by Tara Brown
"I loved him more than I loved myself." The words were plain and detached.
"That’s the most dangerous love of all. The worst kind." Her words would have burned and hurt me if not for the necklace.
“I believed his love for me was real and that his respect for my station in life prevented us from being together. I believed it because I didn’t want to believe it was rejection. Not from him. He wanted to be with me just as I wanted to be with him. And now, I see that was all lies I told myself. My lies to myself hurt more than his truths.”
Katy popped her head over Mani's shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, Herrick returns tonight from his kingdom. His men are coming with him. They dock in a few hours."
“May I kill him this time, or will you again allow him to slip through my fingers as you did four months ago when he sailed back to his lands with his golden army?” The question left my lips bitterly. Had I been able to feel, they would have been soaked in venom.
She shook her head. “It is not his time. When it is, you will be allowed to murder him in any foul way you see just.”
“I want to kill him, Katy. I want him dead.” Bloodlust trickled through me, dancing and prancing in my veins, but I didn't feel the desperation to kill him like I would have enjoyed.
“You will kill tonight, Amillia.” She said it in a way that made me curious. “Just not him. Not yet. The plan must unfold the way it must so you get all of your revenge.”
"Fine, but I will come with you to the city. I need to do some scouting and find out where he's staying. I need to see him, not kill but see." I eyed them both up. "Unless you know where he’s staying?"
They looked at each other, shrugging and grinning. "He's staying one or two nights at the most as he's en route to your castle, my dear. Invited by the false king, your brother," Mani offered up.
I nodded, grateful for the necklace's power over my rage. "So, he stays in the city tonight?"
Mani crossed her arms. "He stays near the city. But you need to remember it's not time to kill him. You may kill some of his men, perhaps the ones he considers close friends. Whoever the locket shows you. But you may not kill anyone else."
“I’m getting tired of waiting for the right moment. Roland, that pig, has been on the throne for far too long.” Frustration and annoyance were building inside me, even if I couldn't feel it. “I’m bored with killing people who betrayed us, here in Watergate City. I want answers and results. I want to go home and kill my brother. I'm tired of doing this blindly." The words should have been harsh but sounded dull—lifeless. “I want answers.”
Katy put a slim finger with a glossy black nail in my face. "You swore. You swore you would do it the way we asked. This is the way we wish it. You will see why in the end."
I sighed. "I just wish I knew how my mother and grandmother have fared and how my brothers are. I wish I knew where Maddox was and how this all came about. I feel like you two have all the answers and I have none. There is a great storm brewing inside me, but I can't figure it out. You're keeping things from me."
Katy put her hands on either side of my head. "Take Artan and go for a ride. Relax. When you are calm, remove the necklace and cope with the feelings you have been ignoring. You're letting them build up."
I wanted to scream but nothing was raging inside me. "I am calm. I'm always calm. I'm nothing if I'm not calm."
Mani laughed bitterly. "She isn’t taking it off at all. She's become fully dependent on it." She looked me in the eyes and stroked my face. "This is going to sting." Before I could understand what she meant she reached to my throat and yanked.
The pain was instant and crippling.
I dropped to my knees. The floodgates were broken down and everything I'd avoided for months beat me down. Death, pain, loss, and misery were nothing, compared to the soul-crushing understanding that my love had always been false. I had been a child to him and nothing more. My love for him was unwelcomed and unwanted and certainly not reciprocated.
Katy’s words filled the black air around me, "WE NEED HER CALM FOR TONIGHT, MANI! THAT WAS SEVEN LEAGUES PAST FOOLISH! YOU STUPID WITCH!"
Fingers stroked my hair as Katy hummed in my ear. I saw nothing but heard her voice turn to soft mutterings, "She is going to implode. We need to let this be. Let it ride out. Lock her in."
I didn’t know they had left me. I didn’t know anything but pain, frustration, anger, sadness, heartbreak, and anguish. There were tiny flashes of joy and pleasure wrapped up in it all. They trickled through in moments, making me laugh like a madwoman.
