Mason Earle
one
An assassin, a prince, and a bard walk into a bar. And while this sounds like a bad joke or some old fable, this story is no fairytale. There is no such thing as living “happily ever after.” The assassin, the prince, and the bard will walk into the bar, and an empire will topple in their wake.
The assassin was the first to split away from her destiny. She wore trophies of her conquests around her shoulders: the cape of an old tyrant king; gold cuffs forged from the coins of a cruel merchant round her wrists; a blade won off the strongest knight in the kingdom at her waist. Her name was Thalia, but they called her Nemesis, the King-Killer, the Elk. They feared her, and for good reason: she fought armies and laughed as she did, white hair stained red, and yet the most foolish job of all was what undid her.
Well, as a matter of fact, not only has this chapter opened with a knock-knock joke about a bar, this story will begin in one as well. How thrilling it is, to live in a land where a crowded tavern is the prime location to hire the most dangerous assassin in the land!
Thalia King-Killer, warrior, assassin, conqueror, was dreadfully, mind-numbingly bored.
Meetings in small towns were always the worst. None of the townspeople had anything to do but work the fields during the day and drink away their wages during the night, so business was always booming at the local taverns whenever she had a rendezvous. This bar was packed with people, mostly drunkards who shook their fists and slopped their drinks all over the tables or young men who sat around a table and slapped each other on the back for each shot they took. The little server girls who slipped in between the sweaty villagers and ducked under swinging arms only completed the unpleasant scene, like ants navigating their hill.
She had tucked herself into a corner table to avoid the congestion, facing the door. The thick blue cape and hood shrouding her face put off most of the crowd from bothering her, and the few who remained shrunk away from the sword sheathed at her waist.
She scrubbed at her eyes, then pressed at the bridge of her nose. Her ears rang, a shrill note on top of the already-unpleasant crowd noise—her last target had managed to smack her in her left ear with a cupped hand, and she hadn’t been able to hear properly out of it since. And by the Gods above, if this employer didn’t show up soon, she was going to leave this shithole and find a place whose economy wasn’t based on slaughtering pigs.
Thalia reached into a side pocket and began to turn a gold coin between her fingers. Stamped with the likeness of the old Emperor, the gold was polished by her fingers and gashed all over. She originally just enjoyed carving notches into his face, but she had developed a habit of rolling it over her knuckles in a simple sleight of hand.
The coin dropped to the table, and she sighed. It had been simple until she broke her ring finger falling out of a tree, and then let it heal crooked. Another setback, another failure. Another, another.
One of the serving girls, a slight thing with wide brown eyes, approached her table. “Can I getcha anythin’, miss?” she asked, her Veil accent thick in her mouth. She sidled out of the way of an old man who reached to put an arm around her waist and retained the tray of drinks in her hand in such a smooth movement that Thalia was fairly impressed.
“No, thank you,” Thalia replied, but she rummaged around in the pouch across her chest for a moment and flicked the girl a silver piece. The server bobbed with a curtsey and a sharp smile, then slipped away.
The tavern door ground against the rotting wooden floor, then stuck. The top hinge was missing, so it sat crooked in its frame, trapped in the warped seams of the wood paneling. Someone on the other side kicked at it once, twice, until it gave way with a squealing cry.
And—oh, if this wasn’t her client, Thalia would eat her boots. A scrawny old man stalked into the bar, thin white hair combed over a balding head, draped in a robe and jewels that must have weighed as much as he did. He had his chin raised absurdly high, looking down his nose at the drunken crowd ahead of him. His spectacles slipped down his hooked nose, and he pushed them back up with a knobby finger before he spotted her. Thalia had to hide a smile in the shadows of her hood when he marched over, his elbows and knees stuck out like a chicken.
He had a knight following behind him, almost certainly the one who had knocked the door in, and she straightened slightly. Not in alarm, not yet—she was quite confident that she could take several knights of this one’s build. But a knight meant royalty, which meant political targets, which meant either more money or more danger.
Thalia liked both.
When the man—a King’s Hand, most likely, from the pins adorning his frock—reached her table, she flicked her fingers towards the seat across from her in invitation. He did not sit, instead staring along his beak-like nose at her. Thalia’s mouth ticked to the side.
“I would presume you are who I assume you to be?” he asked haughtily. The melody of the waitress’s accent was infinitely preferable than the harsh, grating tones of the elite.
“You’d presume correctly,” she said. “And you are…?”
The Hand put a hand up and wagged a finger in her face. His jowls quivered as he shook his head in sync with the offending digit. She curled her lip. “You need not know my name, girl,” he sneered. “You are here to do a job, nothing more.”
“Care to tell me what it is?” she said. The old man had to lean in close just to hear her speak, but he startled as though taken aback by her gall.
“Well, quite the usual, I’d expect,” he squawked. He fished around in his pockets for a moment before pulling out a piece of paper and extending it to her. When she reached to take it, he took great care to avoid touching her skin in the transfer, as though the blood on her hands had somehow stuck on.
