IF THERE WAS ONE thing which Jacquelyn McKenna hated more than misplacing her favorite sword, it was waiting.
She couldn't stand waiting.
Especially not at a time like this.
Hand curled around the hilt of her katana, the young woman who was just a week short of turning fifteen perched delicately upon a building's roof, one foot propped up on the very edge while her free hand rested on her elevated knee. Her single eye stared down into the shadows of the darkened alleyway, all senses alert and body still as a statue.
Waiting was a game she definitely didn't like to play.
Where was her partner? The moon had reached its peak three minutes ago, which meant they were already late getting started with this particular mission, and at this rate, she wouldn't make it back in time for at least one hour of sleep before the sun rose again.
The night was eerily silent, though the mere presence of the masked individual would be enough to quiet an entire town. She was the one that people never saw before they perished at her blade, their blood staining her garments like a cruel second skin. Adults whispered about her in the night, and children feared even the quietest whisper of her chosen name.
The Shadow Phoenix.
Chaos incarnate. Blood of the shadows. An angel of death. She had been called all of these names and more. Every title they threw at her was just another to add to the growing pile of names she collected.
Even the one she had acquired three years ago, which was her favorite — the Deadliest Assassin in Erdas.
She wore that title with pride, as very few could achieve it.
However, the Deadliest Assassin would not be as such if she failed to take her mark tonight, so the fact that her partner was now six minutes late was beginning to irritate her.
If she surpassed ten minutes, Jacquelyn would simply go on without her. She had not canceled her dinner plans with her date just for her partner in crime to not show up. That was what irritated her the most — she had been forced to give up a peaceful evening with her girlfriend in order to complete this mission.
Sometimes it pained her to be an assassin.
Soft footsteps sounded behind her, and the Phoenix wasted no time in lifting her head to stare straight ahead, not bothering to turn around and face the newcomer.
"You're late."
The person behind her let out an exasperated snort that was far from dignified. "Well, not all of us were on the same continent as the target."
The Phoenix bared her teeth, turning her head to glimpse the shadow of her partner in the corner of her good eye. "I had to disappoint Tianshi in order to be here. The least you could do is show up on time."
Stepping into the light of the moon above, the figure finally came into view. Any would drop their jaws in shock at the sight of these two girls standing side-by-side. Their similarities were frightening, both being the same height and both beholding the same eye color. Two differences marked the surprising sight — the difference in hair color as well as the difference in facial features. While Jacquelyn's locks were dark are flame, those of her partner were brown, though any could see the auburn highlights within.
Siblings, it seemed.
Twins, no doubt.
"I'm sure your girlfriend won't mind that you missed dinner. You have a job, you know." The brunette scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
The redhead narrowed her singular eye slightly, setting her jaw before turning her head to face forward once more. "Do you at least have what I asked you to bring?" She had to fight the annoyed snarl in her tone, but it wasn't her sister's fault. The Phoenix was always angry these days, unless she was in sight of her girlfriend.
"Do I ever disappoint you in that way?" Her twin stepped forward to stand at the side of the redhead, pulling from the folds of her bronze cloak a short sheathe with the hilt of a sword wrapped in a black cloth.
Jacquelyn took it without a word, unsheathing the blade within and letting out a sigh of relief at the familiar feel of the weapon she hadn't laid hands upon in years. "My wakizashi." She let out a breath. "Thanks, Lucy."
Her twin laughed quietly, running a hand through her hair with a smirk. "Now you're complete again."
For a long moment, Jacquelyn was silent, staring at the blade she now held with a rare smile on her face. Then, she straightened, steeled her expression, and hooked the sheathe to her belt, shifting her stance to adjust to the weight of it at her hip. "I suppose I am." Her single eye shifted, and the frown that was permanently embedded into her face returned. "Can we go now? I don't have all night."
Lucy laughed, but launched herself off the building's roof without another word, dropping into the shadows below.
The redhead blinked, snorting softly, before she pulled up her face covering the rest of the way, concealing her entire face now save for her remaining eye. With the grace of a bird, she dropped down after her twin sister, the movement familiar and exhilarating.
Oh, she had missed this. The thrill of the hunt. It was perhaps the greatest reason she had yet to leave the life of an assassin, other than the fact that it was just part of her blood. The Phoenix lived and breathed the life of a murderer.
