The training room was empty in the early hours of morning darkness as Yew’na entered through a sliding side door barefoot, tip-toeing across the worn redwood steps which led to the canvas sparring area. Taking the first turn she loped down the ornate paper hallway toward the iron-barred chest at the far end. Beyond the lock was her prize: a coveted and priceless ancient sword constructed during the Mar Yhain Empire of the First Age, before that knowledge was forever lost.

Imbued with a deep and forbidding power, the azure crystal blade would never chip, its edge never dull. The most treasured possession of the Maitsialong House of Honorable Fighting and Theater, of which Yew’na had been a ward and student for fifteen years — most of her life. Yet that all ended tonight. For not simply would she run away, but she would steal their most valuable item, their very heart.

She’d taken the key off the neck of the sleeping abbot, the final time she’d share his bed. For too many years he’d manipulated her. The favors promised but never arriving; help forever ungiven as merely the rumor of their relationship generated endless scorn and resentment among her classmates. At first she’d spurned his advances and been labeled a whore for her trouble. Finally relenting to his desires she’d proved it.

Exhausted by the bullying, consumed by the mockery, she became filled with a constant burning indignation. In the practice arena she could defeat every member of her rank, and more than a few above her, yet they still despised and tormented her at every turn. She was ostracized by nearly everyone, rejected from even the smallest moments of pleasure and affection. Only one ally ever she’d had, one friend and one love, the lone mate to her soul: dearest Go’wann’gi. The only person who’d cared one inch for her well-being. So when last night she’d learned of her humiliation and death, the decision was finally made.

Now having become more miserable, more utterly alone than she’d been in her entire dejected life, nothing could prevent her escape but death, a freedom she would gladly welcome as respite from the endless torment. Yet vengeance narrowly prevented it. More necessary now than even the solace of void: they must be made to understand; to know what they’ve done; and they must pay. The fresh depths of her misery granted new clarity and a brutal freedom. While the abbot bled to death in his bed, neck opened, she pulled the sword from its cradle, dropped a candle onto the spilling lamp oil covering the floor and away she fled.