Chapter Text
A fragment of the story’s invocation awaits — the first whisper before the descent:
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In the cold of a future that has forgotten mercy, a starving girl wanders through ruins and alleys where law survives only as a ghost. She does not know her destiny, she does not know the world, but she knows hunger. And hunger is an ancient god, more loyal than any family, more merciless than any fate.
A legendary killer watches her from afar, sensing in her the fierce, wordless quiet of those who endure.
And then there is the other one.
Esmeralda does not look: she invades.
Her presence is a vortex, a scent that bewilders, a smile honed to a blade.
The girl does not know it yet, but she is already caught in her orbit, already chosen, already marked. Esmeralda scents her the way one scents a secret, the way one recognizes a shard of oneself in a foreign body, the way one identifies a spark capable of burning the world down.
Two monsters, opposite and entwined: one made of discipline and silence, the other of fever, instinct, madness and wisdom. Both ready to claim the creature who might become their heir… or their undoing.
Among assassin clans, contested territories, and twisted philosophies, she will learn that survival is not enough. To live, she must transform. To transform, she must choose what to sacrifice. And to choose, she must first understand whether the monster waits outside her… or wakes within.
The first part follows Nicole’s childhood and adolescence, the slow chiseling of her identity through cold, hunger, and loss. The faces of her parents and sister fade from memory and from her eyes, dissolved by frost and starvation; mocking and merciless, they become her only companions. Years later, when a girl asks about them, she will lie and say smallpox took them. She will not speak of the blood. She will not speak of the empty stares. She will not speak of what she saw, nor of what she did.
But that moment is still far away. The girl does not know what tricks fate is weaving for her, what deeds, what loves, what wounds. Only the god, the narrator, knows what has been, what is, and what will be.
Not a human, not an object: blood and ink run through the creature’s veins, a chimera born and shaped by its god. A being who does not belong to the world, but to the story that forged her.
And when the story comes for her again — when her path crosses the thread left hanging in “Killer’s Heart” — she will no longer be the child we followed. She will be what the cold has tempered, what hunger has carved, what loss has sharpened. She will be the echo of what she was, and the omen of what she is becoming.
This is not a tale of redemption. It is the birth of something new.
Something feral.
Something that does not ask for love — it demands it.
Something that does not seek a place in the world — it claims one.
Something that does not fear the god who narrates it — it challenges her.
Here, tenderness is a luxury.
Violence is a mother tongue.
Memory is a weapon.
And growing up… is an act of destruction.
If you wish to enter this world, set your humanity aside.
15 July 2022
I
La Bambina, l'Assassino, la Fiera
The alleys of the city, in that October already dressed in winter, were dark and almost deserted.
The hazel eyes, which until that moment had been staring into nothing, lifted to follow a heavy yet sudden movement. The rat rose on its hind legs, sniffing the air with its hysterical, frantic manners: those of a creature destined to reproduce quickly and abundantly, given the short life of a tiny heart beating too fast.
«You’re hungry too...» considered the girl, who was little more than a wooden puppet, her limbs so withered. Her bones rested limp against the wall behind her, and the packed earth offered only pain to her buttocks, skeletal as well.
«Maybe I have something to give you,» she said to the creature as unfortunate as she was; perhaps less, thinking about it, since someone seemed willing to help it. She extended the twig she had for an arm: between her fingers she held a tiny piece of moldy bread crust.
The rat sniffed with greater emphasis and tilted its little head slightly to the side, allowing its black eyes to understand better.
The girl remained still, so as not to scare it.
With a couple of hops — interrupted by a few tactical sniffs — the rodent moved forward. Its little mouth, adorned with two long yellow teeth, opened, ready to snap shut and run away with the loot.
The girl didn’t even give it time to bite the crust: she struck it on the back with a surprisingly quick movement.
«I’m sorry,» she murmured, picking up the now lifeless little body. «Last night, you or one of your friends gnawed on my foot. I’m not your food.»
But evidently it was food for her, since she sank her teeth into the fur without much ceremony.
She heard footsteps approaching. Instinctively she bit and tore the little meat with more fury, fearing that another wretch wanted to steal her dinner.
«Don’t worry, little thing, I don’t want to take it from you,» a voice reassured her, powerful as thunder and deep as a cavern.
