"Quicker. The slower you move, the easier it is for me to win."

"I thought we were supposed to be conserving energy."  

"You can take a juniper bath and massage your muscles with lavender oil before getting some sleep. Now, move quicker, and don't rely on your powers to save you."

He doesn't give a warning before launching his attack. We've been on the roof of the assassin's keep for what could be an hour based on the setting sun, and Arthur – Lance - is pushing us all harder tonight.

Deflecting his blows makes tremors run down from where my hand clutches my sword handle, all the way down to the shoulder, but I'm managing much better than I did months ago. He swings low, I jump and land with my arms already swinging the sword high to keep him on the ground and give myself an advantage. It might've worked too if he didn't roll and hook his ankle on the back of my knee, forcing me to the ground.

I scarcely miss his blade that hits the stone by my head and instinctively reach up and grab his arm to use what isn't much of an imbalance to pull his arm away from me and use my left leg to push my right hip up and turn him onto his back.

We wrestle on the ground for a little, and then we separate and get back on our feet. We both take a quick second to look around and see how the Bhaltayr are fairing against the Jades, and then we're back in each other's faces.

I was reluctant to allow the Bhaltayr to each have one-on-one fights with Lance's choice of assassins, but they all gave me a disguised glare telling me that if I denied them this opportunity, they'd wake me up with several buckets of water and whatever dirt they could dig up. I hated the slight threat, but that didn't stop me from telling Lance to make half of their opponents male, and the other half female.

If my men are going to get their asses kicked, it might as well be entertaining and embarrassing.

They switch partners every ten minutes, that way they're forced to adapt to a different fighting style and blow force. Their minds will have to work quickly to keep themselves alive and to catch whatever tells on the upcoming move or weak spots they can. Lance said it was the last bit of training we'll need. For now. He promised to continue our lessons after hell breaks loose, and I don't know if I'm happy about it, or looking forward to that juniper bath and lavender oil massage he was talking about.

I don't mind training the day before we plan to get Clare back. It takes my mind off of everything that could go wrong. I have one job, one job that is so much easier to carry out, yet will be so debilitating to do while knowing that everyone else is inside the castle walls where I can't go to save them should they get into any trouble.

All those thoughts about how I could lose more friends than save one run through my head, but they're not the scariest ones. Oh no, the scariest ones are wondering what Clare will look like – be like after we save her. Hira said that she doesn't remember any of us, and how am I going to react to that?

I want to be the person who forgives and forgets and comforts her through all the confusion, but what if I can't forget? What if simply seeing her will have me drowning in so many emotions that I go mute and useless or even reckless? What if hearing her voice as someone or something different turns this darkness inside of me into a labyrinth of it? What if, what if, what if –

To taken with my thoughts, I don't see Lance's movements to a move I know comes after, and he takes out my legs and pins me down in a second before I can blink. "Your head's in the clouds, Fire King. Focus."

"Pardon me for not being able to lock down my emotions," I retort. I know it's a low blow, but I can't stop my mouth before it's moving.

"It's not about locking them down, it's about setting them free and allowing them to drive you faster and harder when it counts the most. Your emotions are controlling you, not driving you. That's the difference." He stands up, the point obviously his, and the fight over. He holds out his hand to me and I take it with as much disappointment in myself that I can muster.

"Look around, Darius." I do, watching as my friends battle it out against men and women all trained to slit their throats. "Do you see the difference?"

"Difference?"

"The Jades," he says pointing to a female who executes an impressive offense with her twin blades, spinning and swinging so quickly that it looks like a tornado of steel. "They hone the problems and hardships of their life into their movements. If you have a boiling fire burning within you, then it cannot be put out. The Jades are taught to put their emotions into the precision of their movements.

"First, the Jades learn the basics, then they learn how to defend themselves. Once they can keep a knife from slicing their throats or puncturing their hearts, they're then put through emotional stress. Their mentors who have been so kind and gentle with their teachings before all of the sudden only use harsh words, yell at them constantly, beat them when they get it wrong, and are told that they're pathetic and will never become a Jade nor have a home to belong to."

