"Do we have all the corpses here?" Villaira inquired.

  "One, two, three...seven. Yes." Suben confirmed.

  It was almost evening now, the air still warm and dusty. And Villaira's mind was pacing back and forth. She couldn't stop thinking about what Master Thane had told her earlier.

  "Ellissae will be meeting with you shortly."

  Just the mere thought of seeing her again after so many years made Villaira's heart go crazy.

  How many years had it been? Seventeen.

  Villaira felt her cheeks heating up, her skin damp with perspiration. She felt like a teenager, all blushed and flushed, as if she were attending her first date.

  "Villi?" Suben called once. Twice. Villaira snapped out of her reverie. And he hinted her to turn around. "She is here."

  Villaira's world stopped spinning.

  There, at some distance, was Ellissae. Tall. Beautiful. Elegant. Eyes deeper than the ocean. Deep blue robes hugged her body.

  And then their eyes met.

  Villaira gasped. Like waves collide against waves, the emerald of her eyes refused to be separated from the sight of Ellissae's face.

  How many days she had wished to see her. How many nights she had spent thinking about her. How many questions were there on her mind. How many words she wanted to say to her. All vanished. The only thing that stayed in Villaira was the image of Ellissae, who was standing near her now, so near that Villaira could bask in her scent. She smelled like thunderstorm - Villaira concluded.

  Just when Villaira thought of saying something, Ellissae walked past her. And only then did she notice.

  There was a man.

  Ellissae was tall, but he was taller. With hair like the hue of an old tree's bark, a sculpted nose, a pair of curvy lips and amber eyes that shone like stolen rays of the sun, he was quite a bashful beauty.

  But what bothered Villaira even more was that he was following Ellissae closely. Too closely.

  Villaira felt like she had been slapped across her face hard and rough. She came back to her senses. Self-realization dawned upon her like a poisonous needle piercing right through her skin to poison her old wounds. Suddenly, she was too conscious, too aware, too sensitive that even her own sweat trickling down her skin made her tremble with anger.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  ___________________________________

  "S-stop!!"

  The fat man begged only for Ellissae to land another kick, this time breaking his ankle.

  "Spit out." She growled.

  The man looked up. Trembling, he tried to reach for the one he thought had a merciful face - Suben. But to his huge disappointment, the other had quickly moved back. Villaira was looking back at him with approved distaste too, and the man that had came with Ellissae, Aiden, she had introduced, was looking back at him like he were some wild animal who had dared to live its life longer than it ever deserved.

  "I don't have time for your petty act." Ellissae spat while her thin, icy fingers wrapped around his fat throat inauspiciously. "Speak. Otherwise that tongue of yours will be dead forever."

  "I- I will say!" The fatty cried out. "Please don't kill me!!"

  Ellissae released his throat and stepped back. The man sucked in air. He knew he had nowhere to hide. At the least, he could try to save his ass.

  "I... I'm the owner of this inn. I don't visit here often. But...but we had a deal. So I came -"

  Suben: "What kind of deal?"

  Sweat pricked the fat man's skin like he was being pinched severely.

  "I...I had a deal of g-giving them new g-girls...."

  Ellissae's jaw tightened, a vein ticked along the side of her long neck.

  "Then how did they die?" Suben asked.

  "I... I do not know." The inn-owner continued. They were waiting here and I....I was supposed to leave after they got the girls. B-but then..."

  Ellissae: "Seems like you really do not value your tongue."

  The man wailed immediately. "Please, believe me. I'm not lying. I remember taking the money and then a smoke appeared. I do not remember anything else!"

  Suben: "Where are the girls?"

  "I do not know!"

  Villaira: "Did anyone else come here except you and those seven other men?"

  "I do not know!"

  Suben sighed. "There's no point in asking him. This was obviously a trap. Let's go back"

  The man saw his life flash before his eyes. He was safe, wasn't he?

  "Fucker."

  Ellissae slashed through the centre of his head with her dagger, splitting his thick brain into bits and blobs.

  There was a crowd gathered. Obviously. And amongst the crowd was a woman, Villaira noticed, who was continuously threatening her daughter to go back home.

  "Do you know anything?" Villaira urged the little girl. The mother immediately tried to pull her away but failed. She was too scared to even speak.

  Without even looking back Villaira knew Ellissae was there right behind her, the air around her growing cold and unsettling.

  "I saw her." The little girl whispered.

  Ellissae was now hunched on the ground, her eyes fixed on the little girl.

  "Tell me." She encouraged. "Tell me everything you know. I'll give you anything you ask for."

  And so, it was settled. Ellissae had sent back the girl home with new clothes and enough money for her and her family to buy food for a month. And the little information she provided seemed to Ellissae like the first piece of the huge puzzle she had been trying to solve for the past several years.

  "It was a woman." The little girl had told her. "She was standing in the smoke. She had red eyes and very long hair. She had twisted the men's necks and tore apart their flesh with bare hands."

  "She saw you?" Ellissae had asked her.

  "Yes. But she didn't touch me. She said she was here only for them. So she danced in their blood and took their lives away."

  "Did she tell you who she is?"

  "Yes."

  "Who is she?"

  "Death."