It was autumn, when the Empress died.

  The trees had turned to a tapestry of warm gold; the leaves were spiraling languidly down, down, down, silently chorusing the impermanence of all things. The days were drawing shorter; the nights were drawing longer, and darker, and colder. It was a time of great dying and yet the world seemed, somehow, at its most vibrant and alive. Nature itself seemed to be rejoice, even as the wind turned bitter and the trees went bare and everything, everyone was preparing fastidiously for the long slumber to come.

  Somewhere, a palace burns iridescent green.

  Elsewhere, a man and a woman are walking into a tavern.

  He is called Tiger; she is called Panther. And these are not their real names, no, nor are they names by which they have ever called themselves—but they are names that speak honestly to the true shapes of their souls, and so thus they shall be called.

  I am, alas, a biased teller in that regard. I admit freely my wont to stretch, to distort, to embellish the facts—all so that I might better convey the true heart of this story. After all it is one thing to recount; it is another entirely to experience, and to understand. Know this, then: for all my untruths, o witness, never shall I lie to you. For my name, in your tongue, means Truth-Teller. And what am I, if not myself?

  Let us return, then, to the present, wherein Tiger and Panther approach an old man at the counter. He is seventy-four years of age; he has lived in Dando, a tributary province of the nation-state Vokia, for all of his life. He does not like to travel and he does not like change. His wife passed a number of years ago, and his three children visit him two times a week (schedules permitting). He believes himself a keen study of human behavior. And, right now, this is what he sees:

  On the left, a rather scrawny and bookish man with a mess of curly hair and a face dotted with scattershot stubble. His olive skin marks him as a foreigner of Shalasharan origin. His eyes are keen and aware, as well as a stark emerald green, the intensity of which marks him as a viable Conduit for potent energies beyond. He is very attractive—but he would seem plain and homely by description, by any artist's rendition or portrait. There is a certain life to him that simply cannot be captured, for to capture is to confine and confinement is anathema to life. Right now, to the old man, he looks rather nervous and ill-at-ease, and yet there is also a strange hint of sorrow at the corners of his eyes. He is proud, and honest, and scared, and so very much the tiger by which I have named him.

  On the right, a woman of average build and slightly-less-than-average-height, draped in a heavy and hoodless gray cloak. There is a faint scar running lengthwise across her cheek and another, more recent scar along the length of her jaw. Her skin is a certain shade of tan that the old man cannot place; her hair is brown like the earth, a bob slashed razor-sharp right at her shoulders. Her eyes, unlike Tiger's, are dull and slate-grey—and also ringed with dark circles, for they are the eyes of a woman who has scarcely known sleep. But the old man sees at once that they are also the eyes of a killer; he recognizes at once that steady, liquid calm in her gaze. That, knows, is the calm of death. She is cool, and sedate, and ready, and so very much the panther by which I have named her.

  But the very first thing the old man notices, before anything else—for no particular reason at all—is that both these strangers are wearing identical gray-leather gloves.

  Tiger wears them because of a tattoo that it very much behooves him to conceal.

  Panther wears them because she often works with her hands.

  "Sun smile upon you," the old man greets, then, as these strangers approach. Even their footsteps are diametrically opposed: his that of whispering sandals, hers that of heavy rubber-soled boots. She is tangible and real, whilst he glides through all like a ghost.

  "Sun smile upon you, as well," replies Tiger, quite cheerfully, and Panther offers the old man a subtle incline of her chin. "Stars above—I tell you, old man, it is a fine relief to be in here and not—" he jerks his head back, then rubs his shoulders for effect, "—out there. Stars, what a frigid bastard of a night."

  "It's a cold one for certain," agrees the old man, a little cautiously. "I've been listening to that wind howl all day."

  "Oh, it's been brutal," Tiger affirms, with an easy and genuine smile. He is, at times, a difficult man to dislike. "My companion and I have been at it ever since the sun went down."

  "Uh huh." The old man watches Panther out the corner of his eye; Panther bounces all the while on her heels, rocking subtly back and forth, her eyes sweeping slowly and smoothly across the room. Assessing. Evaluating. She says nothing and her face betrays nothing.

