by Chloe Cullen
The Assassin took a slight step forward. “And that information is?”
Mr Teller tutted at her and rose into a standing position once more. He moved closer a few paces but stopped just out of arms reach. “You should understand how this works by now, dear assassin of mine. Information comes at a cost.”
She felt her lips thin with irritation, and her fingers itched to reach for Irandyal so she could threaten the truth from him. “What cost might there be for such information?” she said with thinly veiled contempt.
His lips split into a greasy grin. “I might be persuaded to share this information for… an extra year on your contract?”
The Assassin seethed at the man, who began to laugh at her expression. That was too high a price.
Reigning in her desire to kick out at him, the Assassin instead uncrossed her arms, and held out her hand for payment. Mr Teller, still chuckling, bent to the ground to pluck up a few gold pieces from the spilled contents. He dropped them in her hand.
She pocketed the coins, which would only be replacing the ones she had given away to the mathematician who had lost his family.
“Have a pleasant rest, Mr Teller,” the Assassin said in a low, cold voice. She didn’t wait for a response. She stalked back towards the window she had entered through and launched herself back into the darkness.
31
THE MASSACRE
Cori had practically thrown herself through the doors into the entrance hall. She had been able to hear the clash of swords and the shouts from the courtyard.
When she stood on the threshold, she spared a second to evaluate the environment.
There were people everywhere, some in grey and some in black, and it looked evenly spread. Bodies were on the ground, pools of blood spread out around them. She could see a Legion Five, Maxyn, fighting three black soldiers at once, and then Cori saw her father, his grey President’s cloak flying about him as he whirled and swiped with his sword, a look of concentrated fury on his face.
The second to assess had passed, and so Cori, descending into warrior mode, moved forwards for the first figure in black closest to her.
She had killed her first man today, and she was about to kill more.
The first swipe of her blade was across the back of an arm as she approached unseen, severing the tendon there. A sword clattered to the ground with a shriek of pain, and Cori knew he would bleed out within the minute. She exchanged a small glance with the Legionnaire he had been fighting before moving on.
Thoren had been right, it was chaos.
Cori would turn to block an attack, and then that person would move on to attack someone else. She would struggle with someone, only for a knife or an arrow to dispatch them before she could. Cori could hardly keep up with the pace of the fight.
Someone stumbled into her, and she lost her footing on a body on the floor. Cori kept a strong grip on her knife, rolling over and readying to defend herself for an attack from above, but it was Ione, the leader of the Five who stood above her. She held out a hand for Cori.
“Come on, Oakheart – back on your feet!”
Cori took the hand and was pulled into a standing position. They immediately went back-to-back, a growing shadow of black-clothed attackers descending around them.
Cori was fighting confidently and with expert precision. She could only hear, rather than see her father fighting a few of the assailants only feet away from her. They could win this. They would win this.
Ione and Cori worked together for what could have only been minutes but felt like hours, defending the others’ back, and taking out the enemy one by one. Cori panted in the space between attackers, and then Ione had moved away from her.
Cori watched as Ione chased a group of the black assailants out the front doors, two other Legionnaires on her heels and ready to fight with the Legion Five warrior.
She didn’t know where they all came from, but it seemed for every black-cloaked soldier they dispatched, two more appeared to take their place. Cori’s thoughts were a maelstrom, but the same thought kept pushing through it: where was Thoren? She desperately hoped he was okay, and that he would be here soon to help them with more of the Legion.
Cori breathed as steadily as she could through the aches from the injuries she was tallying up. Cuts and bruises would be all over her by now, but it didn’t slow her.
“Father!”
Cori paled at the word and her blood turned to ice. The one sound that could distract Cori and her father alike came from the bottom of the stairs to their left. She kicked out at a man in front of her, and as he sprawled to the ground she whirled towards the frightened girl, clutching a small practice bow to her chest.
Cori saw her father strike out at one of the masked figures, before he also turned towards his youngest daughter.
“Nessida, back upstairs, now!” Brennan roared, and Nes just stood there, eyes wide with horror at the fighting, the bodies, the blood.
Cori surged towards her sister but felt a searing pain as her head was jerked back, her hair in a vice-like grip from behind her. She felt the sting of a knife at her throat, and in the second before the sharp blade could slice across her skin, Cori aimed an elbow backwards and simultaneously grabbed the hand that held the knife to shove it away from her.
Focussing on her current target, she whirled on the figure gasping for breath on their knees, and with a ruthless efficiency, she plucked up the knife they had dropped to the floor and plunged it into their chest with such force that she fell to the ground with them.
Cori shoved herself back to her feet, wiping something sticky from her forehead as she turned back to find Nes in the chaos. Only a few seconds had passed since she’d last laid eyes on her, but already a tall figure in black was making his way towards Nessida, who hadn’t moved an inch.
It was in that moment, that Cori watched her sister’s mouth open and a wail of despair pierced the air. Nessida was not looking at the figure approaching her with a sword in their hand and the promise of death, but at something else.
Someone else.
