Chương 10: Chapter 9: The Woman in the Mask

The name—that alphanumeric sequence of steel and sorrow—was a ghost she thought she had buried in the mass grave of her previous life. To hear it spoken here, in the heart of the Altheris estate by the woman who bought her, was a tactical nightmare. She knows. The woman stepped closer, her ceramic mask catching the cold moonlight in jagged slashes of red and black.

"Do not look so hollowed," the woman said, her voice rippling with that strange, metallic distortion.

"Do you remember me?" Suddenly, the atmospheric pressure behind the woman shifted. Elma's gaze darted past the assassin's shoulder, but she couldn't see anything through the darkness. Yet her primal instincts screamed a frantic warning. There were eyes on her. Dozens of them, hiding just beyond the threshold of the visible spectrum, tracking her every breath. From the blood pooling beneath the dead operative, green veins erupted across the courtyard stones and climbed the manor walls in slow, deliberate pulses.

The Shepherd's network, threading itself through the foundations of the estate. Everyone present watched them spread in complete silence. What are they doing? Elma forced her throat to work. Her muscles clicked violently against the lingering green paralysis as she dragged a single syllable into the freezing night air.

"I don't know you. Leave me alone." The woman fell silent, the feline contours of her mask staring down at the child.

"There is no need to lie, D-66. I bought you. You belong to us now." Elma's jaw tightened. She ran a rapid calculation and realized she possessed absolutely zero leverage. The fact that this woman and her unseen Vanguard could infiltrate the heavily fortified sovereign manor this effortlessly made their supremacy clear. Furthermore, they seemed intimately connected to the ancient green entity currently anchoring her limbs. Lying to a predator that already held the leash would only ensure her immediate disposal.

The silence stretched between them until the woman tilted her head, waiting.

"You bought me to die," Elma finally spoke, her voice flat.

"And I did." A low, distorted chuckle escaped the mask.

"Why would we pay Hephryx a fortune just to watch you die? We didn't want you dead, weapon. We wanted you here. In this specific sequence of flesh." Elma glanced down at her tiny, fragile hands.

"In this body, I am useless to you."

"For now," the woman countered, stepping closer.

"You are currently occupying the vessel of one of the most powerful Resonants in the world. Once you get accustomed, you will realize the scale of the gap yourself." Elma remained silent, refusing to offer a reaction. The woman's posture straightened, her patience seemingly fraying at the edges.

"So, what will it be? When Hephryx boasted that his D-series units were the most loyal hounds, he never mentioned that keeping your original skin was a condition for your obedience." Deep within the dark, repressed corners of Elma's consciousness, a pathetic, phantom urge stirred. In her previous life, being bought, being chosen, and having a definitive master to serve was her entire purpose.

Even now, after being discarded, that deeply conditioned side of her brain wanted nothing more than to wag its tail at the prospect of a directive. But four years of freedom—four years of watching the divine Sovereign of Veraxys and his fragile wife unravel like ordinary, flawed mortals—had shattered the illusion. The people she had been forged to serve were no better than the meat she had piled in the pits.

She looked up, meeting the cold slits of the ceramic mask, acutely aware of the invisible phantoms waiting in the dark behind it. She couldn't fight them. Not yet.

"What is your command?"

"Splendid," the woman said, her voice smoothing out into satisfaction.

"It is simple. You were inserted into this house for a purpose. You will play the part and wait. When we need something from you, we will come."

"Understood," Elma said. The woman leaned down, the copper scent of the blood pooling behind her drifting into Elma's face.

"You work for us now, D-66. Just so we are entirely clear on the terms of your employment: if we command you to slit the throat of anyone in this manor—be it the maids, the lady, or the Sovereign himself—you will do it without hesitation. Do you understand?"

"And if I... fail?" The cat mask didn't flinch. The answer came instantly, devoid of both malice and pity.

"You die." The words hung in the cold air, simple and absolute. Death. Elma felt her heart kick against her ribs at the thought. She looked at the moon washing over the cypress trees and the woman waiting for her answer. A terrifying thought took root. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! She really wanted to live. For the first time in her existence, the future wasn't a fixed trajectory. It was a blank page.

And however jagged and painful this new life was... she wasn't ready to close the book.

"I understand."

"Good," the woman answered. Then she casually slung the corpse over one shoulder before walking away.

"What should I call you?" Elma whispered. The woman stopped for a moment. Weighing whether Elma deserved an answer." Sable," she said before stepping forward through the darkness, vanishing as if the night itself had swallowed her whole. The eyes in the trees blinked once, then faded, leaving behind only the faintest rustle of leaves, as if a flock of unseen birds had taken flight. Elma was left alone in the silent courtyard, the smell of ozone and blood lingering in the cold air.

"Sable." She sat down in the dirt. She could still feel the faint, residual throb beneath her skin, a second pulse that wasn't hers. She sat with it. All this time. They could reach inside her body and move it wherever they wanted. And she had no counter for it. She had promised herself. The one thing. Not again. Her fingers found her forearm. She dug in—nails raking the pale skin, searching for the shape of it, for something she could get underneath and pull out. There was nothing there to find.

