The air in the refinery district tasted of iron, coal smoke, and the sharp, living tang of ozone. It was the breath of Aethelburg, a city that clawed its way towards the sky on pillars of steam and sorcery. Kiri stood on a rust-streaked gantry, a silhouette against the grimy orange glow of the city's perpetual twilight. The grated metal was cool and vibrationless beneath her boots, a tiny island of stillness in the humming world.
Below, her target held court.
Magus Valerius, his gilded robes a vulgar splash of color in the industrial gloom, was laughing. He clapped a soot-stained ironmonger on the back, a gesture of condescending camaraderie. The transaction was complete. A case of raw Aether-crystals, the lifeblood of magic and industry, was being loaded onto the Magus's personal transport. Two hulking guards in polished brass armor flanked him, their hands resting on the stocks of hissing, steam-powered rivet guns. And between them stood the real threat: a Mage-Warden, his hand casually raised, a barely-visible shimmer of hardened air a Kinetic Shield already encapsulating the group.
Standard protection detail. Predictable.
Kiri exhaled, a slow, controlled release of breath.
And the world froze.
Not in truth, but in her perception. The continuous flow of reality fractured into a gallery of discrete, frozen moments. Frames.
· Frame 1: Valerius's head is thrown back in a laugh, his mouth a perfect 'O'. Spittle glistens in the air before him. The Mage-Warden's shield is a perfect, shimmering honeycomb dome.
This was her domain. The silent space between the ticks of the clock. Her Framesight.
Her contract was simple: terminate Valerius. The Cinder Crows had been paid well to ensure the Magus's Aether-crystal deal was his last. The why was not her concern. The execution was everything.
A direct assault was suicide. The Kinetic Shield would repel any projectile or physical force she could muster. She had to unravel the threat from the inside.
· Frame 2: Kiri Blinked.
Her body became a ghost,a afterimage fading on the gantry as a new one solidified ten meters to the left, right hand already clasping a large, spoked steam-release valve. In the frozen world, she existed in two places at once.
· Frame 3: She Blinked back to her original position. The valve was now turned. In the seamless flow of real time, a deafening, dragon-like hiss erupted as a concentrated jet of superheated steam shot from a pipe, billowing into a thick, opaque cloud directly between the two guards and the Mage-Warden.
Chaos, broken down into its component parts.
· Frame 4: The guards' muscles tense, their heads beginning to turn towards the shocking noise. The Mage-Warden's unwavering focus wavers for a nanosecond, his eyes flicking towards the disturbance. The perfect honeycomb of his shield stutters.
It was the only opening she would get.
· Frames 5-17: Kiri moved.
A cascade of Blinks.She was a phantom weaving through a frozen diorama of panic. She stepped off the gantry, her black, form-fitting coat flaring in a series of stuttered images against the orange sky. She passed through the cloud of steam, which hung in the air like a solid wall of white wool. She slipped between the two guards, their bodies still locked in the slow, heavy process of turning.
Her weapon, a needle-thin stiletto of blackened steel, was in her hand. It was not magical. It was simple. Precise. Like her.
· Frame 18: She stood inside the weakened shield.
She was now face-to-face with Magus Valerius.His wide, amused eyes were only just beginning to narrow, the first spark of fear igniting in their depths. The Mage-Warden was starting to turn his head, his mouth opening to form a spell of containment or retaliation. Kiri could see the Aether gathering around his fingers, a knot of brilliant, tangled light waiting to be unleashed.
This was the kill frame.
But the Warden's spell was a sledgehammer. It would crush her if it landed. She had to re-write the sequence.
· Frame 19: She adjusted her grip on the stiletto, her body coiled like a spring.
· Frame 20: She thrust.
But not at Valerius's heart.Her blade lanced forward, aimed at a specific, non-existent point in the air just to the right of Valerius's neck a point where the glowing lattice of the Warden's nascent spell was at its thinnest, its most unstable.
In real time, it was a single, impossible motion. One moment the space inside the shield was empty. The next, Kiri was simply there, her blade a blur of black.
The stiletto tip did not pierce flesh. It pierced the spell.
There was no roar of fire, no blast of ice. Only a sound like a thousand panes of glass shattering at once. The Mage-Warden's half-formed spell backfired catastrophically, the spatial energy collapsing in on itself with a concussive thump that threw him backwards off his feet. The Kinetic Shield flickered and died.
Valerius stared, his brain struggling to process the woman who had materialized from the air itself. The laughter in his eyes had been replaced by pure, uncomprehending terror.
Kiri's voice was a low, calm whisper, the only thing moving at a normal speed in her perception. "The Cinder Crows send their regards."
· Frame 21: Her blade, now unobstructed, found its true mark. A quick, efficient, and final stab to the vagus nerve in his neck. A kill that was silent and swift.
· Frames 22-30: She was already gone.
A reverse cascade of Blinks.Back through the still-billowing steam, between the guards who were only now finishing their turn, up the gantry, and into the deep, clinging shadows of the overhead pipework.
Below, the body of Magus Valerius slumped to the oil-stained concrete, the confusion and horror finally dawning on the faces of his retinue.
From first Blink to final shadow, six seconds had passed.
Alone in the darkness, nestled between two massive steam conduits, Kiri let out a shuddering breath. The world snapped back to its normal, fluid state, the sounds of shouting and alarm rising from below. A hot, familiar trickle of blood ran from her left nostril. She wiped it away with the back of her gloved hand, the crimson stark against the black leather.
The price of a perfect contract. A six-second symphony of violence, composed in the silence between seconds.
She closed her eyes, but behind her lids, the world still flickered a relentless, silent filmstrip that only she could see. It was a power that made her a ghost, a legend in the underworld. But it was a lonely power.
And as she melted into the industrial labyrinth, she had no idea that her performance had just attracted the attention of a far more dangerous audience. The Chronos Guild was watching. And for them, she wasn't an assassin.
She was a key.