Queen Illyana slowed her steps as she reached the warehouse's entrance, the wind stirring around her boots, tasting the air for her.
The rain had stopped an hour ago, but the streets still glistened with a thin, mirrored sheen, reflecting the faint gold of distant lanterns. Night choked the capital's edges, its warehouses and dockside alleys swallowed beneath sheets of fog dense enough to mute even the sound of footsteps.
It did not mute her.
The fog parted as though afraid to cling to her presence. As though the fog itself was afraid of her.
Her frozen eyes were anger incarnate, the color of ice but the emotion of violent sun. Vermilion red hair dropped low to her waist, fluttering with the breeze. Her armor was sleek, black, sharp as a drawn blade, a more regal version of the imperial knight's uniform, gleaming beneath a deep crimson coat. The white wool lining fluttered against an unnatural wind that had not been there moments before.
Her eyes narrowed further, creasing the skin between her brows and wrinkling her nose. She was awake, very, very awake. And very, very cold.
She left the palace at dawn, carrying nothing but fury that burned as bright as the sun. She stopped before the door to the last warehouse on the docks, the sea spraying violently as the wind kicked up.
"Assassins, in my home. Bold little insects."
Vangardia isn't the largest nation in the world; that title belongs to the Demon continent. It doesn't have the strongest military force. No, that's Camelot. No fancy achievements such as taming dragons like DraconiHeart Kingdom. No fancy magic like the elven forest.
No, none of that. But for the last ten years, Vangardia has been regarded as the safest country in the world.
Because of her.
The door screamed. Wood groaned as if crushed beneath the weight of an unseen force. The hinges buckled. Then, with a sound like bones popping from their sockets, the metal twisted into a spiral.
And then with a simple push from her fingertips, the door fell inwards.
Wind curled behind her, slipping into the darkness first, eager to carve.
Then she stepped inside.
A dozen assassins filled the room, prepared. Almost as if they knew she was gonna come.
"Where are you...?" She murmured, searching the room and between each assassin.
"Attack her together on my command!" One assassin hissed.
Illyana raised one hand.
Just one. Her right hand. And in response, the air tightened.
Then the man exploded, crushed inward like tin. No fire. No spell circles. Just gravity folding him in half with a wet, concave noise that splattered across the nearest crates.
Several assassins gagged. One vomited.
Illyana didn't even blink.
"I feel you. Servant," she whispered again.
She stepped closer to the assassins, her footsteps echoing.
Pride... it kills people.
One assassin swallowed before drawing his dagger, wiping it against his white sleeves before running at her at an arc, only to swing at air.
She vanished without a sound, without even a flash. Just wind collapsing into a vacuum, long enough for panic to ensue.
After roughly six seconds, three heads dropped to the floor, disconnected from their bodies... bodies that exploded into pieces of meat.
One of the assassins—the earlier, prideful one who swung at air—screamed. Shrieked. Shrilled. An almost inhuman sound, a cry as he started incanting, throwing random spells in the air, even hitting his own comrade.
"I'll leave you for last." Her voice echoed in the room, and he knew she was talking directly to him.
Panic, that's all he did, all he could do. Panic. Aimlessly shooting spells with no regard for his surroundings, and not a single spell landed.
But his arms did.
"I changed my mind."
Both his arms dropped, ripped clean off by a sudden pillar of compressed air that shot downward like a guillotine, and his body slid to its knees before his mind caught up. He screamed wordlessly, mumbling incoherently as he stared upward with teary eyes, blood pooling from his shoulder joint onto the floor where his arms were.
Illyana reappeared, brushing a splatter from her cheek with a gloved finger. She looked at the blood. Then an amused grin of sorts appeared on her face. She loved this.
The assassin whimpered and pleaded incoherently with Illyana, who looked down at him as if he were some insect. Then his body dropped to the side as his head exploded without even so much as a flick of her wrist.
When it came to raw connection to the wild arcane energy. Nobody in the world could compete with her. Not even Merlin himself.
Wind curled around her ankles like eager serpents, lashing out at shadows, tasting for movement. Gravity thickened in a lazy pulse, as though the air were deciding who deserved to breathe.
The remaining several assassins dropped, their broken wrists snapped backward, jaws hanging loose, bones poking pale through slits in their skin. Their blood painted the concrete in long, smeared arcs as if dragged by invisible claws.
One still clung to life, half-crushed beneath a collapsed stack of crates. He wheezed a wet breath.
"Oh?"
She walked towards him, heels clattering off the concrete, then she crouched in front of him, slow and languid, her joints cracking sharply in the silence.
A thin cut traced the edge of her bottom lip—her blood? She dragged her tongue across the blood, humming as though tasting wine.
"Mmm… not mine."
Not her blood.
She tilted her head, smile sharpening.
"I assume that was yours. How rude of me."
The assassin trembled, eyes wide and white.
"One of you insects tried to assassinate my nephew. How adorable that you actually succeeded."
The man choked on a plea, but she placed a single finger on his lips, voice dancing on a whisper "..Sshh..."
He froze because the air around his skull suddenly condensed, gravity pressing bone against brain in a slow, crushing embrace.
"Yes... That's right. Sora didn't survive that night at the ceremony hall, nor did he survive the recon mission assigned to him three nights later. In fact, he died. And yet, he's still alive... curious, no? I'm not entirely sure if he's even aware of that fact yet."
The man's mouth worked, but nothing came out.
Illyana clicked her tongue. "You're a boring insect."
A twist of her wrist—and his arm folded backward with a wet, cracking snap.
His scream filled the warehouse.
Her eyes fluttered half-shut, savoring it. "Mmm… better. Much better."
"S—Sylah did it!" The man finally managed, but it was too late, for after mere moments, life left the man's eyes; his pristine white clothing turned red with the color of his own blood as she beheaded him with the very air he breathed.
But for some reason, a ripple crawled down her spine.
Wind tightened around her, instinctive, protective… wary.
"I found you," she muttered softly to the shadows.
A quiet laugh responded dryly, dripping with amusement.
Illyana's smile didn't falter, but it changed—slower, sharper, hungrier; this was no second-rate assassin. This was the real deal.
"We thought that only one of you awakened, turns out there were actually two... isn't that right, Servant of Chaos?"