❝ Pain was my fuel, until the fire began bleeding from my veins. ❞
The girl without a name.
The black-haired fiend devoid of fear.
The sharp-tongued scoundrel always ready with a trick up her sleeve.
Thief and street rat Azura knows how to hustle a...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛
The man tosses me from his shoulder into the sludge. I land with a grunt as I slide through it, rain plastering my hair to my face. I wipe the mud from my mouth, glaring up at the man as he runs a hand along the broad neck of a horse tied to a tree. My glare doesn't carry much weight with my right eye already swelling shut.
"Who are you and what the fuck is going on?" I get to my feet and observe my surroundings as I grip my inflamed shoulder. The woods here are thin, the rain escaping through the sparse leaves and wetting us with ease. I can't see the lanterns of Warroll through them, which means we're further away from the town than I wish to be. His mad dash away from the warehouse was dizzying to say the least.
The man looks at me over his shoulder, dark eyes taking me in from my toes to my head as I try not to shiver in the cold, my clothes soaked through with muck and rain.
"I'm taking you somewhere you'll be safe," he replies, his voice deep and rumbling like distant thunder.
"That's not reassuring," I mutter, and succumb to the cold by wrapping my arms more fully around myself and allowing a shiver to crawl down my spine.
I tilt my face to the skies, glaring up at them as rain splatters my face, mixing with the blood that streams from my puffy cheek.
"The last time someone was taking me somewhere to be safe, he died."
Coward.
The voices whisper and growl.
Coward who ran into the ice.
"I need to get back to Warroll," I say, lowering my face from the sky and deciding it's the only course of action. There's no other road to take—no other option—but to find Jile and remove his head from his shoulders.
"I can't let you do that," the man replies, shifting so he fully faces me, his fingers flexing at his sides.
"Why not?" I question, a muscle under my eye twitching.
"You'll be walking into your grave."
I step towards him, tilting my head. "There'll be no grave for someone like me. Just a barge of burning bodies drifting towards the Blood Ocean. Only the rich or fortunate get burials." I look him up and down now, from the expensive leather of his boots to the thick wool of his tunic and hood.
We clearly walk different paths in life.
"I've never been particularly rich or fortunate. And I just saw a bunch of kids die that'll be put on that barge in the morning, and I'd really like to see one more join them."
I shove past him but his hand shoots out and he grabs my upper arm. Every muscle within me stiffens, my focus narrowing down to the place where his hand touches me, feeling like an iron branding that sears to the bone.
