Ithania hummed a formless tune as she checked over her aculeus, her weapon, as she waited. It was a unique thing, a mix of a crossbow and blowpipe. Precise gears and cranks to load the needle-like dart with tension built by pulleys instead of the common limbs. As well as a spool of thread to retrieve the dart. The Daughters of Athena had similar ones, but larger, with out the spool, and had a farther range. Hers fit in the palm of her hand and was just enough to do what she needed.

Breathing in she scrunched her nose and looked to the south-east, the fires have started. She began to turn the crank of her weapon and peeked from the alley and down the street of large homes and villas one was owned owned by her target. Hearing the device click she cocked the trigger pin. She then reached into her plain dress and retrieved a set of tweezers and a leather wrap. Unrolling the wrap showed a dozen small bone darts laced with a paralytic, using the tweezers she attached the thread and loaded her weapon. She then returned the tweezers and wrap to the hidden pocket.

She looked back down the street and saw her target, a rotund man with thinning hair in the dress of someone important, round the corner. Xeno of Heraclea was returning to his home with a hurried pace. He was marked as an important target by the Aranea when the list was issued.

As he got closer Ithania readied her aculeus and waited. Her breath slowed as the world she saw shrank to just her and her target. The smell of the smoke faded away and the noise of the city grew muffled. The moment she knew she had a shot her finger twitched and the weapon released. The dart and thread launched out of the pipe and made a direct line to Xeno’s neck and sank into the flesh. With a twitch of her wrist the the thread pulled the dart was pulled free. Ithania then took a step beck into the shadowed alley, her dark clothes obscuring her from sight.

As quick as he could Xeno slapped his hand to his neck and looked to his side. He peered down the alley but only saw formless shadows. With a grumble he kept walking but only made it a dozen steps before he found it hard to breath and his head started to feel fuzzy. He gripped his chest and fell to his knees as he tried to gasp with lungs that would not work. His chest burned with an internal fire. The world grew dark as the pain began to fade. He felt cold.

Iodia was a small woman, often confused with a child, and children are oft ignored so it made her job all the easier. So Iodia slipped through the crowd as she stalked her target, a man named Peter Vitalis. He was old with a thin and tall lanky frame and an unkempt beard of grey. Whoever he was beyond that was none of her concern. With the smell of smoke in the air she knew it was time. She hurried her pace and drew two long needles that were hidden in her dress. When she came up behind her target she angled the needles up and stabbed him from just under his twelfth ribs, puncturing both lungs and piercing his heart. She then withdrew the needles and continued past him.

Peter Vitalis stood for half a moment before collapsed, his face twisted in a breathless scream of pain. With his lungs collapsed and his heart bleeding into his chest he died before anyone noticed.

Eyrbe layed on top of an arch above an deserted back street that she knew her target used. She had prepared her contraption the day before. She always preferred to to use her mind rather than her body to the point she was originally in the Daughters of Hekate but her contraptions and and nature of her research proved better suited for the Daughters of Artemis.

With the smell of smoke in the air it was distinct enough to be the signal to take out her target. She checked over her device again, block and tackle and a metal wire that threaded into a metal box as she waited for her target. Looking down the street again she saw her target as well as another man and another Daughter of Artemis. Her sister was fallowing from the roof tops, Eyrbe didn’t know the Sisters name but she saw her talking to the same woman who gave her her targets. She met the womans eyes and nodded, the nod was returned and Eyrbe looked back to her target and watched him approach.

Once he passed through the arch Eyrbe dropped the metal noose down and over his head. The moment it was in place she hit a peg on the metal box and let loose the coiled spring inside it. The spring was not very strong but the block and tackles made up the difference in strength. The metal wire snapped tight and decapitated her target.

Looking over Eyrbe saw her sister had used an aculeus with a fast acting poison. As the other mans was clawing at his throat with his tongue swelling out of his mouth. He fell dead a moment later. She looked over towards her sister just in time to see her jump to the street

“Nice contraption,” her sister said and bent down to see the clean cut. “Though it would work better in a more secluded area.”

“Agreed,” Eyrbe sighed. “It is great for a quick kill but is rather messy and attention grabbing. Great for sending a message and sowing fear but not suited for a quiet kill.”

Eyrbe sighed again and started to climb up the arch again. It also took too much time to set up and clean up. She walked over to the building attached to the arch and grabbed a squeaking and wriggling bag.

“You might want to move out of the way,” she called down to her sister. “I use rats to cover my kills.”

“Rats, truly?” The sister asked a moved back.

“If you starve them a few days first they will eat a man in half a day,” Eyrbe said as she dropped the sack.

The rats spilled out and partially scattered before smelling the fresh kills. They avoided the body the sister killed but began to eat the one Eyrbe took down. By the time Eyrbe was done taking down her contraption the Sister was gone along with the body of the man she killed, the rats had already consumed a sizable portion of her target.

Nodding Eyrbe slipped into an alley and disappeared.

Proba glanced to the side as she took the goblet from the head of the table. She quickly wiped a cloth soaked in hemlock and nightshade throughly along the inside of the vessel and placed it back. She then took her seat at the other end of the table. She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she worried about what she had done. Over and over again in her mind the words of the Sister from the Daughters of Artemis had said.

Her husband has been marked as enemy of the Amazons, that she had failed in her mission to manipulate him. Despite all he has said to her, all of the agreements he espoused of her beliefs, in the Senate he acted the opposite.

A saying a Daughter of Hera came to mind, back when Octavian took power and they failed to influence him. Some men just can not be tamed. Her husband appeared to be one such man. So if he can not be tamed, he will be replaced.

It didn’t take long for her husband and two daughters, one barely ten the other old enough to be inducted as an Amazon, came to the table and dinner served. Tonight her husband drank heavily and with abandon at the stress from the riot. By his third cup of wine he slowed and became unsteady.

With a dramatic sigh Proba shook her head, “to much wine tonight already? Sophia, Theola take him to bed while we finish out meals. I will check on him later.”

The two servants nodded and each took an arm and dragged him away. Theola was the daughter of Artemis that Proba had spoken to. She knew the Sister would confirm the kill and be gone within minutes of laying him down.

She had done. She had honestly and truly done it. She drained her goblet of wine with a shaky hand as the knowledge that she was capable of murder settled in her mind. She was a Daughter of Hera, trained all her life to pull the strings of her future husband and sons with words and whiles. But now she had a taste of murder and felt sickened, the food was now bland and the wine did little to calm her nerves.

She smiled to her daughters and said, “I’m not feeling well either, I will go lay down.”

Her youngest nodded as did the eldest but with a worried look in eye.

At the door to her room she met Theola who looked Proba up and down, “do not do this.”

“I,” Proba said slowly, “will go and lay with my husband, a final time. Beatrix is old enough, I have taught her well.”

“I should have never ask this of you.”

“No,” Proba shook her head, “you should not have.”

Proba walked into the room she shared with her husband. She looked at him, he seemed asleep. She laid next to him and took several deep breaths. She took the cloth, the same one she rubbed in his goblet, and stuffed it in her mouth. She felt a numb sensation start on her tongue and crawled through out her body. She felt tired and her breaths became shallow. She closed her eyes and wished to speak with her husband again.