Guys, forgive me for putting the author's note first. This story within a story will be part of the grand trilogy someday, possibly part of the first or second book. I have hoarded it and tweaked it for ages now, and finally decided to share it with you. Hope you enjoy.

'Black hearts, black blood, and black fate.

Black dreams, black deeds, and black death.

Black things come when the blood moon rises.'

~ A saying oft whispered around fires.

SCUM

Denirya sprinted down an alley in Skävia City, her coat flapping in the wind, her feet silent on the cool stones. Her breaths rushed in and out, and the wind whooshing past her ears dimmed the noise coming from the markets ahead. Somewhere past those markets, Tesh, the youngest in their posse, was entertaining a man intent on deflowering her. Denirya had to reach them before that happened, but she was running late. Yviä was gonna kill her! Tesh's virginity was obviously worth a lot, and their scheme for the night depended on Denirya reaching Tesh in time and taking care of the man.

She reached the South Markets and began to elbow her way through the crowd. Here, merchants sold their wares by lantern light and the Blood Moon's glow, and crowds gathered to celebrate the Festival of the Blood Moon. The Markets always brought a pang of jealousy and longing to her heart. Raised without a father and living in the Outskirts, she did not know the luxury of bartering for snacks and purchasing soft silks, or just enjoying the night's revelry and basking in the Blood Moon's red light with her family.

A slaver's voice drowned and resurfaced in the vacillating noise of the crowd. 'The best you've ever...clean teeth and a good...'

A man stepped in front of her, she dodged but slammed into his shoulder anyway.

'Hey, watch it.' He scowled. She mumbled an apology and tugged the cloak over her Moon Woman garb before he noticed it.

'Fresh treat for a sweet lass?' A merchant waved a honeyed meat stick at her face. She dodged it and frowned, then shoved at the woman blocking her path. 'Good price,' the merchant called after. Yeah, wasn't it always.

Infants cried, music blared, women and lovers talked and laughed. Drunkards toddled and danced, and amidst the revelry Denirya spotted men who'd come for other reasons, sharp-eyed men on the lookout for Moon Women. Men whose needs had lured her and the other girls into the city for a night, men like the man who'd paid for Tesh's company. Not men, targets. Opportunities.

When at last she left the press of the crowd, she ran again. Two turns to the right, one to the left. Up a flight of dilapidated stone steps, down the second alley to the right. There loomed the wall with six red doors. Tesh was in one of those rooms but she couldn't remember which one and the rooms weren't numbered. Beneath her cloak her tail flicked and tapped. Curses on the man who'd built Skävia all grey and uniform! The Blood Moon came four times a year, and by now she should have known which door to enter, but she didn't.

'Close your eyes and listen,' Mama's voice ghosted in her head. 'Can you hear the wind? It whispers just as the Desert Mother Sheia whispers to our hearts.'

Mama's voice had impeccable timing. Denirya put her ear against the first door and heard murmurs, clinking, and laughter. An average family likely sipping red wine and celebrating another season passed, another four months breathing. Curses on them too, for enjoying such lavishness while she crept in the shadows.

She pressed her ear to the next door. Nothing. This one? A sudden snort and rumble burst from inside, and she jerked back. This man slept already? On the Blood Moon Festival? For a moment she considered breaking in and robbing him out of sheer spite, but she didn't have time. She had to find Tesh or Yviä would spill her guts.

At the next door she heard grunts and rhythmic thumping. The woman inside gasped and moaned, and their bed squeaked and scraped with each of the man's thrusts. Wasn't Tesh though, Tesh's voice had a distinct nasal sound that could piss off anyone within earshot.

Denirya didn't envy this woman. Men were scum, each and all. She'd learned to hate them that night in the alley. Six of them had cornered her, rough and cruel. They could have killed her. That would've been more merciful. She'd only been seven for Sheia's sake. The fat man had seemed nice at first, till he'd had her up in his room. 'I'll be your father,' he'd said in that oily voice that haunted her dreams, but no father ought to do to their daughters the things he'd done to her. Before the memories of raw skin and a blood-soaked ache between her legs could revive, she quenched all thoughts and gripped the hilt of her knife beneath her cloak sleeve till blood dripped from her hand. Better.

She pressed her ear against the fourth door and breathed in a whiff of its old wood smell.

'I...I'm not experienced.' That was Tesh's lemon-squeeze voice.

'You are a Moon Woman, aren't ye?' The man's voice sounded as fat as he'd looked in the alley, as if even his vocal chords jiggled the way his jowls had.