  "So..." Tiger drawls, after an odd and awkward bit of silence between them, "that is to say, sir, that we are in dire need of safe harbor from this particularly blasphemous and biting cold. You do have rooms for rent here, yes?"

  "I do."

  "Spectacular," Tiger declares, clasping his hands together and grinning a perfect grin. "We are in your debt, sir—quite literally. How much for one night?"

  "Didn't say I had rooms available."

  Just like that, the mood shifts. Everyone feels it. Panther's eyes move to the old man, and they stay there.

  "Oh?" Tiger furrows his brow, and the smile falters upon his face. Already he is losing steam. "Well, uh...do you? Have one—available? Or should my companion and I—" he gestures, needlessly, "—ah, attempt to make our way elsewhere?"

  Silence.

  "Forgive me, sir," adds Tiger, after a moment, his smile fully vanished now, "but it has been a very long night. Perhaps the longest of our lives. And it is cold, and we are weary. And—that is to say, we'd pay you just to sleep in a closet, if that's all you had available. We'll sleep under the tables if need be." And then, finally, with desperation creeping into his voice: "We have a great deal of money."

  The old man's silence continues for a few seconds longer. Then: "I'm sure you've heard the news."

  "The news?" Tiger, ever the hapless innocent, arches one eyebrow, even as his companion's eyes narrow to slits. "Are you referring to—"

  "Empress Ibis's death," interrupts Panther, speaking up for the first time. Her voice comes out low and even, and yet confident all the same. No—not confident, not exactly. Assured. She speaks like someone who already knows all the rules to every game.

  "Her murder," the old man corrects. He leans in now, folds scrawny and heavily-scarred arms across the countertop. The shadows deepen around his sunken eyes. "Three groups have come to my tavern tonight, each an hour apart, each telling me and my patrons to be on the lookout for two wanted fugitives—a man, and a woman. The first group were local enforcers. The second were Vokian soldiers. The third..." his eyes shift, slowly, from Tiger to Panther, "...were Oculus Inquisitors, who said they were here on orders of the Emperor-Apparent. I tell you now that it has been twenty-four years since last I saw that vile sigil upon an Inquisitor's breast; it has been twenty-six since I felt the agony of that same sigil seared upon my back. Once, the dogs of Oculus offered me a choice—a torturous life, or a swift death. Now?" The old man lifts bushy eyebrows. "Now, they offer me money for information. A very substantial sum for a very simple task. So answer me, now, and answer truthfully: who are you, and why are you here?"

  Neither says a word in reply. Not right away. Tiger, ostensibly the more laconic of the two, sputters helplessly, his confidence and charisma having long fled. The smile well and truly banished from his face. Panther, meanwhile, observes the old man for a few seconds longer—evaluating, silently—until:

  "Nobody," answers Panther. "We're nobody." A short pause, then she continues: "Just drifters trying to get from a bad place to a better one. And we do, in fact, have a lot of money to spend."

  For the first time, then, there emerges an arm from beneath the opaque mystery of her cloak—and for a moment the old man catches a glimpse of a battle-worn grey gambeson, and more importantly a burnished-hilt sabre sheathed upon her belt. And he sees, too, the faint discoloring of what must have once been a rope around her neck. Then the pouch hits the counter with a heavy thud and rather musical jingling of tin and silver, and the old man's eyes are drawn away.

  "We'll pay double your usual rate," Panther tells him. "By morning we will be gone. Like we never existed at all."

  The old man runs the fingers of his left overtop the back of his right. He thinks of old scars, old pains. His own screams echoing in his ears.

  But what sways him, in the end, is the sorrow in the younger man's eyes—and the very careful concealment of that same sorrow in hers. He thinks of his wife, in that moment, and then he holds out his hand.

  "Eighty marks for one night," he says. "Twelve more for dinner."

  Panther retracts the pouch in one smooth, swift motion, then sets calmly to rifling through as Tiger claps his hands together and bows his head and says, with great enthusiasm and no small relief, as though no threat had ever transpired between them: "Oh thank you, sir, ten thousand blessings upon you—I can't tell you how grateful we are, truly, to find some measure of succor at this lovely inn. And my companion speaks true—we shall promptly depart by the light of the morning sun, and we shall be quiet and unintrusive for the entire duration of our stay."

