Mark of the Assassin

5th of spring, 89 N.W.

Dear Francis,

I safely made it to the school. I am glad to hear from you- although I think you should keep your money. I do not need it. Father sent me with several coins and it should pay for everything I need. No one knows that I’m a princess, so I’ve decided not to correct them. I have met a friend here, Peter, and he is helping me.

I know that no one at home would approve, but I’m still doing my tricks. I’m getting better at them- but I fear that I can’t control them. They call my tricks the gift here and tell me that I am a mage. I don’t know what kind I am, but I hope to find out. I’ll write you back and tell you once I find out. I wish you could have seen it! I can heal people like nothing happened to them! I wish that I could have healed you before I left.

Although I can’t heal you, I am sending a gift. You can throw it away if you wish because it is magicked. It is for healing. It will not hurt anybody, but it will help you heal faster. I learned it today at the guild. That is what a group of mages I’m studying with calls themselves. The item itself is not magic, but I put magic in it for you. I bought it with the coin you gave me. I hope you don’t mind. I also bought you some seeds to plant- the lady said that these flowers are best indoors if it’s cold. I trust you can get the proper items to grow plants. Peter says that these are the prettiest flower in the spring.

Tell Thea that I send my love if you can. Do not worry if you cannot. I knew there would come a day when Thea changed. There was no possible way that she could stay like us forever when Beatrix will not let her go. Just remember that once you are out of the nursery that you have to stay strong, please. I will miss you terribly if you become violent and refuse to write me back.

I love you. Make sure to stay safe and if you cannot manage that, remember that you have the charm.

Love, Aeria

“Did you get those where I told you?” D’aknu asked.

“We’re going there tonight. I got these somewhere Peter showed me.” I told her. She nodded and took a bite of her breakfast. It looked mushy and brown. I had no idea what was even being served.

“It’s oats.” Peter said, as if he was sensing that I didn’t know what was in front of me. I watched as everyone else in the room ate it, even the kids from the upper city. If the upper city kids could eat it, then I was sure that I could too.

I took a bite. It was definitely not the sort of food I was used to eating, but it was good. For being mushy and brown, it was surprisingly sweet. There was another food that I was not accustomed to in front of me. It was some sort of fruit, so I took a bite. Peter laughed.

The fruit was bitter and I spit it out on the table. D’aknu was laughing at me too now. I frowned and wondered if this was even supposed to be eaten. It seemed like it was not meant to be eaten.

“You’re supposed to peel it,” Peter told me, taking the fruit from me and peeling off the part that I had just tried to eat. It revealed a tender flesh that Peter tore apart and handed back to me. “They must not have these in Drotak?”

“No. Fruits are a delicacy.” I said.

“Did you get many?” D’aknu asked.

“Yes. Not kinds like this though.” I said, taking a bite of the fleshy part of the fruit. It was much sweeter than the oats that I had just eaten. It was also juicer, as some juice dripped from my mouth before I could help it. I wiped it off with my sleeve and finished the fruit. It was delicious.

“Where can we find these I the night market?” I asked Peter.

“I guess we can look tonight.” He said. D’aknu looked surprised that we went to the night market.

“Can I come?” She asked.

“After free time.” I told her. She raised an eyebrow but agreed to meet us anyways. We decided upon meeting at a bakery that she said was good. The pastries here were too good to not buy whenever we had the chance.

D’aknu ate the rest of her lunch happily. She even gave me the rest of her fruit. Evidently not everyone ate their fruit, so I collected up the extras for me to eat later. Peter helped me, laughing sometimes as a fruit dropped from my grip and I struggled to pick it back up.

“You behave like a peasant.” One of the girls in a dress told me. She looked at Peter and scoffed, “I do not see why a Prince is gallivanting around with a commoner and helping her collect fruits.”

“I do not know what gallivanting meant.” Peter said. She scoffed again and walked away. One of the teachers that had overheard told us what it meant, as they often did when we didn’t know what words meant. It was nice to know so many new words.

The teacher also told us that if we were going to collect so many fruits that maybe we should give them to the children in the lower city, since many of them went without food so often. Peter and I decided that this was a good idea and that when D’aknu met up with us after free time we could give the fruits we didn’t get around to eating to people.

We filled the cloth bag that we were given with the pastries with the fruit, but still had more. I decided that these would be the fruits that we ate. They probably did not give these out every day, as they were probably expensive. Expensive or not, I knew that I would have to eat them quickly because several of them already looked like they were going soft.

When Peter and I ventured out for free time, we were already surrounded by begging children before we got to the pub. Instead of waiting until after, we gave out all the fruits before. The children grabbed their fruit and scattered like mice. Maybe they thought we were going to take the fruit back.

