The door opened behind her and a tall man stepped in, dressed in a tight blue and black flight suit. He saluted.
"I must leave,” her father said and Ixion heard a chair move. Her father appeared in view and then stopped beside her, facing his officer. He placed a hand on her shoulder and turned his head towards her. “We will speak of this in a few days when I return."
With that, he walked away. Natalia remained in the same spot, hunched up and with her eyes closed. The pink stain on her cheeks darkened, as though she was thinking of the male who had stolen her attention. Ixion's heart darkened at the same rate as her cheeks, jealousy coiling deep within it. He had never wanted to kill a male more. He had never wanted to kill anyone at all for his own sake.
He stood and reminded himself that it wasn't his place to do things outside of his orders and his duty. Following Natalia into the city had broken the rules of a royal assassin, along with his failure to report her actions. He couldn't break any more rules without drawing attention to himself and bringing dishonour to his family.
As difficult as it was for him, he had to maintain his distance from Natalia and stop fooling himself into believing that something might ever happen between them. A princess would never fall in love with an assassin, and she would certainly never marry a man like him.
When she married, it would be to a king, a leader of men and a public figure that people looked up to. A male of the standing that she deserved.
It wouldn't be to someone who didn't even exist in the eyes of universe.
It wouldn't be him.
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Chapter 3
Natalia sighed for the hundredth time and stared out over the beautiful city as the sun set. Golden light cast an unearthly glow over the tiled roofs of the town and the tall tower of the city hall, turning them warm and peaceful. She had seen pictures of the towns that had once stood on Earth and one in particular reminded her most of her city. A place they had called Prague. She was sure that the city architects must have studied the towns of Earth when they had designed hers.
The waterfall cascaded below her, dropping the hundred feet to the pool at its base. The sun turned the water golden as it flowed out into the city, following the intricate network of canals.
In the town square, she could see them setting up the festival but it was too far away to get any real image of what it would look like. She longed to go there once in her lifetime, to wander around the stalls and see the entertainment with her own eyes. Hearing about it from her attendants wasn't enough. Every year it sounded more exciting, and every year she wanted to go more.
A small sleek blue and silver fighter vessel lifted off from the royal port and circled around the palace before heading upwards.
Her father.
She glared at the ship, glad that he was gone. Suitors? What was he thinking? She didn't want him to try to pair her off in the same way her cousin Sophia's father had.
Natalia rested her elbows on the white stone balustrade of the balcony and propped her head up on her hands. Suitors?
She wanted to be free to choose her own husband just as her older sister Renie had. Renie would return soon with her twin Rezic. Natalia couldn't wait to see them again, and meet the Vegan prince that Renie was going to marry, but the excitement was dampened by her father's proposition to find her a suitor.
A suitor!
Natalia turned her glare on the city. She didn't want males offering her planets and systems and monies or power. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted to be free.
She wanted to sing.
The sun touched the horizon and she looked down at the entertainment quarter. With the setting of the sun, the city would be changing. The stores would be closing and the bars opening. It was a different world down there after dark.
A deep longing to go down into the city to the club grew in her heart but she told herself that she couldn't. Singing made her forget her worries and made her happy. It was the one thing that made her feel free.
It was the one thing that she had promised she would give up.
She couldn't go down into the city. She had sworn to Ixion that she wouldn't go there anymore, even though she desperately wanted to. It would break her promise with Ixion and he might tell her parents this time. She couldn't outsmart a royal assassin of his standing. No matter which way she chose to go, he was bound to see her and stop her.
It was useless.
She couldn't risk it. If Ixion told her father, he might keep her locked in the palace until he found a male to marry her off to.
Soft steps on the white flagstones made her tense. She imagined it was a handsome male dressed in black, a dangerous male who made her giddy just from looking at him. The person came to stand beside her.
Not a male at all.
Her mother.
Natalia looked at her, managing a smile. Her father was right. She was the very image of her mother. Their black hair and bright green eyes matched perfectly. Her brothers and sister all looked more like their father. Perhaps that was why her father doted on her so much, because she looked like her mother. But then that didn't answer the question burning in her heart. Why had her father decided to start accepting proposals for her?
"Missing your father?” her mother said.
Natalia took the small black translator bud from her ear. Sometimes it was nice to speak to her mother without it.
"No,” Natalia said in Terran. Her mother smiled and removed her translator too.
"Have you two been arguing again?” Her mother's look was gentle, concerned, and it lifted some of the weight from Natalia's heart but made her feel weak at the same time. If she cried like she wanted to her mother would understand, but what kind of princess cried over something like this? She had always been the strong one, the responsible one, and that wasn't going to change now.
Natalia looked out at the city again.
"Are there really suitors contacting you?” Her voice trembled but she held it together. She wouldn't cry over something like this.
