Alessa Rehn’s eyes snapped open and she immediately touched the future.

The myriad lines of possibility sprang into her mind and she scanned the brightest of their number. She was a chronopath, able to glance at the future as easily as other people would glance at a pocket watch. Alessa’s ability to see the world like this was unique, a talent that she usually took for granted and one that she had never known anybody else to possess. Other mages could focus and get brief glimpses, but the illusory glimmer of phantom futures were her constant companions. It was… a mixed gift, but it had its uses most of the time.

She shook the sleep from her head and focused again, dispelling her wandering thoughts and concentrated. Something had woken her, some echo that had rippled backwards through time. She sat up and stretched, the blankets pooling around her bare stomach as she closed her eyes again and put her mind to finding what had actually caused the disturbance.

There… Oh! The city guard had found her hiding place. That startled her and her eyes snapped open again, looking around the room for her clothes and mostly ignoring the sleeping pair that shared the bed with her. She felt a little guilty that she’d dragged the husband and wife into it, but she’d needed a place to lay low for a while after last night and they’d been quite accommodating at the tavern. Of course, they had no idea she’d just stolen something, but it had been fun and they certainly weren’t complaining at the time. Besides, she’d tied them up. Given, it wasn’t to coerce them, but they could at least answer that truthfully. She crawled over the sleeping woman careful not to wake her and went about tracking down where her gear had ended up. She glanced up and frowned. How her shirt had ended up on the chandelier she couldn’t even begin to guess…

A few minutes later she was pulling on her boots while sitting on the window sill. She tugged the trouser legs out from the boots a bit so that they didn’t constantly pull every time she took a step and did a quick mental check of all her pockets while she slipped her vest on over the retrieved button up she’d been wearing last night. She really wished she had a brush to get her hair under control, but she’d have to do with running her fingers through it instead. At least she kept it short these days. Another glance into the future told her she still had several minutes before the guards would burst into the room. She rolled the cuffs of her shirt up and pulled open the window, looking down at the roof of the adjacent building. Glancing back, she sighed again at the couple. They really seemed like nice people and probably didn’t deserve the trouble she’d just pulled them into, but as long as she wasn’t around when the guard got here, they should be fine.

Stepping onto the ledge, she leapt to the next building. She stumbled and rolled, coming back to her feet and brushing herself off, running a hand over her belt to make sure nothing in the pouches had broken. Satisfied, she took off at a jog, skipping across roofs and leaping down to lower buildings at each opportunity she got, letting her sight settled where it normally rested, running a few seconds ahead, and the flickering images of ghostly possibility overlaid her present. It was how she saw the world and in some ways she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemies. It’d cost her a childhood to have been born like this, but she didn’t like dwelling on the past, not when the future always loomed so preeminently in her sight. She didn’t like dwelling on it either, it was just harder to ignore.

Alessa was a woman who preferred to live in the present which probably explained how she’d ended up as a thief and gambler by trade. She wasn’t particularly good at either, hence the guards, but she had an edge and she tended to exploit it to the hilt. It wasn’t fair, but she didn’t consider it cheating. That didn’t mean it wasn’t actually cheating, but she didn’t really give a damn.

She leapt blindly and stuck her hand out, catching the clothesline she knew was there and it snapped as her weight came down on it, swinging her down so she could drop to the brick streets. She landed hard and let go of the rope, brushing her hands down her clothes while she looked around. She smiled at everyone as they stared at her, nodding to the stunned crowd and strolling casually into their numbers. She stuck her hands in her pocket and touched the treasure she’d stolen last night. The future rippled again beyond her sight and she abruptly stopped, brow furrowed as she cast her future sight out again. Cords of brilliant light sprang into being again, fanning into the thousands of possibilities. Most were too faint to see well, but there was a handful that blazed to her. They were the most powerful futures, the most likely to occur and she touched the brightest with her mind.

Damn!... the guards really weren’t letting this one go. What was slightly more worrisome was the fact that she hadn’t shaken them like she’d expected. She bit her lip and scanned through the futures, but most of them showed brief flashes of her running and in every last one of them the guards caught up to her one way or another. Some of them ended abruptly.

That fact sent chills down her back.