Lifting her eyes, she saw a mountain made man towering over her. He had to be over two meters tall and weigh at least two hundred kilos, all made of heavy, swollen muscle fibers and bones probably as large as those of a horse or an ox. The enormous figure was concealed by a black cloak; under the hood, the little one managed to distinguish only two light eyes, watching her with curiosity, and a long beard now almost entirely white.
From the cloak emerged an arm as thick as a tree trunk. «This, though, should taste better,» he chuckled.
He was offering her a piece of cheese; in the immensity of his palm it looked small, but it was actually quite sizable.
She didn’t move, she simply stared at the man’s hand with eyes that seemed ready to pop out of her head, and slowly chewed what she had in her mouth.
«Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow, eh?» the man muttered good naturedly. «Don’t worry, you won’t end up like the rat. Go on, throw that filth away and take the cheese.»
«You have no reason to be good to me,» mumbled the little one, «it must be a trap.» Her eyes had remained on the cheese the entire time, making her salivate uncontrollably.
The man bent down until he was sitting on his ankles; despite his bulk, it had been a fluid, light movement.
«I do have a reason: I was very entertained watching you trick and catch that rat. You impressed me with your speed, little pile of bones.»
She persisted in silence and in contemplating the food the giant still offered her.
It’s definitely a trap.
«What’s the difference between you and the thing you’re holding, child?» asked the man, without losing his kindness or his smile.
«I don’t know,» she answered sincerely. She didn’t see much difference between them, really. «It was an animal?» she tried.
«We’re animals too,» the man replied, observing the little one and the way she craved the piece of cheese she still wouldn’t take. «The difference is the eyes, little mouse: its were on the sides, so it was prey; yours are frontal, which makes you...?»
She thought about it a bit; then: «A predator? Like cats?»
«Exactly!» he exclaimed. «And what do predators do?»
«They hunt...» she answered after swallowing the saliva and blood filling her mouth.
«Right. Good girl,» he praised her. «You’ll learn, if this is to be your destiny, that even among humans there are hunters and prey, regardless of eye placement. Now accept the cheese, you’ve earned it.» He could have set it on the ground and left if he had simply wanted to feed her, but he wanted her to take it from him; it was a matter of symbolism more than practicality: she had to feed from his hand. She had to bind herself to him.
She finally lifted her gaze to the big, bristly face. «What will happen after I take it?»
«You’ll find out I get my supplies from the best farmer around!» he laughed. «And your belly will be full for a night, maybe even a day, given your tiny size.»
«Swear you won’t hurt me,» murmured the little one. «I want your word of honor,» she added louder. Her tiny heart raced and pounded against its small walls, saliva kept flooding her mouth, but since she didn’t want to die, she preferred the rat to real food.
He laughed again, amused. «Those are big words for that little mouth! Know that I can give you my word, but you must also know it has no value.»
«Why not?» she asked, returning her focus to the dairy gift.
«Because it would be the oath of an assassin.»
The little one didn’t flinch. The man didn’t miss it, and he smiled as if he had just confirmed a great truth.
«I understand. Then mine won’t be a request, but a plea: don’t hurt me.»
She lifted her eyes to him, then back down to the cheese. She did this a dozen times.
The small hand dropped the rat and reached out to take what was offered.
«Good, huh?» he commented while she devoured the cheese in big bites; her wild eyes full of frantic pleasure.
The man rose with the same lightness with which he had crouched. His hand disappeared under the cloak and came out armed with a dagger.
She didn’t have the strength to run and certainly couldn’t confront the colossus. Her heart sped up even more as terror gripped it. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how afraid she was.
«I knew it,» she muttered, without stopping her feast. «At least I’ll die with a full belly... You’re really mean,» she tried to insult him.
The man laughed heartily. «You crack me up, little thing! I find you hilarious and brave.» He smiled at the face now streaked with tears — partly from the joy of food and partly from imminent death — and assured her: «I don’t want to kill you.»
In fact, he let the knife fall, and it bounced on the hard ground with a metallic clink.
«If you want the chance to fill your belly every day, bring me the head of a person. I don’t care who, I don’t care about sex or age: as long as it’s a human being.»
Her reddened, wide eyes lifted.
«I can offer you protection, food, clothes, anything,» he said, «but these aren’t things I give to just anyone: you have to earn them. Understand?» Taking the girl’s silence as assent, the man continued: «Bring the head to the old shoe factory on Flat Hill. Do you know where it is?»