I spin around on him, flabbergasted as to the behavioral change. "What?"

"What was the first sentence I said just now?"

"The Jades hone their problems and hardships of their life into their movements."

"Exactly. The Jades will be beaten both physically and emotionally until they finally take their anger and sadness and pain - and any emotion that they've been bottling up, and finally use it to push back. At this point, they only know how to defend themselves with and without a blade, so while the mentor is on the offensive spitting out ruthless words and the student does block after block, they have this sudden switch. They don't know a thing about going on the offensive, but one mental action of letting their emotions fuel their muscles, and they become that. Look closely, and you'll see it."

We watch as the dark-haired woman blocks a blow from Benny and they exchange a few testing moves to try and find each other's weak spots. I don't see much in her movements other than several years of training to become an assassin at first, but then, just as they separate for no longer than a second, I see the slight change in her eyes. She swings her skim once and then I gape as she executes move, after move, after move, her cloak moving around her making it look like she's nothing but a dark blur in the dusk sunlight.

"We could never fight as well as we do without something to give us a reason to do so," Lance continues. I never take my eyes off of the impressive woman, but I listen intently. "Without a reason, we have no feeling towards needing to win the fight, and without that motivation, we'd fall before we could be given the chance to win. A Jade Assassin isn't the most feared because they can handle a blade - any assassin trained correctly can be considered the most feared. What makes the Jades stand out, is the fact that we aren't heartless monsters who kill because of bloodlust. We're assassins who feel and love with every bone in our body, and that's what makes us so deadly. People run when we walk out of an alleyway because they mistake their fear of our drive, for the fear of our hands. They're more afraid of what we can do with them rather than what makes us do that action, and that's why we will always be underestimated. Because no one bothers to look past the jade-colored cloak and dark clothes. Why else would every Jade be required to wear the itchy fabric?
"Use your emotions, Darius. They're the only thing that will keep you alive in a fight, not just your training."

It's amazing how much I've misjudged everyone living in the building beneath me. Just two months ago I got goosebumps just thinking about the type of killers that lived beyond the gates. I thought Lance and his sister would start killing off palace guards during their stay at the castle, and I thought that their killing calm which needed to be fed on the night of their father's death, was alive for their lack of emotion.

Now I know that the killing calm he describes is truthfully misnamed. They're not calm at all, they're boiling with emotions to the point of which it needs to be let out before it pours out like a tsunami.

Like my powers, I can only hold in so much before I need to dampen it by sustaining the fire in the hearth or bringing a breeze to chill the sweat on my brow. That's what makes the killing calm so deadly. Before I thought it was deadly because they went numb, but now it's the opposite. Everything I thought I knew about them is wrong, and now I find myself wanting nothing more than to be like them. Even if they do kill several people, they'd never lay a hand on the innocent.

"You ready for another round?" he asks.

"Oh please. I was born-"

My gut twists, cutting off my words.

"Darius? What is it?"

I look everywhere, spinning in a circle trying to find what has the hairs on the back of my neck rising. I don't touch the elements, knowing that if it's what I think it is, that I'll want whatever I have of them to use. I spin back around to Lance, the order to get down on my lips, but they don't leave them before the sound of a low laugh echoes. It's amazing how quickly both the Bhaltayr and the Jades get into defensive formations. The Bhaltayr file around me, and the Jades surround them, letting Lance take the point between where the sound of the laughter is and everyone else.

The laugh turns into a hum, then into words sung in a chilling tune. I don't know the voice, but I sure do know those words.

Adeline's Lullaby.

I can't help it, knowing that they'll fight to keep me behind them, I use the air element to lightly push both Bhaltayr and Jades off-balance, creating a path that I nearly run through and stop by Lance's side. He opens his mouth to argue, then closes it and looks to the neighboring rooftop.

There's a wide shack on its surface. Its side is currently covered in shadows, from the setting sun, and a portion of it seems to be moving. Using a sliver of the air element, I feel the Jades stationed on the ground against the walls knock their arrows and aim high, waiting for any sign of movement to shoot down. The sentinels at the gates spread their feet and put their hands on their weapons, ready to draw. How the word got out so quickly, I don't know, but I'm grateful.