“The King of Ten will pay you in full upon completion of this… job,” the Hand said distastefully. Vaguely, Thalia wondered how this man had earned his post. Wondered if he had ever killed anyone for it. “Your usual rate, I hear. I trust you know him, and his honorable reputation?”
The King of Ten was just that: a king of ten baronetages, picked by the ten barons of their estates and supposedly the finest among them. It was the closest to democracy that this side of the mountains would ever get. Together, they ruled the southeast of the continent, but there were still a few pockets of land which evaded their rule.
Frankly, she had no idea what the King of Ten’s reputation was like, but if he was hiring the Elk to kill someone, she doubted he was all that upstanding. Then again, Thalia had never put her stock in kings. She hummed noncommittally in answer.
“Well!” the Hand huffed, like a grouchy old grandfather. His knight was eyeing the hilt of her sword with a certain look in his eye.
She studied the letter for a moment. It carried the seal of the Arklay clan, which would make this man… she had never bothered to learn the details of the Ten aristocracy, but she could only assume he was called Hand Arklay. Nobility weren’t exactly known for their creativity.
It was, altogether, an underwhelming performance. She tilted her head to look up at him, allowing a wisp of white to escape her hood. His pallor began to match the tone of her hair.
“Well?” she challenged. “You need a letter just to tell me a name?”
Arklay began to stammer, looking backwards at the unruly crowd as though any of these drunken farmers would come to his aid. She rose to her feet, a good six inches above him. “Come on,” she said, leaning forward, tucking her chin near his ear so that he could hear her over the roaring crowd. “Surely someone from a line as mighty as the Arklay family isn’t afraid to speak a name out loud to a demon like me. What need have you, Hand, of a King-Killer?”
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two
The dew of the cool evening air had hardened to frost by the time Thalia swept out of the tavern, and the grass crunched under her boots as she made her way towards the stables. She inhaled sharply, then blew her breath out, watching as the misty particles diffused into the night sky.
“Good riddance,” she said aloud, but the letter burned in her pocket all the same.
She had no rules about who hired her. Kings, merchants, people down on their luck—as long as she was paid well, her sword was indiscriminate. But still—
“Prince Sam of Camina,” she mused aloud, weighing the words on her tongue. “Camina.”
Thalia recalled what she knew about Camina, which was practically nothing. It was a small city-state, mostly composed of the city itself and the surrounding suburbs. Mountain runoff had carved a river all down the eastern side of the continent through to the sea, which made it a fairly bustling port town. It had a merchant king whose name Thalia did not know, and apparently a prince as well.
The tall grass gave way to gravel under her boots, and she pulled open a creaky door into the stables. The scent of hay and horse was a relief to the stench of the manure piles that she had been dodging on her way in.
“Help you, ‘m?” a timid voice said. There was a slim boy, no more than sixteen, standing in the shadows of the hayloft. At first glance, it occurred to her that he was just shy, but when he shuffled further into the light, she realized that his shoulders were crooked, leaving him bowed awkwardly to one side.
“Yes,” she answered briefly. “I stored my horse here a few hours ago.” She tossed him a chip with the paddock number stamped onto it.
He squinted at it in the low torchlight, then shrugged. “With me, please.”
She followed. One of his legs dragged along the floor as he walked, dead weight behind him. There were several paths carved through the loose hay and dust on the ground, a record of his trips back and forth across the room.
He reached a low crate on the ground with keys organized in different containers, and began an awkward shuffle to bend down and reach it. Thalia stepped around him. “I got it.” She bent and scooped up the key he pointed to, then handed it over.
“Thank’ee,” he said, but he squinted at her suspiciously, and the natural tilt of his head gave the appearance of close study. He stared into the shadows of her cloak right at her eyes.
She stepped pointedly out of his way and gestured to the paddock. He sniffed loudly, limped past her. “Y’haven’t made the White Remark yet,” he tossed over his shoulder.
“Why should I?” Thalia asked. “You dark?”
“They think so.”
“Hmm.” Thalia tugged at the hood over her face. “They think I am too.”
The stable hand cast her a look over his slumped shoulder, then returned to jamming the key into the rusty lock. “Y’visited Yarrenhale before, miss?”
“Can’t say I have,” she said dryly. “Seems like this is the only place in this town that doesn’t smell like pig shit.”
He barked out a startled laugh as he managed to release the deadlock and leaned his entire bodyweight into dragging the door open. “Y’got that right, miss.”
Thalia hummed again. “What’s your name?”
“Potsey. But everyone calls me Topsey, ‘cause I’m rather easy to tip over.”
“That seems cruel,” Thalia said offhandedly, but her attention was seized by the mare that Potsey led out of the stall. She shoved her soft, velvety nose into Thalia’s shoulder, then into her belly, searching for treats. Thalia laughed. “Easy, Bon,” she warned, nudging the horse’s head to the side. “Greedy asshole.”