"He told you then?” her mother said on a sigh and placed her arm around Natalia's shoulders. She squeezed them and Natalia closed her eyes, feeling as though her future had already been determined and her sentence pronounced. Her father really did intend to take proposals from suitors. “Don't worry. He won't go through with it."
"How do you know?” Natalia leaned her head against her mother's shoulder, needing the comfort.
"Because he has mentioned it before and nothing came of it. He won't give you up so easily ... at the moment he is just overwhelmed. He didn't expect you to grow up so quickly and be noticed so soon after you turned mating age."
There was a little comfort in those words but not enough. Her father could be unduly stubborn when it came to his duty and he would see finding her a good husband as one of his duties, even when she was willing to beg him not to. In that respect she was much like her father. She would do her duty and what was expected from her, even when it broke her heart.
"I don't want a suitor,” she mumbled, her heart heavy again.
"And you won't have one,” her mother said and held her closer. “Renie and Rezic will return soon and we will all be together again. The preparations for Renie's wedding will keep him distracted. We can make sure that we reach the letters before him and get rid of any ones from suitors. If they contact him directly through the imperial army, we will simply have to bide our time. Renie's wedding will satisfy him and it is only a few months away."
A few months. In that time, her father might have given his consent to any number of the suitors who were bound to contact him via channels that she couldn't access. Neither her nor her mother had the clearance required to enter the imperial army's computer system.
She considered asking Rezic for help but thought the better of it. While her eldest brother could access the system, he was bound to be on her father's side. Mentioning it to him would only bring it to her father's attention again.
>
It was better to sit and wait just as her mother had suggested.
"Don't stay out too long. It will be cold tonight.” Her mother squeezed her shoulders one last time and then left.
Natalia looked up at the darkening sky. Today had been such a good day too. For the first time in a long time, she had enjoyed doing her duty and had been happy without resorting to singing. Why had her father had to spoil it by talking to her of suitors?
She should have told him who she had thought of when he had asked her if she had a male. Her father would have had Snrikiks if she had announced that the male she wanted wasn't of royal blood or high status.
It was an assassin.
Ixion.
He had been on her mind all day. Every meeting that she had attended had been made a little easier because she had been thinking of him. She had relived their walk back to the palace from the city hall, telling her guards that she wanted a little air. She had retraced their steps and remembered the way that he had looked at her. It still made her heart race.
But there was no hope for a princess and a royal assassin.
Her father would have laughed at her once the initial shock had passed. He would have thought that she was joking.
Renie was going to marry a prince and her father would expect no less from her.
With another long sigh, Natalia started singing softly, hoping to lift the pain from her heart.
Only tonight, singing didn't make her happy.
For some reason it made her feel sad.
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Chapter 4
Natalia's heart missed a beat and her pulse quickened when Ixion and two other men in similar black uniform stepped out of her father's day chambers. One of her mother's attendants had told her that they would find her there. Whenever her father was away, her mother took care of household business. Did she have business with the royal assassins? Ixion was their commander. Natalia didn't know the other two but they looked the same age as Ixion, if not a little younger.
She quickly smoothed her sky blue empire-line dress down and slowed to a more measured and demure pace. It had taken her three hours to dress this morning, two and a half hours longer than usual, and the reason she had taken such care was now talking to his men right in front of her. If he had noticed her, it didn't show on his face as he stood with his profile to her, discussing something that she couldn't hear.
Her steps didn't falter as she walked towards him, her hands clasped in front of her. Her two attendants walked a step behind her, silent support that she badly needed. They were the closest she had to friends, two women that she had known since turning ten. They shared everything with each other and they were always there to support her when she needed them most. Today was one of those days. It wasn't just because she had resolved to find Ixion and see him again, but because she had decided that she was going to go out. She was going to go to the festival and her mother wasn't going to stop her this time.
Ixion was only steps away from her now. Natalia willed him to look at her, to see her. She knew that he wouldn't but she wanted him to. She had made so much effort with her appearance today and it was all for him.
Just as she passed, she heard the shift of his boots on the stone flags and felt his gaze on her. Her mouth turned dry and she resisted the temptation to look at him. Playing hard to get was something that her attendants had always told her about whenever they had talked of males but it was more difficult than she had imagined. Her strength failed as the guards standing either side of the double door reached over and opened it. Her gaze slid to the side and a thrill bolted through her when she found Ixion's clear purple eyes fixed on her face.
"Natalia.” Her mother's voice jolted her out of her reverie and she stepped into the room with her two attendants.
The doors closed.
"Whatever brings you here?” Her mother sat back down on the royal blue and silver couch, spreading her long cream satin gown across it.
Natalia could see past the smile plastered on her mother's face. She was always sad when her father went away. The worry lines between her mother's fine black eyebrows made Natalia sigh. She went over to her mother and wrapped her arms around her shoulders as she sat down beside her.
Her mother's smile faltered.
"He'll be back soon,” Natalia said with a real smile, hoping to brighten up her mother. “It's only an escort mission within the Lyra system this time and if he encounters any trouble, he'll survive. He's too stubborn to die on the battlefield."
