Mark of the Assassin

“Aeria!”

I wasn’t sure if I was just hearing things, but it sounded like Peter. My body still felt numb, so I was sure that I was dying. Tears fell from my eyes faster as I heard the scream again. We were dead.

“Aeria.” This time he spoke. He felt close.

I felt him grab me, sending a shooting pain through my body. We hadn’t died. Dead people didn’t feel pain. I forced myself to open my eyes so that I may look at Peter. Half of his face was covered in blood and his clothes were in tatters.

“You’re alive,” I cried. It hurt to cry, but I cried anyways because I knew that I would live another day. We had won. Peter and I had won.

Peter wiped the tears from my face. He took off his shirt and used his knife to cut it into strips. He carefully picked up my arm, still sending a shooting pain through it. He wrapped the his shirt around my arm and set it back down on the floor before doing to the other arm.

“Your arms are bleeding.” He said.

“Leave it. Just carry me back to the castle.” I said. He nodded and began to pick me up, causing me far more pain than I was in on the ground. “Put me back. Just heal me and I’ll walk back.”

I had forgotten about healing for a moment. Although the healing would be considerably more painful than anything that I was feeling now, at least I would be able to get back to the castle in one piece.

Peter set me back on the ground and had began to heal me. As he healed me, I gritted my teeth and wished that I could just be stabbed again. Nearly any pain had to be better than this. My arms still felt like jelly when he was done, but at least it wasn’t so painful to move them. He did the same for my legs. Somehow my legs managed to be more painful than my arms. The problem was that I still didn’t think that I could walk after he had finished.

He was about to start healing my ribs when a rock hit me directly in the chest. I couldn’t help but scream. Peter jumped to his feet as someone advanced towards us. I looked to the side, ignoring the pain, and saw that Ronald was still standing. He looked tattered and bloody, but he was still standing.

Peter and Ronald circled each other. They finally stopped when Peter stopped walking. Ronald had his back facing towards me. I bit down on my tongue and picked up the knife. Ronald had to die. If falling off a cliff didn’t properly kill him, then I would have to finish doing it. I wasn’t about to get stabbed in the leg again.

I quietly got up, hanging onto the tree for support. Every breath I took as I got closer to Ronald felt like it was my last. I could taste the blood in my mouth and I couldn’t tell if it was from biting my tongue too hard or breathing out the blood. Either way, I continued to walk towards Ronald.

Peter tripped and fell to the ground as I came up behind Ronald. He had the knife in his hands, ready to kill Peter. Before Ronald had the chance to even try, I stabbed him in the side of his neck as hard as I could. He dropped the knife and turned around.

Blood was pouring from his neck as he stared at me. His eyes were almost completely covered in blood, but I wasn’t sure what that was from. As Ronald pulled the knife from his neck I watched Peter pick up the knife on the floor. Ronald clumsily swung the knife at me. The problem was that I just as clumsily dodged. He got the side of my cheek with the knife.

Peter lodged the knife into the back of Ronald’s neck. He fell to the floor and dead or not, Peter continued to stab him in the back. I watched quietly as he stabbed his uncle repeatedly and cried, time increasing between each stab as Peter struggled to catch his breath. After a little while Peter collapsed beside his uncle.

I hurried over to him and shook him. He wasn’t opening his eyes. He needed to be healed and brought back to the castle. I dragged him away from his uncle, biting my cheeks to ignore the pain it brought me, and took a break once we got to a tree a significant distance from the edge of the new cliff.

Healing my ribs hurt more than the initial fall out of the tree. My whole body ached, even after being healed. There was nothing I wanted more than to be able to lay in bed and go to sleep until the midsummer festival.

Peter had to be healed next. He had cuts covering his body, an especially bad one that spanned from his chin to his cheek. He had only broken his non-dominant hand, which healed up easily. I hoped that he couldn’t feel the pain of healing since he had gone unconscious.

I closed my eyes once I was done. My body hurt too much to go anywhere. I wanted to go to sleep. Peter moved a bit, so I pulled him closer to him and huddled with him. There was no fear of it being too cold, so I just went to sleep.

“They’re here!” Someone shouted, jolting Peter and I awake. Peter rose to his feet and started shouting back to whomever was looking for us. He looked a mess. He was covered in blood, both his own and his uncles. I wondered if it hurt for him to move.

Peter picked me up and carried me out of the trees. When we were back in the streets, it drew a large amount of people. The people in the streets were chaos. It had leaked out the Peter was missing and that the King and Queen had become sick. The people filling up the streets made it increasingly possible that a riot might ensue.

“The prince has been found!” One of the guards shouted to the crowd, gesturing towards the two of us. “Everything is fine!”

The crowd whispered with one another, staring at us. I didn’t want to be a spectacle, I wanted to go back to sleep. If I went to sleep, then I could escape the pain that I was feeling at the moment. It still hurt to breath and move, being held didn’t help either.

“Are you alright?” Peter asked me as we got closer to the castle.

