by Chloe Cullen
She paused to clear her throat, suddenly desperate for someone to talk to. Well, who better than her family?
“I’ve found myself thinking today… about everything that’s happened since I last saw you. There’s so much I wish I could talk to you about, things I need help to understand. The one thing that I truly can’t fathom is… how final death is. How can someone just be gone from the world in the blink of an eye. One moment you’re there, and then you’re just gone – simply gone. It’s too immense to really think about. I didn’t let myself think about it after you and Nes left me – I didn’t want to think of it ever again. So, I made some choices that I know you would be disappointed in, but I swear to you, I did it to survive… I didn’t want to be gone, too.”
Cori pressed her hand to her damp cheeks, brushing away the tears that had fallen.
“I know that everyone would have expected me to just go on with my life. They would expect me to be in mourning for the amount of time it took to have these metal plates made up for your tomb. And then… what? I should just… go back to my life? I don’t think I could have.”
Cori sniffed, and shook her head. Then she reached out for her sister’s name, allowing her fingers to brush the lettering. “Nes, you deserved so much better… I should have saved you that day. You’re probably out there somewhere, looking at me now and thinking…”
Cori let her words trail off, and she stepped away from the wall. She didn’t want to finish that thought.
“I wish it could have been different, but… I will try to do better.”
Cori looked to each of the names one final time before she turned and left the room. As she walked the passageways of the Mausoleum, she knew what she needed to do to begin moving her life in the right direction.
Cori would visit Mr Teller for what she hoped would be the final time.
***
Thoren walked High road with a heavy heart.
What relationship he’d had with Cori now felt irreparable, and he didn’t understand it. His conversation with Cori earlier in the day had confused him, and now he didn’t know what to think.
Thoren was out on patrol but he went about it half-heartedly, like he was in a daze. He had broken up a fight, helped a lady find her daughter, and apprehended a thief who had been caught stealing by the storeowner. By the time night had fallen, Thoren could barely remember what he had done, only that he had done it.
He could feel an ache in the back of his head starting to come on, a tell-tale sign that he was exhausted, yet he still managed to find himself standing outside Tiberius Teller’s double storied, white walled home. Those two letters, TT, were shining in the moonlight in front of him.
Thoren was not the only Legionnaire roaming these parts. True to his earlier threat to Tiberius, there had been numerous Legionnaires stationed around these streets. He had passed Soraya earlier and according to her intel, Tiberius had left his home hours ago and hadn’t returned. Because of that, he didn’t need to be here – but his feet had moved towards the home anyway. He couldn’t shake a feeling that this man knew more about many things that he was keeping to himself. Thoren was almost certain that Tiberius knew exactly who the Assassin was, and because of the timing of it, he also suspected he knew something about the Shadow Legion. If only Thoren could find a way to get the truth. He wished he were able to find some semblance of control when all seemed out of order and uncontrollable.
He stared at the front doors of the home, his teeth set on edge. Out of ideas, Thoren moved to turn away from the building, but just as he moved his head, his eyes caught the slightest flicker of movement in an upstairs window. It was only a shadow of a movement, barely there and almost impossible to notice. But it had been there.
Thoren sunk backwards into the darker spaces between buildings and watched the spot. Tiberius wasn’t supposed to be home… so who would be up there?
He stayed in the same spot for what felt like a long time, but likely only minutes had passed. And then, he saw it. He saw her.
She was a dark shape on the rooftop of the house next to Tiberius’. She crouched there, her form almost blending into the inky black sky and was watching the street below. He wasn’t sure he would have seen her if he hadn’t been watching so closely.
Staying quiet, he kept himself pressed into the shadows of the building behind him, always keeping his eyes on her. The Assassin crouched there, so still, that any eyes roaming over the spot would miss her entirely.
Then she moved, scaling the side of the wall carefully, always keeping to the shadows. When she hit the ground without a sound, Thoren watched as she peered around her, and then took off down an alleyway.
Thoren followed behind her, keeping his footsteps as light as possible, the thrill of the hunt zinging through his veins. If he could catch her, bring the Everton Assassin to his father and the Legion, then perhaps this day could be remembered for something else other than his disastrous moment with Cori.
He watched as the Assassin disappeared around a corner, and so he ran as quickly as he could while still being quiet. When he glanced around the corner, his heart dropped. She had disappeared again.
Thoren swore under his breath. He looked around at the buildings and then out of habit, he looked up at the rooftops. Here, the buildings thinned out into a courtyard and a large building loomed up ahead of him. It was one of the old schools where the Diviners had gone to learn and hone their magic.
Thoren glanced into the windows of the last few buildings in the row before he crossed the courtyard quickly towards the front steps of the school. He passed by a fountain that no longer burbled with water. He knew from his studying that the Diviners who practiced healing had used the water from this fountain. Now it was dry and unwanted.
