Mark of the Assassin

“We’re arriving at port.” The mage told me. I could see land for the first time in two weeks. The last few days of our journey had been filled with winds that were going the wrong way, making us take a couple extra days to get to port. I had been itching to get back onto land the whole time.

The port was huge. This was not the same port that I sailed out of from my country. This was filled with ships and cargo. There were people moving about on the dock like they had a job to do.

One of the soldiers slowly came up to me and handed me a pouch. When he dropped it into my hand I nearly dropped it. The pouch itself wasn’t heavy, but I wasn’t expecting a pouch that was undoubtedly filled with coins.

Neither of us said anything. The other soldiers brought my things onto the deck. The moment we docked the boat they disappeared with my things. I hoped that they were bringing it to the school- if not I had a pouch full of coins to buy more clothes. They probably would not be as luxurious though.

“You’re wearing pants.” The mage said.

“I packed everything else in my trunk.” I told her. She nodded and looked down at my pouch.

“I suggest you put that money away, child.” She said. I slipped the pouch into my pocket, which left a bulge in my pocket. She snorted before disembarking the boat.

I followed her. She knew the city, or at least I assumed she did because she made many turns and went through many alleys without asking for directions. Even while it was getting dark she managed to find her way around in the streets. I wished that I could do that.

“I will be leaving,” She said as we got closer to what looked like some sort of pub, “I will introduce you to the people that you will be learning from.” She said.

I followed her into the dimly lit business. There was a strong stench of wine and something else. Nearly everybody had food in front of them or had food being brought to them. A lot of people wearing clothes like mine were in the room. No one seemed to notice us, even when I followed the mage to the back of the restaurant.

There was a lit room next to the kitchen where there were three mages a boy sat at the table. The mage looked down at the boy and let out a sigh before pushing me through the doorway. Everyone paused and looked at me.

“Looks like you’ve found a child.” A man said to the mage. He took a bite of his roll and looked at the other boy. “And it looks like Peter will have to share us.”

“Sit down.” The woman said. She looked more serious.

“This is Aeria. She got on the boat when we stopped by Drotak to pick up some supplies. She wants to train to be a mage.” The mage said. She pointed at the chair, making sure that I followed the other woman’s directions.

“Rose must think you are good.” The man said.

“And who is the boy?” The mage asked, who I now learned went by Rose.

“Peter. He found us, so he must be worth training.” The serious woman said. I looked around the room for a moment, trying to figure out what was so hard about this to find. It seemed ordinary to me.

“Well, I guess you’ve got two new apprentices.” Rose said. She patted me on the back and said goodbye to her friends before leaving. She worked on the sailor’s ships as their mage, so I wasn’t sure when she would be back. I hoped it was soon.

“Are you from Drotak?” The man who had been silent thus far asked me. I nodded and he just set his mug down. “Shut the door behind you.” He said.

I shut the door and the room was immediately different. Everything seemed bigger. There was suddenly more room in the room than just the table. I looked around, trying to see why that had happened, but the Peter came up to me.

“That is Carac.” Peter said, pointing in the direction of the man who just spoke to me. “That is Josef.” He said, pointing in the direction of the other man.

“And I am Ryia.” The woman said, introducing herself. “Must have been tough living with the gift in Drotak.” She said. I just shrugged and looked around a little more.

“Magic.” Josef said, “Spelled the room so it’s bigger once the doors closed. It’s nearly unfindable.” He said, glancing at Peter.

“Everyone in this room sworn to silence,” Ryia tapped her fingers on the table for a moment before glancing at the other two mages, “You’ve got to swear to silence.” She said.

Peter watched me as I did what the mages told me to do. He made a face as Carac reached into his tunic. He pulled out a large knife and set it on the table. I knew absolutely nothing about weapons, except that the knife was probably sharp.

“What is the knife for?” I asked, slowly moving away from the knife on the table. I did not want anything to do with an object so large and dangerous.

“Don’t worry. This is purely for show and tradition.” Carac said.

The knife was placed in my hands and I repeated the rest of what the mages told me to. It felt silly to have to repeat something like this to join. I closed my eyes when I was told to. I could see everything around me. The vibrations were different in the room than they should have been. I figured it was because the room was spelled, but the people were different too. I wondered why I had never looked at Rose this way, just to see if it was mages that were different.

“And you, Aeria, promise to protect the secrets of this group?” Ryia asked.

“Yes.” I said.

She took the knife from my hands and set it down on the table. With that we all sat back down at the table. The adults towered over me. Even Peter towered over me even though he looked roughly the same age as me. Everyone here looked different than I was used to too, especially Carac.

