Krys

                                                             Krys


You turn a corner and look down a dark lit street. A few people are walking away from you as they head home for the day. Dark shadows are gathering, and a small stirring of the air tickles the nape of your neck. A shiver runs down your spine, but you shrug closer into your cloak, and hold it close with a hand. A few snowflakes start falling with a promise for more before the night is over. You walk briskly down the deepening gloom and stop as another shiver climbs your back. You look over your shoulder, and see half of a cloaked person watching you from the corner. You look ahead and break into a run heedless of the cold wind that is starting to pick up. Breathe misting in front of you, lungs burning, you come to a stop three blocks away from where you saw that person. Hands on knees, wheezing, you peek around the corner of the alley and see no one in the street. Breath now caught, you straighten and turn around to see a shadowed person standing at the other mouth of the alley. Their cloak twitching around the bottom, they start walking forward slowly. Dread and fear seizes you and you grasp clumsily for your sword. The cloak twitches, and a flash of silver, and a freezing pain blossoms in you arm as a thin dagger bites into your forearm. You turn to dart out of the alley, but you stumble as your cloak tangles in your legs. Tap-tap-tap. The footsteps sound unnaturally loud and you look over you shoulder, but the person is gone again. Then with ruthless care, your hair is grabbed, and you head yanked forward, and neck painfully angled. In the faint light, you stare into large eyes the color of silver, and blue wood smoke. The face is distinctly feminine, but you can tell she isn’t human. Short brown hair, the texture of silk teases your face in the cold as she leans close. She opens her mouth and says in a voice no more than a whisper, “Since you are about to die, I will tell you my name. I am Krys Flashblade, and here is fare for the ferryman on my behalf.” She drops two silver coins, and as they flash in the faint light, you feel nothing as your head hits the pavement and your vision dims.

The city guards finds your body in the mouth of the alley with the two silver coins next to your face, partially covered with splattered blood from a single, clean slice across the neck.