At the coast of Vensah, everything was very lively. It seemed as if the terrorist attack that happened a few days ago - putting everything surrounding it in chaos - had not happened at all.
It wasn't that the people didn't care about how many people had died. They simply didn't have the time to mourn for the dead when they had their living families to feed.
In between all the chaos of running and shouting people, a little group of individuals seemed to be hidden in plain sight. The group sat in the small place designated for families that would board the ship for the sake of traveling a long distance with a small fee.
The disguised group consisted of 3 very young children (younger than 4 years) , 3 men and 2 women.
"Vensah doesn't do trade with Anzum so this ship is going to Demha, right? How will we go to Anzum after reaching Demha?"
The youngest woman of the group was new to this job so she didn't know the route the group had planned to reach Anzum.
"After reaching Demha, we'll take the train to Yastaz and cross their border to reach Anzum. Understand?"
The most experienced of the group answered her question, without looking at her.
"Will we be able to cross Yastaz without being caught? Isn't their security really strong?"
"The security of Yastaz will ignore us once we prove that we're working for Anzum's royal family. Both of the countries are allies. Besides, Anzum is doing this for the sake of bootlicking up to Yastaz, so I see no reason for them to not let us pass."
"And, what if all the kids aren't sold?"
"They will be."
He glanced towards the sleeping princess and grinned.
"And, even if they aren't, this one will get us enough money to never take another mission again and still live in luxury. I still can't believe that we got our hands on such a treasure."
"I know that we can get money by selling them but what's so special about this one anyway? I mean... you're drooling over it."
Another newbie asked the man, as he was confused about why the princess, in particular, was so important to the leader.
"You youngsters wouldn't know, but, in Anzum girls born with black eyes and black hair are taken to be children of one their strongest goddesses. In addition, there hasn't been a single girl with those features in the kingdom for 40 years, so this one is quite the jackpot."
After an hour or so passed, everyone and everything - that needed to - had boarded the humongous ship.
* * *
It took the ship 2 days to travel to Demha, from where the group took a train that crossed the border to enter Yastaz, taking an additional 3 days.
They traveled through Yastaz for 13 days, because of how big it was and, in the middle, they abandoned one of the children simply because he kept crying because of how hungry he was.
After the long journey, the group finally reached Laanim, the city that shared borders with Anzum. The group had decided to rest in an inn for the night. The group decided that they would purchase only 2 rooms. The women in one room and the men in one. The children would stay with the women, because the elder one - of the two women - was a mother herself, before her children had died, so she had the most knowledge and patience needed to handle children. They obviously couldn't be handed over to the men as they needed to be in perfect condition to be sold to their future owners.
After the tiring journey that the group had made for more than a week, they were obviously exhausted and slept as soon as their heads hit the pillows.
It was apparent that they were oblivious to the danger that threatened their life at that moment, or else they wouldn't have been able to sleep nearly as peacefully as they had.
In the middle of the night, as the terrorist group slept peacefully, the normally loud inn suddenly became as quiet as it possibly could. The shouts of drunk people, the singing bards with their instruments and the sounds of women dancing abruptly disappeared. If even one person from the group was awake, then they would have been able to sense the danger surrounding them.
At that moment, the men's room's door made a loud creaking sound as it opened slowly, a woman dressed in the yastazian military attire walked in. The light from the moonlight was blinding as it reflected off the badge on the left side of her chest. The badge, which was shaped as a black and silver shield, signified the highest position in Yastaz's military, which was that of a high commander.
The high commander walked with innate grandeur, each step of her's was soundless. Her light brown hair looked much darker in the gloom of the room.
She stopped to stand right in the middle of the room. Abruptly, the curtains closed on the window, stopping the only source of light in the room. One of the men stirred in his sleep, almost waking up, but the woman was still unfazed. She raised her head up to stare at the ceiling and closed her eyes.
In that instant, the darkness in the parts of the room, where light couldn't reach, solidified into several tendrils and crept up to the men's necks, cracking them in a second. The men were dead without even knowing how their end came.
The commander opened her eyes, the instant in which the darkness returned to its original form. She stared at one of the dead men intensely with her blue eyes filled with animosity. When her tendrils had touched his skin, she had gotten to know that the man had 4 children of his own, one of whom he sold, and the rest he used to beat and then coerced to give up on their desire of education to ,instead, beg on the streets, simply for the sake of a few more coins.
She was strongly regretting her decision of killing him peacefully. Her poker face turned into an angry scowl, looking at the man's face.
Before her emotions could get the best of her, she turned on her heels and got out of the room, walking down the hall to another door. Once again, she strode into the room, like before.
Unlike the previous room, this room's curtains were already pulled together, without the need for her to do so. She looked around the room in search of something or someone of whom she hadn't been informed by her soldiers already. Seeing the children who were laying on a mat in the corner of the room, she decided to check on them before she dealt with the women who still seemed to be sleeping peacefully. She saw that both the children were sleeping. But one of them in particular caught her eye. Because of her powers that obviously had a lot to do with darkness and shadows in particular, her sight was just as good in the dark as it was in the light.
The baby, who was carelessly sleeping, had captivated her because of how it looked exactly like her husband's baby photos. Her body had stiffened, as her eyes, involuntarily watered. She raised her hand to put it on her stomach.
'If our baby hadn't died, he would have most probably looked like that... Right?'
She didn't know who she was asking in her head, but no matter how much she wanted to avoid the thoughts plaguing her mind, she couldn't. She pressed her lips together in an effort to retain her cold expression in which she succeeded, but that didn't change the smooth flow of her tears.
She advanced closer to the baby and, as if on cue, the little girl opened her eyes to gaze around her. The commander inched her hand closer to the baby to pick her up while the baby's eyes widened in awe, looking at the hand that was coming closer to her face by the second. Seeing her reaction the commander's eyes softened and a little smile spread across her face.
She picked up her tiny body and brought her hand closer to the baby, but before her hand could touch the baby's face she felt something really hard hit her head from behind. Her sight blurred and she was almost about to black out, as the drops of blood from her head fell on the red cheeks of the crying baby in her arms, who had been startled by the sudden sound.