The Assassin Princess (The Legacy Novels Book 1) Read online

  To the right the road split into smaller trails and spiralled further down the mountain to its base at the sea. She could smell saltwater in a passing cart, full of freshly caught fish; it rumbled on up the spiralling road, the driver unaware of her. She wouldn’t follow. She mustn’t be seen. The main road bore too many people, too much activity. She’d tried to rip open a layer but had found Adam to be correct. The rip closed like a healing wound as soon as it was opened, allowing no passage; only from the castle would she be able to do this, when she opened one for Adam.

  Between her and the slope of the mountain was the first outlying building. It was a grey brick and thatched structure, a faux tower rising from its roof. Through its open door she saw Guards within, flashes of hooded men like Hero, while above and beyond, the mountain continued its climb, cut through by the returning road. Grey brick buildings crowding the edge, timber-framed shacks, decaying and old, then bare rock once more until the road returned again. She’d been musing on whether she could climb straight up and over, scaling the buildings like giant steps up the side of the mountain, but it was a difficult route. Ami already saw it in her mind, her eyes tracing the grips and ridges where she’d climb and where she’d jump. She could do it. She was powerful. Kneeling down, sword in hand, she closed her eyes and

  Dangerous

  gathered her power.

  Within seconds she was flying high, and buffered by the warm air, landed with perfect grace upon the stone tower. From there she could see over the city wall and to the pass, and further still, into the mountain range beyond. It was a spectacular view, the landscape so vast and endless…and she was so far away home, so far away from her old life. The beautiful but desolate landscape laid it all bare for her, with each dark peak, wisp of cloud and glimpse of far off hillside. This was not the town she’d grown up in, not the green of an English countryside, nor the dark grey smog of a city. This was not the same world. Was her mother fretting about her? Did her parents even know she’d disappeared, had been snatched in the night? Were they searching for her even now? Would her father somehow know what had happened to her?

  She looked up, the sky a rolling hypnotic blue that made her feel faint and dizzy. The day was so silent in the wake of her kills, as if she’d killed every living thing in existence. Green waves shuddered from her body and—

  Guards were leaving the building below, and her attention snapped back to them. Some mounted horses, while others headed for the silent gates. Soon the bodies would be discovered. It was time to climb.

  Ami turned in a half crouch and looked up to where a few trees sprouted from the rock-face. With little difficulty she leapt into the branches and climbed as far as she could, scrambling, feeling much like an exotic monkey. Birds flew in all directions, sounds of chirping chicks shrill from a nearby nest.

  With her blade in her hand, Ami let the branches bow and lower her to the rock-face. A shiver of green travelled the steel, and using all her strength, she thrust it into the mountain. The sound was jarring, causing her spine to tingle and her teeth to chatter. She left the branches, letting them catapult back up, and hung from the handle of her sword, her feet searching for purchase. She didn’t dare to look down, knowing the sight would leave her breathless, but instead closed her eyes and let the power steady her.

  Pulling up, she swung first one foot, then the other up onto the bowing blade, hugging tight to the dusty rock.

  The road cut near, almost within reach. If she could jump it she could climb up the side of the roadway and slip in between two buildings unseen. Concentrating her power on balance, Ami sprung from the steel and up onto the road, reaching back to retrieve the sword after.

  She stayed in a crouch, watching, listening, the shadows between the buildings black and close. There were crowds gathered, talking in groups, though none knew she was there. None knew they’d soon lose all that they thought they’d gained from Hero’s return.

  As she raised her sword in preparation for the next jump, the blade flashed white.

  A small voice rose above the murmur.

  “Hey, what’s that?”

  A boy in ragged and dusty clothes peered into the shadows from the other side of the road. He couldn’t see her but he’d seen the flash, just as she had.

  “Joe? Did you see that? It looked like lightning or something.”

  “I didn’t see nothing,” the other boy said, but the first was still looking, staring directly at her.

  “There it is again,” he said, and Ami looked down to see the glimmer fade, the forks of light having grounded to the earth.

  It was time to leave.

  Ami jumped a high and shallow arc, touching down upon the thatched roof of a building opposite—but the landing wasn’t gentle. Falling through, she hit the floor below hard, stars shooting across her eyes, sparking and popping.

  Smarting, she scrambled up and looked around her, sword at the ready.

  Shafts of lonely light punched through holes in the rotten thatch above, while plaster and straw lay at her feet from the fall. The room in front of her was bare, save for a few stacked boxes in the corner. Hard earth and mud barely covered the rock floor, and everything smelt damp.

