by Blake Rivers
The Assassin Princess
a legacy novel
Blake Rivers
First published in 2013
by B.R.Rivers Publishing
This Kindle edition published in 2016
Copyright © Blake Rivers, 2016
Cover art Copyright © Emi Rose, 2016
ASIN B00CL4NE6U
The right of Blake Rivers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed, or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the author, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased, or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law.
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance between the characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
www.blakerivers.com
Table of Contents
The Assassin Princess
Table of Contents
Part One Ami’s Legacy
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Part Two Adam & Hero
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Three The Mortrus Lands
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part Four Come Together
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Five The Assassin Princess
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Map of Territories
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Acknowledgements
About the Author
Social Links
for emi & becky
i love you both to the moon & back.
beware the mortrus lands, beware,
north to the flow, below, below,
danger in light, blue and glow,
many go in, one must go.
Part One
Ami’s Legacy
“i keep my promise for thousands of generations and forgive evil and sin; but i will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents.”
– sunrise good news bible, exodus 34:7
Chapter One
The man appeared from the shadows and stepped onto the empty road, his parched face stark beneath a mop of black hair, eyes catching flicker of a nearby street light; he listened. Traffic droned a block away while laughter and footfall echoed and died, shades of colours spent.
Assured he was alone, he turned to the building on his left and lifted his palms. They sparked to burn a low green flame that blackened his skin, strips and flakes lifting in a light night breeze to swirl above him in a cloud of darkness.
“Find her,” he whispered, and the darkness obeyed.
*
Ami dipped her brush into the paint she’d mixed and left the flat altogether, joining the mountains, hills, forests and meadows. It was time alone spent in the spare room, amongst her paintings and sketches of brightly coloured faraway places, that she was able to truly feel herself. The brush flowed easily now as she bit down on her bottom lip, watching a vivid sunset come to life, the orange and yellow fire cradling the scant clouds, the blue and green of sky and forest meeting in a bleeding red. It was her final piece, her most accomplished work-in-progress to date. Her eyes caressed the meadow where the unicorns grazed, tracing their shining silk coats, touching her brush gently to the ripples of their manes and tails, painting reflection in their big mirrored eyes.
“Are you going to stay in there all night?” a voice called through the door, jolting Ami from her world. Even after six months of having a flatmate, she hadn’t gotten used to Julie’s shrill interruptions.
“I was just finishing up.” She moved her brushes into a jar, swirling them for a moment, all the colours billowing to a muddy brown. She dried them roughly with a cloth.
“I’ve left you some mac and cheese in the oven. Open this door, will you?”
Giving one more look to her work, Ami surveyed the forest, her unicorns, the mountains. The sunset was magical and set the whole canvas on fire. She sighed, nodded in approval, and lowered the sheet over it.
“Finally!” Julie stood in the doorway, keys in hand. “I’ve hardly seen you all week! Look, I know the place is a bit of a mess, but I’m just about to go out—” Ami looked around. Clothes lay crumpled on the living room floor, plates and cutlery spread across the kitchen counter, the sink piled high. “—and I was wondering if you could do me a favour and clean up a little bit? Jason’s coming round tonight.” She winked and Ami cringed. Jason was a creep, but Julie seemed to like him, for now at least.
“You expect me to clean up your mess?” Ami shut the door and stepped into the living room.
“Well, it would have been your mess too, if you hadn’t been in there for hours.” As Julie pouted and Ami’s face turned scarlet, she quickly changed tact. “But I promise I’ll make it up to you! I will! But right now, I have to go!” She skipped to the door, her keys jingling.
“Seriously? You just expect me to clean up after you?”
“Chill, Ami, I’d do the same for you. Bye!” Julie darted out the door before Ami could say another word. The clunk of the latch sealed the deal.
“Great,” she said to the empty flat, and worked her way across the floor avoiding the discarded tops, jeans, and other debris.
A dull thud stopped her dead, the sound of flapping fluttering her heart.
It came from the window, and through her reflection, out across the dark cityscape beyond, she saw a bird. It was a dancing shadow, circling in the night sky. She came closer and reached for the curtains to draw them as it rose high and dived at the glass. With a yelp and a yank the curtains closed, hiding the squawking mess of feathers from view.
“Urgh,” she said, stepping back and shuddering in disgust. It had happened before, mostly pigeons, but somehow in the dark it seemed all the more disturbing. Turning from the window, she shifted her attention back to the room, and then doubtfully to the kitchen. How could one girl make so much mess in two hours? Living with Julie had been a laugh to start with. They’d sat home in the evenings and watched cheesy films, eating cheesy foods. Then Jason had come on the scene and things changed, Julie spending all her time out with him while Ami worked on her passion, art. She was glad to be consumed by it, and at least her consumption didn’t leave sticky plates and clothes on the floor.