  Panther sets the coins in the palm of the old man's hand. His fist closes. "Upstairs," he tells them, simply. "Left down the hall, third door on the right. Pisspot's at the far opposite end. Food'll be brought up in a half hour's time."

  "Knock when you do," interrupts Panther. Tiger shoots his companion a pointed look; the old man observes her with expression unreadable. She tacks on, belatedly: "Please."

  "Of course," says the old man, eventually, reaching down and letting the coins drop noisily into his pocket. "You'll have your privacy."

  "Thank you very much, sir," says Tiger, again. And again he bows his head and clasps his hands. "You are a lord and a scholar both."

  He waits a moment—then elbows Panther, who shoots him a pointed glare of her own before offering, flatly, "Appreciate it."

  The old man merely grunts, and waves them away. And so they depart, the woman trailing like a shadow at the man's back, and so the old man leans back upon his stool and lets the back of his head brush against the wall, and closes his eyes, and listens, for a few moments, to the angry howl of the wind beyond. He rubs at old scars and tries, tries, tries his best to forget the iron's molten glow.

  It was autumn, when the Empress died. It was also the season of the Yellow Equinox—the time in which the physical world and the Other Side were most closely overlapped, wherein certain forces and minds from that otherworldly 'space between space' could slip into the domain of man like water through one's fingers.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  This was the time in which all Conduits flowed most freely; this was also the time wherein even the lantern-lit and thrice-sanctioned main roads were not safe, wherein salacious and slavering mouths prowled at the just edges of the treeline, fleeting like shadows at the corners of one's vision until those shadows became no shadows at all.

  The Yellow Equinox would last for approximately three months, and it occurred like clockwork every three years (thirty-three has always been a number of great eschatological significance). It was well known that in the time of the Yellow Equinox, a dull-eyed human was only safe within the confines of fourth-sanctioned, heavily-warded towns and cities. Those who sought to travel the roads between would be well served to travel armed, and in great number—though such trifles of man often mattered little, in the face of the inevitable end. So it goes.

  The moon above was a sickly and lupine yellow, narrow as a blade of grass and curved like the head of a scythe.

  And there were no stars.

  Panther shuts the door.

  Then she steps over, picks up the room's lone little wicker chair, and wedges said chair firmly against said door.

  Tiger lays down upon his bed with a noisy sigh of relief, arms spread wide, then after a few moments sits back up and puts feet upon floor and promptly removes his sandals.

  "You don't need to barricade the damn door," he tells her, not looking, with none of his prior energy or enthusiasm. His voice is now weary and drained. "He promised he'd knock."

  "Oculus won't knock," is all Panther has to say in reply. She tries the door once, twice—and then, satisfied when it does not budge, she crosses over and sits down upon her own bed. There is very little space between them; their knees are practically knocking together, and the room is almost entirely bereft of furniture or furnishings. It feels, to them both, as though perhaps they have rented out a closet.

  Tiger sits there hunched, pensive, fingers interlaced whilst Panther reaches up and unclasps her cloak. Said cloak is hung at the foot of her bed; now she unlaces her boots with routine precision, one by one, then removes her gloves in similar fashion. Next comes her belt, which sports two sheathes—one for the sabre at her hip, one for the long-bladed dagger at the small of her back. Four more narrow little throwing-knives come out from various side pockets; all is laid out very carefully upon their shared nightstand. Then, finally, each knot of that grey-padded gambeson is undone, and this she sheds with a sharp hiss of pain at the moment her shoulders spread wide.

  "Oh, stars, did they re-open—" starts Tiger.

  "They've been open," Panther growls, through grit teeth. She is clad now in undershorts and a loose grey tunic; said tunic currently sports makeshift cloth bandages wrapped around her midsection and right-side shoulder. And both bandages are stained a very deep shade of crimson indeed. "We'll change the dressings in the morning."

  "Panther, if those wounds go necrotic you are going to die."

  "We will change them in the morning," repeats Panther, with an unmistakable edge to her voice. And that is simply the end of that discussion.