One kid was left. She held no fruit and looked thinner than anyone I had ever seen. She looked as if I could push her over with one finger. She looked in the bag and saw that there were no more fruits left. She shed a tear before trying to walk away.

“Wait,” I told her. She looked at me and sniffled. “Is your family hungry too?” I asked. She nodded.

“Everyone is hungry.” Peter said, “There is not enough jobs.” He said.

“Do you know where a bank is?” I asked her. She nodded, so I pulled a silver coin out of my coin pouch. I put it into her hand as if I was trying to shake hands, I did not want her to be robbed because someone saw me give her a silver coin. “Don’t show anyone and come and see us tomorrow.” I whispered.

The girl held onto the coin with all her life and ran as quickly as she could. She dodged through the people as she hurried to the bank. The sun was setting, so I was not sure if the bank was closing yet. Hopefully they would still be open by the time free time was over. That was the whole reason I carried several coins with me.

“Why would you do that? Tell her to come back tomorrow?” Peter asked.

“Because if finding jobs is an issue, then I think that will help more than giving money.” I said. The money would maybe feed her family for the week, but once the week was up they would be hungry again.

“But no one has jobs.” He said.

“I am sure that is not true. It did not seem like there were so many dock workers when I came to the city.” I told him.

“But nobody wants to work on the docks. It is dangerous.” He said.

“Then they do not want to feed their family.” I said. I had been on the boat coming to this country for a long while and I had only seen one man get hurt. I was sure that if people were careful that they would be fine.

“So you’re going to send her to the docks?” He asked me.

“Rose said that they needed runners up at the docks.” I said. Remembering as we docked. I had seen many children running through the docks, dodging men and jumping over boxes. She had told me that they ran messages between ships.

Peter kept quiet after that. Maybe he realized that there were jobs available, just that no one wanted to do some of them. Rose had talked to me about this when we were on the ship. She said that they were short sailors because no one wanted to do the work. Not everyone could just do clean work, she told me, and sometimes people had to do things they didn’t want in order to help their family.

We arrived at the pub. Josef had not arrived just yet, but we began our lessons anyways. Carac gave us both books full of blank pages to write in and Ryia gave us charcoal in order to write in the books. We were charming more things today and learning how to tell if something was charmed. Every spell we learned we wrote down.

“Not everything is about spells,” Ryia said as she glanced down at our books, “But once you have spells down, you understand why the magic works and you can begin to do wordless magic.”

“What if we never learn that?” Peter asked. He muttered every time he did magic unless it was with animals.

“Then you cannot be a great mage.” Carac said.

“But what-“

“Great mages don’t just run shops that sell charms.” Carac said, “Sometimes we are called to duty and have to serve our country- which means that if we are heard we might be slain.”

“What he means is, there will be times that you cannot be heard and if you only cast spells with you speaking then you will not make it very far.” Ryia said. She put her hand on Peter’s shoulder and squeezed, “You will be a great mage one day.”

Peter didn’t look like he believed her. I believed her. Peter could speak with any animal he pleased without receiving a second glance. If he hadn’t told me that he was an animal mage then I wouldn’t have known.

The whole time we walked to meet D’aknu he looked unhappy. I knew that he was distraught because he thought that he wasn’t getting the hang of being a mage yet. He was wrong though. He was doing all the spells, betting than me, that were being taught to us. There had to be some struggling, just like in life. Sometimes failing was the only way to learn how to succeed.

“Do you want pastries?” I asked as we passed a bakery. He didn’t say anything, so I grabbed his hand and headed inside. We both got a couple pastries for a copper noble. Peter just left his in the cloth bag and slowly walked behind me.

D’aknu was waiting exactly where we said we would meet. She looked happy to see us. I offered her one of my pastries as she walked towards us. She gladly accepted it and ate it nearly as quickly as the starving kids we had fed earlier.

“People were talking about the two of you before I left.” She said, swallowing all of her food in one gulp, “They don’t like you.” She told me.

“Who?” Peter asked, the first time he had spoken in a little while.

“Just few of the upper city kids. They think that it below you to be around her and collect fruits like a commoner- by the way, what did you do with all the fruits, because they’ll go bad before you get a chance to eat them all?” She asked.

“Gave them to some of the kids down here.” Peter said.

“They’re so mean!” D’aknu said.

“Don’t worry.” I told her, “I’ve dealt with much worse.”

“But you shouldn’t have to.” Peter said, taking a pastry out of the bag and eating it. I feared that he would take so long to eat it that it would go stale, so I was happy he ate it now.

“I can handle myself.” I told him, “It’s better left alone.”

The two of them were not content with that, but they would have to be. I did not wish to create a problem. They could have as many opinions on me as they wished, but their opinions were just that- opinions. It was sometimes easier to just accept what was happening and not fight against it.

