“You love her.”

The words make my back tighten and I languidly wipe the blade on the sleeve of the whimpering man. I sheathe my blade. The man squirms, blood dribbling down a cut on his brow. He tries to untangle his hands from the shackles behind his back, but the harder he struggles, the more the links dig into soft skin.

“Hello, Mother,” I say. It seems my jumping from the royal box into the arena to ensure Sir Ri's protection did not go unnoticed. Hopefully she was the only one who put much stock into my actions. It would not go over well if a certain visiting princess knew the truth of my leap into the arena. I hide a wince. My father would also be... displeased.

“Why have you not told her?” The Queen was not known for her patience nor her softness, but the words carry a compassion I’m loathe to discount.

“The time is not right.”

She sucks in a breath, all she would allow where hungry ears could yet be listening. The man before me is a dead man sitting, so there I am not concerned. Not that he understands a word of Common, hailing from a city nearly on the other side of the continent. But the Assassin’s Guild is not known for being entirely above reproach, even though their loyalty is tied to the crown since the previous Protector is the King’s father-by-binding… and the Guild’s Black Master.

“The time is never right, my son.”

I hear the unspoken currents beneath the words. And as I consider the man before me, I realize I will get nothing further from the man. He’s spilled his guts, but he’s under a geas to not speak of his masters. His life was forfeit the moment he tried to stick me with a dagger. Pitiful attempt, and even more pitiful that all I got from the man was his family in danger. Nothing I can use to determine these creative attempts against my life.

Not that I mind. It keeps me sharp. But it's beginning to become annoying as they grow more frequent.

And the man before me was coerced while trying to protect his family, touching something I don't like in my soul. “Danger is ever present for those I love.”

“Danger is ever present. If you don’t speak, you will lose her. Relationships cannot be built on lies and half-truths.”

I turn, a frown marring my brow. The cloak covers her from head to toe. Nothing but twin blue eyes shine from beneath the blackness with a hint of a golden circlet shimmering on her brow. “And how does one go about confessing in a way which leads to truth and trust? Where I her, I wouldn’t trust me,” the last is spoken in a barest whisper, loathing for all I had done escaping before I could snap my walls against it. The man before me whimpered. He didn't understand my words in common, therefore all he heard was the guttural growl of my deep voice. Anger thrums through my body and nearly breaks my will before I take a breath, calming the storm within by will alone. Speak not when angry, act only in times of lucidity.

With father choosing such ills, the future terrifies me. But I can’t let anyone see. Not even my mother. Her dam is already too near to breaking, the tide lapping over the walls of her heart. I can see it in the deep shadows beneath her eyes she covers with beauty powder and the hurt hiding beneath the anger in her eyes. Not that she’ll admit to it.

She places a hand on my cheek, her lips turning in a wan and nearly soft smile. “She is special. Prove yourself a worthy leader and she will follow.”

She left, the barest swish of her cape all that spoke of her passage through the dungeon door. I allow myself a bare moment to stare and contemplate her words before turning back to the man, studying him.

His eyes close, and a sigh breaks past his lips. One of heartache and sorrow.

“Kill me so they may suffer no longer,” he says, voice low and breaking.

I crouch before him, but he does not raise his head.

“Why would they cease suffering with you dead?” The words twist from my tongue with nearly lyrical notes, the language coming to me nearly as easily as common. Seems right, since I learned it so early in life.

“With me gone, they would have no further need of my daughters. My death would release them, one way or another.”

I take a breath, searching for pheromones which could speak of lies. But all I scent is the bitter, damp wood smell of despair. He tells the truth. He would rather his family die than stay captive. But his logic is flawed. They won’t kill the girls, not if they’re smart. They’ll sell them as slaves or to a brothel for a quick coin. With their darker skin, they’d be considered exotic. Beautiful. Different. Skin and beauty doesn’t determine the worth of the soul. And yet people often use looks as either a crutch or a burden.

There are options here.

He could be a spy, but all know attempting to assassinate an assassin is a death sentence. Oft after much pain. But as much as I terrified the man, torture is not something I’ve found productive. Especially against a geas. My blade was only wet from the blood of his guard, the man pierced through the heart when I realized he was a spy in the guild. I hold no mercy for honourless men.

But this man before me was different. He was nearly portly, with a bald head gleaming with sweat in the lamplight.

They held his family.

Torture against innocents makes anger burn in a righteous fury in my chest. Aria’s face burns in my mind’s eye. How her skin grew pasty pale upon seeing her family tortured, held captive against her. Her eyes had seemed to lose all awareness, growing emotionless as her feet took her forward and I almost didn’t stop her in time.

Even then, I knew she was different. Even then, she’d seeped past the walls in my heart and touched the person I once was. And the thought of her pain nearly broke me in ways I wasn’t sure I could still be touched.

I step behind the man, making my decision.

He bows his head as I take out a knife.

The chains fall and the man gasps, falling forward and nearly face-planting against the floor.

A smile nearly breaks free, but I harden my expression before he turns.

His hazel eyes are wide, the stark white of his sclera standing in sharp contrast to the dark browns of his skin. “Go. Tell your masters I hunt.”

He scrambles to the door, turning back to look at me, his fingers shaking where he holds the doorframe to prevent falling. “Why?”

A smirk turns my lips. “Because kindness, when wielded with the essence of justice and heated in the fires of wisdom, is a sharper sword than any steel.”

The man bows.

~~~

The man and his daughters are safe.

They escaped with the simple cloaking device I placed in the man’s hand when he left. I follow them, ensuring a secure exit.

A smile once more tips my lips, despite the chord of steel wrapping my chest when I think of the ball Father has planned.

The children were young, barely older than my sister. I had seen many things in my time, committed many atrocities. But children, their innocence and their hope, made something within me yearn for brighter days. Days when an assassin could come out of hiding and no longer slit throats in the darkness of the night.

And perhaps, someday, hold a certain blonde-haired woman in my arms.

When I met the girl with wide blue eyes and a soul as deep as the realgreath sea, my path was already planned. Years before my birth, my future was set in stone.

Kill. Rule. Reign.

My father wished me to protect myself in ways he could not. And so I grew in the Assassin’s Guild with my grandfather, learning how to wield my mind as a weapon, my body as a blade, and my emotion as a double edged sword.

And yet, one small girl brought out the emotions I held in my childhood. The joy I recall with fleeting memory. She brought me to my knees, but not as one might expect.

She hasn’t changed me.

But she has brought out the best in me. Something I thought hidden behind walls of pain. She stood at the door and knocked until it opened and she saw me.

The terrifying breaking of my shell. An exhilarating freedom.

A side of myself I had not seen in many, many years. A part I thought dead.

But no, it was alive and well, growing and nearly flourishing under her careful tending. She didn’t even realize the effect she had on me. How her voice sent warmth through my breast and her simple actions of kindness and selflessness gave me courage for what was before me.

She helped me see the self I had starved. The self I wanted to be. Even if it meant facing the emotion, it was worth it to bring forth the child in me.

The side I needed to rule with empathy and kindness with the strength of judgement tempered by wisdom, lest I make my subjects bitter against me.

A fine line I walk. One where every decision is steeped in tangled fates and impacts thousands.

And one small woman’s kindness touched one thread which had the chance to change the worlds.

I just hoped I could live up to what I saw in her eyes when she looked at me.