  Ami stepped out of the light and into the shadow, her sword raised in front of her. She sensed the people just the other side of the wall. Had they heard her fall? Had she yelled out as she hit the floor? She didn’t think so, for either question. However, as her eyes took to the shadows, she picked out the shape of a man, cowering in the far corner behind the boxes.

  She pointed the sword at his throat and pulled him toward her into the fallen light. His face was marred and grubby, his eyes wide with fear.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” he said, his voice a quiver. “I only came in heres to hide from ‘em. They think I stole their pig.”

  “I don’t care,” she whispered, and with a single short movement, the man’s throat was cut. A wet sound spat from the gash as blood spilled over her hands. He fell to his knees, then to his side, his body convulsing.

  Something was wrong. It wasn’t like before. She looked at her hands, deep watery red, her dress sticky, lines of blood running down her legs and into her boots.

  “No,” she said, her voice so small. She looked from her hands to his body, and back to her hands. The sword dropped to the floor with a clang, flaring bright white once more, forks like lightning—she barely noticed.

  The man uttered one more sound, let his breath go, and then died, the last bubbles popping in dark liquid.

  She thought about the men in the cave, how easy, quick and unforgiving; the bride, her happiness, her beauty, owned by Ami. But this time it was different, and she felt bad for being the cause of death. The final cause. The red on her hands was paint, and if she’d had a canvas, it would be black. The holes in the thatch sucked the air from the room, and she watched the blood drip from her fingers and land upon the grass—red petals falling mid-air, bunched between fingers—her skin, pierced and bruised by thorns. But there was no pain. She looked up at the rising columns, the archways solid and eerie in an ash-blue twilight. The first few stars were peeking out from the apex, and they were no longer green but a piercing white.

  Closing her fists, crushing the petals, Ami turned to the walkway. Stone, pillared and arched, its sides were open windows that joined two buildings she’d never seen clearly. On her left was the low building she’d entered, the place Adam had created in her mind, and to the right was a castle tower. Through the open doorway in the tower, a flicker of reflected light shone like three stars in the dusk.

  She stepped through, ignoring the chill of the woods at her back where someone watched her. Each step felt heavy, and Ami brought her fists to her nose, breathing in the sweet scent of the flowers. The smell of blood mingled with the petals, but she didn’t care about that, as long as she didn’t have to stare at the body—

  Dangerous

  She stopped. Three full length mirrors hovered in the black. The face of eac
h mirror reflected her, as they had before. In the first, the flowing pink dress of the girl Ami, the sweet and innocent, the one who’d remain so. In the second was the girl who she recognised as herself, the ripped jeans, the scarred top, the dirty face of a girl dragged from her reality and abandoned—though still an artist, a smart and beautiful girl, full of promise of a life yet to live. She missed herself, and missed her home, missed walking the meadows, meeting the horses that grazed there. She missed her parents and the way they’d kissed her forehead before bedtime every night.

  The third mirror was the girl she knew as Dangerous, only the image no longer mirrored the girl she was. This girl was smiling, her hair a flowing dark brown, her eyes pools of chocolate, her skin a light tan; Ami lifted her own hands and saw their whiteness, the deep red of the petals in contrast. She let them fall and scatter to the ground. She felt sick. Who had she become? What had happened to Ami? She raised her hands in front of her face and turned from the mirrors, from the sweet girl, the dangerous girl, the artistic girl, and ran from the doorway to the grass. She stopped at the ruins—for that’s what they were, she could see it now, ruins of a place never built, half thought, an idea destroyed before fruition, a place never existing.

  A sound, and Ami’s eyes fell on the border trees behind, no longer dark, but pierced through with blue light.

  “No, no, no,” she moaned, and looked to the ground where her sword lay, the blade a bright white and vibrating. She reached and picked it up.

  Then the light faded.

  She couldn’t look at the body because he needn’t have died. He was innocent, as had been the bride, and the old men in the cave; but it was this man that counted. A thief maybe? She didn’t know, and didn’t care. She’d killed him. He was dead.

  People outside chatted and cheered, though their voices became less as they moved away now; Hero was at the castle, his next-girl by his side, and who knew what they were plotting.

  Shaking her head, shaking away the doubt and pain, she forced herself to feel for Dangerous—but Dangerous was hidden, or hiding, but either way not there. A shiver of green light swept her body, and finally she was able to breathe a little easier.

  “To the castle,” she said, turning from the body on the floor. “To the castle where it can all finish, and I can go home.”

