Mark of the Assassin

36nd of summer 89 N.W.

Francis,

Place an extra flower on the grave of father for me. I might not love him, but I would like to show my condolences. I hope that Thea has not died. If she dies before my letter reaches you, shed a tear for me and place an extra flower on her grave as well. I hope that mother and the babe are still healthy and that you are as well.

There is no pox here, or at least not right now. Even though there is no disease, there is still trouble. I fear for my life sometimes, but other times I know that I will be alright. Once everything has happened, maybe I will tell you about it. Right now, I do not wish to bring other people into problems that they do not belong it.

I sent more flowers for you. Maybe your room will be full of flowers and you will always be happy. I hope that happens. The seeds are different than the ones that I sent the last time. They are more colorful flowers and they grow smaller. I hope that you will like these.

I will send another letter once something interesting happens. Right now I am on break, so not much is happening with me. Peter says hello and says that he will suggest to his mother and father to invite you to the castle. I still am not sure if this is a good idea.

I love you and hope that you stay healthy. Love Aeria.

It was nearly the midsummer festival. There were only two days left until the festival. Every servant in the castle was working on something related to the festival. Even the guests in the castle were busy.

Peter and I were busy, for a different reason. We had recently acquired several spell books while we were in the night market. Most of the spells were basic, although we knew none of them except for the healing spells. The books were more interesting than useful, but we applied the knowledge to other things.

Isabel and Arabella were most excited about the midsummer festival. The dress that Isabel finished was the most beautiful piece of clothing that I had ever seen. The dress was even more beautiful when Isabel put it on. Arabella had a dress as well, which was equally as beautiful. The only difference was how uncomfortable Arabella looked in the dress.

“How am I supposed to run?” She asked as Isabel was doing her final fittings for the dress.

“You’re not.” Isabel said, “Stand there and look pretty. The festival is a party, not a military endeavor.” She added as she took a step back to admire her handiwork.

“How does it look?” She asked us.

“Wonderful.” I told her.

“Do you have a dress?” Isabel asked.

“I’m going to wear the blue one.” I said.

“Those aren’t summer colors.” She said. I didn’t have another dress available, so it would have to do. I wasn’t going to go out and spend money on a dress when I knew that the dress makers raised the prices before the festivals.

“That’s alright.” I said.

“Once I’m finished here, I’ll see if I have anything old that I can adjust to your size.” She said. She was nearly done with Arabella’s dress, she was just letting down the hem at this point. Isabel hummed a song as she finished up.

“So, what’s the plan?” Arabella asked.

“What?” Isabel paused to look at her before going back to her work.

“The plan. Everyone in the castle knows we’re getting married, but there has to be an announcement at the festival.” She said. Isabel paused and looked up again. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m serious.”

“I know you’re serious. It’s just cute.” Isabel said. “We are not announcing it. Father has already come up with a speech.”

I sat quietly in the corner for the duration of Arabella’s dress fitting. Her dress looked even better once she was finished being fitted. She stood straight, still looking uncomfortable, and stepped off the podium.

“Now let’s see if I can find a dress.” She said.

She disappeared in her closet for a while. When she emerged she was carrying a green dress that reminded me of the forest. The length of the torso looked too long to fit my body, as did the length of the dress.

“I remember that dress.” Arabella said.

“I’ve gained too much weight to wear it.” Isabel said.

She waited as I ducked behind a screen to change into the dress. The dress was far too large on me. I looked like a child trying on their mothers clothes. I stepped out from behind the screen anyways and onto the podium.

“This shouldn’t take too long.” Isabel told me. She took out her needles and silently began to fit the dress to me. She hummed a new song as she worked. Arabella just watched as she mended one of her tunics.

“Are you still with Isabel and Arabella?” Peter asked.

“Yes. Isabel is fitting me for a dress for the festival.” I said. I watched as she quickly brought the needle back and forth, shortening the torso without ever touching my skin with the needle.

“Ok. I just wanted to let you know that Ronald has completely disappeared from the castle.” Peter said. I blinked a few times, hoping that maybe he decided to flee instead of killing us. That would eliminate a lot of problems.

“Are his things gone?” I asked.

“No. He has left. No one knows where he is and he doesn’t ever leave the castle.” He said.

