The whispering wind brushed through a field of graves and grass.

The young girl walked the stone steps toward the hill.

Her gaze soon fell upon the field, and then became lost.

She faced the hundred and one nameless graves erect before her.

When her thoughts got away from her, this was where she would go.

Rather, it's where she'd inevitably find herself.

She would stand here as if to ask the ghosts of her dead comrades for guidance, but their voices, naturally, were forever silent.

All she could have was a conversation with the wind.

Her brows twitched as she pondered their fate.

These were her men and women, Knights of Cain who died in her service.

Only now did she realise her biggest miscalculation; Just as Aden had lost his bride so too had Erus lost his sister.

How had that woman’s death changed the Prince?

How deep were his scars?

She lamented not knowing about Era’s story back when she was assessing the mindsets of her foes, it seemed that a significant effort must have been put into covering it up.

The small miscalculation that resulted from this missing piece of information had at least twice jeopardized her plans, once minorly but then very severely when it came to Venus City.

The Prince in her mind was estranged from his kin, yet the Prince in reality had given his sister some absurdly powerful bodyguards before she’d gone to that city.

This miscalculation resulted in six hundred of the city’s people surviving what should’ve been a total slaughter, meanwhile she lost an entire second squadron of men including a friend and mentor.

The forces of Cain in these lands were split into but six squads under her command then, and each consisted of only fifty men.

Now two of those groups were in these graves all because she underestimated Avance first and Erus second.

The revelation irked her, but it was like a riddle without an answer.

She knew that life never offers a remedy for regret.

Before too long then, in this place that no one but her ever visited, the sound of a man’s boots trod the steps to her back.

The girl closed her eyes and listened as the owner walked closer.

He stopped but a mere meter behind her.

He stayed silent however, and said nothing until she glanced him over her shoulder.

The man looked listless as he silently stood amid the graves of her fallen countrymen.

She disregarded him and looked down towards the two foremost graves, the graves of her mentor, Metatron, and his subordinate, a female commander who died with him in the battle of Venus City.

The young man behind her peered over soon after.

He too looked upon those two nameless gravestones.

He had to ask, though till the end there was no enthusiasm in his tone,

“Why do they have no names?”

She could tell that he didn’t really care to know.

This man, he was just looking for something to talk about, he wanted to break the awkward silence.

Uriel glanced back at him once again then, yet she kept quiet all the same.

Some time passed, she reached out.

Her palm brushed off the dust from the closest of the two graves.

She then knelt down, pulled out a cloth from her dress, and wiped the stone clean.

“It wouldn’t do for their names to be recorded,” She said at long last, “We of Cain do a lot of work in the shadows all over the many continents of this world, having our names recorded anywhere would endanger our living relatives.”

Her reply was monotonous, without much care for whether or not the man, Mourn of Mercury, cared to listen.

He did listen, and it made him feel a sense of something Cain’s ilk valued.

Their hatred of the Gods ran deep, they abandoned everything, even their names and identities, to fight that pointless war.

He didn’t believe everything Uriel told him about the Gods and their true nature, but he was still quite sure that they weren’t beings that mere mortals like themselves could, or for that matter even should, concern themselves with.

“Uriel,” He asked her, “What’s your name? Your real name?”

The girl's hand ceased to move.

She glanced back towards Mourn with a somewhat cold expression.

This man did not even hide the fact that he despised her title.

More specifically he hated her people’s practice of passing on the memories of their countless predecessors generation after generation and engraving them into the mind from an early age.

The title was just symbolic of that practice.

She closed her eyes and breathed in, she did not answer, maybe she couldn’t, for her name was buried beneath countless memories from long, long ago, just like Metatron’s had been.

Only, for her, it might be somewhat worse than it had been even for him.

“My predecessor as Uriel...was also my mother,” She said, “From the day I was born I was chosen to be her replacement.”

Mourn frowned, then started to ponder.

The last Uriel sinned.

Her failure led to a woman named Beatrix coming to these lands before this girl was even born.

He put two and two together then and realised that from the moment she’d come into this world, from the moment she was born, this little lass had never been destined to be anything but the next Uriel.

Metatron was at least a child back when he was chosen, but Uriel wasn’t even that.

She must've been selected straight from the womb, if not sooner still.

“Have you ever been free?” He asked.

The girl didn’t hear him, or if she did she didn’t care to answer.

Instead she stood up, turned on her bootheels and looked over towards him.

Her gaze swept across everything; the city, its people, and even the world around them.

What he had impressed since the day he met her actually did resonate, whether she knew it or not.

She turned back to face the graves of Metatron and his comrade.

There was clear struggle in the depths of her eyes, enough for Mourn to see in that brief moment.