“Do you dye your hair?” Ryia asked at one point during our conversation.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Your hair is just naturally that color?” Ryia crossed her arms over her chest, “I’m jealous. I had to dye my hair to get it this shade of blonde and you’ve got naturally white hair.”

They asked me other questions like that. Ryia was convinced that I was lying about dying my hair, so she used it as an opportunity to show Peter and I truth spells. It seemed rude to blatantly tell people they were lying, but then again, I was in another country.

After a little more than an hour Peter got up from his chair. The other mages expected this and looked to me.

“Where are you going?” They asked, all getting up from their seats as well. It appeared that they did not meet for more than a few hours a day.

“I’ve been sent to school.” I stood up as well. I wasn’t sure how to find it, so I was sure that I would have to ask how to get there. “I should be leaving as well.”

“I go there too.” Peter said. “I’ll show you how to get there.”

We said goodbye and Peter took my hand. He lead me down the streets of the city. Everything surrounding us was noisy and crowded. This was far more people than had ever been in my capital city- even during celebrations where people traveled.

“Are you hungry?” He asked me. I nodded and we veered off of the path that he had been taking us on for some time. “There is a nice little pastry shop.” He said.

“Is money different here?” I asked.

“Yes. It has the queen on it instead of whatever the ruler of your country is.” He said. “Whenever there is a new ruler we just stamp new faces on it, so sometimes you get money with the last king.” He said.

“Ours just has the royal emblem.” I said. I wasn’t sure how I exchanged the money because I wasn’t sure if it was worth the same. I had heard my father talk about inflation in other countries or the weights of their coins. I wasn’t really sure what it meant, but I assumed that it effected whether or not I had the proper money.

“You probably don’t have the right money.” He said as we got closer to some lit up shops, “I’ll just pay for your food until you do.” He said.

“You don’t have to do that.” I said. I had plenty of money, just none of it was the right stuff. I would have to find out where to go to transfer money.

“Of course I do. Otherwise, how else would you eat after our meetings.” He said. “We meet them every day during our free time. There only full free day at the school is at the end of the week. People go home to their families and can go to the temples.” He said.

If our whole day at the end of the week was free, I would probably explore the city. It was much different than my home city and I was interested in learning it as well as everyone else who lived here. There were probably lots of differences here from my home.

“You don’t have a family to go to, do you? Since your from Drotak?” He said after a moment.

“No.” I said.

“You can be with me on Sundays, if you wish. Mother likes visitors and plus before lunch and after dinner we are free to do as we wish.” He said, “We can do whatever you’d like.”

I paused for a moment before accepting his offer. I had never had any real friends before- aside from Francis, but he was my brother. Hopefully everyone here was as nice as Peter. He looked happy that I said yes.

“Tomorrow is the beginning of the week, so we’ll have to wait a while.” He said, “But I always go to the lower city.”

“Is that the poor area.” I asked. He snorted before nodding. “If you are not from there, then why do your parents let you visit?” I asked. My parents hardly let us visit the upper area of the city. It seemed unimaginable that his parents let him visit the lower city- alone.

“She thinks it’s good for me.” He said. “And probably don’t call them poor. It leads them to believe that you have money and that is not a good thing.”

I nodded as he told me things about the lower city. His stories were cut short because we arrived at a place that sold food. Evidently it was the place that he had been leading us to because he picked it out of the rest of the food stands out.

“Do you know what you want?” He asked. I looked at the menu and shook my head. I didn’t know what most of the food here tasted like. At home most things were very similar ingredient wise.

“It all looks interesting-“

“I’ll just order for you.” He said. He began to list off things that he wanted on the menu. The shopkeeper could hardly keep up with what he wanted, shoving things in a cloth bag as quickly as he could.

“A silver noble.” He said as he handed the cloth bag to us. Peter handed over the coin and gave me the bag to hold. I looked around and saw that a few people had caught their eye on us. Peter noticed too. He grabbed my hand and pulled me along.

“Shit- I knew I shouldn’t have ordered so much.” He muttered, “But I wanted you to try some of everything.” He said, pulling me along faster.

Even though Peter and I were nearly running, one of the men that had been watching us caught up. Peter stepped in front of me and pulled a knife from his tunic. I thought it strange that he was training with magic, but he could not defend himself. Maybe magic wasn’t illegal here, but still frowned upon.

We had been cornered into an alley between some pubs. There were no people to help us or even enough light where people would be given the opportunity to do so. The man swung at us with the knife. Before either Peter or I could do anything there was a large bolt of light that came from me. I had forgotten that I told me shirts to protect me. The man dropped to the ground.