With a sick realisation, Cori followed her gaze to see her father with his back to the masked man he had been fighting. It was a strange sight, it almost looked like the man was hugging her father from behind. But then Cori saw the sword point that was protruding from her father’s chest.
The breath left her lungs, and she watched the blood drip from the sword, and her father fell to his knees, his eyes still fixed on Nessida, his youngest child.
Another scream sliced through the air, heard by all above the din of the fighting. Cori knew that the sound came from her, but she hadn’t even registered opening her mouth.
Moving with a deadly speed, Cori sprinted towards Nes, her sister’s safety paramount before she could focus on anything else. Nes needed to be safe, and then she could help her father.
The taller man who had been stalking towards the staircase where Nes stood was her current mark and Cori reached for a knife from her boot, one of her last ones, before emitting a feral cry and leaping onto his back, opening his throat with one, sure movement.
The man continued to choke on his blood as Cori climbed off him and hurried towards Nes.
Grabbing her roughly by the arm, Cori started up the stairs.
“You need to run, now! Do you hear me!”
Nes stumbled and fell, trying to speak, but her sobs made the words unintelligible. Cori did make out the word Dad, and that spurred Cori to need to move ever faster.
“Nes, I can’t look after you! I need to help our father and the others. So, you need to leave! Lock yourself in a room upstairs.” Cori was shouting at her, but that was the only way to get through to Nes, her face a mask of despair and disbelief.
Nes cried desperately but nodded, and without pausing again, she stumbled to her feet and started running back up the stairs. For a relieved second, Cori watched her go, and then turned back to the fray.
Cori only made it down a few of the steps, before
she saw her father was face down on the ground, a growing pool of blood blossoming out from underneath him.
The President was dead.
Her father was dead.
She stopped, like a force was holding her in place, and just watched the blood grow for a few of her own heartbeats. Cori raised her gaze and saw that the man whose sword had been in her father’s chest was fighting again, his back to her. She stalked towards him, a deadly calm settling over her. Without taking her eyes off her father’s killer, Cori bent to pull a dagger from the back of a dead figure on the ground, and continued forwards with it clutched in a tight grip.
The next minutes, or maybe hours, seemed to blur together. She could remember her fury, her aching muscles, and so much blood.
Yet still she stood, panting, as the fighting seemed to start dying down around her. The bodies were everywhere now, hardly a place she could step without tripping on an arm, a foot, or slipping in the slick blood coating the once-white floors.
It was Cori and two other Legionnaires still fighting, and there were only five of the masked attackers left. Cori’s chest heaved with the effort of moving her limbs forward, towards Maxyn, the only Legion Five who had been there the entire fight. She felt sluggish but shook her head to clear the fog of fatigue, because each of those dark cloaked attackers needed to die.
One of them who had been fighting Maxyn turned at her approach, blood dripping from his blade. Cori moved towards him, and she watched as he abandoned his buddies and bent to clean his blade on a body beneath him before standing to ready himself for her.
Cori seethed, the disrespect lighting her on fire with rage.
Cori blocked out the few grunts and clash of swords still echoing through the foyer, focussing on her target. Behind the man she approached, Maxyn grunted as he finally managed to stick his blade into his assailant, who keeled to the floor. Cori watched as Maxyn fell to his knees as well, his eyes drooping, and face a deathly pale. Her heart wrenched as he met her gaze, which seemed to say it’s up to you now. Maxyn slumped forwards limply, and Cori didn’t see him move again. She forced herself to focus on the man in front of her.
The figure had adopted a fighter’s stance, ready as Cori approached. She was a few feet away and about to launch into an offensive attack, when an arrow sung through the air out of nowhere and thudded into the man’s chest. He let out a loud grunt of pain and fell to his knees.
Turning around, satisfied that he would die because the arrow had struck his heart with precision, Cori searched for her next target, but stopped cold when she saw Nessida, her bow raised and looking at her big sister with pride for having shot the man now bleeding out on the ground.
“Nes, no!” Cori cried, but her words meant nothing, could do nothing, could stop nothing.
A shadowed figure grabbed Nessida from behind, an arm across her throat. The air around her seemed to shimmer as Nes’ eyes widened in shock and terror, and before anyone could breathe or move, a knife was plunged once, twice, three times into her chest.
Someone in grey grabbed at the attacker and shoved them away, leaping onto them. Cori didn’t see anything else happening around her anymore. Everything went still and silent as she stumbled hurriedly towards her sister, leaping over broken bodies, and sliding in the blood in her haste.
Nessida was still standing upright, her hands pawing at her chest, as though she could stop the blood that was flowing fast from the puncture wounds there, the bow lying forgotten at her feet.
Cori was only a few steps away when Nes locked eyes with her. She saw her sister’s lips part and she mouthed Cori’s name, but instead of sound, it was blood that bubbled up and spilled out just before she fell.
Cori skidded to her knees and caught her small figure before she could hit the ground, and with a cry, she pulled Nessida into her arms. She crooned Nes’ name desperately, willing it not to be true. But her sister’s eyes were open but void of life, arms limp and hanging to the side, her blood still streaming in rivulets from dark wounds on her chest.