"Who are you?" Lance yells.

"Nightmares." Based on the voice, I'd say so, but it's unmistakably female.

"What do you want?"

"Food. Blood. I ache for it."

"How do you know that song?" I demand, cutting off Lance. He's not the only one who glares at me harshly.

"Little birds sing prettiest in the morning."

"Why does everyone talk in riddles?" Henry mumbles.

"Riddles twist the mind," the voice answers. Feet shift, uneasy about how they heard him.

"Enough enigmas," I say. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"I told you." The shadows move again, and a figure steps from the shadows. Her legs touch the light first, revealing tight red leather pants decorated with all types of cruel curved, jagged, sharp, and gleaming weapons. Her torso comes next, her extremely pale stomach bare and chest covered in the same leather. Her cloak is black and torn, showing her bare arms with more weapons on them.

None of it fazes me, but her face...satin white, sharp cheekbones, red lips, even redder eyes, black hair with red highlights, and two strands of white. The long black nails don't make her look better either. "I'm a nightmare."

"What do you want," Lance repeats. He sounds bored out of his mind yet doesn't raise his defensive stance.

The woman smiles, revealing all too white teeth I half expected to be yellow. "I want to know how you plan on saving the little bird who sings so sweetly."

Lance and I share a look, and I know what he's thinking. We can't say anything about our plans, but it seems they already know the base of it. They know we're here, they know that we haven't been here, and they know that our showing up now means it's only a matter of time before we make a move. It's all bad news. They'll be ready, and they're more unpredictable than we are.

"So you do plan on saving her. How sweet of you to think that you can."

"We can, and we will." That sounded way more confident in my head.

"Hm." She stalks to the edge of the roof, close enough to step off but far enough to avoid one of the arrows hitting her heart. "And how do plan on doing that when you can't even kill me now? Come on, Little Prince. Burn me. Make me scream like your little bird does when she bleeds that sweet and savory tender blood. It'll satisfy you, especially when you know that I'll follow her lead and never beg, only be happy to finally be so close to death's bitter kiss."

"Darius-"

"Burn. Me."

"Darius!" I snap back into myself, unconsciously having risen to the heat beneath my skin. I look down to find smoke coming off my hands, the elemental marks glowing brighter than they ever have before on the inside of my wrists.

"She's testing you, Darius. Stop letting her win." Lance is right, it's just –

"Don't you want to save her Little Prince? Don't you want to see her again?"

"Darius-"

"You can't. And you won't be able to. Want to know why?"

"Darius-"

"Because in order to get to her, you have to kill me, and you can't kill me.

"I beg to differ," Garrison challenges.

"Oh?" She doesn't break my stare as she walks forward, doesn't flinch when an arrow misses her eye by a few hair's length. She just keeps walking to the edge, arrows whizzing by until she steps over the edge and...doesn't...fall. She doesn't fall.

Instead, she keeps walking, nothing beneath her feet but air and a four-story drop. Now the archers have a clean shot and they take them, but the arrows break into splinters before they can hit their target. Even the ones flying from the sentinels on the roof around us snap, and she just keeps walking, her red eyes challenging me.

"Little Prince come to play. Little prince here to stop doomsday. Two souls lay behind the gates, both to be slain should the Little Prince go the wrong way." She's five steps away from the keep's edge, five steps away from me. "Come on, Little Prince. Wouldn't want you to be led astray."

Seconds. There are seconds before I rip out her throat and turn all of her organs into charcoal. Seconds before I –

"Enough!" The arrows stop flying, though the command was clearly not Lance's.

"They always ruin my fun," the red-eyed demon woman pouts, halting her steps and hovering a few feet from us. Her face goes from challenging to annoyed as she turns her head to the side. Another figure separates from the shadows of the inn's roof, a second form emitting over the snake-tongued woman's other shoulder. I know who they are before they step into the fading sunlight, and only Lance's hand digging into my shoulder is keeping me from pulling every ounce of breath out of their lungs.

