The sun rose the next morning. It didn't rise in my bedroom like it always does .
My father came into my room where I was curled up like a ball crying holding my mother's picture. Then he said to me, "I've told you before that silence is your only true friend, so wipe your tears and you look weak ."
I cleaned my tears immediately.
It rose on the training grounds of the Vicenzo empire. The training ground smelled of lead, blood and tobacco.
The girl who liked pink clothes, ribbons, toys and decorations was gone.That girl died immediately her mother's voice cut through the hallway and there was a thud of her mother's body on the marble floor.
I was in a tactical black looking like the way a member of the Mafia was supposed to be .
My father looked at me, shook his head and said, "The men who killed your mother and you are about to kill are fast. But you have to be faster than them so they won't see you coming until they are losing their breath. "
The basement was so cold, filled with blood and quiet; a huge difference to what I was used to .
Then my father gave me a blade, my little hands holding it shakily.
"Hit the dummy." He commanded.
I tried hitting it but I missed.
"Again." This time his voice was cold. I tried again but I was able to give it a shot.
The third time I tried I aimed for the limbs and the neck.
My father nodded, then he urged me to continue.
It was excruciating for a child like me.
If my mother was alive she wouldn't have let me do all that.
The training continued for months. My father only let me stop for a while after I got seriously sick but after that the training continued.
"Faster Lyra." My father shouted while I was inside a room locked with a bomb .
It had a countdown but it wasn't functional. I was supposed to detonate it before it counted down.
My father had taught me several times before. My hands were sweaty after twenty minutes. The total time for the count down was one hour.
"Done." I screamed running outside the room. It took me only thirty minutes.
My father walked forward and patted my head. " Good. The people you are going to fight against are wolves. They hunt in packs but you are not a wolf. They hunt very loudly and howl a lot. You move fast and you don't howl . Your steps are predatory and lethal. You move like a cheetah. The Spiritus Cheetah; you have the spirit of the cheetah in you. Your silence before attacking means everything and you should live by it.
Four months before my sixth birthday I had to undergo a ritual known as the Patto di Sangue e Pietra. A ritual that will officially make me a member of the Mafia and claim my position as the true heir of the Vicenzo empire.
I stood before Cupola of the Mafia high council ; Gaetano Scalise.
I stood boldly before every member which was uncommon for my age . I wore the cheetah mask my father gave me . It was a symbol enforcing my position as the Spiritus Cheetah.
My finger was cut with a sharp blade. And I was told to recite the oath.
' As blood goes to the stone my loyalty, my blood and my life also goes to the throne and to the Mafia .'
Something unexpected happened and that earned a collective gasp from everyone in the room .
My blood didn't stain the marble instead the marble sucked my blood like it was parched sand on a rainy day.
My day was filled with training and I was being home schooled.
By the time I turned fourteen years old my father's training improved.
I was taught how to dance with heels by a dance tutor hired by my father. He told me I had to learn so that even when I'm in a ballroom I will know how to kill a man while dancing.I was also taught about mental calculations for dealing with my enemies. I wasn't just taught how to fight them. My father taught me how to make them bleed .
I memorized the accounts of Italian and European senators. While other girls were thinking of their first dances and love interest I wasn't. I was thinking of what could make me win and my heart was already like stone and my eyes were already cold holding no emotions.
I remember one night clearly. My father was smoking his expensive tobacco and my uncle Enzo was leaning close to the fireplace. Uncle Enzo was watching me strip and reassemble a Beretta while I was blindfolded.
"Is this the life you want for your only child ? . Uncle Enzo's voice was low and laced with grief and pity for me he didn't try to hide. " She is a genius Marco. She learns easily apart from her being able to kill . We both know she is fast but not just fast in that she is also fast in whatever she does and does well in her studies. She could be a lawyer, diplomat and she won't have to hide her face from the enemies."