“Do you guys know where Ronald might have gone?” I asked Isabel and Arabella. Both stopped what they were doing to look at me. “He isn’t in the castle.”

“Impossible. He hasn’t left in years.” Isabel said, “He won’t go outside because he’s afraid.”

“Afraid or not, he’s gone.” I said.

“I’ve seen him leaving.” Arabella said, “He normally goes out at night.”

“What? Why didn’t you say anything?” Isabel said, continuing sewing.

“Because I didn’t know he was afraid of the outside? He goes out nearly every night.” Arabella said.

“If he doesn’t leave during the day time, it is out of the ordinary.” Isabel said.

“Arabella said that he leaves nearly every night.” I said. “Do you know where he goes?”

“Hold still.” Isabel said, tugging on the bottom of the dress.

“I thought he just went on strolls.” Arabella said. “I’m going to change out of the dress.” She said.

“You need to get more used to it before the festival. Keep it on.” Isabel told her. Arabella shook her head and stepped behind the screen to change. Isabel rolled her eyes and kept on sewing.

“Do you think it’s anything to be worried about?” Peter asked. I wasn’t sure. It was out of the ordinary, so it definitely raised some questions, but I didn’t know what he was doing. There was no point in worrying until we knew what he was doing.

“Probably not. Find him if you’d like.” I suggested. It probably wouldn’t be that hard to track Ronald. He wasn’t great at covering his tracks.

“I suppose I will. I’ll tell you if I need help.” He said. I could tell he was leaving the castle now. If I concentrated I could see what he was doing.

“Can I watch?” I asked, deciding that would be more interesting than sitting still and not talking.

“Yes.” He said.

The more I focused the clearer I could see everything Peter saw. Everything in the city was moving quicker than normal. The upcoming festival made sure that no one had idle hands until it was over.

“Have you seen Ronald?” Peter asked one of the guards at the front gates.

“Ronald?” The man paused, “That’s the man with the pony tail right? The queer little fellow ran out of here a few minutes ago faster than I’ve ever seen him move.” He said, pointing to his right. Peter nodded and headed in that direction.

Peter looked around the shops. He paused for a moment before starting to run down the street. I couldn’t tell why he had started running, but he seemed to have a specific destination in mind.

A scream pulled me out of my thoughts. It pulled Isabel from her concentration too seeing as she stabbed me in the side with a needle. She apologized before setting all of her things down and leaving the room. Arabella followed her.

I changed back into my clothes, strapping the one knife that fit to my wrist, and hurried out of the room. There was a commotion coming from the Eliza and Josef’s room. Isabel and Arabella had already reached the room and were just standing at the door their mouths gaping. No one spoke.

It took a moment to manage to push through everyone, but once I did I saw why everyone was in shock. The king and the queen laid on the floor in such an unnatural pose it was horrendous. Arabella was next to them within a moment to try and help.

When Arabella was moving them into a more natural looking pose I saw a silencing spell on their wrists. I knew immediately that it was Ronald. I closed my closed my eyes and attempted to break the spell. As soon as I tried to fix it they both began to scream and writhe on the floor.

The energy in the two of them was so low that I feared they would die. They needed to live until the problem was solved. I focused on bringing a low amount of energy into them, just to keep them alive. They screamed and their eyes opened briefly before closing again. I hoped that I was doing the best thing.

“What happening?” Isabel cried.

“Where are you?” I asked Peter. “I’ll be back.” I told them.

“Where are you going?” Arabella demanded, “You’re a better healer than me-“

“Healing them isn’t going to help.” I said. I had no idea what kind of spell it was, but whatever Ronald had done to them wasn’t going to be broken as easily as the spells on the assassin.

“I’ve found Ronald. I don’t know where he’s going-“

“Stop following him. Find the guild and bring them to the castle and then we’ll find Ronald.” I told him. There was no way I could make it all the way to their shop and back in a timely fashion. Peter was already out of the castle.

“We need you.” Arabella said.

“There will be three mages coming, when Peter brings them into the castle you need to bring them to here.” I said, both to Arabella and Isabel. The room was getting louder as more people gathered to see what the commotion was, “And I need everyone to be cleared out. They hate when it’s too loud.”

“What are you going to do?” Isabel asked.

