was in an army.

The people for the slave-towns had rebelled.

They hated my father.

So they burned the manor and killed everyone who escaped.

I knew the people running from the fire.

I had loved them.

But without my heart--

My heart.

My heart was in the manor.

I charged into the flames, knocking over the charging members of the scrappy terrorist army.

Racing through the corridors, heat blazed at my face, stinging my scars.

I needed to get to my heart.

I threw the door open-- yes!

No flame had yet reached this place.

But my heart was gone.

I ran out of the burning manor with a scream of fury.

"GIVE ME BACK MY HEEEEART!" I screamed, seeing a familiar curvy, redheaded figure--

Kara.

Holding my heart box.

She'd changed since killing him, covered in scars and dressed in black armor.

She looked deranged.

Maniacal.

Psychopathic.

"GIVE. IT. BACK!"

I tried to stab her, but she shoved the heart-box in front of my knife.

We kept dueling like this for what felt like hours as the manor burned behind us.

Blood soaked the earth.

And then

Kara

threw my heart-box

into the fire

and I

ran after

the wooden

heart-vessel.

I grabbed it, flames touching my skin but not burning me, tearing my heart out of the box before it could be damaged, and marveling at its blue color.

And then Kara's sword stabbed into my back and through my chest.

But there was no heart to stab within my body.

Only in my hand.

But it slipped from my fingers,

and Kara

pierced it through with her blade.

Screams

flashes of black and white and red

and blood and bone and broken hearts

and his face his face

he loved me

I killed for him

but the whole time he was watching for me

ready to take my hand when I left

but oh I'd done horrible things

we wouldn't go to the same place when we died

he was good I was evil

he was innocent

I had killed

I was doomed

if only

I'd made a better choice...

The Oracle

Yesterday's raid on the Ryderson Manor ended in the deaths of about 500 people, from slave owners to rebels to innocents. Noted deaths include terrorist Kara Hasana, who killed about 602 slave owners, innocents, and those against slave trade in raids for justice; Neko Wayfair, the 'man with a plan', fighting to end slavery and bring rights to everyone in the kingdom, and Akiko Marsadi, Samuel Ryderson's missing daughter.

Hasana was found trapped under a fallen beam in the fire she supposedly started, and was found to be dead upon arrival; Wayfair suffocated in toxic smoke trying to rescue a young innocent; and oddly enough, Marsadi was found with a sword stuck in her back and her heart removed from her body, with a pierce wound. It is unknown exactly which of these fatal blows killed Marsadi, but...

See page 2 for more information.