She pulled the treasure out of her pocket and looked down at it. It was a small golden flower, but otherwise not all that impressive. She’d lifted it from the High Sorceress’s Gallery, but she hadn’t thought it was that valuable. Whatever significance it had, they really wanted it back and the guards weren’t terribly concerned with choosing between her and it. She clenched her hand around it and steeled herself. She wasn’t giving it up.

It wasn’t about the value of the object, but the fact that they were willing to kill her for it. It pissed her off, which meant there was an angel’s chance in the hells they were going to get it back. She shoved it into one of the pouches on her belt and latched it shut while she thought about what she could do.

There was always planeswalking, but that wasn’t an option that appealed to her. She’d run or fight, but she wouldn’t abandon a world because those in charge decided to take issue with her activities. She knew that might cost her in the end, but she hated feeling bullied. It cost her too much emotionally to let people get away with that. Alessa had suffered the whims of authority too often as a child and she never wanted to feel that powerless again.

She blinked, and exhaled, feeling the wetness in her eyes and the tightness in her chest, shoving that down while she thought about the guards who were closing on her even as she stood amid the crowded street. She was earning stares and that wouldn’t do, particularly if she was going to try to slip the guards. With a glance around the street, she took off, letting her sight drop back to normal. Well… normal for her at least.

The city she’d found herself in was a study in contrasts. The districts dedicated to the nobility seemed to dominate the entire city, in every sense of the phrase, but from what she could tell, they were dwarfed by the peasants who propped up the entire system. What she found most surprising was the apparent and total lack of a middle class. Or, she thought wryly, it was just that the government itself was the middle class. The thought amused her, but it also unsettled her just a bit. Everything here was so… posh and polished, but there was a staged presence about it. Nothing seemed genuine, and the closer she’d looked the more it felt like a constant show, nothing but posturing and polite derision. It made her roll her eyes at the decadence and frivolity of it all, but there was at least one advantage. It gave her plenty of targets to hit.

The gallery last night was a prime example. The practicality of most of their precautions was secondary to how pompous they could make everything look. There were even entire rooms and exhibits left completely unguarded, and she got the distinct impression it was a statement of arrogance more than anything. It’s as if they didn’t think anybody was brazen enough to actually steal from them, but if there was one thing Alessa was quite practiced at, it was being brazen.

She pulled herself out of the memory and continued to run. It was still relatively early, but there were already crowds milling in the streets, “important” people and servants skipping to and fro on pointless little errands. Despite the press of bodies and general activity, Alessa had no problems slipping through the crowd, even at a full run. She was always just where she needed to be, drawing stares as she passed, but she couldn’t keep it up forever.

Literally.

She was starting to get winded, but the further she cast her sight, the narrower the futures became. She slowed down and scowled slightly, still dodging through the crowd as easily as before. They were going to catch up to her eventually, and when they did, the future became a nasty tangle of violence that faded to a murky horizon. That was the problem with her sight, it gave her near infinite possibilities, but until some things happened, the branches could twist up like that. It was especially true when dealing with people. Most of the time, things were straightforward, people living fairly boring lives, but any time an amount of uncertainty was introduced, especially in a fight for example, the futures got confusing. Normally that wasn’t that much of an issue, but in a tussle…

She sighed and stopped altogether, her mind spinning as she considered what she should do. She was fairly certain she could get through this, but the more she scanned ahead, the more certain she was that she couldn’t wait until they found her. It gave them way too many advantages, which meant she was going to have to become a little more… proactive in their search. She didn’t know the city very well, but she had a vague sense that there was a battlefield where she’d have the upper hand. She wasn’t sure if that was intuition, a fuzzy memory, or some quirk of her sight echoing back, but she usually didn’t think that sort of thing through very often. It tended to make her unhappy and never solved anything in the first place.

Following her impulse, she jumped a few streets over, cutting across the cobbled roads to a great deal of shouting and the occasional animal’s jump of surprise. She thought she might have even heard a crash, which cheered her up a bit. As she went, her vague impression started to crystallize and the alleys between the streets began to grow shorter. Finally, she came to a large marketplaza, stalls and shops ringing the open streets. She exhaled, a smirk tugging her mouth, as she surveyed the area. Plenty of space to move and enough obstacles around that she could use them in a pinch. This would do nicely. Casting her ability forward, she saw she even had enough time to catch her breath, though not by a lot.