“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.” I told them, feigning a smile. Neither of them believed it, but they couldn’t catch me fast enough to keep me in the room.

“I’ve got them, what happened?” He asked.

“Don’t worry until after we’re finished.” I told him. Telling him might distract him when we needed our full attention. The problem was that not telling him meant that he might not get to say goodbye to his parents if they died today.

Before I got the chance to make the decision, Peter was at the castle gates with the mages. The guards greeted them, having no idea what was happening yet. They looked confused that they were at the castle.

“Can you take them to Eliza and Josef’s room?” I asked them. The guard was about to protest, but there was a loud horn from the castle. He quickly nodded.

“What is happening? That horn is only used for emergencies.” Peter said as the mages disappeared with the guard.

“They’re going to help.” I told Peter, wiping the tears from my face.

“What is happening?” He repeated.

“Your parents collapsed, and they aren’t responding.” I told him, before I changed my mind. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him in the direction that I had seen him going earlier. He didn’t give any resistance. He was just silence.

Peter didn’t speak, but he did start to lead us once he recognized where we were. I could see that there were tears falling from his face as we ran. Once we stopped by the tree line close to the cliff he wiped his tears away.

“What are we doing here? Where is Ronald?” I asked.

There was rustling in the trees. Peter and I watched as Ronald emerged from the trees. “For once, I’m glad that you spoke.” He said, grabbing the two of us and dragging us into the trees.

I had a horrible feeling that Ronald was going to do more than just use magic. For a man of such little strength, that was probably the tightest he could hold onto us. Once I started to struggle he dug his nails into my skin. Peter had gone limp.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, grabbing his hand with my free hand.

He winked at me and wedged his foot in a tree root. This pulled him from Ronald’s hand, and in turn me. Ronald fell backwards and hit the ground. Peter jumped up, pulling me from the ground and running back towards where we came.

There were six armed mercenaries by the tree line. They stared at us, not knowing what to do for a moment, but Ronald started screaming directions. They all had the marks on their skin, ensuring they wouldn’t speak.

“We can kill you or you can leave.” I said quietly, “If you’ve already been paid, you can leave with your lives and the money.”

All but one shook their head. Peter freed him immediately and the mercenaries watched the man run. They were disgusted that one of their own would flee over being killed, although personally I would have done the same thing if I knew I was going to die.

“Do you want Ronald or the mercenaries?” I asked.

“I want to kill Ronald. You get the mercenaries for now.” He said. He turned his back, still pressing against mine. I could feel him trembling and I knew instantly that I was too. We could die today, but I knew that Isabel would find some way to avenge us if we did.

I closed my eyes and noted all of the spells on each of them. Before they had a chance to charge, I had all of the spells broken. The energy on each of Ronald’s spells were easier to manipulate. It was as if even his magic detested him.

One of the men with the sword charged me. I pushed Peter back and began my fight with the mercenaries. His armor was bulky, keeping from being as nimble. I ducked under the sword and searched the armor for a weak spot. It did not appear that there was one. There was a solution for that.

“You’ll have more fun in the man. You can be in everyone here.” I said to the energy in the air. That was all it needed to flood into the man. He dropped to the ground immediately, his armor melting off of him. The mercenaries paused for a moment before they all charged at once.

The energy did as I promised and jumped to every one of the mercenaries. They all dropped to the floor. By the last one, it was not quite enough energy to kill the woman. She still stood with her sword in her hand. I realized that she had a spell embroidered into her armor. I kicked myself for not noticing the protection spell.

“Neat trick.” She said, advancing towards me. Behind us we could hear the screaming of Peter and Ronald. Neither of us paid attention. Once I killed her, then I could bring my attention to the real issue.

This was the only mercenary without a sword. She had a small knife positioned between her knuckles. Hopefully my hand to hand combat had improved, especially since I didn’t particularly like being stabbed.

She lunged at me with the grace of a knight. I dodged to the side and kicked her feet out from under her. She fell to the ground and dropped her knife. When I kicked it away from her reach she pulled out another knife and swiped at me. She cut my pants leg as I stepped out of the way.

The only exposed part of her body was her head. Even her throat was protected by what looked like leather and metal. It would take too long to kill her with magic, but there wasn’t much open to me. I took a deep breath, hoping that my tunic and breeches wouldn’t be too dirty after this.