She nodded, and her eyes grew even wider.
«If you succeed, knock three times and tell Aaron that Whitebeard told you to come. If you refuse or fail, you die in these alleys like your little prey.» He turned his back to her and walked down the long, dark alley, concluding: «Opportunities like this come only once in a lifetime. Choose wisely.» Then he disappeared.
The little creature kept eating, but her eyes remained fixed on the knife abandoned on the ground.
♦♦♦
The enormous man with the white beard turned the corner of an alley.
«You’ve been following me for hours. Did you think I hadn’t noticed?» he asked the very tall blonde woman leaning against the wall of a house. «What do you want?»
«Are you still angry with me, my love?» she mumbled, pretending to be hurt.
«I’ll forgive you when you prove to me that you’re loyal to me and me alone,» he replied, wavering slightly. Despite his bulk and his role in the world, that woman was capable of confusing him and making him tremble. «You still haven’t told me where you were for an entire year, who slept in your bed, and what information you sold. Until we have that kind of conversation, you and I cannot coexist in the same area of the city. And now you’re in my territory.»
«But I’ve told you at least twenty times, love,» she sing songed, «I started a living work.»
«An explanation that makes no sense,» he grumbled, unable to hide his frustration.
«You know how important it is to me, creating new stories. New lives. One day it will make sense, don’t worry,» she reassured him. «I brought you a special gift: that’s why I’m here. When you see it, you won’t be able to stop yourself from forgiving me and loving me, exactly as you once did.»
«What is it?» he asked, curious despite himself.
«You’ll see it with your beautiful green eyes, love,» she answered, and tapped the tip of his nose with a finger. «But first you have to give me permission to walk freely in your kingdom, which once was ours. Which can still be ours.»
The man carefully observed the face of the woman he had pushed away, his heart made heavy by the pain of her betrayal, or presumed betrayal. He studied the mad, icy eyes of his beloved, the same woman who had disappeared one day only to reappear a year later, or a little less; the woman he had exiled from his territory and who now, five years later, reappeared in an alley to ask him to start over.
«Follow me into the forest,» she continued, since he merely stared at her, «you’ll judge for yourself whether I’m worthy of your love and your trust.» Noticing his doubtful expression, she added: «Philip, if I had wanted you dead...» and she gloated, flashing a smile both sweet and violent.
♦♦♦
She admired it and watched it glint under the moonlight, which had risen to dissipate a little of the dense darkness of the night. It was a nice knife, she had decided, turning it over in her hands: she could get two gold coins for it, maybe three, if she found the right person to sell it to. Of course, it was more likely they would take it from her without giving her anything in return... she had decided that too. So there was one last decision to make. The most important of her life.
She had been on the road for three, maybe four months. Months that had been warm, full of travelers willing to drop a piece of bread, an apple, and sometimes even a few coins. Slowly, they had disappeared one after another: the frost was at the door, and with it the famine, which would retreat again in spring, when the fields would begin to give grain and fruit once more, the livestock to reproduce and make milk with which to create excellent cheeses, like the one that was still keeping her belly full and her mind clear.
She could try to kill someone and earn the favor of that mountain of a man, risking being killed in the attempt... or she could die anyway, of hunger and cold, since winter seemed to be in quite a hurry that year.
She stood up on her legs, now a little stronger, and moved forward to give shape to the choice she had finally made.
The man was sleeping against a wall, on top of packaging made of now deteriorated plastic, to shield himself from the wind and insulate his body from the cold and damp ground. The girl watched him for a long time, unable to find the courage to approach and do what she had to do. He wasn’t the first homeless man she had found asleep: this one had simply seemed thinner and older than the others. Vulnerable enough to be killed by a little creature like her.
She finally took one step, two, three, getting closer and closer.
«I have nothing to steal,» the man croaked, who apparently slept very lightly or wasn’t sleeping at all, «get lost, whoever you are!» He was talking to the night, maybe to some rat: the girl had run away after the first syllable.
She stopped to catch her breath behind the wall of a house, which formed the corner of an alley. Her heart hammered in her chest and, out of fear, she had wet herself. It took her many minutes to calm down, and she didn’t even manage it completely.
Where had she gone wrong?
Did I make too much noise?, she reasoned, and continued: If he is the prey, I am the hunter. But he’s not a rat, so I can’t stay still and wait for him to come to me... or can I? One thing is certain: running away won’t solve anything, and the energy the cheese gave me will run out... and I’ll be too weak again even to stand.
