The gardens of the Velvet Cathedral had been restored, not to their former holiness, but to something far more...provocative. The hedges were trimmed into decadent shapes, obscene and magnificent. The roses had been crossbred with bloodroot, making their wine-dark petals glisten wetly beneath the moonlight like fresh wounds. The fountains didn't gurgle — they moaned. Suggestive figures stood a top each one, sculpted into poses that would've gotten any lesser artist excommunicated.
It was here that I found the Council. All seven of them.
On their knees.
Not by my command, not yet. But I'll admit, it was delightful to walk into a scene that looked like a blasphemous chapel orgy. They knelt in a crescent arc beneath the trellis I'd made the cathedral's botanists replant last week, as if repenting for a sin they had enjoyed far too much. It was perfect.
One of them stood.
Tall, sharp, and cold. Councilor Virelan. He held a square face with silver curls that looked like they'd been styled by a hurricane. Alongside that, he wore a robe so fine it seemed to whisper secrets.
"We intercepted word," he said, clipped and smooth, "of an assassin traveling from the north. Their mission is to dismantle the Council — us — one by one, divulge the city into a state of chaos, and strip our influence from the nation of Solaris."
I raised a brow, swirling the liquor in my glass. "Sounds like a normal Tuesday to me."
He ignored me. "We have confirmation. They're planning to board a rail from Dulmor to Ventri before arriving in Graywatch. We want you to stop him during his first transit, before he can gather more accomplices in Ventri."
Ah. Dulmor, land of frost and secret libraries, where even the rumors themselves wear gloves. "And you're sure it's not just a really determined tourist?"
Another councilor, Daesyn, lifted her chin. "There was a sigil. Burned into the corpse of a Dulmorian courier. A hexed spiral."
I perked up at this. A hexed spiral? I remembered there being a similar symbol plastered onto one of the pages of an open book I'd found in the chamber beneath the ossuary.
Virelan added, "They leave it at every site for every assassination they're contracted for. We have no name, just a simple description: long shaggy hair down to the waist and pale blue eyes."
Something prickled in the back of my brain.
"…What shade of blue?"
"Like winter through glass."
That description sank into me like a stone in water. My smile held, but it felt stretched. There was…something. Some faint echo of a face I should remember but couldn't. A familiarity I couldn't quite place, and that unsettled me more than I'd admit.
Daesyn pressed on. "The nation of Soloris is fracturing. The king hasn't been seen in months. Nobles kill over fabrics and funeral placements. Various cities and estates are at war. Graywatch was already cracking under pressure, an event like this could shatter it completely.
"And? Why me? I thought you wanted me dead just a few weeks ago if I recall correctly."
"The other cathedrals refuse to put themselves at risk and the city's central army has been falling apart as of late. We're desperate," she admitted.
"You're asking me to solve an assassination plot on a moving train," I mused. "Do I look like a stage magician?"
"You look like sin incarnate," Virelan snapped.
"Didn't take you as one with a knack for flattery," I said with a smile.
I turned to the map spread beside a nearby fountain before slowly tapping the rail line with a gloved finger. "Here. The Blackrush Stretch. Remote. Isolated. The perfect stage."
"You intend to intercept the train there?" Virelan asked.
"Not just intercept," I said, tracing the path like a lover's hip. "I intend to transform it into a form of art. I'll turn the train into a moving theater — every car a setpiece, every stop a heart-wrenching twist. And when I find this pale-eyed specter? I'll give them an ending worthy of applause."
I turned to face them fully. "In exchange for my help, I want three things. A ten-year contract with discretionary funds. Complete ownership of Graywatch Academy, including its shadow divisions. And the archives of the other three cathedrals in the east, west, and north. Everything. Their dirty secrets, their relics, their love letters. I want their bones, not their blessings."
The council flinched. One sputtered.
"You're insane," Daesyn hissed.
"I'm fabulous," I corrected. "And more importantly, too necessary for you to object."
Virelan looked at the others. Silent nods passed between them like poison.
"We accept," he said at last.
"Delightful," I purred. "I'll send the contract over by enchanted ferret."
Later, within the newly instated mirror chamber veiled in incense and heat, I stood before two deliciously dangerous creatures.
Miko: lithe and emerald-eyed with short dark-hair that covered his face like a veil, built like a ballet dancer who knew how to lace poison into pirouettes. His specialty in shadow casting, a rather rare magic hidden among the nation of Soloris, didn't shimmer — it bled, slipping between light and absence like a lover sneaking out of bed.
And Aurel: Another character in my collection of similar nature to Miko's, just so happened to make a living as contracted killer before joining the Velvet Court. He harbored raven-black hair that ran down to his waist and dark eyes like a storm held behind glass. He reeked of lemon balm and the kind of regret that made you want to taste it.
"You two," I said, removing my coat in dramatic fashion, "are the start of my Elite Femboy Assassination Corp. Trademark pending."
"Elite Femboy Assassination Corp?" Miko wrinkled his nose. "Doesn't sound very threatening."
"Confusion is oftentimes more useful than fear," I said, stretching like a cat in heat. "Now, before I delve into the details, it's time for your first test. Impress me."
