“You search north and I south, yes?” she asked.

  “Sounds like a plan. Just give me a moment to compose myself,” the hunter requested, settling back down on the stone bench, the verdigris luminescence behind him enveloping him and giving him a spectral, otherworldly appearance. “I wouldn’t want Lucci to worry about seeing his father crying.”

  “Fair enough.”

  After giving Jin one last, affectionate squeeze on the shoulder, Tristessa set off in search of the man’s son and her aracross in the courtyard of flowers that had yet to bloom. It was a matter of minutes for such event, so she wanted to hurry to find them, whether inside or outside the labyrinth. So that they could all enjoy this new experience together.

  The configuration of the high evergreen walls wasn’t at all complex and didn’t need testing methods from a certain Earth legend that also involved a labyrinth and a mythological beast like vilecrosses. She could always return to the main path, lit by the lanterns, and follow them to eventually find one of the many exits.

  “Looking for something, lass?”

  At the first exit she found, Tristessa was ambushed by a shadowy figure. She gasped, and in her sudden movement to turn and face the person, she stumbled and fell backward. That person -a woman dressed in black- caught her in her arms, and thanks to the lantern light, Tristessa saw white mask she was wearing.

  “Ah, Vektra!” the girl exclaimed, not moving a muscle and at the mercy of the assassin. She could release her if she wanted, letting the back of her skull taste the hardness of the cobblestones. “I see you’ve recovered!”

  “It still hurts like you wouldn’t believe. Fortunately, the best remedy is already in my arms.” The Wraith straightened her up and drove her back into the shadows, pinning her against the bushes. Trapping her in an intimate embrace from which Tristessa, unlike with Jin, had no chance to escape. “Ah, your soul, so delicious!”

  “Y-you missed me that much? To the point of doing this in public…?” Tristessa whispered against her ear, feeling the icy brush of the edge of her mask against her cheek, almost touching the surface painted with the black stormcrow.

  She tried to speak as clearly as possible through the lump forming in her throat. Trying not to submit to the darkness that was bubbling within her.

  “Am I to blame, or are you luring me like a carrion insect to the fire?” the assassin asked back, seductive and with a clear desire etched in her sinister voice. “I could feel all that Discord you used in the battle against Lady Aurelia from the healing wing. The healers had to immobilize me with gravity glyphs to stop me from reaching you, even though I could only crawl on the ground and reopen all my wounds while at it.”

  “You’re crazy…! Ah!” Tristessa felt the assassin’s right hand move to her leg on the same side, tracing the outline of her thigh, and lift it. This action forced them to close the distance between them even further.

  “Of course I’m crazy. For you, for your soul… I want you. Even more so now that I know what you’re capable of: defeating the witches and Aurelia Eramisaptor is beyond admirable.”

  “My allies did much more. I only…” Silencing her for a moment, Vektra traced with her cold fingers near the hairline where the cut she had suffered in the duel remained. “I was lucky.”

  “I’m lucky too. For surviving my Master? No, I’m lucky to have met you.”

  Such sweet words spoken by that terrifying woman. Her lover's body was pressed against hers, the hand not caressing Tristessa's thigh exploring every inch of her back, moving down to her waist, wanting to feel her as much as possible. As if afraid of losing that feeling after nearly being killed by Sylas.

  Unaware of the suffering Tristessa carried within her. A suffering that ran parallel to the lust and desire for love that also burned in her heart. A paradox that led her to place her hands on Vektra’s waist, both to try to push her away and to ensure they wouldn't separate. Even if it meant tearing her sanity apart.

  “V-Vektra, wait!” she moaned, feeling the air begin to run out in her lungs, and cold sweat starting to appear on her temples. On her back, on every inch of her body. “Please...”

  “No one's watching us...but it's best not to risk it.”

  Suddenly, Vektra released her and stepped back, pulling up the hood of her uniform and placing her hands behind her back, as if that could somehow help her fight the temptation that all the Discord surrounding her lover was causing.

  Perhaps she noticed how uncomfortable she was and moved away; Tristessa didn't know whether to ask her or not. She didn't want to offend her, especially given an event that never occurred in the current timeline.

  “Come on, I'll help you find the child and your beast.”

  “How do you know...?” she asked, beginning to catch her breath as her pounding heart started to recover its steadier rhythm.

  “Sylas isn't the only Wraith who's been watching you from the shadows.”

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  The two women began walking side by side along the outer edge of the labyrinth, among the flower-lined paths that still seemed to weep, crestfallen. Now Tristessa could breathe easy; she was glad that Stormcrow was recovering from the wounds inflicted by Sylas Roy Khan, and even worried that she wasn't resting properly, preferring to stay close to the source of Discord within her.

  Even more so…

  “This is like a date,” she thought, feeling butterflies in her stomach scream in a sea of ??incandescent fire. “If only I hadn't met that other Vektra in the other timeline…”

  All those honest feelings for her clandestine lover. Emotions sunk into a sea of ??stagnant and noxious water that represented the extreme fear that had almost driven her to madness inside that dark cell in a past that no longer existed.