  Now it is Tiger who disassembles what meager possessions he has with him; he is no walking armory, mind you, not like Panther. Nevertheless his padded longcoat comes off, and hangs as a solemn companion beside Panther's cloak. Then comes a small satchel, one that he unclasps and rifles briskly through, as though uncertain that the contents would yet remain the same. Said contents include: multicolored crystals, a length of twine, leaves and clippings of various assorted fauna, a handful of scribbled notes, a vial of something clear and viscous, and a dull-edged little paring knife. All are present in the expected number. Next, and somewhat reluctantly, he removes his gloves, and his fingers run absentmindedly across the surface of a very old tattoo indeed. And then, finally, he pauses—and he remembers—and then slowly, painfully, miserably he reaches down beneath his collar and retrieves the necklace hanging from 'round his neck.

  It is a small, yellow-white shard of bone, with an amethyst gem embedded within—all of it hooked upon a length of narrow, solid twine. Panther's eyes go wide at the sight of it; she leaps without warning to her feet and demands, very suddenly: "Where did you get that?"

  "Ibis gave it to me just before we left," replies Tiger, softly. His composure is already faltering. His hand and lower lip are both trembling. "She said that it was a very important gift. She told me to keep it close."

  "Ibis wore that necklace every damn day of her life," Panther snarls, stomping over and snatching it from Tiger's hands. He in no way resists; he seems eager, if anything, for the burden of that trinket to be ripped away. "Why would she give it to you?"

  To be clear, instead of me was the unspoken final component to that question. "I don't know," Tiger replies, answering her honestly—and a little hoarsely as well. "You don't think...oh stars, Panther, do you think that Ibis knew this would happen? Do you think that's why she sent us both away, to spare us from sharing her..." he gulps, swallows, "...her fate?"

  Panther sits back down. Her whole body is hunched like an owl's; those slate-grey eyes are barren of any life or light. Her expression is utterly flat. "No."

  "You really don't think so?" Tiger presses, with suddenly-increasing fervor. "Panther, come on, you know—you knew her, just as I did, you know there was always some sort of scheme, or motive, or some higher level of—"

  "If she had known," says Panther, fingers digging angry furrows into the bed, "then she would not have sent me away. She would not have been alone."

  Panther is perhaps Tiger's closest friend upon this earth—and yet now, her voice is that of a very frightening stranger's indeed. She is so, so very ready to fight, and Tiger has no will left to fight at all. And so he is cowed, and made silent, and so the two sit there in miserably silent commiseration for some time. Each an island apart from the other.

  Until: "Ibis is dead," says Tiger. Flatly. Distantly.

  Panther glares.

  "I'm sorry," says Tiger, immediately. His hands are shaking again. "I just—I wanted to say it out loud. I wanted to see how the words would feel in my mouth, because they don't—it doesn't feel—" his head sinks into his hands, and his trembling grows, "—it just doesn't feel real. Oh, stars, this can't be real."

  The heat of Panther's stare diminishes by some small fraction. "I would prefer," she says, after a fraught moment, "if we did not speak her name."

  "What are we going to do?" Tiger blurts. "What the hell are we going to do? Stars, Panther, we both saw it! Emerald flame! They murdered her, Panther! And—stars, did you hear what the old man said? Now our own people are trying to pin it on us!"

  "I heard."

  "What are we going to do?!"

  "We are going to run," Panther replies, simply and surely. "We will run, and we will disappear. And then—" her hands curl tight into fists, "—we will determine who was responsible for this. And then we will set things right."

  Something fractures, then, in Tiger's eyes. Something breaks.

  "Panther..." he tries.

  "We are her revenge" Panther insists, nostrils flaring and eyes going wide with sudden fury. Her mask is falling away. "Don't look at me like that—who else, Tiger? Who else? We're all that she has!"

  Tiger just sits there in silence, for a moment, and does not reply.

  And then:

  "Ibis doesn't have anything," he mutters, softly. "She's dead."

  And to that, there is simply nothing more to say.

  Panther doesn't sleep that night; she doesn't even bother to try. She's an insomniac at her best and this is far from her best. Instead she feigns sleep just long enough for Tiger to feel comfortable doing the same—he worries, for her sake, in part because he does not truly understand her—and then she rises without sound, and slips her favored dagger into the back of her waistband. Then she retrieves one of her smaller knives and binds it to her forearm, via twine, concealing it beneath the length of her sleeve.

