On the backstreets of Vale and above an old antiques shop, hidden from the outside world, was a small apartment. Its owner missed few opportunities to complain about its size. She was used to penthouses and manors, not what she believed to be little more than an attic with its single bathroom and joint kitchen/living room. It was beneath her, but there were no better options.
The money wasn't the issue—far from it. Her meager abode was ideal due to its concealed nature and optimal location. To compensate for it, the woman crammed as much of her lavish lifestyle as she could into the tiny space. Expensive furniture, fancy wine, fine clothing—everything you could ever need to spoil yourself with.
Of course, you couldn't find a single electric source of lighting in any of the rooms. No, instead there were oil lamps, lanterns, candles, and anything else that burned. It was someone's job to keep replacing/refilling them and to make sure they were all lit before she came home. She'd always had a strong fascination with fire—her subordinates didn't understand it, but it wasn't their place to and no one dared to ask.
Currently, she lay in her favorite leather recliner, a deep burgundy and perfectly cushioned to suit her slender figure. She nursed a glass of Chardonnay, a mild reprieve from the torturous tension headache she was suffering from. It had begun almost an hour ago after something unprecedented occurred. Someone or some outside force had fought against her. She'd done her best to struggle against it, but whatever it was had quickly overpowered her—and the iron-tight hold she'd maintained for months was somehow broken. It was vital that she figure out what it was so she could stop it from ever happening again.
Outside the door, unbeknownst to her, two people were arguing—a gray-haired man and a green-haired woman, several years younger than the one inside.
"I don't see why I should be the one to tell her when it's your fault we're even in this mess," said the woman.
"My fault?" the man said. "You're delusional."
"You Blanked the room while Neo was in there. How else could she have gotten free?"
"My semblance doesn't work like that. We tested it long before Neo came into the picture. If you hadn't gotten in the way so much, she wouldn't have handed our asses to us and we could have still brought her back in."
She scoffed. "You wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as you did if I hadn't helped."
"You were sloppy. The second I knocked your knives out of the air you acted like you lost the last six months of training. Care to explain that? You're not using again, are you?" He seized her wrist and pulled it toward him, revealing the crook of her arm where long-faded puncture scars could just barely be discerned.
"Get your hands off me!" She jerked her arm free and drew a knife out of her pocket, which flew out of her hand and hovered midair inches from his face, the point aimed threateningly at his forehead. "I've been clean for years and you know it. But the more you run your pompous mouth the more I wish I wasn't."
He smirked and calmly plucked the blade out of the air, giving it a little twirl and holding it out of reach when she attempted to snatch it back. "Always so fast to jump to your semblance. That's your problem. If you can't hold your own without it then in another situation like that, you're worth about as much as any other common thug."
"I could cut your throat right now and wouldn't need my semblance to do it."
"Oh yeah?" He held the knife by its blade and extended it out toward her. "Prove it."
She tried to grip the handle, but he once again yanked it out of her reach. She accidentally bumped the door in the process, making a sound they both knew wouldn't go unnoticed.
"Cinder may have taken pity on you when you were a troubled teenager," said the man, "but if you don't start proving your value soon, Emerald, then she'll toss you aside just like she did her husband."
"You don't know what you're talking about." With that, she shoved past him and into the apartment.
After hearing the soft bang against the door, Cinder quickly composed herself, replacing all signs of her headache with a calculated expression. Rule number one: show no weakness. She straightened out the chair and swiveled it to face the entrance just in time to see her two most trusted underlings enter. It was immediately clear that they did not have good news to deliver; she'd expected as much.
"Mercury," she said calmly. "What happened?"
"Roman's out," he responded as he slipped the knife into his back pocket. "He and Neo have gone rogue."
"I know," said Cinder, letting a bit of ice into her voice. "I felt it. I asked you what happened."
"Not sure. We tracked him from the bank to some sort of garage where we had to take out a few of his men. We confronted him, then Neo attacked us. They got away."
"That's it?"
"It's all we know."
"There was a girl there," Emerald chimed in.
Cinder turned her attention to her. "And?"
"She disappeared after the fighting started. But I don't think she was just another one of Roman's henchmen. Seemed more like a civilian than anything."
"What did she look like?"
"She was short—not as short as Neo, but definitely skinnier. But she had a hood on, and the lighting sucked, so we couldn't really see her too well."
Cinder turned the back of her chair to them and brought a hand to her temple. Her annoyance that they had nothing of substance to offer was only making her headache worse. "Whoever she is, she's not important."
"She's seen my face," Mercury protested.
"But evidently you haven't seen hers," said Cinder. "If you want to fruitlessly attempt to locate her, do it on your own time. We have more pressing matters to deal with."
"The Vytal Festival?" Emerald said.
There was a long delay before Cinder responded. "I'm calling it off."
"What?" said Emerald.
"But Ironwood—" said Mercury.
"We don't have enough time to salvage this. There will be other opportunities for Ozpin to die. Right now, we need to focus on damage control. It won't be long before Roman's organization falls apart. I want as many of his followers as possible working directly for me now. Whoever doesn't submit . . . take care of them."
"Ironwood's taking over security on the festival," Mercury said. "If we can still carry through—"
The sound of Cinder slamming her wine glass on the table cut him off. "I said there isn't enough time. Brunswick's been compromised. We'd need to rethink our entire plan to make it work. We can't afford to be sloppy. If we want to finish what she started, we can't make the same mistakes. Besides—Ironwood's plenty capable of making himself look like a fool on his own."
Mercury backed off. He knew well enough that any further arguing would be overstepping his bounds. "So what now?"
Cinder ran her fingers through her fading blonde hair. "I want you to lie low and keep your hands clean. And get me some more hair dye. Emerald . . . get to work informing Roman's little mafia that they're under new management."
"You're going out?" said Emerald, who'd just stolen her knife back from Mercury's pocket without him noticing.
"Soon." Cinder stared thoughtfully into the flames of the nearest candle. "It's time to find myself a new thrall."
A/N: Once again, big thank you to my three betas, I Write Big, 0neWhoWanders, and Bardothren. They are three fantastic writers who were an incredible help with making Volume 1 as good as it could be. I honestly don't know where I'd be without them right now. If you're looking for something else to read to hold you over until Volume 2, check out some of their stories—they do great work.