Etched into the front doors was the Legion symbol he wore on his own uniform. He crept up the stone steps, eyes passing over the broken windows on those doors. Some of the old schools had been repurposed but for reasons unknown, this one never had. It had sat here for twenty years untouched. Those Diviners who had frequented the school seemed unable to re-enter the establishment, the ghost of their lost magic too much for them to confront. There were many run-down and desolate temples and buildings all over Holmfirth that had been dedicated to the Gods. Now they were nothing but barren scars across the land.
Thoren craned his neck to look beyond the grubby windowpane set into one of the doors and saw a flicker of movement inside. His heart quickened when he noted the small body and the dark cloak. The Assassin was inside, her back to the window. She must have assumed she had entered unseen, because he watched as she bent over slightly and lit a candle.
Thoren was about to duck his head again to come up with a tactic to apprehend her when he watched as she reached up and tugged the cloak from her head.
He stilled.
The whole world stilled.
He watched as she removed the covering that wrapped around her face and golden blonde hair spilled down her back.
It couldn’t be.
She turned halfway towards him, and he watched in horror as she lifted her hands to run them through her hair and he could see the profile of her face, the green of her eyes shining in the flickering candlelight. Thoren had been right in his earlier notions.
Cori was the Assassin.
36
THE ASSASSIN PART SEVEN
Cori lit a candle in the abandoned school’s antechamber, allowing her eyes to adjust to the sudden flare of light after the darkness.
Reaching up, she pulled the hood from her head and tugged the cowl down to tuck it under her chin. She sucked in a breath of free air. She always felt as though she struggled to breathe with that thing over her mouth, and that first gulp of air after removing it was blissful. Cori pulled at the knots in her hair from being caught up in her hood, running her fingers through them as she sighed.
Draping her cloak across the back of an armchair, she picked up the candle and sat it on the table before she fell into the soft cushions.
> It had been a day that continued to go from bad to worse.
All day, Cori had dodged Thoren at every turn since their moment in the weapons room. It felt wrong, to be avoiding him, but she knew deep down that their parting was for the best. If he could see her now, he would be disgusted by what he saw. By what Cori was, and had become.
But it was the kind of heart-wrenching motivation she had needed to question herself, and her choices. She had become a thief, an enforcer, and a killer without hesitation in her desperate quest to regain control of her life. It had been… necessary.
But now, Cori felt the two personas battling each other within, and she knew she had to decide which life she wanted to live. She knew why she had chosen to become the Assassin, but she didn’t know when she had become so accustomed to the ruthless nature, and the blood that was on her hands as a result.
Cori suddenly wanted nothing more than to never have to be the Assassin again, to leave that part of her behind for good. And the only way to do that was to break her contract with Mr Teller.
Of course, there was no way for her to get to Mr Teller’s home as Cori without being seen, so earlier in the evening she’d returned to this abandoned school to gather her gear.
Cori had found the building only a month after she signed her two-year contract with Mr Teller, and it became the perfect place to keep her assassin possessions in between outings. If anyone ever came across them, they would never be able to track them to her, as long as she was never sighted entering as Cori and leaving as the Assassin. Or vice versa. She had been able to come and go between the Royal Quarter and the East Markets as she pleased, having somewhere to sleep in both locations.
Her journey to Mr Teller’s home that evening had been unsuccessful. She had snuck through the dark, unlit halls of his home to discover that he wasn’t there. So, Cori made her way back to the school, cutting her losses, and praying to the Gods that she had the same motivation tomorrow night to try again. Breaking her contract would not be easy when she still had a few months left. But she felt as though she couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t be the Assassin and be a Legionnaire. It was splitting her in two. If she was ever going to find true happiness, Cori had to pick one, and she chose her true self. Which she knew was not the Everton Assassin, the shadow you see before death.
Cori sighed from her position on the armchair, trying to find the enthusiasm to change back into her Legion uniform and sneak out again.
She felt so tired, completely bone-weary.
Cori was thinking that she needed a serious break from any more drama when a thundering on wood sounded around her. It was a knock at the front door, breaking the absolute silence of the antechamber. Cori stiffened, her head whirling to stare at the front doors, eyes flicking to the dirty window next to it. She could see no one through the pane of glass, and she had seen no one outside with her earlier.
Standing from her chair, she leaned over and quickly blew out the candle. Cori plucked up her cloak and was about to run up the dust-covered stairs to leave via the roof when the door burst open.
Cori screeched as the door tore from the hinges and fell with a crash near her feet, wooden splinters sprinkling around her, upsetting the thick layers of dust on the ground which plumed upwards in a choking haze.
Frozen with horror, Cori saw his figure in the darkened door frame, her heart sinking all the way to her feet. Silence descended around them as the dust finally settled back into place and she found his face in the darkness, which was contorted with disbelief. Fear enveloped her like a weighted blanket.
“Thoren,” she breathed.
***
The sound of his name coming from her lips while she was dressed as the person the Legion had been hunting for so long, was one of the worst sounds he had ever heard in his life.
He stood in the door frame, and they stared at each other. Cori’s eyes were wide with shock, the black cloak of the Assassin clutched to her chest.
Thoren shook his head, still disbelieving that this could possibly be real. Cori, the girl he had grown up with, could not be this cold-blooded killer that now stood in front of him.
