The Assassin's Memory
The silence between them was thick, heavier than any blade Aria Vayne had ever wielded. Her obsidian eyes were fixed on the flickering candlelight, but her mind was trapped in the past.
"You're too quiet today," Flare muttered, slouched against the cracked stone wall of their temporary hideout. "That's dangerous. Makes me think you're plotting again."
Aria didn't reply. Instead, she drew the edge of her dagger slowly across her palm—not to bleed, but to remember. That motion, that cold steel… it had been her entire life. Discipline. Purpose. Orders.
"You want to know how I became Heaven's favorite weapon?" she asked finally, voice void of emotion.
Flare glanced at her. "No. I want to know when you became human."
She blinked.
"No assassin cries in their sleep unless something broke first," he added, not smug, not mocking—just honest.
Aria froze.
There was no smirk on Flare's face this time. No reckless comment. Just those eyes—the kind that saw too much and cared too little, until now.
She stood. "I was twelve. That's when they made me kill my sister."
Flare's eyes darkened. He didn't speak. He let the silence be a grave.
"She had the same eyes as me. The same voice. We even trained together. But I passed. She didn't."
"And they made you execute her?" Flare asked.
"No. They let me choose."
"And you chose to live."
"I chose to obey."
The candle between them sputtered as the air thickened with unspoken truths.
"I always thought Chosen were just brainwashed zealots," Flare said, "but maybe... you were just a girl trying not to die."
Aria stared at him. "You're dangerous, Flare."
He smirked. "Because I talk too much?"
"No. Because I'm starting to remember who I was before they erased me."
She stepped closer. He didn't move.
"I hated you when we met," she whispered. "You were everything I wasn't allowed to be—reckless, loud, defiant. Alive."
"And now?"
"I still hate you. But I hate what they did to me more."
Flare leaned forward, meeting her gaze. "Then hate me all you want. As long as it keeps you from going back to being their puppet."
For the first time since their escape, Aria smiled.
Just a little.
Outside, the sky cracked with thunder—another heavenly purge descending upon the city.
But inside that ruined chapel, a dead girl began to live again.
And the Devil's Unchosen watched her soul ignite.