Rusalka walked the darkened streets with a casual stride.

She glanced upon her lover, who stood by her side.

Alexander kept his senses on alert, every single step he took had been overly cautious for a little while now.

His bride did not need to guess the reason why.

“Are you worried about that hidden Platinum Class?” She asked as she leaned into him and closed her eyes.

“I’d be a fool not to be,” The man said bitterly.

Hidden Platinum Class combatants, that pretty much guaranteed Cain was behind this.

Rusalka paused her steps and held his arm tight to drag him to a stop.

The man turned to meet her eyes, which softly narrowed back at him in turn.

Right now he was like a notched arrow, he was as uptight as he used to tell her not to be.

“Get a grip,” She said, and the man’s expression became awkward.

He turned away, not daring to meet her gaze a second time.

The woman scoffed, then glanced back at the governor’s manor with an ice cold grin,

“Don’t worry, Alex, they will not make a move against us.”

“Wouldn’t they?” Her man said with doubt in his tone.

“Well, Crux won’t, there’s no way that he’d be that foolish,” Rusalka replied.

Indeed, although the talk was only brief, she’d gained a decent understanding of Crux and his two children’s mindsets.

The son was a buffoon, it had nothing to do with the class divide and everything to do with a natural lack of wit.

The daughter was clever, indeed too clever by a half, she overestimated herself.

The Governor himself was a cautious man, he cared more for personal gain than national loyalty. He was the kind of man who’d actively undermine the nation if it suited his interests.

Her conclusion then was this,

“He’ll sick that Knight of Cain on us and see who survives.”

Alexander nodded, he did not doubt that she was right about this.

Whoever loses, Crux still wins.

After all, around Rusalka’s neck still dangled the Seal of Jupiter, a simple bit of shape shifted bone that right now was her greatest protector.

There was no way Crux would ever dare make any hasty moves as long as she had that.

She smiled towards her groom, an all too sweat and gentle smile,

“Besides, even if something did go wrong you wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me, would you, Alex?”

“They’d have to walk over my corpse to even touch you,” Said the man in turn.

“And their prize too would be but a corpse,” Rusalka said with a bright and cruel smile.

Her meaning was clear, if he died protecting her then she would follow after.

All the things she could suffer in this world, none of them compared to braving it alone.

The man nodded, he faced her with a firm expression.

He was determined then not to die, for any reason, for her.

The Lady of Venus fidgeted with her hair a bit, a certain heat rose up inside of her cheeks and chest.

She looked away from her man with a bright smile.

__________________________________________________

The Lady of Venus and the husband she clung to continued their walk until a manor of respectable scale appeared before them in the darkness.

This building was the guest house that they’d been lent for the duration of their stay, and it was patrolled every hour by a rotating retinue of the fallen Venus City’s female soldiers.

The gates opened wide with a metallic clack, then closed again behind them just as swiftly.

The Lady of Venus released her husband’s arm as the guards saluted her.

She greeted them casually, she even called out to a few by name.

The more seasoned guards, and Alexander too, then watched as the younger girls, the girls her age, asked her about her venture into the city and her talk with the local lord.

The six or so hundred survivors of Venus cared nothing for the class divide now, even their Lady treated the lowest of them with familiarity after all they had been through.

This was true solidarity, though sadly born as ever from a recent tragedy.

When their Lady then talked to the girls around her about the clothes, dances and drums she’d witnessed in the circle, their seniors could see them starting to imagine it all with longing eyes.

Those same seniors did not play that game, they stepped up to urge their Lady inside so she could get out of the icy cold night time air that Muspelheim was partly known for.

Alexander watched it all with a sombre smile, and then he turned to look into the distance.

The young lad could feel them clear as day, the many prying eyes concealed within that night time darkness.

Rusalka turned to face him, so too did the masses.

They acted naturally, as they’d long practiced, while he began to comb over the rooftops nearby with his cautious eye.

“Are we being watched?” She asked, yet never did she face him, the voices of the other girls around her drowned out her words, her body language didn’t give anything away either.

The man’s senses never left those hidden presences, not even as he indicated their positions to the guards standing around him.

Rusalka turned to face the nearest of the Gold Class, the strongest of her women warriors.

“Well, that much is to be expected,” Said the guard, “A few prying eyes is rather normal, they do not want us doing anything suspicious in their territory, that alone does not mean anything.”

“That would normally be true,” Said Alexander, “However...you weren’t at that meeting with Crux."

The guard frowned, but she didn’t feel offended. Rather, she knew what he was trying to say.

The meeting with Crux provided context that encouraged the couple to think a battle was at hand, she concluded this with readiness and then made her preparations with caution.

“Are we in for a fight?” She asked, though she already knew.

Rusalka’s heels clapped loud against the stone pavement. She caught the eye of that guard and then faced the heavens on high.

“Probably,” She said, “But this lot’s only here to watch the show.”

Alexander readied himself too, and then the rest of the masses followed suit.

The man could not overlook the situation with a calm mind, and the female guards who knew his nature found that very alarming indeed.

He turned and approached the Gold Class woman, then leaned forward and whispered in her ear four simple words,

“Cain is here, be ready.”

The woman’s eyes opened wide for a moment, trembling pupils filled to their depths with unprecedented shock.

The next moment however they had turned ruthless once again.

She nodded her head as the Lady and her consort now entered the manor.

The woman glared into the darkness; were it that she could spread out her Ash inside the city limits to find those prying eyes, but she couldn’t, not without starting a fight anyway.

Only the men of Saturn, men like Alexander, possessed a technique which made them capable of spreading their Ash so thin as to make it invisible to that of another’s.

Only the men of Saturn had perfected such a skill so that they could brave the Ragnarok that dwelt beneath their cliffside home.

The woman truly envied their kind at this moment, but she was also endlessly thankful to have the Lady’s Consort ever by her side.

Nothing, be it beast or man, with the sole exception of another from Saturn, could detect Alexander’s prying.

Conversely then Alexander could sense everyone and everything that walked within his range, and the spread thin nature of his Ash meant that its maximum limit was expanded above that of his peers.

Such a technique was simply too useful to not teach to the Silver and Gold Class members of Venus’ six hundred survivors.

His uncle would have disapproved, for such an act was a blatant breach of his trust, but Alexander cared not.

The lad had thus begun to educate his wife’s women in the usage of this skill, but there was not yet one among them who’d managed to master it.

Hence, while Venus’ ilk would love for it to be otherwise, the reality was that only their Lady’s Consort was truly fully aware of everything that was going on in the vicinity around the manor.

They could only rely on him to tell them where those spies were hiding, and he had already done so through the most subtle and practiced of signs and gestures.

Thus it was that each and every soldier of Venus took note and committed those positions to her memory.