Kitana: Dance of Blades by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Kitana-Dance-of-Blades-1217248700

Kitana: Dance of Blades ANIMATION

Silk of the Unseen

The moon over Outworld was wrong.

It hung too low, like a pearl pressed into bruised velvet, staining the sky with an opalescent pallor that made even the palace gardens seem diseased. Kitana moved through the alabaster colonnade with the soundless grace of breath leaving a sleeping body. Silk whispered at her calves. Steel fans rested folded against her wrists, their edges humming faintly, as if they sensed the lie in the air.

Something was controlling the night.

She had felt it first in the sparring ring—an opponent whose strikes were perfect, soullessly so, like recited poetry. Then again in the archives, where candles guttered when no wind moved. And now, in the garden where the statues wept black resin, she felt the pressure of a gaze that never blinked.

“Come out,” Kitana said softly, not raising her voice. “If you’re going to watch me breathe, at least have the courtesy to show your face.”

Applause answered her, slow and mocking.

A figure stepped from behind a curtain of night-blooming lilies. He wore the uniform of an Edenian guard, but the fabric sat oddly on him, as if the body beneath had been tailored after the cloth. His eyes were bright, too bright, reflecting the moon like twin coins.

“Princess,” he said, bowing with exaggerated elegance. “You honor me.”

“You do not bow like Edenian,” Kitana replied. “And you do not smell like one either.”

He smiled. It was a beautiful smile, practiced, meant to disarm. “You remember how we danced, once. In the Hall of Mirrors.”

Kitana’s breath caught before she could stop it. Memory rose unbidden: a masquerade, silk masks, laughter like chimes. This man—this thing—had worn another face then, but the cadence of his voice had been the same.

“You died,” she said. “I watched you bleed.”

“I did,” he agreed, cheerfully. “And yet, here I am. A miracle, wouldn’t you say?”

“No,” Kitana said. “A leash.”

The smile faltered, just a fraction. She felt it then—a tug, like a hook buried deep in him, pulling backward through the dark.

“Who holds you?” she asked.

He laughed, but the sound fractured midway, as if another voice had bitten into it. “You always want the heart of things, don’t you? That curiosity is why he loves you.”

“Who?” she pressed.

The man’s pupils dilated, swallowing the brightness. His jaw clenched. “I can’t—”

The air shuddered. The moon flickered, as if someone had dragged a blade across its surface.

“Enough,” said a voice that did not belong to any throat.

It came from everywhere and nowhere, from the statues’ hollow eyes and the roots beneath the stones. The lilies shriveled, petals browning in an instant. Kitana felt the words brush her skin like cold fingers.

The man straightened, eyes glassy now. “Forgive me,” he said, and attacked.

He moved with impossible speed. Kitana parried, steel fans flashing, sparks cutting the dark like brief constellations. His strikes were flawless—no hesitation, no fear—but there was no joy in them either. Fighting him was like fencing a reflection that refused to blink.

“You don’t want this,” she said between blows. “Fight him.”

“I can’t,” he whispered, even as his blade slid toward her throat. “He’s inside me.”

She twisted, caught his wrist, and felt something writhe beneath his skin, like a nest of worms recoiling from light. The contact sent a shiver through her that was not entirely revulsion.

“Let go,” she murmured, leaning close enough that her breath brushed his ear. “You remember how my hand felt on your back. You remember the warmth.”

His breath stuttered. For a heartbeat, the hook slackened.

The voice snarled.

Pain rippled through the man’s body. He screamed, dropping his weapon, clutching his head as if trying to tear something out. Black veins surfaced along his neck, pulsing with alien rhythm.

Kitana stepped back, fans raised. “You’re hurting him,” she said to the night.

“He is a door,” the voice replied. “Doors are meant to open.”

“And you?” she asked. “What are you meant to be?”

Laughter rolled through the garden, shaking leaves from branches. “I am the hand that turns the key.”

The man collapsed to his knees, gasping. Kitana knelt with him, ignoring the danger, and pressed her palm to his chest. His heart fluttered like a trapped bird.

“Look at me,” she sai
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