Silent as the shadows, Jacquelyn moved with fluid grace after her twin, coming up beside her after a few strides.
They'd elected to use the back door this time, because going in through a window, while great for surprising a victim, was not ideal for an assassin whose target slept on the second floor of a tall mansion, and while she did enjoy a good thrill during the hunt, she wasn't keen on breaking her legs trying to enter when the jump was best used as their escape if things went wrong. Otherwise, it was in and out the back entryway.
The target was important, and any misconduct would lead to a dangerous chase when the guards were alerted.
It wasn't every day someone decided to murder the son of a war veteran who'd died just days prior.
Taking the lead now, Jacquelyn slipped through the back door, her boots not making a single sound against the marble floor of the manor they'd entered. Even if one listened closely for her, none would ever hear her — her breath was still as the air, and her steps like that of a living shadow.
It was almost as though she didn't exist in the first place.
With Lucy close enough to brush against, the Phoenix Assassin slipped into a wide room, partly lit up by faded moonlight seeping in through the windows. Before the twins, a grand staircase stretched, white and marble-crafted as the floor they stood on.
It gave Jacquelyn a strong sense of longing for home.
Leading the way across the room, the redhead assassin began to ascend the stairs, toward the room of their target. Even as the two climbed up and reached the second floor of the manor, the entire home remained eerily silent.
Jacquelyn halted at the top of the staircase, glancing toward the left, then to the right, trying to recall which side of the manor their target made his room.
Lucy gave her a gentle nudge with her elbow, and the redhead turned slightly to watch the elder twin slowly creep toward the left hallway.
Trusting her partner to know the layout of the target household better than she herself did, the Phoenix trailed behind now, taking a deep, inaudible breath once they were brought into the final hallway.
Now she remembered. The bedchambers of their intended victim were located at the end of this hallway. She'd read up on the target the prior day, memorizing what she could about him.
Male. Early twenties. Mother is a respected noble. Father died days prior to this in war. No other connections, which made the job easier. He didn't have a spirit animal, so the only protection the assassins needed to worry about were the guards, which she could see were stationed just outside of the room they needed to enter.
She dipped her chin slightly, and the Pegasus moved from her side into the shadows, headed toward the guards. There was only a slight flash in the darkness before the first went down in a spray of metallic liquid. The second had no time to even call out a warning before he, too, was dead. Both were left in puddles of blood, facedown on the floor, allowing for the Phoenix to step over them and enter the room after her sister.
Their victim slept in a large bed close to the far wall of the room, only partly covered with satin-white bedsheets.
"He looks peaceful." Jacquelyn commented, casting a glance toward her sister as the words drifted through the silent room.
Lucy nodded once, crossing her arms with an amused look down at the target, sleeping away on his bed unaware of the fate about to befall him.
The redhead turned toward her elder twin. "Care to do the honors?"
"What, not in the mood today?" The brunette teased, her grip on the battle axe she called her weapon tightening slightly.
The Phoenix waved a clawed hand dismissively. "I promised Tia that I wouldn't get too much blood on my armor tonight. I don't need the entire palace smelling like a corpse."
"Pity," Lucy lifted the axe and then brought it down, executing a clean kill with a single blow. A smirk twitched at her lips, which the younger twin could see even through the brown cloth acting as a mask. "You'd bend the stars if she asked you to, wouldn't you?"
As the Pegasus moved across the room to stand beside the redhead, Jacquelyn punched her in the arm. "Shut up!"
"Wow, Jackie, I've never seen you so smitten over someone," Lucy mocked, wrapping her arm around the younger twin, "this princess really does make you happy, doesn't she?"
"I swear to Tellun that I will leave you here for the guards if you don't shut up."
The Pegasus released her sister, laughing. "It's okay, Jac. If you love her, and if she loves you, then you have my blessing."
Jacquelyn scowled. "I didn't ask for your blessing."
Lucy winked. "Oh, but you have it. Just know that if she breaks your heart, I'll have to honor my assassin duties."
"I tried that already." The redhead responded grimly. "That's how I ended up in this position to begin with. She doesn't respond well to people attempting to murder her."
"No one does." the elder twin replied, taking the lead and entering the hallway once more. The two dead guards were still on the floor, puddles of blood mixing beneath their lifeless bodies, which Jacquelyn took utmost care to avoid stepping in.