“No… please… Nes,” Cori sobbed, a hand pressed into her sister’s chest, “you can’t leave me!”
Cori could feel nothing expect a numb chill that spread through her body.
She held Nes for a long time, the hall around her now still and silent. She registered that there was no one left moving in the entrance hall and all she could do was clutch a cooling body to her chest and think about how cold it was.
Her father.
Cori sucked in a breath and looked down at Nes again. There was blood all down the side of her face where Cori had been touching her, the blonde hair turned dark was matted to the side of her pale cheek. Slowly, carefully, Cori lowered her baby sister to the ground. A sob escaped from her throat, but she stood on shaky legs and turned around until she could see her father, still lying face down where she had last seen him.
The sun must have been setting, because the foyer was now swathed in shadows, no one having lit any of the lamps yet. Was there anyone left who could light the lamps now?
Cori took a step, slid a little, and then took another step over a pair of legs and with a few more shaky footfalls, she was standing at the edge of the pool of blood that he was lying in.
She could do nothing but stare at the thick liquid that looked black in the dying light.
Sluggishly, Cori lowered to the ground. With fingers that were already dark and sticky, she took her father’s hand, slippery with even more cold, slick blood. She held the cold hand to her chest and let silent, hot tears stream down her cheeks.
The grief was overwhelming, and she keeled over, burying her face into her father’s back and sobbing without restraint. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
More time passed, and it became so dark that Cori couldn’t see anything or anyone around her anymore. She could almost pretend she weren’t surrounded by bodies, friend and foe alike.
Cori slumped to the ground next to her father and closed her eyes, silently praying to any Gods left out there to make this a nightmare she could wake up from. The coldness and exhaustion overtook her, and Cori knew that even if she willed her limbs to move, they would not budge.
She didn’t know how long it was until she sensed some movement around her. Cracking her eyes open blearily, she saw some bobbing lights coming closer from out of the darkness. Uncaring, she closed her eyes again. The attackers could be coming for her, and she couldn’t find an ounce of fear to summon, or a will to fight anymore.
“Cori!”
Cori didn’t move from where she lay on the cold ground.
“Cori?” There were hands on her, lifting her into a sitting position. She blinked up at a familiar face, but her brain was a clouded mess of confusion and she couldn’t put a name to it.
“She’s alive,” the relieved voice said to some other shadows around her, and then muttered, “so much blood…” And then more loudly the voice said, “Cori, are you hurt?”
“Nes,” Cori croaked out, her voice hoarse from crying, before her eyes fell shut again.
“Nessida?” She heard the voice say, and then with a panicked order, it said, “find her sister.”
There was a muted shuffle of sounds, a hand stroked down her face gently, and then someone started sobbing nearby.
“Thoren…” someone said in a low voice. The hand stilled on her cheek. “The President is here…Oh Gods.”
There was a long pause.
“Get my father, now.” The voice right above her was tight with emotion, and Cori could almost think the name that matched that deep voice and the silver eyes she had seen. An arm tightened around her waist, pulling her closer until her head was resting against something warm and inviting. She could hear the deep voice telling her that it was going to be okay, that she would be okay. Would she?
Her limbs suddenly moved outside her own volition. Cori felt strong arms under her knees and around her shoulders as she was lifted from the ground.
“We’re going to the heal
ers, okay?” the voice said to her from above, quiet and soothing, “and you’ll be okay. You’re going to be okay.”
“Thoren,” a nearby voice spoke in a hushed tone, deep and sorrowful, and the person carrying her stilled, “Nes is over here. She’s… gone.”
Gone. Nes was gone. Her father was gone. Everything was… gone.
32
Cori woke with a start, sitting up as she gasped in a deep breath.
“Nes?” she croaked into the dark, silent room.
She took in the surroundings of her new room, and remembered where she was, not in her old rooms, and that her sister wasn’t here anymore.
Cori reached up to rub at her face and wasn’t surprised when her fingers came away wet with fresh tears.
She pulled off the blankets and stood, moving to stand at the windows and looking out at the moonlit grounds, wondering if missing her family would ever get easier.
Not bothering to care about what time it was, Cori moved away from the window to pull on a satin robe and left her room, her feet still bare. It wasn’t proper to be walking around the halls with such little clothing, but she couldn’t find it within herself to change first.
She walked up the set of stairs silently and down the hallway until she came to his door, and before she could talk herself out of it, she reached up and knocked quickly.
It took a minute for him to open the door, but when he did, Thoren looked out at her with surprise.
“Cori?” he said, and she was embarrassed to find that he was wearing sleep shorts and nothing else, “is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. I just had this dream and… I wanted to talk to you. I’m sorry, I should have waited until morning.”
Thoren shook his head and opened the door wider for her. “No, it’s fine – come in here.”
Cori smiled gratefully and walked past him into the room. She stilled for a moment, hearing Thoren shutting the door behind her. She hadn’t been in these rooms since the day she had packed her satchel and ran away. These quarters were much larger than hers was now and had three separate rooms coming off the main living area. Two bedrooms and a bathing room. Two years ago, those bedrooms had belonged to Cori and Nessida.