Ami’s attention flipped back to the window as she bent to pick up a mug. A tapping. She looked back to the curtains and listened.
Tap… Tap… Tap…
It was the bird the other side of the window, asking to come in.
Stupid, she thought, it’s not asking anything. But there was the noise again. Three taps, steady, evenly spaced, patient.
Ami thought of vampires in horror films, begging for entry; if she pulled the curtain she would see a white face, lit and hateful, whispering, long fingernails tapping.
No, she thought, that’s just stupid.
Ignoring the noise, she took the mug into the kitchen.
*
The bird exploded into a swarm of d
arkness and returned to its owner, swirling in front of him, spinning faster and faster. In the blur the man saw the building, windows dark and light. He saw the girl, and watched the curtains close.
The swarm stopped spinning and flew into the man’s hand where it turned a bright green and shimmered across his body; a smile creased his smooth face as he rose up in search of the girl.
*
Soon the floor was free of clutter, and Ami’s hands were soft from the soak of soap suds. She sat slumped on the sofa and closed her eyes. “An early night tonight,” she said to no one, but her thoughts were interrupted as the tapping returned.
Tap… Tap… Tap…
Three taps as before, more forceful than they had been. Maybe the bird was injured and was dying on the outside sill? She scrambled to the floor on her knees and crawled to the curtains. Using her fingertips only, she lifted the very bottom and looked up, an irrational fear growing inside that she couldn’t shake. Was the vampire waiting, smiling, glaring in at her?
Three more taps.
Being silly, she thought. Be brave and rip those curtains open! It’s just a bird.
For no reason she could think of, the mountains in her painting came to mind—the dark mountains where any manner of creature could live, even a vampire.
This was too stupid.
Standing up, she grabbed the edges of the curtains and pulled them open.
The face was as white as she’d imagined, the grin more terrible than she’d feared. The eyes were glowing, not the red of horror movies, but a bright green. Nothing was real in that moment, only her fear and the vampire that glared in at her.
The window smashed, shards showering her as she screamed into a high wind that whipped through the flat. The vampire entered.
Her paralysis broke as the coffee table splintered beneath the vampire’s step, and Ami took flight to the spare room. Crashing in, she slammed the door behind her and locked it with shaking fingers. What the hell was going on? Visions of blood suckers, zombies, and ghouls flooded her mind as she cowered next to her canvas. The sheet had lifted when the door had opened and she was now looking at mountains, grey and mysterious.
A solid knocking a violation, the door shook with the intruder’s force. Her eyes turned to the forest, the meadow and the unicorns with their tails swaying in the breeze. There was a man next to a unicorn that she hadn’t painted, and in his hand he held a sword.
The knocks gave way to a terrifying creaking, a green light flooding the edges of the frame as it pulsed and warped before her eyes.
“Help! Please, help me!” she screamed, but there was no one to answer. Her heart raced. A vampire in her flat, a man she didn’t paint, a light so green and bright it hurt her eyes; she covered them with her hands and screamed again.
“Come with me,” said a voice at her ear, and she turned to a pair of deep brown eyes staring out at her from the painting. The painted man himself now filled the whole canvas, his hooded figure leaning out and over her. “Come now.”
Ami was pulled into his embrace as the door split open and flew into splinters, shredding the room. And then there was no longer a door, and she was no longer there.
*
His breathing was slow, his face a waxwork bust, smooth and calm, hiding the rage beneath. He stepped over the remains, his boots large and heavy, his eyes trained on the canvas that lay face-up on the floor.
It was empty.
Chapter Two
The setting sun burned its last embers across the meadow, hues of orange, red, and yellow swallowed by the shaded green of a nearby forest that lay in all directions but one. There, the dark and jagged mountains rose, the deep red creating blacker shadows, the footings loose rock and silt.
Ami rose to her knees, a hollow wind rushing through the long grass all around her. The air smelt of earth and green, and the shadows were as ash, fallen from the burning clouds. “What the—?” It was an all too familiar scene, and the impossibility awed her.
This was her painting. From the grazing meadow she knelt in, to the thick forest in front and beyond, and even the burning sunset sky. It was hers, exact and alive as she’d imagined it. Impossible, she thought, yet every sense told her it was real. The fear of only moments ago had been replaced with a curious wonder. The flat was gone, the vampire who’d entered it gone, the dark city around it a memory; yet there had been a second intruder. Ami thought back, remembering those last moments—the voice in her ear, the arm around her pulling her back…and then nothing, until her awakening just now. “It’s got to be a dream.” Yes, that was it. She was dreaming of her painting.