I cried until I had nothing left. Not even strength. I lay on the floor and waited for the pain to kill me. To release me. The last feeling I had was guilt.
I woke hours later to nothing. My eyes were stuck together from the sobbing mess I had been. I struggled to sit up and open them.
When I did get them open, I felt lost. I was in a room I'd never seen before. It was dark and cold. I looked down. I wore a red dress and my cloak. My swords were at my sides. My face felt funny. I lifted a trembling hand to discover my lacey masque. My hand touched a piece of paper.
This will help you feel better!
I crumpled the paper and looked around the gray darkness. No doors, no stairs. There were long, thin windows high up on the walls. They let in the silver light of the moon.
I stood on my shaky legs and walked in a circle, trying to discover the way I had made it into the doorless room.
"Mani, Katy?" I spoke softly, feeling too much fear and emptiness. What kind of a joke were they playing on me?
The hole in my heart was bigger than before.
Had the damned witches drawn me a door and left me in a tower with a note? Would solitary confinement make me feel better?
I looked around, confused and doubtful their remedy was going to be any sort of solution, unless they were punishing me for wearing the necklace for too long?
I heard scratching on top of the roof.
"Artan?"
The scratching got louder. I glanced at the bracelet. The locket swung from it, showing me a flickering forest. The face of a person I was apparently sent to kill was trying to clear on the locket. I laughed. There was no way to kill anyone while trapped in a doorless tower.
“The riddles those witches plague me with,” I muttered and glanced about, trying to solve the mystery of my escape, rather than the intention of my confinement.
In the window of the room, a bright-green fiery eye interrupted the silver moonlight. I walked to it, pressing my hand to the glass. Panic was building inside me. “Can you hear me, Artan?” My breathing and heart rate increased. "Artan, help me!" I slapped the glass. “Help me!”
His great huge eye looked beyond me. I glanced back at the circular room made of windows. In the shadow he cast I noticed a black handle on the floor.
I ran to it, lifting with all my might. It was a small gray hatch and below was a set of circular stairs. I looked at Artan's glowing eye and whispered, "Thank you. I'm all right. Try to find me outside." I knew he could hear me. He always could, it seemed.
I lifted my long red dress and slipped down the stairs silently. Long windows like the ones in the tower room were placed strategically. They filtered the silver light in.
At the bottom of the stairs was a long breezeway. It was without rails or guards. Just a thin, flat, stone path hanging mid-air between the tower and the home. I stepped out onto the narrow breezeway and felt my palms immediately dripping with sweat. It wasn't entirely from a fear of heights but also a fear of the unknown. I had spent my childhood amid the towers and turrets without issue. But they were familiar. Once Artan had asked me to ride on his back as he flew I knew where my discomfort lay.
There, atop a breezeway in the middle of nowhere with the unknown on the other side and the wind threatening to push me over, my discomfort with heights of which I was not directly in control of, or at ease with, was very real. I looked down at the lit courtyard far below and realized the strange
place itself made me uncomfortable. Around me everything was dark. I was not in the city. The dark forest surrounded the tower and home, which appeared to be more of a castle.
The heat and the flapping of my friend in the air around me gave me the courage I needed to cross the breezeway. My boots were silent as I crossed, trying desperately to ignore the wind that challenged me. I never pulled my swords; I just listened and watched.
There was no movement, not a heartbeat in the air or a breath upon the wind, none but Artan’s and mine.
The breezeway led to a huge balcony with a door. I turned the handle and poked my head in. My heart was beating out of control, and I wished I still had the necklace. My skin shivered at the memory of the rushing pain and emotions.
The doorway led to a dark room with a light at the end of a hallway. The light, an orange glow under another door, looked like someone moved in it as it was inconstant.
I crept into the hall and waited there in the shadows where I could almost feel the death I was certain to face, someone else’s preferably. There was nowhere to hide or scramble if anyone opened the door.