“We’re alive.” I said. I leaned my head on his chest and closed my eyes. There was no reason to be scared now. We had killed Ronald and Peter’s parents would be fine. We were safe now.

The castle had black curtains up on every window. Someone had died. I held my breath as we entered the castle, hoping that it was a misunderstanding about our short disappearance. Peter sped up his walk, jolting me with every step.

Isabel saw us in the hall. She looked like she hadn’t slept for days. I wasn’t sure how long we had been gone, but it most definitely had not been days. She still had the stain of tears on her face as she approached us.

“Is he dead?” She asked.

“Yes.” Peter said.

“Is she dead?” She asked, noticing that I hadn’t bothered to move since she saw us.

“No. She is awake.” He said. “What happened?”

“They died.” She said, tears slipping from her eyes. She wiped them away with the sleeve of her dress. “She woke up before she died and began to talk again.”

“I am getting married at the midsummer festival. She said that she wished for us to move the date up.” She said, wiping her tears from her face again. It was unfortunate that she had to be married early from the tragedy.

“They died?” Peter cried, squeezing me closer to him.

We were silent until the guild walked into the hall. They saw the two of us and rushed over. Ryia pulled me from Peter’s arms and forced me to stand. It was painful and I buckled back into Peter’s arms.

“What happened?” Carac asked.

“Ronald is dead.” Peter said.

“You killed the mage of the kingdom?” Josef nearly shouted. Everyone that could hear him froze in their tracks and stared at Peter and I. “However did you manage that?”

“He’s in the forest.” Peter said, ignoring the question. “He brought mercenaries again.”

“You fought mercenaries too?” Ryia ran her hands through her hair, “Goddess bless the two of you. It’s incredible that you lived.” She said.

“When is the funeral for mother and father?” Peter asked. The guild had evidently not figured out that Peter was the prince because they widened their eyes and stared at the two of us. They said nothing.

“Tomorrow evening. Mother wished that we didn’t wear black.” She said.

“Then why is there black curtains up?” Peter asked.

“Because it is tradition when royalty dies.” Isabel said. “Thank you for all of your help. I am glad they ceased to suffer.” She told the guild. They nodded their heads and bowed as she walked away.

“You’re the prince? And you never told us?” Ryia said, almost sounding angry.

“Yes.” Peter said. “It was not relevant to tell you.”

“Leave the boy alone.” Josef said, “They’ve been through a lot.”

“We’re talking to you once you’re better.” Ryia said. “You too, Aeria. I know you’re awake. We know you’re watching us.”

“I did not wish to speak.” I said quietly.

“Have you two been fixed?” Carac asked.

“Healed, yes.” Peter said.

They took this as an invitation to take care of us once we had cleaned off. They were waiting for us at our room once we got out of the bathing room. Peter had passed out again in the baths, so servants had to carry us back to our room.

We were laid in bed and the guild immediately began to feed us things. The teas they fed us tasted wonderful, but nearly everything else left a bitter taste in my mouth. Peter was lucky that he was unconscious as they shoved various remedies into his mouth.

When they put the salves on us, I began to wish that I was unconscious too. The salves felt like they were burning my skin off. There was no end to the salves. Once Ryia had rubbed one in and it had soaked into my skin, she put another one on.

“What happened?” She asked me.

“I fell from a tree.” I said.

“That was not all.” She told me. “You’ve got some pretty nasty spells on you. You should have died the moment they touched you.”

I should have died today, yet Otokov spared Peter and I. The two of us would live another day, which was more than I could say for Ronald. He had already taken too many lives today.

“There were pretty bad earthquakes earlier.” Ryia said as she brewed us more tea.

“Ronald sunk the trees into the ground and killed them.” I said, not mentioning the fact that I had broken the cliff off. That probably wasn’t the cause for any earthquakes anyways. The cliff had only shook when Ronald cast his spells.

“Did the spell for the trees touch you?” She asked.

“Yes. I didn’t jump from that tree fast enough.” I said. “How long were we gone?”

“It’s only dinner.” She said as she brewed another tea in a separate pot, “It’s a wonder you didn’t die the moment you jumped from the tree.”

“Why?” I asked.

“That spell kills anything it touches almost immediately. You should see what it does to a person; I’ve seen Ronald do it in war.” She said. “And I heard that the mercenaries looked pretty bad themselves.”

“Same as the first assassin I killed.” I said. I could imagine that the guards who found us were not happy about the sight. Maybe their clothes had shielded them from anything too grotesque.

“They vomited from the smell.” She said. She gave me the first tea and propped up my head so that I could drink it.

“So did Arabella.” I said.

“Carac and Josef went to help clean up. Maybe if we’re lucky Josef will vomit too.” She said. She made me drink another sip before getting up and doing the same for Peter. He still wasn’t conscious, so she had to use magic to make sure he swallowed everything.

“You look like you’ve had some pretty bad injuries before today.” Ryia said while she was still making Peter drink.

“We had to find out who did it somehow.” I said. I didn’t know that she could see our past injuries. Maybe she would teach me to do that some time.