There was movement from the trees ahead and Ami stood, peering into the far away gloom of the forest, squinting to see through the red shadows there; and from between parted branches came a white horse, galloping the meadow toward her. Its long translucent crystal horn jutted from its forehead, capturing the sky in its spiral shape. A unicorn. It was not alone though, as riding upon its back was a hooded, cloaked man—the man she hadn’t painted.
The unicorn strutted to a halt and the man slipped to the ground.
He was tall, shadowed in dirty grey robes. “We have little time for words, Princess,” he said, holding out his hand. Ami didn’t move. There was a sword at his side, swinging in the wind and her eyes were drawn to it. “Come with me, we need to go now!”
“Hey, get your hands off me,” she said, but her protests were for naught as the man dragged her toward the unicorn and lifted her onto its back. “Who are you? What’s going on?”
The man pulled himself up behind her and held tight to her waist.
“Be still, Princess, and hold on to the mane. Hold tight.”
The unicorn broke into a gallop, back toward the forest, the ground beneath them shooting by in a blur, propelling them across the meadow faster than she’d ever moved, the wind whipping at her hair. She turned back and felt a cold dread sink into her belly at the sight of the distant black mountains, the sky flashing green, the steep climbs alive with falls of black mist that gathered at the foot. Swallowing trees and gaining fast, it was soon half way across the meadow.
“Xavier!” The man yelled through the wind, “Xavier! Protect us!”
Ami looked back to the forest, her heart thumping in her ears. The sky had already darkened, the sun’s fire waning and the forest a black wall in front of them. Between the trees, more unicorns gathered—tens, hundreds—their white coats ablaze with light, their heads lowered, their horns en guard. She stole a quick glance behind, the sky quilted in malevolence.
“I want to wake up now,” she screamed. “Please, I want to wake up!”
A moment later the wind was replaced by the swift movement of hooves on leaves, the scent of wood and moss. They were in the forest, dodging branches and wayward trunks beneath a canopy of leaf and limb. Ami let go of the breath she’d been holding, looking to the man who held her. His dark eyes kept a watch on the path ahead, his arms loosening their grip.
Eventually they entered a clearing where small shafts of dying red light filtered through the branches. It looked like blood. There was no sign that the black cloud had breached the forest, and the only sounds were of the trees—scurrying and chirping, branches squeaking.
Ami looked back up at the man. “I—I think I’d like to wake up now.” Her voice sounded small.
“There is no waking from this, Princess,” he said.
“This is so weird. I don’t want to be dreaming this. Am I in a coma? Was I knocked unconscious or something?” The man didn’t answer. She pinched herself, but it just hurt.
They stopped next to a cluster of trees and the man dismounted, pulling Ami with him. The unicorn bowed, turned, and disappeared through the trees leaving Ami alone in the dark forest with the hooded man.
The last of the blood-red light faded, and the darkness grew cold.
*
Ami sat with her back against a tree, her knees drawn to her chest, watching the man gather stones from the ear
th. He made them into a circle and then commenced to add broken branches, twigs, and leaves. With the spark of a flint, the fire was lit and the cavernous clearing flooded and flickered with an orange glow.
Though the heat barely reached her, Ami refused to move toward the fire.
The dream hadn’t ended, hadn’t changed, hadn’t done any of those dream-like things that dreams did. She hadn’t seen a clown having tea with a bear, or met her favourite band at a fairground; there had been nothing—just a chill that made her shudder, and the temptation of warmth from her strange kidnapper.
She blew on her hands, watching the steam rise and disappear, refusing to accept any of it. She’d sit there until she woke up. Of course, in her chilled protest, she’d figured out exactly what had happened. She’d exhausted herself, as simple as that. She’d been to uni, gotten home, painted until late, cleaned up after Julie, and fell asleep dreaming of that damned bird and vampires—her painting was her focus, and so it was within her dream. The only thing that didn’t make sense was that she still hadn’t woken up.
“Please, Princess, come to the warmth of the fire. You’re freezing.” The man was crouched opposite her, warming his hands against the flames, watching her. The fire played shapes on his face, revealing his eyes in flashes.
As her teeth began to chatter, hurting her jaw, Ami finally gave in and crawled to the edge of the fire. The man had placed his cloak in that very spot, and she took it, pulling it tight around her.
She stared into the flames, watching them dance.
“Who are you?” she asked finally.
“My name is Hero,” he said, and rubbing his hands together he sat back, the light holding in his dark eyes. “I was sent to bring you to Legacy, where I am from, where you belong. It was lucky for all of us that I reached you before he did.”