Peter grabbed my hand and this time we ran as fast as we could. I squeezed Peters hand and the pastry bag so hard that I thought my fingers would fall off. The man had just fallen to the ground. I couldn’t tell if I was more scared at the thought of killing him or the thought that he was still following behind us.

“Hurry up.” He said, pulling me along. I struggled trying to keep up with him. There was never a need for me to move this quickly before, so I was out of breath and it felt like I was going to collapse.

Once we had gotten into the upper city he slowed down. He leaned against an ivy-covered wall and took a moment to catch his breath. I couldn’t catch mine. My sides and my legs burned from moving so rapidly. He stared at me for a moment.

“Are you alright?” He asked, coming closer. He wiped a few tears I didn’t know were there from my face, “What’s wrong?”

“I think I killed him.” I said, holding on tighter to the cloth bag. My whole body shook.

“It’s going to be alright.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly, “They would have killed him for his crime anyway. Whatever happened just saved him the pain of being hanged.” He said.

That didn’t make me feel any better. It was my fault that a man had died- and my magic. Maybe it was dangerous and I had been rightfully sent away. That just made me cry harder. Peter didn’t let go of me.

“What happened?” He asked when I calmed down.

“My shirt,” I wiped the snot from my nose with the sleeve of my shirt, “It’s charmed to protect me.”

Peter managed to give me a small smile, “That wasn’t your fault. Anyone could be wearing a charm and he knew that-“

“But I charmed it! It is my fault!” I said, tears slipping from my eyes again.

He paused and looked at the embroidered part of my shirt. Neither of us spoke for some time.

“He was going to kill us.” Peter said. He grabbed my hand again and began leading me through the streets.

“What?” I asked as I held on tighter to his hand. There was a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that made me feel sick. I thought I might vomit.

“He was going to kill us. I know who he works for.” Peter said. He squeezed my hand back. “So it was either kill or be killed. Sometimes that’s how it works.”

I wished that wasn’t how it worked. Ending lives was not something I was fond of either in idea or in practice. It was a wonder how people in the military did it. Maybe after a while it didn’t matter.

“It’s going to be alright. I will tell my mother after you get settled in.” He said.

In front of us there was a well-lit building. There were many windows, all of which covered by blue curtains. There were two flags raised at the entrance of the building. One of them was clearly the country’s flag and I had absolutely no clue what the other flag was.

We entered the front of the school. There was a woman at the front entrance watching us. She had her arms crossed over her chest as we approached the school. It was clear she already knew that it was Peter approaching.

“You’re late Peter.” The woman said. She looked at me and frowned, “Who are you.”

“Aeria.” I said. She blinked a few times before recalling the name.

“I don’t have a room ready. I hardly received the letter a day before your things were dropped off. You won’t have proper room tonight-“

“Give her the room next to mine.” Peter said. “It’s always empty and I don’t like being alone in the hall.” He said.

The woman looked surprised, “She is not nobility or royalty and that’s who it is reserved for.” She said.

It was my turn to be surprised. The letter had not mentioned that I was the Princess of Drotak. Everything I was doing in this country was new- including making my future. No one knew that I was royalty and they wouldn’t change how they acted because of it. I saw how people acted towards us when we were visiting the upper city- they basically groveled to help Beatrix when she was nothing but rude to them.

“I don’t care.” Peter said. “She can set up her things in my hall.”

The woman finally gave in. It took a little bit of convincing to get the woman to let me stay there, but as long as I stayed a good student and followed the rules, the woman said she wouldn’t object. Peter seemed happy about it.

“So, you’re either nobility or royalty.” I said as we carried my trunk to my new room. Peter shrugged. I understood not wanting to answer. “I would like to tell your mother. It was not your fault, I was mine.”

“But it was because of me.” Peter said.

Neither of us spoke until we got to the hall. I liked the silence. We could hear each footstep we made as we made our way to the hall. There were orbs of light down the hall, lighting up the whole hall. There were six rooms in the hall. I could tell which one was Peter’s because it was the only one with a worn door knob.

“Which one do you want?” He asked me.

“I want to be able to look at the city.” I decided. He nodded and brought me to the room across from his. The corner room opposite from Peter was now my place of residence until I graduated from this school. After that, I had no idea.

“Set your trunk down and get clean clothes on. We’re going to see my mother.” He said as we set the trunk down in my room. I nodded and closed the door behind him as he walked out.