My father said "She is star Enzo born to shine . And she is a defender born to defend and protect her legacy. She can't be a diplomat. A diplomat who doesn't know how to kill is useless in our world of blood.
" Then send me away from Italy." My father raised his head from the files he was looking at.
"What do you mean? "
"I meant you should send me away. I don't know how to be a diplomat. I want to be the reason the diplomats are afraid to lie. "
"She has your fire Marco so strongwilled and her mother's eyes that shows determination. It's a dangerous combination for her ." Uncle Enzo spoke, studying me carefully.
"That's why I said you both should agree to send me away. If I stay in Italy I'm just your daughter but if I leave I will be who they never saw coming. I will study medicine . I will become a surgeon and learn other things myself. I will learn how to heal so I know where I can destroy. I will become a surgeon so I will know exactly where to hold a scalpel to kill a man."
My father thought for a while and exchanged eye contact with Uncle Enzo and they both nodded. The silence between them spoke words in volumes I don't understand but they understood.
My father reached into the locked velvet drawer of his desk. He pulled out a slender curved blade . Its hilt is shaped like a hawk's wing and with a handle of aged ivory.
"This belonged to your mother . She used it to trim roses. She believed that beauty should be protected and preserved by something sharp. "
My father handed it over to me pains that he tried to hide, evident in his voice.
"From today if you miss a cut you are not just failing me and your uncle you are failing your mother and the memories of her. Make it an extension of your hand. Let it be the last thing the enemies see before their end .
I gripped the hilt tightly . Every other child my age will see a tool for trimming roses but I saw a tool for retribution.
That was the night the plan for Canada was born . I left Italy for Canada at fifteen.
I traded the Italian heat for the Canadian snow.
For ten years I lived a double life that could have broken the body and spirit of a lesser woman.
By day I was an elite student at the university of Toronto and a surgeon in a lab coat. I remember the first time I held the heart of a human . It was so silent , heavy and cold. My course mates looked at it with disgust and awe but I looked at it with clarity. I saw the artery, the valves and the chambers, the precise points where a knife or a scalpel can end a human life.
Underneath my lab coat my mother's knife was pressed against my ribs. I graduated with top honors being the best from my class. Everyone praised me for having nerves of steel in the operating room and steady hands but they didn't realize those same hands had been trained to shoot and kill any man since I was five.
By night I wasn't a surgeon I trained myself in my private gym daily. Worked with Olympic sprinters, swimmers and fire fighters by volunteering. I learnt more about speed. It wasn't about moving fast but was about the silence before striking. I became a self taught hacker, pharmacist and geneticist.
By twenty five I became a legal surgeon with a brain of a supercomputer and a body that moved like a predator.
When I returned back to Italy I was a mystery to everyone. My father's organization has grown and many of the old guards are gone, replaced with new ones who didn't know about the death of my mother.
These new soldiers only saw the princess with a medical degree. They saw the mask , the stethoscope and the silk dresses but they never saw the real person behind it who could end them .
But the shadows finally caught up to my father after a few months I was back in Italy.
He died in my hands on a cold night .
For all my years I've been saving lives, all my medical training I couldn't save my own father.
"The court.. " he wheezed. His blood stained my lab coat.
"4th and Main Street. Find the ghost. Trust Lucian . Check my pocket for instructions. Find Lucian the ghost Lyra." And then he went still in my arms.
I reached into his pocket and took the note. I stood up slowly so angry that I could kill anyone in my way who provoked me slightly.
The surgeon who just returned and wanted to stay quiet for a while died the moment her father's breath left . The queen and heiress took the throne. And one thing was certain I wasn't just going to kill them I will dissect them and their empire
My father was buried days later and my uncle Enzo left the country.
My next move was to go to 4th and Main Street and look for the ghost.
Thank you for reading the 'Forge' of Alessia Lyra. We've seen her grow from a child in a bunker to a doctor with a deadly secret. Now, the past and the future are about to collide.
Stay Lethal,
--Cruentis.