She took a deep breath and thought of a new strategy.
♦♦♦
«Who was that girl?» asked the blonde woman, who was walking through the forest beside the enormous man with the white beard. «The one you gave the cheese to, I mean. Recruiting, huh? What was so special about her, besides the strange hair color? Red like clotted blood...» Judging by the glint in her eyes and the crooked smile, the image had filled her with a sense of well being and excitement.
«If an answer exists, she’ll be the one to reveal it,» the man replied, and looked around for the umpteenth time. He had never lowered his guard. Under the cloak, his hand was wrapped around the hilt of a large sword. He didn’t trust her. «The sun will set soon: is there still a long way to go?»
«Are you afraid of the darkness, my love?» she sneered. «You fear it because it’s my element. After all, I can be a shadow, but I can also be the darkness itself,» she praised herself. «But I already told you I could have killed you at least thirty times throughout the day. I don’t want to hurt you, my love.»
«Every time you call me that... a cold shiver runs through me: it sounds like a threat, more than the sweetness you might want to express.»
«It’s because I’m a femme fatale, Philip. But you have nothing to fear from me. I love you, you know that, right?»
The man stopped, and so did the woman.
«If you must use a name, show me respect and use the assassin one,» he ordered, watching her blue eyes glitter theatrically with orange from the dying sun. «Whitebeard: that is my name.»
A grin twisted the woman’s sharp features.
«Then I’ll call you love, happy? The one they chose for you sounds old to me, even if you’re only forty now. You could have kept the previous one: Smith the Ripper. I liked it.»
Whitebeard began walking again.
«I needed a new name. A leader’s name that reflected my appearance and not the signature of my killings: those glories belong to the past.» He turned to look at her, but didn’t slow down. «As for you, Esmeralda the Eternal, your name doesn’t age... just like you.»
«Exactly, my love!» she exclaimed, running to get beside him. «You should feel honored by the love of a woman who will never stop being beautiful.»
«No woman makes my heart tremble the way you do,» he confessed. «But that doesn’t mean my wrath is incapable of falling upon you,» he concluded, a bit more threatening.
«I think I just got wet...» Esmeralda noted. «You turn me on when you play the bad boy!»
The man preferred to ignore the comment and the effect it had on him.
«Speechless, as expected!» Esmeralda trilled under the last rays of the sun. She had led Whitebeard into a small clearing; in front of them, a man tied to the trunk of a pine tree. He was standing, held up by sturdy ropes, his chin resting on his chest. Long black hair fell over his face, hiding only partially the bruises and gashes from which dark blood dripped miserably.
«Snake...» exhaled Whitebeard, incredulous and pleased. «You captured my greatest rival...»
«And wiped out his small, pathetic guild,» Esmeralda added, displaying all the satisfaction she was capable of. «What are three hundred souls to a woman like me,» she laughed. «I did it for you, love, to earn your forgiveness. He’s still alive...» She grabbed his arm through the cloak, pulled him close, and whispered in his ear: «His life is yours... I gift it to you.»
The man focused for another moment on the enormous tattoo: a vermilion rattlesnake covering the victim’s entire left arm; then he shifted his attention to the woman.
«You are forgiven,» he told her, after weighing the matter at length.
Esmeralda smiled, happy and feral.
«Now his territory is yours, which means you control more than half the city, my powerful love!»
«Ours, Esmeralda: we rule half the city,» he said, rewarding her with his first smile.
«Love me here, before the serpent who disturbed the sleep of too many nights,» she purred, and threw her arms around his neck. «Now!» she ordered, turning into a beast.
♦♦♦
The stone struck the bare head; the result was an unpleasant, rounded sound that echoed through the night, disturbing its quiet.
«Why the hell you did that, you filthy rat?!» the man screamed, adding a few curses as he rubbed the injured spot. He turned to look at the girl staring at him from a short distance with wide eyes. «Get lost!» he ordered, and lay back down.
The small creature with red hair was bewildered: People really are strange! Someone had beaten her for no reason at all, and that one, even though he had been hit, had ignored her to go back to sleep...
She picked up another stone, larger than the previous one, and aimed at another part of his body.
This time the stone reached and struck his scrotum.
A couple of howls of pure pain tore through the night; then the man chased the girl, who had begun to run.