Her mother laughed. “You are right but it still doesn't stop me from worrying about him. Balt's stubbornness is the reason I worry so much."
Natalia understood that. Her father wasn't likely to turn tail and run if he encountered any resistance. He would fight to the end for Lyra.
She took hold of her mother's hand and squeezed it as she tried to think of a way to broach the subject that she had come here to raise. It was difficult now that she knew her mother was worried about her father. She didn't want to increase that worry by suggesting that she was going to go to the festival.
Natalia looked at her two attendants where they waited by the door. They nodded.
Perhaps they were right. Her plan might actually go better now that her mother was worried and she was sure that nothing would happen to them down in the city. They would only be there a few short hours and if things went to plan, they wouldn't be alone. They would have the best protection in the galaxy.
"Mother ... I am going to go into the city today.” Her heart fluttered and she could barely meet her mother's gaze.
Her mother's emerald eyes were wide, fear shining in them. “But the festival is in full swing and there are reports of potential unrest amongst some of the purist factions."
For a moment, Natalia's heart faltered and she almost said that she would stay in the palace. Ixion had spoken of danger in the city but Natalia hadn't realised that it was so bad. The purist factions hated Lyra and wanted revenge for what it had done to the Terran species. Years ago, the Earth system had been caught in the war between Lyra and Vega. It had been decimated and the Terran people scattered across the galaxy, orphans in space. Her father had met her mother, the last Terran princess, by accident when she was a slave and they had fallen in love. Her mother had united her people again and it had been so peaceful on Lyra Five, their new home world, that Natalia had thought the Terran people's hatred of Lyra had been healed and its sin forgiven.
Clearly it hadn't.
Natalia looked at the door. Was she willing to take the risk in order to see the festival and Ixion? As a Lyran princess, she would be a prime target for the purist factions. Her death would trigger the war that they wanted. That war would be a massacre. Her father wouldn't hesitate.
She swallowed the dry sticky lump in her throat and clenched her fists. She would be safe in the city. Nothing would happen to her.
"Is the military on alert?” Natalia said, her voice trembling the tiniest amount.
Her mother nodded. “They are posted in town and the palace is also on alert."
Was that why her mother had been speaking to Ixion? The royal assassins would be used if there was an attack on the palace.
"Would you stop me if I tried to go?” She needed to know. Her mother hadn't disapproved of her desire to go to the festival. If she was against it, she would have said as much rather than just pointing out the potential danger.
Her mother shook her head, the beautiful black ringlets that tumbled from the back of her head swaying in time with her movements. Natalia's own black hair was down today, falling loose around her shoulders in black waves. She never wore it down in public. It was always tied back, centre parted with each half plaited from the parting directly above her nose to the nape of her neck where it met and joined into one long plait or held in a bun. Today, she had been careful to wear it in a way that would help disguise her identity. She wore it in the way that she did sometimes when she sung at the club.
"No one will recognise me as royalty,” she said and stood. “I want to see the festival just once in my lifetime."
"You are of mating age and able to be responsible for your own actions. I will not stand in your way if you want to do this. I have often wanted to see the festival myself.” Her mother stood and placed her hand on Natalia's shoulder. Her expression turned pleading. “Just be careful and be alert."
Natalia nodded.
"Ixion!” The loudness of her mother's voice startled Natalia and she turned the moment the doors opened, her eyes immediately fixing on Ixion where he stood between them. It was exactly as she had hoped. Her mother would ask Ixion to guard her, trusting his skills above those of the guard. Guards would draw too much attention. No one would see an assassin.
Ixion placed his right hand against his chest and lowered his head. “Your highness?"
Natalia had expected him to call her mother ‘my lady’ as he had called her. His deliberate use of ‘your highness’ for her mother made her feel as though his use of ‘my lady’ for herself was more intimate, as though she commanded him more than her mother.
"Princess Natalia has expressed a desire to see the festival,” her mother said and Ixion's gaze shot to Natalia, as though he couldn't believe that she would do such a thing. It made her nervous. Did he really think the threat of conflict was that real? Did he fear for her safety? “Take two of your men and shadow her and her attendants. At the slightest sign of trouble, you will get them out of there and bring them back to the palace."
"Yes, your highness,” he said and bowed lower before backing out of the room.
The doors closed.
Natalia's heart thumped.
Was she really going to risk her life in order to have Ixion notice her?
Perhaps her father was right.
A male had already captured her heart.
* * * *
Ixion leapt over the narrow divide between the buildings on the main street of the city. His gaze never left Natalia where she walked below him on the street even though his attention was spread wide, monitoring everything for a sign of danger. He signalled his two men where they ran over the rooftops on the opposite side of the street to him. They nodded and disappeared, reappearing in the crowd below.
Heart of an Assassin [Daughters of Lyra Series] Page 3
