Ilya has been an assassin all his life and he content with that fact. He works for the most deadly guild of assassins on the continent and has a promising and bright future as successor to the guild, well he had a promising and bright future, according to him that is. Right now he is living in the royal palace, right under the noses of the people who would be happy to have his head on a platter, and he is getting along with them no less. A failed mission gets him captured and thrown into a deadly game that the royals at the Ardanian court are playing. It is a deadly game of love, and deceit and friendship that has his head spinning at the thought of it. There is only one thing he can do. Survive, thrive, and find out what the heck he is here to do before he is killed. That is the only way for him to get his freedom back.
Chapter 1 Ivan
Lesson one,
First rule of being an assassin,
Have no fear.
Father always told me that the bravest men were those who were the least brave.
He said they had the sense to back down when others would not, and see reason because they always sought to find a way out of wars.
He said scared men are wise men because they never strive to be true men. Being true men made them fools.
He said having fear was living and at the time, he had been right.
My feet pads noiselessly down the halls of my latest and most unfortunate victim, and i have to say that i actually do feel really, really sorry for this man. He might have been a good man at some time and he might still be one, but the price on his head is simply too much for me to turn down. An assassin's willingness to do stuff lies only in the amount of money he will be paid after completing said stuff, and in this case, it's a lot.
I feel something on my back and i make to brush it away but to my surprise there is nothing there. A fly or a mosquito maybe, but what i had felt had not been a fly and neither had it been a mosquito. Four years on the streets of Ardan has made me accustomed to the feel of those things well enough. This thing feels like something i cannot place and that is one more thing that makes my stomach rumble and coil in fear.
Father would smile at me if he were here right now. Careen would laugh his head off.
I shrug off whatever the heck this feeling is and move closer to the study of my target.
Duke Havilliard is one of the most reclusive Dukes i have ever been chanced to find out about. Up until last week i had been getting prepared to go off into the red deserts for the last part of my training but we received a summons before i could do that.
The Duke's house is built like a fortress and i have a thing for heavily guarded places. Master had simply called on me when he saw me in attendance and left the others in suspense as to what the problem was.
A summons usually isn't for a problem. It's made when there are jobs available and i feel i'm just stalling at this point. The weird feeling is gone and i am still safely encased in the hold of the shadows that the dimly lit hallway lends me. Someone walks past me again and this has now officially become a cause for concern. I didn't know there was going to be this many people in the Duke's manor this evening.
My inside sources had assured me that the place would be visitor and intruder free. The Duke usually keeps a simple schedule and he leads an even simpler life.
A manor, some lands he holds for the king and a wife who i'm pretty sure is paying an exorbitant sum just to get him assassinated.
Hey don't look at me, i do what i am paid to do.
The feeling of unease i had before is back now though, and i wonder if it is because of the fact that yet another person has gotten into the Duke's study in a rush or if it's because of the fact that i might actually be scared. This isn't what i had been expecting when i arrived here and my heart is giving me those warning jitters that i always get when something is about to go wrong.
My hand is already moving to the dagger at the side of my belt when someone else also makes his way towards the door.
There is nothing special about this person, in fact i would like to say that he is as normal and as plain as everyone else who has also made their way towards and into the duke's study, but i think that is the problem.
The well formed shoulders and the hair that curls at the back of his neck makes me feel like walking over there and landing him a kick in the stomach.
He turns suddenly towards the exact spot that i'm hiding and i catch my breath and stop it from getting out my throat. The fool is actually sniffing the air.
A weird scenario plays out in my head. One that involves the gray haired duke catching a stranger wandering his halls and sniffing the air like some damn dog. He'll probably die like a dog too in the mini butcher house that is beneath this place but enough of that.
His face scrunches up in confusion and i roll my eyes. Like i would still stick to using the same cloying scent of death after i said i hated the way it made my eyes itch. He's dangerously close to where i am now and i feel like screaming at him to get the heck out of here.
The fact actually remains that i have no idea what he's actually doing here, especially when he's with a cloak and that worried look in his eyes but all the same, he sniffs one more time and he walks away from where i stand.
There is a very thin line between him and a fool and i think he's particularly testy about crossing that line today. I wait and bide my time. He walks down the hall the next minute with his nose still taking large lungfulls of air and him waiting for it to give him some sort of information about me.
Like i would ever wear the same scent twice.
He walks away and i listen to his foot steps recede. The door isn't too far away now but i know that isn't where i am headed to. Not anymore at least.
My legs carry me to the upper bedroom. That of the Duke's wife and their son and i have to say that this family fascinates me. If Alina is actually being truthful about all she's telling me then i think it would be healthy if this Duke was sort of dead. He's giving me the impression of a foolish piece of shit and i haven't even met him yet.
I hear noises and whimpers coming from the room ahead of me and i look up at the stone ceilings. There are some wooden beams that drop low enough that i can get myself onto it and have a true vantage point of what is going on in there. Something tells me that with the amount of grunting i'm hearing then i should already know.
My breath stills in my throat as i sense the presence of another and then there's that feeling again. That feeling that makes me want to rethink this decision, but fear is for fools.
I'm not scared.
I will never be scared.
An assassin is never scared.
I swallow the lump in my throat and wait for the feeling to leave. It does and i climb up the wooden beams. Time to confirm exactly what's going on in there.
Like i don't know already.