It took several minutes, most of which she spent sitting on the lip of a really overblown fountain and watching people’s reflections in the shop windows all around, but finally the guards entered the square at a quick march, scattering around to secure the area. Before they could actually finish, Alessa stood up, still on the fountain’s bowl and whistled as loudly as she could. Every eye instantly went to her and the guards were keenly aware they’d found their prey. Without the guards blocking the exits, the innocents scampered, which eased Alessa’s conscience a little.

“Finally! You managed to catch up and you don’t look happy to see me. What’s the matter, don’t like a lady that plays hard to get?” Alessa teased, very casually sticking her hands into her pockets as what must have been the leader strode forward. He was a thick man with a face like leather and a cruel set to his jaw. That pretty much confirmed what she’d suspected since she’d had that first sensation of one of her futures blinking out. These were men who were hired as bully boys for the nobility. It wasn’t about public order or protecting others, which would have made her feel bad about roughing them up even if it wouldn’t have stopped her. For these people, it was all about violence and ego, both their own and that of the people who put coin in their pockets. Alessa’s conscience was clear as the sky when dealing with people like this.

“You’ve stolen from the wrong people. By the authority of the great houses and charged by the Courts, you are to submit to arrest. Come peacefully and you’ll make it to your trial.” He scowled and she could see the tension in him. She knew that wasn’t how he’d prefer this to go down.

Alessa gave him an obscene gesture in return. She knew he wouldn’t recognize it, it wasn’t even from this world, but there’s a sort of universal quality to profanity and sure enough he took it for what it was. It made her curious why that was, but now hardly seemed the time to take up the philosophy behind that sort of thing. It would be inappropriate, which was something Alessa was fairly familiar with, but the sound of scraping steel made the point that now wasn’t the time adroitly enough. She smirked and cast her vision as wide as she could. All around the square the guards were out of sync with their movements. Some of them sprouted multiple phantom shadows that milled about or acted slightly differently from each other. There was a lot that could go wrong in the next few minutes, but for the moment, she felt invincible.

This was her edge.

She wasn’t much of a fighter, but she didn’t have to be. Every move they could make, she’d see moments before they tried anything. She could react before they had even started. It was exhilarating. But… she steeled herself with a reminder, it’s also a lie. It was easy to feel invincible now, but she was still just human and there were a lot of them. Pushing her gift much further just created too many futures, and during a fight, almost all of them possible. There was just too much that could go wrong and that’s why she had to remind herself not to get carried away. It was far too easy to die today.

“Try to take her alive.” The captain growled, nodding to his people to draw their swords and taking a step forward. “Alive, but she doesn’t have to be in one piece.”

Alessa exhaled and tried to calm her nerves. She pulled a thick cord of mana from the waters behind her and shaped it into an azure burst of chronomantic power. She threw the energies right back into the fountain behind her and the water immediately evaporated, a thick fog boiling over the lip of the basin as the time energies worked their magic. It wouldn’t last long, but for now it rushed outwards and obscured her and the guards around the square. The cloaking mists blinded everyone they engulfed, but her mantic sight was unaffected and she could see everyone’s movements.

She jumped off the fountain and dashed forward, rushing towards the leader of the guards and he loomed suddenly in her vision. He reacted immediately and the image of the captain’s sword rose and struck her in the chest, but reality was moments behind and by the time the sword was in motion, she’d slipped to the side and her fist crashed into his face, nearly her entire weight behind it, and he went stumbling away as she fluidly moved past him into the confused fray. Other guards came forward and she turned to them, moving beyond the captain as he tried to recover his wits. Images rose and fell as she danced through them, never quite where they expected her to be. A dozen of the guards came to meet her and their blades passed harmlessly by, Alessa dodging the razor edges by inches. When she could, she threw a fist or foot into them, driving them to wilder strikes as they were foiled again and again. Very few of them fell to her attacks, and those that did didn’t stay down for long.

The guards were obviously not used to being thwarted so easily and most of them let their anger blind them. They struck heedlessly, only making it easier for her to dodge aside, but despite being bloodied, she was nothing more than a wasp harrying wolves and her knuckles ached, skin raw from where she’d been hitting them when she could. She whirled away from another slash, dodging it easily and then she felt a sharp slice across her arm. She’d moved right into another attack and worse, it wasn’t just some lucky strike. As the mists faded there were a handful of them who were starting to coordinate with each other. Which meant she couldn’t afford to play softly anymore.