I reached for the handle but heard a noise. A giggle—a woman's giggle. In the orange glow of the light, I glanced at the locket as a face, a woman's face, pushed the forest scene away. She smiled and laughed, tilting her face back.
I fought a gasp. It was a face I would never forget. My heartbeat nearly stopped.
I looked at the dark metal doorknob as fear wrestled with an unknown feeling. Dread. I dreaded meeting her again. Her family had bested mine, and I couldn’t help but feel as though I was unworthy of challenging her. I knew she would win. My fear would let her.
I closed my eyes and managed my breathing.
The guard trainer's voice whispered to me, Amillia, when adding fear to a fight, you add an opponent. Face the foe and let the fear be what it is, an emotion. Don’t let it become another sword that fights against you with your enemy.
I swallowed hard and bit my lip as I pressed the handle and stepped into what I would never forget. My brother Edward was gagged and bound on the wall of a chamber. He was without clothing and hanging by shackles around his bloody wrists.
I gagged.
Dirt and dried blood caked his white skin and dark hair. Cuts and bruises covered his flesh.
Herrick's mother dragged a riding crop along his torso. "Tell me where she is.”
He groaned but never answered.
Disgust and horror were everywhere, too big inside me for me to understand I needed to pull my swords. I was twitching and jerking with too many feelings to respond.
I took a breath. Edward looked up at me. His eyes flashed. I put a finger to my lips.
It was too late. She saw the look in his eyes as hope spread across his face.
She turned back, her mouth dropping as she gasped, "You! The red-cloaked assassin is a simpering girl!"
I met her gaze. My fear melted into anger and a need for blood and vengeance.
I pulled my swords as she whipped at me with the riding crop. I ducked, slicing at the whip.
She lunged at me but I dodged her again. She was obviously a trained fighter, but not like I was.
I sliced the crop from her hands and kicked her against the stone wall. She moaned and smiled, kicking wildly into the air at me, but I spun with my swords, feeling the contact of my metal to her soft flesh.
She slammed into the wall again, moaning and smiling, “You are more than I imagined, Princess.”
I didn’t even want to know what was happening—how she was enjoying the feeling of my swords cutting her and me besting her.
I looked directly into her eyes as I leaned forward with my sword, stabbing into her heart slowly. I jerked it once it was inside her, dragging it down and tearing her dress and flesh.
She cried out, gagging as bright-red blood coughed from her perfect lips.
"You killed my father," I spoke through gritted teeth.
She laughed bitterly but her face changed as tears dripped from her eyes. "I loved him. Always," she whimpered. "Always." She dropped to her knees and slumped against the wall.
I pulled out my sword as her eyes glassed over. Blood trailed from her slightly parted lips, down her face, and onto the floor.
My breath was leaving my lips in gasps and pants. I didn’t have words for the things she said and the lost, desperate look on her face.
"Amillia?" I looked at Edward as I sheathed one of my swords. His voice snapped me back to the very real situation we were facing.
"Ed." I rushed to him, slashing at the leather shackles on his wrists. He dropped to the floor weakly as I sheathed the second sword. I pulled off my cloak and wrapped it around him. The dirt and blood caked on him had been enough to keep his naked body from my eyes. I lifted him to his feet and pointed to the door I'd come in. "We need to go this way."
"How, Amillia? How are you the assassin everyone speaks of?" he croaked.
I shook my head. "Later. I will explain later." I kissed his dark, sweaty head and pulled him through the dark rooms and halls to the breezeway.
"Artan!" I called as we exited the doorway. He landed like a mighty beast on the stone breezeway.
"WHAT IS THAT?" Ed screamed and clawed at me, suddenly becoming animated and alive.
I laughed and stroked his head. "He's mine. You know how I was always disappearing into the woods? You guys would chase me to try to find where I went. Well, I was with him. He's mine. You're safe, Ed."