It didn’t take long to get dressed. The only reason it had taken me so long in the first place was because I suddenly felt tired. The whole day of events finally got to me. It had been a very long day.

Peter was waiting outside my room when I came out. He looked surprised when I came out in my dress. I had put my nicest dress on, hoping to make a good impression on his mother. If he was from the upper city, I had to make a good impression- especially if I was to associate with their son.

Peter was also dressed nicely. He was no longer just wearing a plain tunic and breeches. He looked like a proper young noble, the sort my parents would set Francis and I on playdates with.

“Let’s go see mother. We’re going to have to go the back way to get out of here and the servants entrance to get into the castle this late at night.” He said. He opened his room and lead me to the closet. He opened the closet and pushed his clothes back. There was another door at the back of the closet. Before we entered the secret entrance he grabbed the cloth bag of pastries and brought them along too.

“Why do you have another exit? Do all the rooms have this?” I asked.

“Yes- just promise you won’t treat me different once you meet my mother.” He said.

“Why would I treat you different?” I asked. Unless his mother was the biggest criminal known to this country, I wasn’t sure why I would treat him any different.

We snuck out of the school. The grounds empty around the back of the school and there was no light. We snuck off of the school grounds and headed towards the castle. He took a turn once we were in the front of it, as the front gates were closed and heavily guarded. We walked a few blocks until there was a garden.

“I thought we were going to the castle.” I said.

“We are. Just hold on.” He whispered. He led me into the garden and pushed some of the ivy that was covering the walls of the garden back. There was a door behind it. He looked around before quietly opening the door.

The moment we entered the hall I could feel the energy inside. There were probably a lot of mage spells protecting the secret entrance, in case someone ever did find out and choose to attack the castle that way. At home our castle had a secret entrance too. I had been in it several times when I was sneaking out to look at the lake at night.

“Don’t ever tell anyone about the entrance.” He said.

“Why do you trust me?” I asked. He was being friendlier to me than anyone aside from my brother ever had been.

“Because you took the oath too. That means you can’t tell anything about the group, so I think you won’t tell things about me.” He said.

“You won’t tell things about me either then?” I asked.

“No.” He said.

“I can’t go back to my country. My father said he’ll execute me if I return without invitation.” I said. I wasn’t sure if that was really a secret, but I definitely didn’t want to tell anyone else about it.

“He’ll kill you?” He asked.

“No. The royal guards will. They’re the ones who execute criminals.” I said.

“You’re a princess.” He said after a while, “I guess the hall still is strictly for nobles and royalty.” He said, laughing for a moment.

“Don’t tell anyone.” I said. He nodded.

“I’m the prince. It doesn’t matter if you tell anyone though because everyone knows already.” He said.

It didn’t take long to reach the end of the corridor. Peter knocked on the door with an odd rhythm and within the minute the door swung open. A woman dressed far more ornately than I had ever seen before was on the other side of the door. She was beautiful.

“Peter- you brought someone?” She looked at me with a frown, “You know you can’t do that.”

“Don’t worry mom. She had to come.” He said. He took my hand and dragged me into the room. One day maybe I would get to take his hand and bring him places, maybe once I knew the city well.

“Why? What happened?” She said.

“Someone attacked us on our way back to the school.” He said.

“Were you in the lower city?” She asked him, whisking us to the seating area of her room.

“Yes. She is new at the school and new in the country so I told her that I would show her around,” He lied, “And on the way back from a bakery someone attacked us with a knife-“

“Goddess help me! Are you alright Peter! Is your friend alright? Did you two go to the lower city looking like that?” She asked, throwing many more questions our way.

“We were not dressed like this, mother.” Peter said.

“We are fine, your highness. We got redressed before coming here.” I said. She sighed and sat the three of us down at the sitting area. She pulled a string, which rang a bell, that was next to the table. It was probably to bring tea.

“What happened?” She asked.

“He died.” Peter said quietly.

“Can you repeat that?” She asked.

“He died.” Peter repeated, louder this time. His mother sat there for a while just staring at the two of us.

“How?” She asked, “How in the Otokov’s name did he die?”

“Her tunic was spelled for protection.” Peter said.

“By whom! And how much money was it for such protection?” She asked me. She no longer seemed concerned that we had killed a man and became more interested in the fact that I had managed to get such a protection spell.

“I made it,” I said, never looking up at the queen, “I didn’t intend on it killing someone-“

“You made it dear?” She asked. She did not hide her look of surprise.

“Mother, someone died.” Peter said.