She ducked another swing, the sword whipping above her and another was raised to strike her down, but she smoothly shifted her weight, spinning into the man’s legs and in a flash, her folding knives were out, slicing through the back of the man’s knee and up his thigh. He went down with a strangled cry and those nearest her froze as blood soaked the stones beneath. The rules had just changed.

She charged and they came at her in twos and threes, swinging their swords in smooth unity. She deflected a few, dodged most and her small knives marked those too slow, but they were coming at her too often and despite her gift, there was only so quickly she could move. For every fatal blow she dodged, there were swords waiting, and at times she had no choice but to take the knicks and cuts as she dodged. Worryingly, the minor wounds were starting to add up.

Despite her best efforts to avoid them, they were getting better at negating her advantage. They’d started to see the way she moved, and while she was still obviously ahead of them, she was losing ground. She pulled mana again and bound the threads together, slipping in close and surprising one of her attackers. The world outside the two of them slowed abruptly as she released her spell and the quick time bubble coalesced around both of them. She planted one of her knives in the man and glanced around, getting a better look at where everyone was before she dropped the spell. She couldn’t maintain it for long and time flickered back to normal speed as she jumped forward once more catching another combatant in yet another bubble.

This one was better trained than her comrade had been and she brought her sword swinging down, ignoring the fact that she was alone. Alessa caught the blade on the flat of one of her knives, deflecting it enough to slip into the guard’s reach and let her other knife work. Her opponent went down gripping her side just under her arm.

The third member of the group stared in shock as his associates blurred suddenly as she came at them and then fell bloody to the ground. Alessa shifted back into focus just long enough to come at him as well. She flew, knives sparking steel as they slashed down his blade. Alessa pressed her advantage, but her luck faltered as the future image of the man turned into a dozen of them, throwing her off balance long enough for the point of his blade to carve a shallow furrow across her arm. He’d stopped thinking and just started reacting, letting instinct and reflexes fill in for conscious thought. There were too many futures for her to keep track of and every time she moved she gave up the advantage she needed. Worst of all, fatigue began to burn more fiercely in her, one of the dangers of the chronomancy she was using. She skipped back away from him, breathing harder now than she had just a few moments ago.

Putting her on the defensive had made the man more confident and he edged forward, not realizing he was giving the advantage back to her. One by one, the possible futures collapsed back into a single shadow image and Alessa smiled, gripping her knives and raising them again, getting ready for the charge the man was about to make. Like clockwork, he bellowed and attacked.

Alessa sidestepped by inches, and slipped into the guard’s range, his sword going wide as she darted in. With a yell she drove her knife into his neck and he shuddered as the hilt pressed against his skin. Arterial spray painted the air red, but he jerked away in a last bit of defiance, the knife went with him, too slick with his blood and her own. She blinked in sudden shock and looked down, abruptly realizing how bloody her hands had become from the shallow slices across her arms.

That falter cost her as another sword came in an arc at her. She caught the edge in her precognition a moment before it struck and she threw herself back, but the edge bit her deeper than any she’d taken today. She fell, rolling as she hit and stood again with her remaining knife held out.

Alessa hissed, the sharp pain from her wounds slowing her down. Even with her sight, she couldn’t keep this up. She quickly scanned a dozen futures, but it there was only one way among them to make a solid escape even if she hated to do it. Another guard came at her and she dodged to the left, spinning and kicking him into his compatriot as she did, using the motion to flow smoothly between another two and jump clear of the group. A few of their number smiled as they saw what she’d done because amid all that motion, it had put her back against the wall of one of the numerous shops lining the square. Those closest to her remained cautious, still all too aware of what she was capable of, but those who hadn’t been on the fringe of her attacks relaxed somewhat, overconfident now that they thought she was cornered. They hadn’t seen through the mists, but those were gone now and they saw she was surrounded.

Idiots… it was one of the oldest clichés, but she was unhappy all the same that she was the proverbial cornered rat in that metaphor. Honestly, a rat? She couldn’t be something more flattering? She puffed at the thought and rolled her eyes, which mostly served to confuse the guards nearest her as they cautiously edged forward. Her knife was still out, so they weren’t willing to come too close quite yet, but it didn’t take her future sight to know that wouldn’t last.