The man looked towards her tiny back, her shoulders that seemed to bear the weight of the world, and then he stepped towards her.

He was no good at giving pep talks, he was not skilled at comforting others either, all he could think to do was stand beside her and then look down with her upon the hundred and one graves.

Silence fell then, and there was but the roaring wind to break it.

The two of them stood still for a time, a time which felt for some reason infinitely long.

The lad looked over, he glanced at the girl as her hair waved in the wind and then he turned his eyes away to once more look upon the graves.

“Aden said that the Lords you petitioned will show up soon, you need to get your act together before then, you can’t meet them like this.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” She said, before adding, “Asshole.”

The lad then chuckled, albeit just a little.

He breathed in the gentle breeze and then looked towards the north, where even now their plans were in motion.

Cain’s remaining two hundred men had been scattered across the continent since the fall of Venus.

Since then they worked to undermine Jupiter and bring a cruel, swift end to the Centurion Kingdom.

None of that would be possible without them, none of this would’ve happened without this girl’s help.

Soon, a tyrant would fall, a new age would begin.

Yet, he had to ask her one thing, one simple thing that bothered him.

Before now, the answer was clear but as of late it, less so.

“When this is all over,” He said to her, “What will you do? Where will you go?”

The girl parted her lips, but she said nothing.

She thought about how best to answer that question time and time again, yet she could only find herself drawing a blank.

One year ago she surely would’ve told him she would return to Cain once this kingdom was fully under the control of their allies, but now? Was it now not so?

Finally she noticed just how compromised she had started to become, there was a protocol for that however which she inevitably fell back on without even trying to think it over.

“I made a pact with you,” She said, “Once the terms of that are fulfilled, I will no longer hold any value. I shall seek out my successor.”

Mourn frowned when he heard that odd reply.

He wasn't the best, but a City Lord inevitably must be a politician.

He could tell her reply was scripted, and that she didn't let out all it might imply.

He took a step back and then turned to face her.

She did not turn to meet his gaze, nor could she.

Her head hurt, it did that quite a lot these days.

Mourn glanced at the grave by the girl’s side, he glanced towards Metatron’s resting place.

Even he remembered the reason that man had died, indeed he recalled it very clearly.

Metatron had been on a suicide mission, he passed on his legacy and his title to another and then sought himself a grave.

Would Uriel be the same? Once this thirteen year old girl fulfilled her promises would she too look for a hole to die in?

His hands closed around her shoulders and he turned her to face him completely as he leaned down to look her in the eye.

With a glare that could frighten wolves, he asked her,

“Why can’t you just value your own life even a little bit!?”

The girl froze. Her body trembled in his grip, it took forever for her to raise her eyes to meet his own.

She looked lost, maybe even frightened, so he let her go.

The young lad was taller than her, thanks in one part to his sex and two parts to being five years her senior, so he practically knelt down to talk to her eye to eye.

“If you disappeared, don’t you think we’d be upset?”

The girl didn't know what to say back.

She had never expected those words, especially from him, because Cain’s ilk, bar none, did not think that way.

Death, to them, was honourable in the face of their righteous duty.

“Aden treats you like a daughter, and the maids all seem to like you. My men share that opinion, I’ve heard more than enough of them talking about how I should take you as a bride if I’m still single in a few years.”

She frowned, and so did he. Why was everyone trying to hook them up? She wondered.

This man isn’t even all that nice to her.

Mourn stood up then, for he was no less exasperated than she was.

After all in his eyes she was just a child, regardless of the countless inherited memories implanted in her head and no matter how smart or worldly she appeared.

Something like a little sister? If not then something dearer.

She watched his every move, every motion, with an unflinching gaze he said to her,

“Once you choose a successor, you’re done, right? No more obligations to Cain?”

She opened her lips to speak, but again she could not find the right words.

Indeed when that day did come she would no longer be beholden to Cain.

She would lose any right to call herself a Pillar, but also any and all responsibility thereafter.

Naturally this meant she had to die, for Cain’s secrets could not be known to the world outside, so then why?

What was the point of Mourn bringing it up here and now?

The lad shook his head in the face of her confusion.

Could she truly not see any other way but death?

Was that the extent of her indoctrination?

He felt it was regrettable, but it only resolved him to work harder and free her from those shackles.

“Come along,” He said, “Aden’s preparing breakfast now, I’d rather not get scraps.”

Uriel watched his back as he walked away.

She bowed and prayed to her fallen comrades.

Her hair waved in the gentle wind, almost as if a person was stroking it.

She opened her eyes, then turned on her heels.

She followed Mourn back towards the dining hall where their morning meal awaited.