“Yes, but he tried to kill the two of you.” She said. “I know that this is hard for the two of you to understand because you are so young, but some people are making their own grave markers. His death would have been inevitable, but if you hadn’t defended yourselves then you would have been dead as well.”

“I know.” I said, sighing. That was the problem. It wasn’t a choice. The man had to be killed and whether or not it was my protection spell or any other kind of my magic, the man would have died. I could not control my magic; even if I decided that I didn’t want it, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

We spoke for a while before there was a knock at the door. Peter got up to open the door for the servant. The woman brought the tea in with little cakes on the side. They looked delicious. That’s when Peter remembered that he brought pastries.

“I brought food.” He said.

“Is this the food you nearly died for,” The queen pushed it away, “You two deserved it. I’ll just eat the cakes.”

“Are you sure mother?” Peter asked.

“Of course, I am.” She said. She looked over at me, “Did I ever introduce myself?” She asked.

“No.” Peter said as he crammed a sweet into his mouth and slid several over to me.

“How rude of me, you must pardon that.” She said, taking a sip of tea, “I am Queen Eliza- but I would prefer if you just called me Eliza.”

“We must finish the tea quickly, mother. We have classes early tomorrow to discuss what we will be doing for this semester.” Peter said. Eliza nodded and we finished our tea in silence. I wondered briefly what it would be like to be this close with parents, but wondering wouldn’t do me any good so I stopped.

We exited the same way we entered the castle. The hall seemed darker and colder than it had been when we entered the hall. The secret door was closed just as tightly as we had left it though. I wondered how Peter intended on checking the outside this time, since he couldn’t see out. He didn’t- he just started to push it. I grabbed onto the sleeve of his tunic and pulled him back, immediately regretting it once I had done it.

“What?” He frowned, not upset that I had grabbed him without warning. I had expected anger or violence. I was relieved when that wasn’t the reaction. Peter seemed gentle, I didn’t know why I had expected that.

“You can’t see outside.” I said.

“You can’t when you’re leaving.” He said.

“I can.” I said. He raised an eyebrow and watched as I closed my eyes. I concentrated so I could see if anyone was outside. I would hate for the secret entrance to be revealed because someone was in the garden.

Luckily there was no one in the garden. There was someone relatively close though, so we let them pass before leaving the hall. Peter seemed impressed that I could see beyond barriers and asked me to show him.

Peter spent the whole time getting back to the school closing his eyes and trying to see what I could. It was odd that he couldn’t do it and that I could. We were both mages. We could both do magic, but he couldn’t do what I could do.

“Maybe you’re a different kind of mage,” He said as we entered his room. He sat down on his bed and stared at me, “I can do the normal mage type stuff, but I’m better with animals.” He said.

“There’s different types of mages?” I asked. He looked surprised that I didn’t know for a moment, then he made a different face.

“I forget where you’re from. This must be pretty new to you- wait, do you not know what type of mage you are?” He asked.

“No? How do you find out? And what do you mean you’re better with animals?” I asked.

“I can talk to animals and they really like me,” He laid back on the bed. I sat down next to him. “Or at least I can sort of talk to animals. That’s why I found the guild, so that I could get better.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. The pure fact that someone could speak with animals astounded me. I had always wanted to know what the animals I fed were talking about. Peter knew and could talk back to them. Also the fact that there were different kinds of magic astounded me. I assumed that everyone could do what I could do because I had what they kept calling the gift.

“What’s the guild?” I asked. Everything he was saying was new to me. It was like learning a brand new language or when adults used words that I didn’t know.

“The mages we were with today. Normally there is a guild name, but they couldn’t decide and just decided that The Guild suited them fine,” He raised his hands in the air, “Can you shoot bolts from your body too? Or just your clothes?”

“I’ve never really tried anything but my hands.” I said.

“My magic doesn’t seem as cool as yours. You can spell clothes and see past walls.” He said.

“But you can talk to animals.” I said, leaning back, against him. It was like when Francis and I couldn’t sleep. We used to lay next to each other until one of us fell asleep. The only difference was this was an entirely different country and this wasn’t Francis.

“We’ll go see what kind of mage you are tomorrow during free time. Until then, let’s not tell people you’re a mage. It’s easier to keep that quiet so people don’t ask you for favors.” He said with a sigh.

“Do people know you’re a mage?” I asked.

“And a prince. People never want to talk to me because they like me.” He said.

“Well I like you.” I told him.

We didn’t talk again after that. We just stared at the ceiling for a while. When I noticed that Peter had fallen asleep, I quietly walked to my room and put my night gown on. It had been a long day and so many things happened.