  The door creaks open; she steps out into the darkness of the hall, her steps careful and quiet. Then her head swivels—and then sees, out the corner of her eye, a fleeting shadow. Movement. Down the stairs. Triggered, surely, by the sound of the door, which means that the whole time someone was watching. And listening.

  Panther stares at the space in which a person once was. Her pulse is quickening The space stares back, and offers nothing. Finally she can stand it no longer; she moves very quickly and so she finds him there, at the foot of the stairs, with an wrought-iron old poker held in hand. The old man.

  They are both, in that moment, caught.

  Neither moves a muscle. Neither speaks.

  Until:

  "You're a killer," the old man accuses, pointing a finger. "And he's a Sorcerer, isn't he?"

  "Yes," answers Panther.

  "Even from all the way up there, you could kill me in an instant."

  "Yes."

  "Will you?"

  A pause.

  "I don't want to," says Panther. And then: "Will you turn us in?"

  Another pause.

  "The fugitives," the old man recites, "are the Empress's Prime Consort and the Empress's former bodyguard, names of Tiger and Panther. That is what the Inquisitor told me."

  Panther says nothing.

  "Did you kill the Empress?" asks the old man.

  Panther struggles to say anything at all.

  "No," she answers, eventually, and for the first time her voice cracks, and that one word comes out strained and strangled and broken. And then she adds, with even greater fracturing: "I would have done anything to save her."

  The old man's eyes are naught but pools of shadow. He speaks no further. He just ascends the stairs, one by one, and Panther's heart pounds faster and faster as her fingers wrap tight around the hint of her dagger, and as the old man draws near.

  Then he holds out, in one gnarled hand, ninety-two silver marks.

  "Ibis was good to us," he says, looking right up into Panther's eyes. "She brought us peace with Shalashar. She put a leash on those damned Oculus dogs. If what you say is true, then I am—" he pauses, searches for the words, and finally settles on something wholly insufficient, "—sorry, for your loss."

  There are tears in Panther's eyes, though he cannot see. Both her palms are slick with sweat. "Thank you," she says, eventually, because she has absolutely no idea how else to reply. And then she takes her money back.

  Moments later she is back in her room, the door creaking shut and the barricade returning promptly to place. And then she flattens herself against the wall, puts one ear directly to the surface of the door, and then...she waits. She waits, with eyes closed, and she listens: to the creaking and groaning of the old building, to the ragged howl of the winds beyond, to the chirping of what few insects have not already burrowed or perished before the great freeze soon to come. And she listens, too, to the sound of Tiger's breathing—slow, measured, even. Just as it should be. Safe—just as he should be. Just as she must keep him. She has lost one and she cannot, cannot lose another.

  Hours pass like this. Panther listens and does not think. Her mind, in these twilight moments, is blissfully vacant.

  Until, from behind her: "I'm sorry."

  The bodyguard's head jerks around; her eyes are momentarily wide and startled, for she had unknowingly slipped into something almost resembling sleep. She peers out now and sees the silhouette of him there, a dark and indeterminable shape sprawled out across the opposite bed. And she hears tears in his voice as he whispers: "I'm sorry I couldn't save her. I should have had more sway with my people, with my family back home. I should have been able to stop this—or at least warn her, or—"

  "It's okay," Panther interrupts. Gently. With no trace of malice or ire in her voice. Only sorrow. "Just rest. Please. For both our sakes. Tomorrow will be a hard day."

  "What about you...?" Tiger mutters, his voice already slurring and dulling. Perhaps he was never fully conscious at all. "Panther...you need...to sleep..."

  "I will," she promises, grimacing and nodding her head—and fighting back a sudden swell of tears. "I will. I'll rest. Just go back to sleep, Tiger. Please. Just go back to sleep. I'll do the same in a bit."

  His only reply, then, is a lengthy snore, to which Panther cannot help but chuckle, at which point she suddenly cannot help but cry, and so she stands there like a statue in the shadowy corner of that room and she weeps, silent and unseen.

  Unseen—save for myself.

  I am watching, of course. I see it all. Even when Panther finally lapses into unconsciousness I am aware and awake, for my watch never falters. And whilst she cries, and whilst the two of them languish in their grief, I say nothing. Do nothing. Offer nothing.

  To interfere, after all, is not my nature.

  Mine is only to remember.

  End Credits Theme