  “Huh?” A particular smell distracted Tristessa. Invasive and familiar. “Tobacco?”

  The sharp, bitter sting in her nose made Tristessa frown, not having expected to smell that kind of odor in a place like this.

  “All I smell is your Discord, lass. Now that I think about it… That’s a problem for my work,” the assassin remarked.

  “You could break up with me and forget I exist.”

  “Never.”

  They both went toward the source of the scent and found her on a wooden bench with iron armrests. It was like killing two birds with one stone, since Lucahn and Vergil were also there; the boy sitting next to the smoker, reading to her from his book, while the aracross watched the glittering insects fluttering nearby.

  The smoker was an elderly woman with gray hair, dressed in a violet silk robe with gold trim, and wearing a red cloth scarf more for fashion than to protect her neck from the cold.

  Without bracelets and rings, Tristessa would have had more difficulty identifying the woman in the dim light had she not held a long, black pipe trimmed with gold in her right hand, from which a thin line of smoke escaped.

  “Madame Luchie!”

  It was difficult to categorize her surprise as pleasant or not. Perhaps there was a hint of concern, given the way her insides churned, and not precisely because of the beast slumbering within that demi-human woman: the survival of the Mercer-Archeos had been guaranteed, and so, Tristessa had a price to pay.

  Such price was so high that it even extended to the two moons to which the old merchant devoted her undivided attention. To the point that she completely ignored both Lucanh’s reading and Tristessa's first call.

  “Madam Luchie?”

  “Oh, Miss Tessa!”

  Lucahn closed the book and rose from his chair, walking toward her with a happy smile. He was oblivious to Vektra's presence, hidden in plain sight and as still as a statue.

  “I ran into Miss Luchie! I feel like she’s angry with me, after…you know…” The boy lowered his gaze, filled with guilt, thinking that the misfortunes that woman had suffered—the loss of her caravan and her wealth—were because of him and his family. “That’s why I stayed with her and read to her from my book.”

  “I understand. You’re a good boy, I’m sure she appreciates that,” the young woman said, giving him a couple of gentle pats on the head and looking at the indifferent old woman. “Your father is looking for you. Why don’t you save him the trouble? I need to speak with Madame Luchie about a few things.”

  “Alright!” The boy went to the aracross and distracted it from its watch in the direction of Vektra. He had to put his book down to hug the beast, which, standing on its hind legs, was so large that his arms couldn't quite reach around its back. “See you, Vergil!”

  “Graa!” the lesser demon replied, accompanied by a warm, wet farewell with his tongue.

  “Stop, stop!” Laughing, Lucahn managed to pull away from Vergil and said goodbye to Tristessa with simple words that moved her. “See you tomorrow, Miss Tessa!”

  “See you t-tomorrow…!”

  Releasing the sob of pain that had lodged in her throat would have been very strange and raised awkward questions. She did her best to hold it back and continued waving to Lucahn until he was far enough away, walking with purpose toward the nearest entrance to the labyrinth.

  Passing past Vektra, who followed him with her dark gaze until he disappeared into the tall bushes.

  “I bet that boy memorized the layout of the maze,” commented the assassin hidden in the shadows, causing Tristessa to let out a nervous giggle and, at the same time, that cry that came from the depths of her soul. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Don’t worry, Vektra,” she said, fortunate that her memories were hers alone and no one else’s. “Tomorrow… Yes, there is a tomorrow for him and his family, however impossible it may have seemed just days ago.”

  With that hopeful thought lodged in her mind, Tristessa approached the old woman with care and shyness. Without even thinking about sitting beside her, she wondered inwardly what it was in the heavens that required this woman’s undivided attention.

  “Madame Luchie, don’t you remember me…?”

  “Silence.” Karla Luchie interrupted, pointing her pipe at them. Both Tristessa and Vergil stopped dead in their tracks, as if the pipe were a gunslinger’s weapon. “Not yet.”

  The old woman took a puff from her pipe and let out two smoke rings pointing toward the dark sky, just as the last ray of light in Entrana disappeared and night began to reign.

  The countless flowers in the courtyard began to bloom. Pale buds that bowed at the black earth started to rise like white hands that seemed to implore mercy from the Cosmos and beyond. Offering aromas that recalled the solitude of a mountain or the banks of a river that flowed through a valley never before discovered.

  Shining with infinite beauty as they absorbed the night light of the stars and moons, they transformed the courtyard into an earthly constellation.

  “Ah…”

  A sigh escaped Tristessa’s lips, captivated by such beauty which she had so rarely seen in that dark world since her unexpected arrival in it.

  Truly, the Garden of Pale Widows surpassed what her imagination had and could have managed to build.

  “So lovely, and yet sinister…,” she thought. The cold light of the nocturnal blooming was such that even some of the shadows that hid Vektra among the undergrowth were partially banished in its presence. Casting a phantasmal glow beneath the assassin, sending pleasant, freezing chills through Tristessa’s shuddering heart. “Just like her.”