“She’s beautiful,” Potsey said. “Lovely, too. No trouble when I rubbed ’er down.”
“Yeah, she’s only an asshole to me.” Thalia bent to retrieve her saddlebags and strapped them onto the saddle. She hadn’t been gone long enough to warrant removing the saddle completely, but she did reach to re-tighten the straps that she had loosened before she went to meet Arklay.
“Where will y’go now?” Potsey asked. Bon nudged her face again, and Thalia batted her away absentmindedly.
“South,” a lie, “toward the Columns and Yotan,” another lie, “I’ll probably find work as a sellsword,” only mostly a lie: she would indeed be selling her sword, but not as a simple henchman.
“Well, good luck to ye,” Potsey said, then promptly tripped on a loose horseshoe buried beneath the straw. He managed to fall clear of Bon’s hooves, but Thalia had to dance out of the way of his flailing before he took her down with him.
“Maybe I do understand the ‘Topsey’ thing after all,” she said gently, offering a hand. Potsey shuffled onto his buttocks to angle himself better, turned to peer up at her, and turned white as bone. His thin, bony legs scrabbled helplessly at the loose dirt as he attempted to pull himself away from her.
A stone sank from her throat to her belly. He must have seen under her hood. She took a step back from him, a hand resting instinctively on the pommel of her sword.
He was attempting to gesture the White Remark with one hand: dragging his fist up from his belly to his sternum, then flicking a three-fingered gesture in her direction. The other was braced behind him, trying to aid his legs in their quest to scramble backwards. Thalia sighed, tugged the last buckle into place, and swung into the saddle.
“You—you—” Topsey gasped, pointing at her.
“You’re an outsider too,” Thalia countered harshly. “You still believe in demons?”
He made the Remark again. She sighed, rummaged around for a moment, and tossed him a coin. He made no effort to catch it, and it landed softly in the disturbed hay. “For your trouble,” she called, then squinted at it for a moment. “Tails,” she called. “Snake’s tail, actually. That’s never a good sign, huh?”
Thalia spurred Bon forward, and they burst from the stables, leaving the pig shit and sneers far behind.
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three
Thalia only made it a quarter of the way to Camina before night fell in earnest. Bon had managed a steady trot until the moon was directly overhead, but once wolves and worse began howling in the distance, Thalia steered Bon instead towards the homestead glowing in the distance.
The sound of hooves must have alerted whoever was inside, because despite the late hour, there was a half-dressed man—in boots, pants, and a cloak, and nothing else—holding a lumber axe standing in the entryway of the house. She raised a hand in greeting, glad that she had strapped her sword to Bon’s saddle instead of leaving it at her waist. “Good eve,” she called.
“And the same,” he replied. His hold on the axe did not loosen. “Can I help you?”
Thalia pulled her cloak farther down her face. “Yeah, actually,” she said. “I was wondering if you have a barn or anything where my horse and I could bed down for the night. I have silver for your trouble.”
The man hesitated again. Thalia braced herself to spend a night awake by a campfire, guarding Bon from the hungry features roaming the forest.
“Papa!” a high voice shrilled, and a blur of puffy fabric and blonde hair materialized behind the farmer. “Who’s that?”
“No one, darling,” he muttered. “Jus’ a wanderin’ soul. She was just leavin’.” Thalia huffed quietly to herself before tugging gently on Bon’s head, beginning to turn the horse away.
“But where will she go!” the child exclaimed, tugging almost absentmindedly on her father’s fingers. “Let her stay! For a night, Pa, please! Think of the stories!”
Thalia’s ears rang for a moment at the idyllic image of the father and daughter, framed by the light of the open door. She nearly missed when the man said, “A’ight, girlie, I got a spot for you in the barn. Follow on.”
Thalia released the knife that she had tucked up her sleeve. She nudged Bon forwards after the farmer, who was shuffling exhaustedly towards a dark silhouette in the distance. The little girl waved cheerfully at Thalia, apparently unfazed by the late hour. Thalia hesitated for a long moment, before she slowly raised her hand and wiggled her fingers back.
Thalia was ushered into the barn with little fanfare. She swung down from the saddle, patted Bon’s flank, and looked to the grizzled man again.
He gestured to a hay bale. “Make y’self comfortable,” he said. “Name’s Harold. I got a meal for you in the mornin’, then might ask for a hand with a thing or two ‘round the farm. My knee’s not what it used to be.”
Thalia tugged at the hem of her hood. “Thank you.”
Harold waved off the thanks in that gruff, peculiar way that only older men do. “Think nothin’, girlie.” He hauled the barn door open and disappeared into the night.
Bon whickered quietly, pawed at the ground, and flopped on her side. “I know,” Thalia whispered. There was a hole in the roof of the barn, rotten around the edges like rainwater had pooled in the wrong spot for too long. The Emerald—the star, that was—was visible in the little gap: the star which guided only the truest travelers south. Thalia looked towards the Emerald, towards Camina, and sighed. “But I don’t know what else to do.”