The twins quietly made their way back toward the staircase, senses alert for any sign of guards who might have been patrolling the halls late this night. There wasn't much time left before the three dead bodies were discovered, and the assassins were targeted for it.
Jacquelyn had been captured twice in her time as an assassin. The first time, she'd been a novice, and the violent interrogation that followed her imprisonment had been almost too much for her to bear. She had spent a week in captivity before her sister had come and helped her to escape.
She had grown cunning since then, avoiding capture like a shadow avoided the touch of light. But when she'd been imprisoned in Zhong following a failed attempt on the life of a young princess, even she knew it had been foolish.
From then on, she had taken great care to keep herself out of the grasp of those who wanted her head. Now, she had someone to go back to, someone who was important to her.
She and her sister turned a corner and found themselves standing at the top of the staircase once again, shadows stretching across the polished marble like some sort of eerie design. They began to descend, steps as silent as they had been when they had come up moments prior. It was only when Jacquelyn felt a slight change in the silence that she turned around, her body swiveling just barely to avoid a blade which speared from above.
"Assassins!"
The guards.
They'd caught them.
Wasting no time, the Phoenix scaled the rest of the staircase, landing silently on the shining marbled floor of the manor and tilting her head up to observe what appeared to be a dozen guards, some aiming arrows from the banister while others descended the stairs to meet them.
"Twelve against two?" Lucy scoffed, adjusting her stance to prepare for a fight. "I'd hardly call that fair."
The Phoenix smirked beneath her mask. "Six each." She lunged, though she held no weapon in her hands, which were the deadliest weapon on her. Beneath those black gloves were claws made of titanium, welded into her skin in place of her fingernails. She'd done this herself years ago, when she was only nine.
A weapon that no one could take from her.
She slashed one hand forward, slicing into the unprotected face of the first guard she met, sending them to the floor. Barely sparing them a second glance, the Phoenix was already bearing down on her next victim, driving those deadly claws straight into her throat and sending her to her grave with a kick to the gut on the way down.
Her gaze went to the third, who swiped toward her face with his sword. She ducked under the blade and caught hold of his wrist, before slamming her head against his and causing him to crumble to the ground. His own sword sliced through his chest, so the assassin didn't need to worry about executing him.
The redhead turned, scanning for her sister, but then became aware of a sudden, intense pain shooting through her backside.
The archers . . . she'd forgotten about those damn archers.
She stumbled, her breath hitching in her throat as she attempted to regain her bearings after the initial pain and shock wore off. However, another arrow cut into her leg, sending her to her knees.
A third arrow sliced through the air and struck her upper back, knocking the wind from her single remaining lung as she tipped forward, the world muting around her. She crashed to the ground, limply, as all sense of the world around her faded away for what seemed to be only a moment. Her mind went black, then she took a deep breath, before all awareness left her.
Jacquelyn was unsure of how long she was out, but after what felt like only a few minutes, she snapped open her eye and attempted to sit up immediately.
Such a sudden movement of her body seemed to throw her into a state of vertigo, especially once she realized that she was not lying down in a prison cell.
In fact, she wasn't even in contact with the floor, it would seem.
Suspended about three feet off the ground, chains wrapped securely around her ankles and attaching to the ceiling, Jacquelyn realized rather quickly that she was caught in a very odd predicament.
She was actually hanging upside down in a dark prison cell, stripped of her weapons and her dark red hair falling neatly to the ground, having come undone from its usually tight ponytail.
Judging by the fact that her head didn't feel like concrete yet, she assumed she hadn't been unconscious very long. Though, it would take hours of this sort of suspension to keep her unconscious, seeing as when she did sleep, this was her preferred position. Granted, she usually didn't sleep more than an hour every few days, meaning she had about fifteen minutes before she actually started to feel the effects of hanging by her ankles.
Many had joked in the past about her sleeping habits, mentioning that her spirit animal would be a bat of sorts. But unfortunately for them, the assassin who was merely a week short of turning fifteen had not been graced with a beast to call her own, and good riddance for that. She didn't want a spirit animal, so she had neglected to even attempt to have a ceremony, which slimmed her odds more so than usual.
Usually, a spirit animal would appear to someone naturally if they didn't take the Nectar of Ninani at age eleven, between the ages of eleven and thirteen, rarely at fourteen. But Jacquelyn was nearly fifteen, and none had appeared.