Alessa reached behind her to the largest pouch on her belt and unfastened it. The object inside was somewhat heavy and lopsided, making it harder than it needed to be to pull it out smoothly, to say nothing of how difficult it was because of her injuries, but she managed it with a modicum of theatrics that made the guards back off a little. Until, of course, they saw what she’d retrieved.

She held up the hourglass for them to see and then threw it into the crowd. As it flew, she counted carefully and then unspooled the mana she’d wrapped into the spell holding the sand. The hourglass plummeted into the heart of the assembly and before it could hit the ground, the spell came undone and the hourglass exploded into a biting tempest. Scouring sands taken from the suspended heart of a sandstorm raged across the square, buffeting the guards as the broken shards of glass reaped through them, tossed by winds strong enough to strip flesh from bone. The sudden fury of the maelstrom was short lived, but it had lasted long enough to decimate the poor unfortunates caught in its grasp. Sand was scattered everywhere over the courtyard and debris littered the grounds. Much of that detritus was human shaped, but the groans of the wounded proved that a number of them were still alive. That didn’t mean much as Alessa turned around to look at the carnage she’d wrought. As soon as the sandstorm had kicked up, she’d pressed her face hard against the wall and waited it out. Even on the periphery of it, she felt some of her skin turned raw, but she’d fared better than those in the middle of it. Some of them look like they’d been flayed, bone showing white against exposed muscle.

Alessa, for her part in it, felt ambivalent. She didn’t like to hurt people, but these **** had tried to kill her. It tended to steel her nerves. More than anything, she hated having to expend that spell. It was nearly tortuous to replace the hourglass and took hours and more mana than she usually had to throw around to stop time in a bubble large enough and long enough to collect enough sand, to speak nothing of having to push her way into a sandstorm, or even find one in the first place. She winced again as she began to move, looking for the best exit to leave it all behind her.

There were reinforcements coming and she had to find a way out.

She took a few hesitant steps towards an alleyway, but stopped as her head swam momentarily. She swore, looking down at the cuts on her arm. She’d actually lost more blood than she thought, but she couldn’t take the time to bind her wounds, not unless she used a spell that she really didn’t want to. Then again, she was doing plenty that she didn’t want to today. Focusing, she began to collect mana, winding brilliant blue threads of energy in before weaving it into a spell, releasing it and shuddering as it snapped into place.

Her entire body went tense as the fast time bubble popped into place. The time dilation of this one was far greater than those she’d used before, and her body protested the sudden change. Everything outside the bubble slowed drastically. The fountain at the plaza’s center stood frozen, droplets spreading out and shimmering brilliantly, liquid prisms casting rainbows the eye could normally never see. Alessa cut strips from her shirt, shredding the ruined sleeves before tying them down. It took her several minutes, but the glacial droplets spilling from the fountain showed exactly how little time had really passed. The pressure was unbelievable though and she didn’t know how much longer she could maintain the bubble. It already felt like she might rupture something and the last thing she needed was to bleed more. The moisture in the air was growing thick as well, a haze forming as vapor touched the bubble and condensed at an accelerated speed. It hung all around and was actually beginning to form dew on her clothing, which was usually a sign she’d kept the spell going too long. She double checked her arms, flexing to make sure the **** bandages held. Satisfied, she let the bubble drop and she nearly fell over in relief. Gathering her wits again, she dashed out of the mayhem of the square, snapping up her knife as she went.

Keeping one eye on the future paths, she wound her way through the backstreets of the city. It looked like the guards were reticent to go into the lower rent districts and tenements as more and more of her futures began to show the pursuit growing lighter the further she fled into the rundown tenements. She made her way towards the slums and all her futures looked clear as she finally made it to the bleakest district she could find.

Despite the midmorning light, there was an undeniable gloom about the area and desperation hung in the air. Something about the area seemed to collect shadows and surprisingly little light shone here. Alessa was bone tired and the atmosphere did little to improve her demeanor, but it meant safety so she didn’t much care one way or another. She’d make her way to the safehouse later, for now she just wanted to stop somewhere and nurse her wounds. It was hardly the most hygienic neighborhood to do it in, but she suspected the cuts would need stitches later anyways and she still felt lightheaded. She wandered through a few alleys and found a pitiful backyard with a bench and collapsed onto it. The day was not going well. Her aches and pains suddenly caught up with her now that she’d had time to stop and actually feel the bruises and cuts. The cold didn’t help one bit either.