He shook his head. "I'm not safe, Millia. I'll never be safe again. You need to get away from me." He tried to pull free, but I gripped him. He pushed me and pulled away, slipping from my grip and leaving me with my cloak. I looked at the tears flooding his desperate face and shook my head. "Don't." I could see the hopeless look in his eyes. "Ed, don’t leave me too."
"Save them, Amillia," his voice cracked as he jumped from the breezeway. A scream ripped from my face. Artan dove, caught him, and flew away.
I dropped to my knees and covered my face for a moment. My heart had stopped with fear but was now back, beating wildly.
The agony of it all was quickly replaced with fury. My eyes shot to the door I'd come from.
What had they done to my brother that he was willing to end his life?
I pulled on my cloak and stood, looking down at my locket. Faces were flashing. One after the other. The locket was giving me the permissions I needed. I so desperately needed.
The door burst open. I pulled my swords. Because of the narrow pathway, the men bursting from the doorway could only come two at a time, at the most. I jumped at the first man, gutting him like a fish.
My bloodlust took over. I was lost in the sea of red and black and fury.
I sliced and kicked and fought until I couldn’t even breathe without tasting their death in the air. Their spray covered my face and eyes, but I let it become part of what I was. A war paint like on a wildling in the forest.
The men tried to cut me but I was on fire. I used the cloak to fight, blocking their swords and knives. An axe was hurled past my head just as I ducked and tried to ignore the sound it made as it sliced into the man who somehow in our dance had ended up behind me.
I found myself in the middle, fighting and knocking them from the breezeway.
Screams and violence filled the blood-spattered air.
Swords stabbed into me, but I ignored them. I cut, sliced, and screamed. I used the men as shields and jumped, kicking others in their faces. Men fell from the breezeway with long screams that were silenced after a moment, the moment they landed with a mighty thud.
When the last man stood before me, he dropped his sword, turned, and ran. I struggled for air as I sheathed my swords and dropped to my knees, wincing. The pain of it all was catching up with me.
I looked over the edge at the bodies littering the dark ground. In the silver moon I could see death was everywhere. I was slipping on blood and soaked in it. Some mine, mostly theirs.
I clut
ched my side where a huge gash was. I knew death was coming for me but I whistled, desperate to die with my friend. I crouched on all fours just as I heard a laugh. My fingers gripped into the stone at the sound of it.
"Your fighting skills are beyond what anyone would have ever guessed, Princess. When I get you home and trained properly, I believe you will be the first woman to satisfy my needs."
I looked up at the smiling face of an unarmed Herrick. I spit words coated in blood from my mouth, "It is you that will satisfy my need. My need for vengeance. I will see your death, Herrick. It will be the last image that burns itself into my mind’s eye." I coughed a death rattle as the last of my air was leaving me. Wheezing, I struggled to get more and pushed myself up, pulling just one sword with a shaking hand. “Come and get it.”
He put his hands out. "I only want to make up, my darling. I must apologize for never seeing you as a worthy adversary. I do now. I never should have misjudged you as I did. I am sorry. Now let's make up, shall we?" He looked at the death surrounding him and shook his head. "Who would have thought such a pretty girl could take so many lives?"
I sniffed and wiped the blood from my face, flinging it down on the stone breezeway. "I have one more to take." I pointed my sword at him. The locket on my extended hand became the forest again but I ignored it.
He reached back and pulled a sword from behind him. "I would love nothing more than a last dance with you, because if I can't have you, then no one will, Amillia."
I laughed. "Oh, I'll let you have me, Herrick." I waved the sword at him and stumbled forward, trying to make my injuries seem worse than they were. It wasn't hard; they were as bad as they could be.
He grinned. His jowls shook as he laughed but he lunged at me just as warmth filled the air around us. Herrick stopped before he could reach me, and I was lifted away as I swung at him anyway.
"NOOOOO," I screamed, struggling to get away.