“You’ve been stabbed on multiple occasions.” She said.

“Only once. The rest don’t count.” I said. The rest were because I didn’t move out of the way fast enough. Next time I would have to move faster if I didn’t wish to get hit with the blade of a knife.

“You could have died.” She said.

“Ronald would have killed us if we hadn’t found out it was him.” I said.

“He always did wish to be king.” Ryia said.

“What?” I frowned, wondering what that had to do with killing Peter and I.

“The kingdom mage is in charge once all the royal family has perished. The rest of the royal family has died already died- I’ll bet that Ronald killed them too.” She said, shaking her head as she returned to pour the other tea she had been brewing.

“Can you find that out?” I asked her.

“I’d have to go to their graves. Ronald’s magic lingers for a long time.” She said. “Drink this for now. I’ll ask Isabel later if we may look into such matters.”

Peter woke up in time for food to be brought into the room. This was the only time we were left alone, as Carac and Josef were still in cleaning up with the guards. I wondered where the mercenary I let go was. Surely, they would hear of what happened.

Isabel and Arabella came into the room while we were eating. They had brought their food too. Isabel looked better than she had earlier, but she was still sullen. She was wearing black, despite her mother’s wishes.

“I’m glad the two of you didn’t die.” Arabella said.

“I wish that you would have asked for backup.” Isabel said, “If we had known you were going to fight Ronald, we would have sent guards.”

“We didn’t need them. Aeria killed all the mercenaries.” Peter said. Isabel looked at the two of us and sighed. “We’ll be back to normal shortly.”

“No. You won’t.” She sighed again. “Carac, Josef, and Ryia will work as the kingdom mage as a group until they believe that the two of you are ready to take their place. You do not have to become the kingdom mage, but you two did just kill the last one.”

“What does the kingdom mage even do?” I asked.

“Makes sure the kingdom is safe. Normally they work with the spy master and ensure that everything within the country and out of the country is working according to plan. We haven’t had a spy master for years though.” Isabel said. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the two of us.

“We will take both of those positions.” Peter said.

“Only once you’re ready for it.” Arabella said, “You’re too young right now.”

“We’ll have to finish school.” Peter said. He took a bite of his food and sat up in his bed. He stared at me, “Unless of course-“

“You’re finishing school.” Isabel said. “I refuse to have an uneducated spy master and kingdom mage. I will already be hearing it from advisors since you didn’t go to the mage school.” She added. She took a sip of her tea.

We were nearly finished with our meal when Carac and Josef walked into the room. They looked tired dirty. They also carried food into the room. They silently sat down next to Isabel and Arabella.

“Have you told them?” I asked Isabel. She nodded. “Who will run the shop?” I asked.

“We will pay someone to.” Carac said.

“No. We will alternate. All three of us do not need to be the kingdom mage at once.” Josef took a sip of his tea. “It would be a waste of money to pay someone.”

“I saw Ryia in the hall. She said that you should have died today.” Carac said after we had sat in silence for a moment, “You’re lucky the two of you didn’t drop dead today. I’m impressed that you managed to get rid of the entire cliff too.”

Isabel and Arabella stared at us. Josef seemed pretty surprised too, nearly choking on his tea. Carac just stared at us until I shrugged.

“You managed to get rid of an entire cliff. What was the point of that?” He asked.

“Ronald was supposed to fall off.” I said, “I think he grabbed onto a tree root though.” I said. He was most definitely in the meadow when the cliff split. He should have fallen to his death.

“You two made a pretty big mess.” He said, “The mercenaries are melted to the ground and-”

“We’re trying to eat.” Isabel said, glaring at him, “If you wish to lecture the two later, do it in your new office.” She said.

“I’ll live in the castle.” Josef said, “Seeing as I’ve been kicked out of my own home and replaced with the neighbor.”

“She kicked you out?” I asked.

“Yes. So, if someone must take Ronald’s old quarters, it shall be me.” Josef said.

“Good. I like my home.” Carac said. “Do you need help cleaning it out?”

“Yes. Once the two of you are better, you will be helping.” Josef said.

I was about to speak when the door to the room flung open. Carac and Josef rose immediately, causing their food treys to fall to the floor. A person came marching into the room in sailors clothes.

It took a moment to realize that it was Rose. She looked furious and even more so once she saw me.

“I told you to take care of her and now I hear that she’s laid up in bed-“

“She’s fine!” Josef said, “She’ll be able to walk by tomorrow.”

“I go to the shop and Leif is watching the shop! He said that you were at the castle because the king and queen died!” She seemed much larger when she was angry. I was glad to see her regardless though. I had missed her.

“Will you say long?” Carac asked, ignoring her anger.

“I am only here for the week.” She said.

“Then why spend it angry.” Carac said, pouring her a cup of tea. “Especially since you’re looking at the new kingdom mage?”

“What happened to the old one?” She asked, narrowing her eyes at the two of them.

“The children killed him.” Josef said, “I’m glad you brought her-“

“They did what?” Rose demanded.