It was strange. Even in the relative dimness, it shouldn’t be this cold. She felt something echo in the future and pushed her vision forward with a groan. What else could possibly go wrong?

She froze, her entire body tense as she saw every last one of her futures vanish into darkness. Touching the cords she skipped along the possibilities, but every one of them showed her nothing. She was here, sitting in the exact same spot and abruptly seizing and shuddering before finally falling over, her last breath escaping. She felt as if it was the one she held right now.

She bolted out of her seat and exhaled sharply, but the futures rippled, showing a dozen variations of her death, all still sudden and inexplicable. It was only then that she realized that her breath was fogging on the air and made her take note of the unnatural cold. She had been so focused on her own demise that it hadn’t occurred to her how wrong the change in climate was. She had a sneaking suspicion, but there was nothing her sight could tell her.

She watched her upcoming demise over and over, each time becoming more and more certain of what would happen in the upcoming moments. It would also explain why the guards had let her be as she headed in this direction. They’d assume she’d be dead and save them the trouble. So far their predictions seemed likely…

The light seemed to dim more and all the noise faded away, the chill growing ever more present as she gripped her knife, fully aware that it would likely do little against the threat she found herself against. There was a faint stirring to her senses, something beyond sight and then from the far wall it emerged.

Alessa swore as the wraith’s form passed through the solid stone and entered the tiny yard. Its form was a twisted skeletal parody of a human, pale, transparent and tattered at the edges. Its hands were gaunt broken claws and there was an emptiness in its eyes that Alessa couldn’t bear to look at. Some ancient torment had formed this thing and its effects were still painted plainly across its features. Terror gripped her and she worked furiously at what to do.

Alessa hated ghosts. They didn’t really exist, only shards of the past and memories pressed onto the world by some terrible will. Because of what they were, because their future was long since stolen, her sight was useless against them. She felt blind.

She saw that it was staring at her now, unnaturally still despite the way the edges of its form drifted gently. Every instinct she had was screaming at her to run, but she knew that she couldn’t escape. Her only hope was to attack it, but without her gaze, she didn’t know what could possibly stop it. Over and over she saw the abrupt end of her life.

With a start, she realized it had drifted closer without moving and Alessa backed away, winding mana together for whatever she could use it for. It continued its disturbing approach, growing closer by every second without ever actually seeming to move. Every second that passed was another inevitable tick towards her death as she scanned the future. Some of them were longer than others and she paid close attention to those, but inevitably they turned dark. She threw her hand at the ghost and a spell unraveled, a tiny thread seeking to cut the ties that bound the ghost here, but it had no effect.

Desperately, she pulled more mana and cast slow time at it, but the spell could find no purchase again. She felt a chill as it loomed upon her, the first traces of emotion stirring on its face. There was only one option left, but it was unreliable at least and might make things a hundred times worse…

The spirit struck with a sudden feral swipe, and she threw herself to the side, but without her gift she was too slow. Its spectral claws brushed her as she flung herself away and it raised a pained moan to her lips as she stumbled. It felt like its hands had reached right into her and there was a horrible tugging sensation as those nails fought for purchase inside. She shook at the cold intrusion and nearly threw up, but the feeling of its grasp was short lived and she scrambled away again. It took several seconds for the wraith to realize she was not where it had expected her to be.

She huddled away from the apparition. Her body was screaming and a shiver accompanied the cold sweat from the ghost’s touch. Her mind felt wrong as she tried painfully to gather her thoughts. She heard the rustle of movement from behind her and desperation drove her back to her feet, mind clearing enough to focus. The spirit looked curiously at its hand and to her horror it looked more solid than it had before. The instant passed a bare moment later, but it stirred that chill fright inside her even more.

Her sight stretched out again by instinct, but it was no use here, still indistinct and dark in the distance. That was enough to make her decision for her. She braided brilliant threads of azure mana and burning crimson together and then wove the most dangerous spell she could muster.

Chaos magic tore through the court, twisting the world indistinctly as she spun and focused it on the shade. An emotion passed over its face before it spiraled inward and pain punched directly into her mind. She fell gripping her head, a migraine splitting her skull and what felt like the tremors of a seizure gripping her as the spell wrought its work. It normally wasn’t this bad, but Alessa wasn’t in top shape to start with and her sight caused her to stumble with vertigo. The hazy lines of the future took on a sharp clarity and they shook, jumping sharply with discordant waves as the chaos magic ripped across them. Jagged twists sprouted across them as time protested the abrupt anarchy that it had no room for. Probabilities unwound and then just like that the lines were smooth and constant, stretching into the distant future again and pulsing gently.