The female figure steps out first, the hood of her cloak up but pulled back to reveal her face. "Long time no see, Darius," Eleanor calls.

"Not long enough," Charles croons, reaching the edge of the inn in unison with the demented Lady.

"I see you're all overflowing with joy to see us."  

"I'd tell you to go to hell, but since you're here, I'd say we're all already there," Henry snides.  

The demon woman's eyes gain light, but not the good kind as she slowly looks Henry up and down, "Oh, let me drain him, Ellie. I do so love the ones that fight back. They make for a good meal."

"Watch it freak show." Her eyes scan Gabe next, clearly saying that she'd much rather pounce on him. Sorry lady, he's taken. And not interested in your gender.

"Xaxias is wondering why it's taken you so long to appear," Charles interludes.

"If he wants to know, then he can come to ask us himself." Based on the pain Lance is causing my shoulder, I'd say that was the wrong thing to suggest.

"Little Prince." The demon woman takes a single step closer, her head tilting in a predatorial manner. "How sweet is the taste of earth and water's blood." She licks her lips, removing whatever substance she used to paint her lips red-

"You demented whore," Ethan growls. He takes a step closer and gets stopped by Lance too.

"It's even sweeter now that a flower-"

"Visha!"

Visha...her. She's Visha. The one Hira told us about. Xaxias's mutt from the underworld who drains men dry because she eats nothing but blood.

Blood. That's blood on her lips – Clare's blood. Little piece of dark filthy shit –

"Oh, go slither down Charles's pants, Eleanor," Visha orders over her shoulder. When she turns back to us, her sly smirk is back on display. "Little Prince here already knows."

"We don't know for sure-"

"You can smell it all over her. He knows." Eleanor's face entirely disagrees.

"Knows what?" All three of them look at me, Eleanor squinting her eyes.

Visha weighs her answer but answers nonetheless. "You have more lives than one to save, Little Prince."

I don't answer, all my effort going into trying to keep my face unreadable. Thankfully, Lance can do it without missing a beat. "There were rumors that you kept a healer."

"Yes, but I don't mean her..." Visha tells him, but her eyes don't leave me, and I have a really bad feeling that I should know something I don't. "Surely you know, Little Prince."

Once again I don't answer, and it has Visha laughing that cold hysterical laugh again. "Oh, how this is going to bring me utter joy to see your faces run pale."

"Visha!" Charles orders. His fists clench at his sides.

"If either of you orders me one more time," she warns in a dead tone. "It'll be your corpse they find in the halls come morning."

"You want to tell them, fine," Eleanor says, earning a protesting glare from Charles. "But twist their minds and keep it short. You've got one minute before they find you, and they won't be so gentle."

With that, both she and Charles walk back into the shadows, no sign as to where they went nor if they're still there. Who's going to find her, I don't know, but I sure would like them to tear that smirk off her face.

"Listen closely, Little Prince. From the first beat mends the bond, but the bond is not yet mended. Mended lays the life, but live it won't forever. Forever is long in length, but small in size it'll be. Be what she may, her cavity will hold, so long as dies the mended bond and bond new mended to forever. Untwist the words and save the lives. Don't, and only one will live, and it won't be who you wish it to be." She disappears in thin air, leaving nothing behind but the echo of her laugh.

"Cowardly, useless, daughter of a psychotic harlot, witch whore!" We all turn around to stare at Alister, his brows furrowed and face red. "What? Tell me I'm wrong!"

No one responds, we just keep looking at him wondering how the youngest of everyone here is suddenly cursing a ballad when all he's said before is one every now and then. Are we all really that bad of an influence?

"What in ten hells did that gibberish mean?" Mal asks, genuinely confused. He rubs at his temples tiredly, a sign that training is done.

"I don't know," Vlad admits. "But now having to worry about three lives to save...it changes things."

"No. It doesn't." I hate to say it, but Lance is right. "Look, all that matters is what happens next. We execute tomorrow as