Chapter one

It was dark when Ash awoke and opened her cat-like red eyes. So many things those eyes had seen. All the long years of her life those eyes had been watching, learning and becoming wise. Ash didn’t push herself up, just lay there in the blissful ignorance that follows sleep, the lack of knowledge in what Ash had said and done over the years; those long, long years.

The memories soon came flooding back and rather than except them, Ash moaned and rolled over on her bed. She wanted those things to have happened to someone else, anyone else, even if that was a selfish thought. Ash never claimed to be kind or fair; she never claimed to be anything. All Ash wanted was to crawl into a darkened cave and sleep, long into the night. Not to die. No, she had committed too many sins to be accepted into the bridge of heaven. If she died Izanami would rise from the pits of Yomi and claim Ash’s spirit as her play thing. Ash shuddered. No, she didn’t want to die.

Slowly Ash accepted who she was, though regretfully. Soon she was sitting up, brushing her blond and black hair out of her face so she could see the little light there was better. Her room was dark, as it was always, even in day. The deep purple walls greeted her gaze and her eyes travelled to the spiders that had taken refuge in the deepest corners of the dark room. It was like something out of a story, where an innocent person is locked away to await their fate. That’s how Ash saw it. She never thought of herself as innocent, she saw herself deserving of this room and over the years had come to accept it, she was even beginning to like it. Naariah had always told her that she deserved nothing better than a prison cell, and this was as close as Ash would get.

Her eyes lingered on the windowless walls and slowly she pushed herself out of bed. The bed itself was the only remotely normal thing in that room. Ash dressed herself quickly and wondered if she should just go back to bed. It was her night off, there was next to nothing for her to do.

She paused before picking up the knives she favoured in combat. No, going back to bed was a bad idea. She should work towards forgiveness from Izanagi, not the pleasure that sleep brought. A pleasure she didn’t deserve. She only slept because Zach begged her to. A small, barely visible smile managed to creep onto Ash’s lips. Zach was the one person that understood her.

Now fully dressed, Ash wandered out of her room and down the many corridors that made up her home; Moonbane, the home of assassins. The first step towards forgiveness was waiting up on the planet’s surface, a man with a letter in his hands and doubt in his heart.

Ash made her way up to one of the back exits of Moonbane; one of the less commonly used ones. It was dark here to, but a small light still shone through the door of the hallway; a deep blue twilight belonging to the sunset. Ash pulled a mask up over her nose and mouth. The curse of the assassin, nobody can know what you look like. She examined the man for a moment. He was shaking, his hair and face were both hidden.

Without further hesitation she pushed the door open and stepped out into the crisp evening air. The man jumped when he saw Ash, long hair blowing past her face by the night’s breeze. “Think,” Ash murmured through her mask. Her eyes shone momentarily crimson. The man took a step back, clutching the letter closer to him and shifting his gaze from Ash’s eyes to the tattoo on her arm; a moon being pieced by a dagger stained with blood. “Think,” Ash repeated.

“Who are you?” the man hissed back. Ash didn’t answer for two reasons; one she didn’t need to and two she was known by many names. The man already knew Ash by one of her names, he had known from the moment he saw her. Ash stared at him, her blood red eyes clearly repeating her earlier statement over and over. The man hesitated and glanced at the letter in his hands. “No,” he muttered a second later, slightly unsure of himself. “No,” he repeated, stronger this time. He tore up the letter in front of Ash’s eyes and let it fall uselessly to the ground. Then he gazed at Ash, waiting for her to do something. Eventually she did, she spun on her heel and doubled back, heading straight for the door she had come through. “Wait!” the man called. Ash paused and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Are you the Black dagger?” Ash smirked at the use of one of her darker names and nodded. “Then why are you telling me not to pay you, not to give you a job,” he asked. Ash spared him a second glance before disappearing inside. The truth was she couldn’t answer.

She watched him leave through a crack in the door. She had known he would be there because he always was. He came every night, with that same letter, trying to build up the courage to enter the place of death.

“I thought this was your day off,” a voice muttered behind her. Ash spun so fast that if you blinked you would have missed it. She didn’t like people sneaking up on her. A boy stood before her, blue tiger stripes across his face and his mouth curled into a small frown. Ash nearly smiled but succeeded in just a twitch at the corner of her mouth. Zach stood there.

“It is,” Ash replied. “And its night.” Zach glared at her and stuck out his tongue. Ash responded with her usual ‘...’. Zach was lucky, according to himself, he could always make people talk to him and Ash was no exception.

“If it’s you day off,” he began making Ash groan slightly, “then why were you helping someone not pay us. Ash, you spend way too much time in your head.” This time Ash was determined not to let him make her talk. She responded with ‘...’. “Read a book or something, please?” Zach gave her the puppy dog eyes.

“Fine,” Ash groaned, she liked books but the library only had a limited supply. She had read the same books time and time again. With a spared glance at Zach she wandered off to the library and gazed at all the books she had read many times until her eyes fell on one book. It was old and the cover was a dirty brown with gold writing up the spine declaring its title. Ash paused, staring at this book. She had never read this one before. She never knew it existed, it hadn’t been there before. She raised a slightly shaky hand and took the book off the shelf. It was heavy and Ash could smell the magic in it. She hesitated. This book was making her worry and Ash never worried, but she had never come across something so magical; except for people of course.

She held the book carefully in both hands, staring at the crisp brown paper surrounding it. After a further few seconds, she carried the book to a table and opened it. The text caught her attention immediately and she couldn’t stop reading ‘till she reached the end, then she turned back and started again. Her eyes followed each line, absorbing the information. She didn’t see Zach standing in the door and biting his lip as he wondered if this was a good idea.