For a house supposedly hosting a banquet, the corridors were eerily quiet. The only source of noise was the hall she was heading towards. There were soldiers standing outside the large doors. Riza was confident that she could take them, if it came to that. However, as she passed by another room, she saw someone wearing a black uniform beckoning her. Without sparing a second, she went into the room and closed the door.
"Who are you?" she asked.
The person motioned her to keep quiet, and Riza noticed the red armbands on the person's arm. After a few minutes, Riza heard some commotion outside the door. Her eyes widened in surprise. The noise eventually died down, and the stranger spoke. It was difficult to identify the person's gender, not because of their build, but because even their voice didn't show much either.
"I am Red Crow. I take it you're here because of the Skycrawlers?"
Riza put her hands into her back, but then she remembered that she didn't have any weapons at all. She had heard of this Red Crow before. Saedis had once said something, but she didn't seem to remember.
"What do you want?" she ended up asking.
Red Crow threw a wooden mask towards Riza. "Wear this. You don't want your parents to see you now, do you? Anyway, if you want to rescue the Skycrawler kid, you have to hurry. I will cover you from the back."
"What's going on here? What happened in the banquet?" asked Riza, before putting on the mask.
Red Crow chuckled. "Lord Severin and a few other lords banded together to overthrow Lord Skycrawler as governor of Sky city. They began by killing all the opposing lords, and those who weren't invited as well. Initially, the kid was supposed to be staying at home, but he was captured. You managed to rescue him, only for him to come here again", Red Crow ended with a sigh.
"Wait … How did you know we rescued him?" asked Riza, suspicious.
The response was a slight chuckle. "We need to get moving. Lord Severin enjoys monologues, but I think he will reach his limit very soon."
"So, what am I supposed to do?"
"Go in there and kill the soldiers who are holding the kid hostage. Take the kid and leave. Do not worry about the other soldiers attacking you. I will take care of them and open up an escape path. If you're as good as I've heard, don't waste this opportunity!"
Riza groaned inwardly. 'Heard from who?' she thought, but she didn't dare to voice her thoughts. How did she get entangled in such a mess? Without thinking about it further, she left the room and headed towards the hall. For some reason, the soldiers who were guarding the door earlier were no longer there. The door which led to the hall was slightly open too. She sighed before peeking through the open door.
What she saw caused her eyes to widen and her jaw to drop, at the same time. She could barely see a fat, middle-aged man yelling something at someone she couldn't see due to the angle. The fat, middle-aged man was sitting at the head seat, and he started laughing manically. He pointed towards one direction, and there was the sound of something being chopped. There was a loud spurting sound, followed by a loud scream. After the scream came all sorts of curses, before they settled down into wailing.
Her nervousness mounted. It was really a bad time, but when she thought about her parents being in there, she started feeling nervous. She couldn't help it. However, something had to be done. They were probably still alive, after all, her younger sister was the one getting betrothed.
With a soft sigh, she gritted her teeth and opened the door before going inside. What she saw when she was inside was even less impressive. There were bodies everywhere. Some were lying on the floor, while others were sitting on chairs, lying on the table with daggers in their throats or chests. As she scanned the room, she found her parents looking at her with ferocious gazes.
'Calm down, they don't know it's you. Calm down. Calm down', she repeatedly told herself. At least they were still alive, and that was a good thing.
All the gazes of people who were alive in this hall, turned to look at her. She tried her best to ignore them, until a voice full of anger asked, "Who are you? I don't remember inviting you!"
She decided that it would be in her best interest to ignore the question. Her parents, her sister, and the maid who was standing behind them with a giant scythe would probably identify her the moment she spoke.
"Didn't you hear my question? Or are you pretending to be mute?" asked the host of the banquet, the fat middle-aged man from earlier, Lord Ezevior Severin. He had short, black hair, and one could not take him for a villain at first glance.
Riza's gaze finally landed on her objective, a young man wearing bloodied clothes, while holding onto a decapitated corpse. He was crying while muttering to himself. Beside the young man was a middle-aged lady, who looked much beautiful, despite her haggard appearance. There were tears streaming on her cheeks, as she tried to comfort the young man. Riza couldn't help but feel her eyes become moist after witnessing this depressing scene.
"Either way, kill him too", commanded Lord Severin, pointing at Riza.
At any other time, she would have loved to correct the misunderstanding, but the situation at hand was not ideal. Several soldiers wearing leather armor started moving in her direction. That was when she realized that she was surrounded, and the lack of weapons didn't make it any easier. Before she could move, one of the soldiers dashed towards her with the intention to kill her instantly. Unfortunately for him, a dagger appeared from somewhere and embedded itself in his forehead. He died before he could perform his glorious feat.
Riza took this as a sign and picked up a short sword which had been dropped by the dead soldier. She then dashed towards one of the soldiers, who instantly fell over, with a dagger embedded in his neck.