The veins didn't need to be visible to be present and she knew that now and she dug harder anyway because knowing it didn't help. The green bloomed back up through her arms like something answering. The world tilted, the moonlit training ground blurring into a smear of silver and black. Her knees buckled. Before her small body even hit the cold stone, her consciousness snapped. Elma Altheris was gone. Only darkness remained.

Elma bolted upright, a ragged gasp tearing from her throat. Her lungs burned as if she had been submerged in deep water for hours. She sat there for a moment, her heart racing. The nursery was bathed in the soft, golden glow of a peaceful morning. The lace curtains fluttered in a gentle breeze, and the scent of jasmine drifted in from the gardens. It looked perfect. It looked like a lie. Her hands moved instinctively, shoving the sleeves of her nightsilk gown up to her shoulders.

She scanned her skin, her eyes frantic. Nothing. The emerald veins were gone. There was no trace of the entity's touch, no lingering hum of the paralysis. A dream? her mind whispered, a desperate hope clawing at her logic. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her feet hitting the plush rug. Her gaze dropped to the hem of her dress. On the knees of the silk, two dark, jagged smears of garden soil stared back at her. The dirt was real. So was the staircase. So was the cat mask.

Elma's heart began to hammer against her ribs. It was real. The entity had taken control of her body. They still owned her. Her hands began to tremble, but it was not from fear. Rage coiled beneath her skin like a living thing. She reached for a plush toy lying near her pillow and pulled it into her lap. She lay back down, rolling onto her side and curling her small body into a ball. So there was a price for her rebirth. She knew that. She shoved the plushie's head into her mouth and clamped her jaw shut.

She bit down hard, the fabric straining against her teeth. They wanted obedience. She would offer them death instead. All of them. She let out a muffled groan into the plushie, her jaw aching from the tension. That, she promised. Christa stepped into the room, her silver hair catching the morning lights, carrying a breakfast plate that smelled of honeyed oats and fresh fruit. Elma's eyes moved slowly toward her, her jaw still clamped firmly onto the plushie's head.

She didn't let go, even as her mother approached the bed.

"Uh... still biting your toys, I see?" Christa said, her voice a melodic contrast to the gravelly rasp Elma had heard the night before. She set the tray on the nightstand and arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow.

"You're late rising today. Are you feeling alright?"

"I am," Elma muffled around the plushie, forcing her jaw to relax. Christa sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight. She reached out, pressing the back of her hand against Elma's forehead. Her blue eyes searched Elma's face with a precision that felt like an interrogation.

"You're sure you're okay? No fever?"

"I'm fine," Elma answered. Christa sighed, as she pulled her hand away, her gaze swept downward, catching the dark, damp patch on the wool rug where the water orb had collapsed the night before. Her expression shifted.

"You didn't... wet the rug, did you, Elma?"

"No," Elma said instantly, her pride stinging.

"It was water." Christa offered a thin smile.

"It's alright," Christa said gently.

"I'm not going to be mad if you did." Her tone carried a patronizing edge that made Elma's skin crawl.

"It was water. A cup of water." Elma raged against the accusation. Christa's expression didn't change, but her voice turned quiet.

"I took your plates out last night, Elma. There were no cups left in here." Silence swallowed the room. Elma stared at her mother, her mind dissecting the moment. She understood the situation instantly. To Christa, a stained rug meant a normal four-year-old. It meant a daughter who was a child. The logical reaction—the one that would lower Christa's guard and make Elma seem less suspicious—was to lie. To bow her head, play the embarrassed toddler, and give Christa the "normal" daughter she craved.

But the pride of D-66 was a jagged, immovable thing. She could kill, she could lie, and she could bleed, but she would not be accused of losing control of her own body. Never again.

"I took one after you left," Elma answered. She pointed a small finger at a silver cup sitting near the toy box on the far side of the floor.

"I was practicing with my field." The words hung in the air, cold and uncomfortable. Christa stood up abruptly, the warmth vanishing from her face as she smoothed her gown. The disappointment was palpable.

"When you finish, we will do writing exercises," Christa declared, smiling softly—an expression that carried no warmth, only carefully leashed rage. The door clicked shut with finality. Stupid, Elma scolded herself, she just had the perfect moment to lower Christa's growing suspicion. Why didn't I just say I wet the rug? It would have reinforced her cover. But today, the "child" had felt like a suit of armor that had grown too small. Her identity was already exposed to the woman in the mask.

The secrecy felt redundant. Yet the friction with Christa felt... wrong. She exhaled, laying back on her bed. She remembered being this age before. In the Beitelham facility. In her first life, there had been no jasmine and no lace. Only the faint tang of bleach and the echo of footsteps on cold tile. She remembered standing before a flayed practice body suspended on iron hooks.

A faceless instructor had used a slender metal rod to indicate the carotid artery, then the femoral, then the brachial plexus, naming each without inflection.

"Precision is the difference between a weapon and a tool," the voice had droned.

"A tool hits what it can. A weapon hits what is vital. Again. Point to the kill-stroke for a target in heavy plating." By the time she was five, she knew exactly how much pressure was required to collapse a windpipe or burst an eyeball. She knew the chemical composition of the neurotoxins they fed her to build her immunity. She had been "Raised in Iron." Now, she was being "Raised in Silk," but the curriculum hadn't changed.