'Oh,' --Tesh feigned a sweet voice-- 'of course. I'm newly inducted is all.'

Lying on one's feet is an important trait when robbery is your trade, and Tesh deceived well for her first night on the prowl. Yviä had briefed her on what to expect, but expectations and realities seldom coincided. Good girl.

A rustling whispered in the room, probably the man dropping his trousers or lifting Tesh's skirts. Timing is important too. If Denirya barged in early, the man would be lucid enough to defend himself, and if she snuck in too late, Tesh would suffer the loss of her virginity at the pig's hands. Shivers travelled down her spine.

Her stomach growled and her tail swished beneath the cloak. With a flick, she slipped one of her knives out of her sleeve, its edge gleaming with red moonlight, and pushed down the door handle. It didn't give, which could only mean their 'customer' had insisted Tesh lock it. The prick. Men who wanted the door locked seldom bore virtuous motives.

She dug the key out of a pocket in the lining of her cloak and turned it in the lock. The click drowned in the noise of merriment coming from the South Markets.

'Silent as Sheia,' Mama's voice whispered in her mind. 'Quick as a sand serpent.'

The mantra comforted her, and her feet moved with the ease that comes from obsessive practice, sliding noiselessly into the room's shadows. Neither Tesh nor the man noticed her.

Dim light glowed from pink paper lanterns hung haphazardly across two of the four grey walls, and a sizeable red-sheeted bed dominated the floor-space, leaving room only for the shaded corners where Denirya felt most comfortable.

The man stood pants-less in his horrendous splendor, member at full salute. Tesh cringed into the bed, a phony smile plastered to her face, skirts hitched up. Traditional moon bells clinked from an anklet where her feet rested on the ground. Warm lamplight glowed on her legs. Ruffled red and black moon skirts with the emblems of the temple embroidered into the edges lay splayed around her, her past and future exposed.

Oh Fathers, Denirya had hoped not to see that.

Tesh's virgin lips gaped at the man whose eyes glazed over with lust, rolls of his sweaty belly fat wobbling. That thing of his neared Tesh's thighs till less than a hand's breadth separated them. Ugh. Thank Sheia she wasn't doing Tesh's part.

The knife had to stab deeper on the heavier ones though. Curse the jiggly skinhead for not controlling his gluttony! She walked up behind the man and slid the knife's edge between two rolls on his neck. Shink.

He froze, and a tingle of pleasure shivered through her. It was perfect, just the way things should be. Holding the knife, she was in control. 'Your valuables.'

The man licked his rotund lips. 'I-In m-my trousers.' His cock deflated with appalling speed. Immediately Tesh pulled down her skirts and wriggled her underclothing on, stumbling from leg to leg and looking pale as the naked moon.

'Chuck it on the bed.' The man did, not a very brave pig, but facing the slaughter what pig didn't tremble?

'And the chain.' She tapped the side of his head with one finger, the knife snug against his corpulent neck.

The man's stumpy fingers tickled the gold chain like it was his whore, but with a groan he wrested it over his bald pate and flung it on the bed. Beads of sweat dripped from him.

'Out you go Tesh.'

Relief bloomed on her young face. She nodded, grabbed the loot, and scampered out. The door clapped and swung upon her exit.

A yellow river streamed down the man's trembling legs. He cried, begging for something, but a buzzing filled her ears, a numbness drenched her limbs.

Men are scum, each and all.

With her right hand she grabbed the other side of his head, determined not to flinch at the warmth of his scalp and ear. A sudden quiet bled over her--the last moment before a life is ended. How strange that it seemed so peaceful, as if ushering men into death was a favor to the gods. She pushed the knife in, relished the feel of skin splitting against cold steel, and smiled. Yellow fat bulged from the cut, blood spurting. Mama had taught her where the main arteries were.

The man hollered, squealed. She lifted her hands, an artist finished with her work, and danced out of the way with a step. He fell. For a long while Denirya watched him bubbling in his own blood, his hues fading from pink to a pallid grey, just to be sure he was gone for good.

When she left the room, Tesh was leaning against the wall frowning, the loot in her hands. 'Took you long enough,' she growled and Denirya shrugged. Art takes time.

They rushed back the way she'd come, to their alley where Yviä waited.

P.S. dedicated to the awesome Brandon Sanderson whose Mistborn Trilogy has been giving me migraines for two weeks (because I refused to put the books down).