“No,” he whispered, still shaking his head, “it can’t be you.”
Cori opened her mouth, and then closed it again, looking away from him. Her eyes, finally losing the initial shock of seeing him, shuttered with defeat.
The cloak dropped from her hands, fluttering to the dusty wood-strewn floor. Then Cori, donned in a tight black outfit, squared her shoulders.
“It is,” Cori said, looking him straight in the eyes, “I am.”
He shook his head again. “No.”
Cori gave a small sigh. “Thoren—”
“No!” He bellowed, taking a step forwards and pointing at her. He watched as Cori visibly flinched but held her ground. In other circumstances he might have been proud of the fact that her chin seemed to rise a little higher.
Painstakingly slow, Cori raised her hands until he could see both of her palms in the dark room.
“There is no explanation for what you see that you will be able to accept,” Cori said, and slowly reached behind her to pull a dagger out. Thoren felt himself go cold at the sight of her, holding that small blade, now knowing what she was. He braced himself to reach for his own weapon, a sickness spreading through him that he wasn’t sure he would ever shake if he were forced to fight her. Cori frowned at him, as though sensing him readying for a fight before she opened her fingers and let the dagger fall to the floor. It stuck into the wood, tip first with a dull thud. “But I would like to try and explain… if you will let me.”
He refused to acknowledge the quiet and familiar cadence of her voice and how it made his stomach clench and chest tighten.
Thoren remained silent, and just watched as Cori slowly lowered herself to the ground. They never broke eye contact while her hands reached into each of her boots, and one by one, she withdrew her weapons and threw them to the side.
When she stood again, presumably disarmed, she raised her hands up once more.
Thoren’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the room, and he could see her features in full detail. The heart-shaped face with the flowing blonde hair framing it. The piercing green eyes and expressive mouth. This was Cori, and he loved her. He had loved her.
He needed to look away from her, finally breaking eye contact between them and looking instead to the darkened shadows in the corner of the antechamber.
“Thoren,” she said again, this time with a hint of desperation behind the word.
He couldn’t let her silky voice break through his defences, because suddenly, all the pieces started to fall together, and he cursed himself as a fool for not taking his earlier suspicions as seriously as he should have.
“You tipped off Teller about the meeting with him,” Thoren said in a hard voice, his eyes still trained resolutely away from her.
There was a beat of silence, before she said in a quiet voice, “yes.”
He closed his eyes against the admission. “You… didn’t patrol with me that night I ran into you. Because you had a contract on that school-teacher.”
He heard her sigh through her nose. “Yes.”
Now he did look at her, needing to look into her eyes before he said what needed to come next. “You’re a killer.”
She sucked in a breath at the statement, and he watched as she battled internally, as though she wanted to argue that point. After a moment, Cori gave an almost imperceptible nod, and in the smallest voice he had ever heard come from her, she said, “yes.”
Thoren nodded now, it all making sense. Everything in his body had known when he’d had his arms around the Assassin, but his brain had rejected it so completely. “Cori… how could you do this?”
She gestured to the seats next to them. “Can we sit and talk?”
Ignoring the request, Thoren shut his eyes tight and pushed his hand roughly through his hair. “How… I mean, who did we even chase onto the roof that nigh
t?”
She sighed again, which was starting to infuriate Thoren. As if she had any right to be exasperated.
“It was Adeline on the roof,” Cori said.
Thoren had to laugh sombrely, because the more she spoke and the more he thought about it, the pieces seemed to keep falling together. “You fell on purpose… you just sabotaged the chase so that she could get away. You knew I’d suspected you after…”
“I asked Adeline to help me, she’s never hurt anyone,” Cori said quickly.
“But you have hurt people, right? You murdered all those innocent people.”
She stared at him, then shook her head quickly. “No, Thoren. They weren’t innocent.”
He scoffed at her, before he saw a fierceness flash across her green eyes, and she stepped towards him.
“They were not innocent people. It is part of my contract that I will not take the life of an innocent man or woman. The people I did…kill – they were all murderers, rapists… or worse.”
Thoren stood, stunned. “What?”
Cori shifted her feet. “Gregor Benny? The last man you found…” Thoren thought back to the grisly scene of the man who been sprawled across his bed, throat split open like a crude grin. “I watched him for almost a week before I accepted the contract from Mr Teller.”
Cori took it upon herself to move towards the chairs and take a seat. She draped her arms across her knees and looked over at where he still stood.
“Mr Teller told me about how he was suspected as the man who abducted all of those young girls over the past few years.”
Thoren clenched his teeth, remembering the disappearances. The Legion had never found the person responsible. When the young girls had resurfaced, they were never able to tell the Legion any leading information. They had been… a shell of themselves. He knew what had been done to those girls.
“I watched Gregor sit at his booth in the Quarter, offering drawn portraits,” Cori said, her voice low, almost a growl. “There was a mother with her young girl, and I watched him sit there, staring at the two of them as they walked closer. That little girl was in his sights, and he stood and walked over to them with purpose and offered to do them a picture… for free.”