It was safe to say that the universe had not deemed her worthy.
A better predicament, if she were being honest.
Few assassins were joined in soul with a spirit animal, but those that were didn't last long. A spirit animal was an extension of one's physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual body. To be joined with one was to gain a part of oneself.
The life of an assassin was dangerous, and oftentimes spirit animals were seen as weaknesses. If the animal died, the person they were bonded to would never be the same. She'd seen fellow clanners go mad with pain. Few had described the agony as worse than losing an arm.
Jacquelyn didn't want that kind of liability in her life, especially being one of the most dangerous assassins in the world.
Her single eye snapped toward the door as soon as she heard the lock click, and she slowly stilled her breathing before closing her eye once more to make it seem as though she were still unconscious.
Multiple sets of footsteps sounded throughout the small cell, and Jacquelyn had to force herself to remain completely limp, suspended from the ceiling by her ankles.
"So . . . this is the famous Phoenix Assassin?" A woman's voice scoffed, her tone reminding the redhead of sandpaper and nails on a chalkboard. "The Shadow Phoenix? She's merely a child."
A male's voice spoke up, timid and soft. "My lady, this is the girl we captured in the halls after we found your son. She killed three of our guards before we were able to restrain her."
"This little brat could not have killed Alastair. He would not have stood for such a . . . meaningless death."
Oh, how Jacquelyn wished she could laugh in the face of this woman, and tell her that her son was merely a number in the back of her mind, another voice to haunt her.
"And what of the partner?"
"Locked in a cell down the hall, ma'am," the guard replied. "She managed to bring two guards down before she was taken out."
The woman was silent for a long moment, and Jacquelyn assumed she was glaring right at her. However, she said nothing more, simply turning around and walking toward the door she had entered through, presumably to wait until the assassin was actually awake. Once the door had closed and locked, she waited a few minutes before opening her eye.
The effects of her position were slowly starting to reveal themselves, with a light pressure building up in the back of her skull. She gritted her teeth, before curling upward toward her stomach — which required a great deal of ab muscles — and hooked her claws into the chain directly above her ankles.
Heaving herself into an upright posture, the young assassin gritted her teeth, pulling her body enough so that she was mostly supported in a standing position, the strain fully taken into her arms. Then, she reached downward, her clawed hand sliding to a sheathe hidden at her inner thigh. Not only was it unbearably close to the area of her body that people would get their hand cut off for even thinking about touching, but it also served as the perfect location to hide an emergency blade.
She pulled it from its sheath and held it up against the chain, unsure of how useful it would be in cutting through. Few things were able to slice through solid iron, but she figured it couldn't hurt to try her luck. Maybe the stars were on her side tonight.
Her arm was straining to keep her weight from falling back, which she was sure would not be a pleasant experience. As she attempted to chisel through the shackles which restrained her, she was aware that she had already built up a sweat simply by holding herself in a righted position.
The lightheadedness had not subsided, and her skin was slick with sweat. Despite the chill of the cell, she'd become unnaturally warm in the last few moments, her heart beating loudly in her chest.
She wanted to dismiss it as low blood pressure — she wasn't the most . . . healthy person in the world — or even her lack of sleep, but as she tried again to make a dent in her chains, she became aware that the vision in her one eye had blurred considerably, with shadows creeping in at the edges.
Distracted, Jacquelyn lost focus for a split second, yet that moment was enough for her muscles to give out, and her grip to fail. She lost hold of the chains, slipping from her upright position and falling back to her previous one. The sudden motion nearly pulled her legs from her body, sending pain rocketing through her bones.
Dazed for the moment, the assassin had no time to realize what had happened. The pressure returned to her skull, more intense and agonizing than before. Her head exploded with stars as her skin was assaulted with a burning sensation, as though acid had been poured on her, stripping flesh from bone. A magnificent burst of light engulfed the entire room, blinding her with its brilliance, and once it faded, she could only hang there, breathing weakly as her body shivered once, then gave in to the pressure which roared against her skull.
Before she succumbed to the persistent blackness, Jacquelyn thought she saw a shadow move across the ceiling in the corner of her good eye, and a few feathers drifted down from the rafters.
Then, she was aware of nothing at all.