That was the danger of chaos magic. It was totally unpredictable and the more improbable an event, the more it hurt Alessa to watch what happened as a result. Her survival had apparently been nearly impossible and it hurt like all nine hells. She might have been bleeding from her eyes, but it might just have been tears. The way her head felt, it should have been blood, but as she cracked her eyes and brushed her cheeks, her hand came away clean. She didn’t like to use chaos magic when things were that desperate. She was much more comfortable using it when fortune was only being a little fickle, but she’d had no choice. The throbbing headache, it felt like the thundering of a giant’s drum or possibly a giant’s hangover, she couldn’t decide which, meant she was alive. The alternative hadn’t been as pleasant, though that was relative given how she felt now.

Eventually her head stopped pounding and she managed to push herself upright again. She drew a bit of mana and spun its cool soothing power into a spell, her headache fading as she finally found clarity again. The comforting presence of her sight snapped back into sharp focus and she touched them, fanning the glowing cords of fate around her as she just enjoyed the fact that they were there. None of what she saw seemed to show any more trouble today and that was enough for the moment.

She glanced down and saw that her bandages were soaked through and she’d definitely need stitches, but she’d get to that later. Hoisting herself back to her feet, she gingerly brushed herself down and felt the last vestiges of the chaos that had upended the delicate order of the world still soaked into the stones nearby. It faded slowly and the wild pulse was distracting, but still better than the gloom that had previously hung in the air before. She glanced around to see what had actually happened to the wraith that had nearly killed her and it took her a moment to realize what she was looking at.

A shattered bowl of pale purple flowers was scattered around where the shade had been. She stared at it for several long moments and then burst out laughing and nearly fell over again. She hurt all over, but it was just too funny and the terror that had gripped her needed some way out. Still shaking slightly and gasping, she wiped her eyes and she shook her head.

Fate was weird like that sometimes.

First off, I think this works so well on a couple of different levels. It's a great character debut piece, giving us enough of a glimpse into Alessa's personality, history, and arsenal to start to get a sense for who she is, while also leaving plenty of canvas that I'm excited to see get colored-in going forward. Secondly, it a whacking-good action piece. In particular, I find the kind of shadow boxing aspect of the battle scene compelling - I can follow what she's doing and how she's using her abilities, but I also still have a sense of the rush and confusion of a street fight. Similarly, I'm a big fan of the description of her future sight as seeing the different lines of possibility, weighted based on probability. It allows me to try to put myself inside her head and to imagine how she sees things; in my mind, at least, it has a kind of videogame HUD overlay quality to it.

And, as always, there are a lot of wonderful bon mots scattered throughout. In particular, I liked:

"What she found most surprising was the apparent and total lack of a middle class. Or, she thought wryly, it was just that the government itself was the middle class. The thought amused her, but it also unsettled her just a bit. Everything here was so… posh and polished, but there was a staged presence about it. Nothing seemed genuine, and the closer she’d looked the more it felt like a constant show, nothing but posturing and polite derision. It made her roll her eyes at the decadence and frivolity of it all, but there was at least one advantage. It gave her plenty of targets to hit."

Which is a wonderful description of the perversities of the social structure on Aliavelli.

And: "It was far too easy to die today." Which got a big smile from me, because it could be right out of a good action movie, and I always love me a good action movie.

Also, I'm glad she decided to just turn on the infinite improbability drive there at the end.

Noticed a pair of typos when I was reading. Because I'm a moron and didn't take notes, I can't actually seem to find the second one again. Here's the one I still remember:

"Satisfied, she took off at a jog, skipping across roofs and leaping down to lower buildings at each opportunity she got, letting her sight settled where it normally rested, running a few seconds ahead, and the flickering images of ghostly possibility overlaid her present."

Should just be "settle"?

If I find the other one again, I'll add it later. I'm going to flatter myself for now and assume that I didn't just imagine it last night.