The room cleared. Incense curled. Miko stood at the far end dressed in a rather skimpy outfit exposing his underarms, back, and part of his chest. I stood shirtless, sweat already slicking my collarbone. We eyed each other for a long while and then...sparks.
Miko moved first. His shadows bloomed. Three versions of me — distorted and laughing — lunged from the standing mirrors dotted across the room.
I spun, slid under the first, kicked the second. The third bit into my side, cold as a corpse's kiss. I grunted, twisted, sent a dagger flying into its throat.
And then Miko was on me.
He lunged. I caught him. We tumbled. Limbs tangled. His thigh slipped between mine. My back hit the stone floor, breath punched out of me — then sucked back in as he straddled me, all shadow and heat. Just then, I kissed him and he stumbled back in surprise.
"You fight dirty," he said, voice low as we stood up and distanced each other.
"I do everything dirty," I breathed.
Miko lunged again but this time I caught him by the waist and rolled, stumbling through a set of mirrors and pinning him against the wall, both his wrists trapped in one gloved hand hanging above his head. His breath came faster now, his dark hair splayed like silk against the stone.
"You're sweating," I murmured, bending close, brushing my nose along the curve of his neck. "I think I like it."
I dipped lower, breathing in the aroma where his arm met torso — that vulnerable hollow under the arm. He twitched.
"Sensitive?" I asked, grinning.
"Don't—"
Too late. I dragged my fingertips teasingly through the soft, slick skin of his underarm. He gasped, a sound caught between laughter and something darker.
"Cecil—!" he writhed as I leaned in and gave it a slow, shameless sniff, teasing him with my breath. "You bastard."
"Oh, I know," I cooed, and tickled again, making him squirm. "But you moan like you like it."
"I hate you," he groaned, flushed, panting.
"I doubt that."
He pushed back and spun suddenly, strong and agile, reversing our positions. I let him — for now.
Miko leaned in, dragging his nose along my chest, sniffing with a mock-serious expression like a predator savoring prey. His lips brushed my naked abdomen.
"I think I like how you smell as well," he murmured. "Warm. Wild. Like incense and sin."
His mouth moved lower. Breath hot.
I arched into him, a low sound escaping me. Hands tangled in his hair as his kisses descended, heat pooling with every inch he traveled.
He reached my waistband. His eyes met mine, pupils blown wide.
Then it got wet, and messy.
My back arched. His name was a curse and a hymn on my lips.
Aurel stood in the corner, a furious blush crossing his cheeks before I motion for him to join.
By the end of it, we lay tangled, damp with sweat and breathless. The mirrors around us had fogged from the heat we'd summoned. I couldn't tell where my limbs ended and their's began.
"Effective training," I murmured.
Miko smiled against my shoulder. "We should spar more often."
I laughed, low and wicked. "We haven't even started."
Later that night, I rolled out my map again. The parchment crackled as I flattened it against the table, fingers tracing the stretch of track coiled like a serpent between the cities. Dulmor in the north — cold, stone-hearted, and always watching — and then Ventri, which stood nearby, glittering like a jewel caked in sin.
Ah, Ventri.
The city of breathless nights and ruined morals. Officially it was the nation's "landmark entertainment district" — the golden playground of Soloris's elite, nobles and merchants alike slipping beneath silk sheets and sweeter addictions. Unofficially? It was a city built on vice, masked in velvet and perfume.
Theatres that hosted bloodsport in secret. Casinos rigged to drain kings. Brothels wrapped in incense and illusion. Every pleasure imaginable, purchasable, and polished to a gleam.
In short, it was my kind of place.
If I played my cards right — and when did I not? — I'd intercept the assassin before they reached Ventri then backtrack into the city as our team's rendezvous to regather supplies. Beyond that, I could turn Ventri into more than just a detour heading back. I could plant the first seeds of something permanent. A satellite of the Velvet Cathedral perhaps.
My fingers tapped once on the map, right where the rail curved southward like a sly smile as I tried to suppress a giggle beneath my shallow breath.
However, something darker rested on my mind as well.
The assassin's description lingered like a scent I couldn't quite identify — long shaggy hair falling past the waist, pale blue eyes like glacial waters. It scraped something in my mind. A memory just out of reach, like a door I'd locked long ago and forgotten about. It tugged at me.
And beneath that thought, subtler threads tugged harder.
The Cube.
The woman who softly plagued my dreams.
Their presence hummed again in the back of my skull — low, insistent, like a warning cloaked as a promise. The sensation wasn't fear exactly. Closer to inevitability. Like gravity.
I knew that whatever the previous High Priest had been studying, whatever secrets he had locked away in that dusty chamber filled with coded tomes, it connected to the assassin in some way. Perhaps they were drawn to the same scent. Perhaps the assassin held a piece of the puzzle I didn't yet know I was missing.
One thing was clear, however. I would unearth these secrets even if it meant putting myself at risk. I knew, deep down, that there were now forces at play beyond my scope of imagination.
And if I couldn't outmatch them, I'd outwit them — with silk, shadow, and a smile sharp enough to draw blood.