“Let’s go to that shop you told me about.” I told D’aknu. She nodded and led the two of us deeper into the city. It was completely dark out by the time we got there. The shop was nearly closed when we walked inside. I bought another pair of tunic and breeches before leaving. I now had three pairs, not including the one that Rose had given me.

“We can sneak back in through my room. It’s on the ground level.” She said. We agreed with her, for we did not want to reveal our secret entrances, and hurried back to the school. The lights illuminated the path to the school.

We hurried to D’aknu’s side of the building and climbed through her window. She lit a fire and we sat together talking for a bit. Peter looked much happier by the time we decided to call it a night. The two of them spoke of where they grew up and had many stories. I decided not to chime in.

Peter and I stayed in his room after I had gotten into my night gown. We still had a pastry to finish. I lit the fire from where we sat and the two of us watched the fire grow. It was peaceful sitting here late at night.

“You didn’t talk about your home.” Peter said.

“That’s because I don’t like it.” I said. I laid on my back, staring at the ceiling. Stars were painted on the ceiling. I could see all the constellations that Francis and I used to sneak out to look at. We used to wonder if that’s where the celestial realms were and wonder how we could get up there. We wanted to get away from home, him more than anything.

“Why not?” He asked.

“It was a cruel place.” I said. I too wanted to leave home. The chance to leave home came in a different way that I had imagined it would though- being exiled with the threat of death if I ever returned. It was probably better this way, as it was probably the only real chance I would have gotten to leave.

“Why?” He asked.

“Mother and father didn’t love Francis and I.” I said. I was not sure if it was because they were too heartbroken to love us or simply if they ran out of love by the time we were born. There was a sibling between Beatrix and Thea and yet another one between Thea and I. Both had died as babes. I faintly remember having a younger sister when I was younger, but she died as a babe too. Maybe the babe mother carried now would live to adulthood.

“That can’t be true! Parents are supposed to love their children.” Peter told me. He laid back in the bed too. We stared at the stars for a few seconds before I decided that I might as well tell him. He knew I was a princess, so he might as well know that Beatrix was terrible.

“If they loved us, then they wouldn’t let our sister abuse us. If they loved her they wouldn’t let her drink so much wine that she can’t walk. She is only a child but she has the force of grown man. I have never met someone so violent as Beatrix.

“If they loved us then they would let us speak. They would let us visit them. Yet they don’t. We are shut up in the castle and raised by the servants- left to cry with one another because if we cried to them then we would surely be struck.” I felt tears slipping out of my eyes and down my face as I spoke. True as it was, it felt awful to say out loud.

Peter grabbed my hand and squeezed it. Many children knew troubles worse than mine, such as starving, but I couldn’t help to cry. Francis was still there. He was stuck at the castle with Beatrix waiting like a hungry animal to make her move.

“You’re here now.” He said. “And you might as well make the most of it. You can do anything you want here and no one will ever hurt you while I’m here.”

He wrapped his arms around me and held me close as we laid in the bed. I wondered if he could even make a promise like that. After a while I decided that he could. That meant that I could make the same promise.

After a while we got tired of the bed. So, we decided to sit on the floor and read. Neither of us could sleep. We read story after story out of one of his books. It had drawings of so many creatures that I could only dream of seeing. The book said that these creatures were rare, but they could be observed if the creatures like the person.

“I’ve seen that before.” Peter said, pointing at the dragon.

“When? Where?” I asked, staring at the picture in front of me. The creature looked as if it could eat me alive. It was probably the size of the castle.

“It was a baby and I found it a few years ago when we went to visit another city.” He said. He yawned and closed the book. “I think I’ll go to bed now.”

As I walked out of the room he stopped me. He hesitated, opening his mouth and then shutting it again.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you ever want to do my kind of magic?” He asked. I thought about it for a moment. “Yeah.” I decided. Peter just nodded and got under his blankets.

“Goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.” He said.

“Goodnight.” I told him as I shut the door behind me and headed to my room. It lit the fire as I got into bed. The room warmed up as the fire grew taller. I would probably have to bring more firewood to my room if I wished to have a fire tomorrow.

I wondered about the dragon that Peter spoke of and imagined getting to see one with my own eyes. Peter could speak with animals, so maybe he could speak to the creatures in the book as well. They were animals too, the only difference was that they were created and blessed by the gods at their creation.

Maybe the gods and goddesses got to choose who got to meet the creatures. I wondered what being blessed by one of the gods or goddesses was like. There were stories of people who had been blessed and they always ended fantastically. It would be lovely to be blessed by the gods. The blessed always amounted to great things. I would probably never become more than a mage selling charms.