First of all, I did like this, and I agree that this serves as a pretty good introduction to Alessa as a character and to her abilities. Interestingly, and take this as you will, I found myself hoping she would die at the end. I don't know if it's because of her cocky use of her "unfair advantage" or because of her hypocritical morality, but I did hope she would lose in the end. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the character. But I do find it annoying (on a personal level, not a narrative one) that she's alright with killing the guards more or less indiscriminately because they were trying to kill her, after she had already murdered several of their comrades. Again, not that that's a problem, I just had no sympathy for the character whatsoever.

That being said, I did love the description of her future sight ability. Cool visuals. Her time bubbles bothered me, but only slightly, and mostly with regards to the temporal problems that similar magics caused on Dominaria. Still, though, as a character, it works just fine.

It took me a little while to figure out where you were going after she escaped the guards. I assumed it was some kind of poison on the blades at first, until she ran into the wraith.

I found it a little odd when you noted that Alessa was a poor gambler. I would think her ability would make her an excellent gambler at certain games, and I would think she would gravitate toward those. Oh, well.

I noticed a few grammatical things:

In the paragraph beginning "There…Oh!", you have this sentence: “She crawled over the sleeping woman careful not to wake her and went about tracking down where her gear had ended up.” - This sentence reads awkwardly without commas to separate the "careful not to wake her" clause.

In the paragraph starting "Stepping onto the ledge," you say “letting her sight settled where it normally rested” - I assume it should be "letting her sight settle".

In the same paragraph, you say “It’d cost her a childhood” – "It'd" is usually read as "it would," so I would spell out the "It had" in this case.

In the paragraph beginning "She leapt blindly," you say near the end “but there was a handful that blazed to her.” Believe it or not, this should be "were" instead of "was". This is a linguistic quirk, but because handful modifies a plural noun (possibilities, in this case) handful is treated as plural.

In fairness, she never claimed to be a good person. If someone is trying to kill her, and pushed, she's going to take them out.
But it's important, also, to note that she didn't take out her knives until midway through the battle. She was trying to knock them out, but.... When pushed, she'll drop the kid gloves pretty quick. She never claimed to be on moral high ground.
She's also filling a hole in our ranks in that regards. We don't really have anybody that walks in that gray area. They're either good people who regret taking a lie or... well, a villain.
Yeah, it's less like Tolaria's magic and more like Teferi's. It's a thin difference, but she isn't maintaining them for very long so the issue of things passing in and out of them isn't an issue.


That's the kind of catch 22. She's terrible because she's relied on having foresight pretty much always. It is an odd distinction, I'll give you that, but she's essentially a really good cheat rather than a good gambler. She's hardly gambling at all after all.

I'm about halfway through one right now. Hit a stalling point though... so I dunno when it might be finished.

But see, that's kind of my thing. From a personal standpoint, I don't see her as anything BUT a villain. Yeah, she's not an over-arching, scheming villain, nor is she INTENTIONALLY trying to destroy lives. However, everything that happens in this story is directly her fault, and those guards (while admittedly fiction fodder) are dead because she stole something, and then was annoyed that its rightful owners were upset that she stole something, and because of that annoyance, she refused to planeswalk away, which would have avoided the entire issue.

Like I said, I like her as a character. But I tend to analyze characters on two levels; what I think of them as characters, and what I would think of them were they real people. On that level, I think of Alessa in very similar terms as I think of Fisco Vane. Good character, but man, am I glad I don't know them in real life. And just like Fisco, you're going to have to go through a lot of hoops before I personally have any sympathy for the character.

Still good, though.

Ah, but there in lays a lot of the story untold that outlines why she's been shaped like this. Aside from that, there really is a level involved here that dictates the way these early stories happen. I have to establish who she is more than who she may be. She's a deeply conflicted person, but I have to lay pieces out there so that the familiarity will be there when I start to explore her issues.

But right off, Alessa is not a hero. I don't think she's ever going to be a hero. She exists in a gray area. I've mostly been worried about her coming off as a black motivated character, but the red side of her is going to cause a lot of issues with the question of "villainy". But if the fact she kills people is going to bother you, then you're likely never going to like her as a person. The best assurance I can offer you there is that she never does it purely for the sake of it.

Yeah, and I get that. The fact that she kills people in and of itself doesn't bother me. Hell, most of my characters kill fairly regularly. My problem is more with her hypocrisy about it rather than the action itself. She uses circular logical to justify her actions. I dislike that.

But again, all of this is moot. I still like the piece, and Alessa is an interesting character, and she'll likely grow on me as a person, too.