I kicked her arm as hard as I could, making the knife go flying, and stomped on her hand. She screamed and grabbed her hand, giving me the opportunity to stomp on her other hand. She would still be able to use the hands, so I stomped on her head as quickly as possible. She was stunned, giving me enough time to take the knife from my wrist and stab her in the eye.

I pulled the knife from her eye and caught my breath for a second. Somehow physically killing someone was worse than killing them with magic. I had to be closer to the woman to stab her.

As I got up, she grabbed me by my ankle and stabbed me in the leg. I immediately jumped back down the floor and stabbed her in the other eye and kicked her in the head a few extra times for good measure. I pulled the knife out of my leg and pursed my lips.

“I’m done here.” I told him as I hurried over, while healing my leg. It seemed like getting stabbed would never cease to hurt. Next time, I would just have to make sure I finished what I was doing before walking away.

“You distract and I’ll stab him.” Peter said.

I ran as quickly as I could to where I heard the two of them screaming. Before I entered the meadow they were fighting in, I looked around. Maybe it would be a better distraction if he couldn’t see me. One of the trees looked easily climbable.

Once I had my spot in the tree I located Ronald. I gathered as much free energy as I could without burning my hands. The energy was more than happy to strike Ronald. He screamed, not knowing where he had been struck from.

“You really shouldn’t scream. It gives away your location.” I shouted down the tree to him. He immediately lost interest in Peter and began to look around the meadow. He looked furious, so I did it again.

“You are full of surprises.” He screamed, stomping his foot on the ground. I knew that he was trying to locate me, so I decided that the tree next to me was close enough to jump to. As I jumped to the next tree, the tree I had been sunk into the ground.

We were on a cliff. I had thought that the cliff was further out at first, but the meadow was the edge of the cliff. I could tell that him sinking the tree had made it significantly less stable, as the cliff shook.

“Climb the trees and jump from one to the other.” I told Peter. I waited until Ronald noticed that I had jumped into the other tree to jump again. The tree I had been on sunk into the ground. Peter immediately knew what the plan was.

“Can’t even kill a child.” I screamed down to him, jumping to the tree next to me. I was lucky that the trees here were so dense, otherwise this wouldn’t work out so well. “I’ll bet that you only became mage because you were friends with Josef.”

This infuriated him. The tree that I had been on sunk almost to the bottom. I wondered if the spell killed the tree too. I felt a little bit bad for potentially killing all the trees, but if Peter and I survived this I would plant a hundred trees in their honor.

I jumped out of the next tree a little too late and didn’t have a chance to jump with enough force. I fell to the ground, attempting to break my fall with my arms. It didn’t work and I felt my arms crumble under me as I fell to the ground.

“She’s not even who this is about.” Peter screamed, pulling Ronald’s attention away from me. “You were trying to kill me.”

It was silent in the meadow for a moment. I could probably get the cliff to break off, I would just have to figure out how. Peter would have to keep Ronald distracted long enough for me to finish cracking off the cliff.

“Keep him talking. When I tell you when, make sure you’re behind the tree line.” I told him. Peter kept screaming and calling Ronald names. They began to fight again, which left me on the ground.

It took a moment to be able to breathe again, but it was incredibly painful. I tried to get up and immediately regretted it. At least one of my legs was broken from the fall and I was fairly certain that I had broken a rib. It didn’t matter. I dragged myself passed the tree line, taking shallow breaths. I hoped that Peter couldn’t feel this.

I was going to heal myself but it sounded like Peter was on the losing side of whatever was happening. The energy around the cliff was buzzing and it practically came to me. Every bit of the energy wished to be used, so I absorbed it all, biting my cheek to keep from screaming out from the searing pain it caused.

“Break the cliff off. Shake the rocks with such force that the cliff falls.” I told them, putting my hands on the ground. There was an immediate reverberation as the energy was released into the cliff. It didn’t take more than a second for the cliff to crumble to the ground. I hadn’t a chance to warn Peter.

If we died, at least Ronald had been killed too. Tears slipped from my eyes as I quietly laid on the ground, waiting to die as Peter died. My body went numb and I wondered if this was how death felt for everyone. Maybe it only felt so gentle because I wasn’t the one who fell off the cliff.