I stay in that place of peace for minutes or hours; I do not know.

I look down as the small rustling of leaves meets my ears. The Imperial makes his way up, his silver eyes soft.

“So this is how you got away, is it? How did you know my son is afraid of tree-heights?” He settles on a branch a few feet below my own.

It’s smaller than my own and looks like a sprig next to this mountain of a man. I don’t see how it hasn’t snapped in two.

He hands me a bowl of soup. I wonder how he knew I didn’t finish—on second thought, probably Flash.

“Thanks. I didn’t know, but I figured I could knock him out of the tree if he stuck around too long,” I say around a mouthful.

The Imperial chuckles. “So, now you know. Will you be spending all your time in treetops?”

A large grin overtakes my face when I look down at him. “It’s tempting, but I’m used to annoying little brothers. But I don’t believe you came up here to speak to me of Flash.”

The amusement drops from his face and he looks out to the green and flowing acreage within the mountain. “No, I didn’t. I’ve been in contact with friends. There’s word of your family.”

I immediately take in his hard expression. It’s not good. I steel myself for the news. “And?”

He watches me carefully. “They are in the Capitol. Your mother was sold to the Emperor’s daughter, and your brother... he’s in the pits.”

The words are a punch to the gut. I look away as prickling begins behind my eyes. The pits. The mines of horror. Where souls are sapped of their will to live until they die as a hopeless shell of what they once were. Drugged to maintain a semblance of order and to discourage escape. Some never recover, even if they escape. Many kill themselves.

I cough to regain my voice. “How long?”

“A few weeks. A month at most. We must get the boy out before they sap him of his mind.” The Imperials voice is mild, but the way his lips are compressed beneath his beard and the hard scent of anger leaks from his pores makes me think him more affected than he appears.

“We?” I ask.

“I told you, Your Highness. We’re in this together. I will follow you—even if that means going off on a side trail to rescue a few good souls.”

My mind churns, a plan taking shape as anger burns in my breast. "I'll go alone, for now. But be ready when I return. We'll bring Sixth on the Empire for its folly."

~~~

The city is as I remember. Roads leading from all directions to this place, like the spokes of a wheel all beginning, or perhaps ending, at one place. I left Nova far to the south, traveling a few days on foot to enter the Capitol.

The outer walls are a dark grey, rising over ten stories high in a marvel of engineering. The city itself sprawls over five hundred acres of gently flowing houses and shops, with the white castle butted against a mountain cliff on the other end of the city from my entrance. The mountain rises behind the city, dwarfing it and giving it a natural defensive edge on that end, so long as the invaders can’t drop from the mountain. High in the mountain peaks above the eighteen story castle crenelations is a city of dragons… which is new. They built the dragons a home in the mountain itself. The dragons given to the Empire by my cousin.

There will be a reckoning for what my cousin has done. But his time has not come... yet.

Near the center of the city is a large arena—this is what they call the Pits. It’s a dog-eat-dog and dog-eat-man world with beasts and creatures pitted against each other until the last one stands. They give the humans a drug when they fight to stave off fear and pain, making fights last until there is nothing left but blood.

That is where Jed is, and it’s one of the most highly guarded areas except for Castle Delrish, named after the first emperor. Delrish wanted more than a kingdom, so he named himself emperor after killing his father, who was a mere king.

You had better of been sarcastic, Cynic pipes up, his voice almost sleepy now that he doesn’t have to deal with The Beast quite so much. Ever since the Allfather helped me release my anger… I haven’t had the impulse to lose control. But I have a feeling that is going to be tested.

I join the throng of the thousands of folk entering the gates just after sunrise. Until I can reach my contact in the city, I’ll need to keep my eyes down and hood up.

I tag along behind a group of merchants entering the city who have guards in black cloaks stationed around the wagons of goods in the center. A few give me odd glances, but most ignore me as I pass under the unobservant eyes of the guards in purple capes at the entrance.

Inside, I follow along behind the merchant caravan until we pass beyond sight of the guards.

I branch off on a dark alley, passing a place that will forever hold itself in my memory. That is where I first killed with my dark powers. It wasn’t my first kill… far from it. But it was a kill I will forever remember, imbedded deep into my mind.

The grey walls are hardly visible despite the light of day. I can still make out a few deeper dark places where chunks were cut out of the alley walls from my loss of control, but the bodies are absent.

Her last words ring in my ears as I pause at the entrance into the nondescript blackness. “Promise me,” she gasped through pale lips, her eyes sunken and almost mummy-like. “Promise… your days o’ killing are done.”

I took her hand in mine, “I promise I will look out for your boy, and I… I will leave that life behind.”

She nodded, and her eyes slowly closed even as a tear trailed her cheek.

Her son… I knew I could not take him with me, so I left him with a kindly older couple who I knew could hide the boy from the assassins’ guild.

Weeks later, when I came back to check, the boy and the older couple were gone without a trace. I only hope they left and started a quiet life in a smaller farming village as I had recommended. The man… he was an informant for a noble at one point, and he faked his own death when he found love so he could escape his previous life. He knew what he was doing, so I can only hope the kid is alive and well. I hope I did well by the one I killed.

A few hours later, with the sun high in the sky overhead and the market almost bursting with the midday rush, I wait in a tavern with a broken sign depicting The Grey Dungeon.

A man who looks neither normal nor abnormal, a man who you can’t quite recall what he looks like even moments after passing him by, sits down at my table with a grunt. His grey robe is neither silken nor threadbare.

He’s only remarkable by his unremarkable-ness.

“Blue,” he greets. “Does the sun shine in the dessert, or are we in for some rain?”

The code words almost bring back the numbness of the assassin, but I push it back. “Where the sun doesn’t shine is where you will find the growth.”

He grunts again, turning his hand over to show the circular outline of a pair of brown eyes.

I nod, and with a quick jerk of my wrist, I create a cut using the knife in my opposite hand. I set my wrist on the table, and he touches it. A trail of fire and numbness flows through my veins and zeroes in on my eyes. I close them for a split second as a numbness encompasses my eyes followed by a sharp pain that would’ve brought me to my knees were I not seated.

I open them to find the nondescript man gone. I place some coins on the table for the stew I left with indistinguishable meat and a hint of bitterness that wasn’t exactly normal for the herbs in a stew.

The Yellow is up to his old tricks again. The game he is playing… the only one who knows his endgame is him.

He wants me to kill, and I’ve come to the place where my target is. First, I’m getting my brother out, then I will see about getting the odd request for an assassination figured out. Hopefully long before they figure out what I truly do, I’ll have my mother and Jed and be long gone.