  *

  “How old do you think I am?” Grace asked, leaning in toward them across the table. “I know it’s not the polite thing to comment on maybe, but I can tell you, however old you would guess…you’d be wrong.”

  Hero opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His tutor and mentor was staring intently at him, as if trying to communicate to him all that she was wont to say.

  “How old are you, Lady Grace?” Florence asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” she said, “but it’s nearer three hundred than two hundred.”

  “How?” Hero gasped, finding his voice. “How can you be?”

  Grace leaned back in her chair, her hands flat on the table. They were old hands, and could probably tell the story of her life, but not three hundred years’ worth, Hero was sure.

  “I’ll tell you as much of the story as I can,” she continued, “but we have little time, perhaps a shorter amount of time than is necessary. You see, I can feel her nearby…

  “I was born a daughter of Legacy, to parents who were young, loving and lively. My mother was an artist, and my father a musician. He would play for the Lord of Legacy and create merriment throughout the castle. I’ll not say too much on this, as it is unnecessary, but only to fix the moment in your mind. I was a baby, then a child, and later a woman. I have had a life, and was not always this old woman you see before you.

  “The city was pleasant, at least for me, as I’d had quite an interesting and exciting upbringing. I saw the poor, but I thought nothing of them; they were there, I was there. However, one day, when I was in my ninth year, a different kind of man appeared, and very soon this man had whipped up a frenzy in the city. His name was Lionel Barrel. I once told you about him, Hero.”

  Hero remembered, as it had been the day he’d read the poem. “He was a poet, a writer.”

  “And a fool, but at the time, he acted as if a prophet. He’d left his literary career behind many moons before, and had replaced it with a strong ale, a liking for red wine, and an obsession for the Mortrus Lands. He threw himself about the city, quoting the poem and spouting tripe, such as ‘…the leaders of old were weak…an undiscovered land awaits…north to the flow, its only up the river…’.

  “One day he left the city, only to return back louder and more triumphant than ever. An expedition was arranged and the lord of the time sanctioned it, ordering together a band of musicians, poets, jugglers, and other people of negligible importance. My father was one of the musicians. My mother wanted to keep me with her, but my father, full of pride at being picked for such an expedition, insisted I join him. ‘It’ll be fun, Grace,’ he’d said, ‘such adventures we’ll have.’ I was happy to go on an adventure. I was young and full of dreams.

  “And so, the musician and his daughter joined the caravan of carelessness. There were other children accompanying their parents, but I stuck with my father, who’d prance along at the head of the parade, next to Lionel Barrel, entertaining him with a flute or a piccolo, violin or some other instrument.

  “Suffice to say that we found the Mortrus Lands and Lionel was overjoyed. Everyone entered.”

  Hero was overwhelmed. He’d never suspected that Grace had been the girl in the story she’d told, or that she could possibly be any such unheard of age. Her account was urgent. To his side Raven and Florence listened intently.

  “Many go in, one must go. On that occasion, I was the one to go, and let me tell you this. I remember everything. I’m the only one to have entered and left with my sanity. Previous men had been asked, quizzed, and tortured for information despite their lack of reason, but I was left alone for I was just a child. I never told a single soul. I will tell you though because now is the time all things are coming together. So listen. Three days later I arrived back at Legacy after a long and perilous trek. I was certainly exhausted, but knew I wouldn’t die. I couldn’t. Can’t. I learned that within the first few days of travel.”

  “You cannot die?” Hero asked.

  “I’ve survived for near on three hundred years. I can’t die. A symptom of the whole mess, but let me continue. I couldn’t die, but I was starving and dehydrated and very smelly. I’d walked alone, night and day, and pounded upon the gates of the city for entrance. I would not speak, I would not tell, and eventually I was left to live my life. I wasn’t expelled to the Edorus Mountains like so many of the others had been, raving and mad. Our Lords of Legacy have not always been as benevolent as my husband was. Anyway, what more can I say of myself? I grew up, and then I aged very slowly. To avoid suspicion, I would leave the city and disappear for a generation or two and then come back a lost soul, welcomed into the fold of Legacy. The last time I returned I was still looking quite young, and I fell in love with a young man called Graeme, Lord of Legacy. He and I married and the rest is history.” Grace reached her hands out to Hero, taking his into hers. There was a chill of excitement that ran across his flesh, now knowing that the woman in front of him was very, very old. “Hero, I possess knowledge that no one else has ever had, and I know what lies within those lands.”

  “Tell us, Lady Grace, how will the Mortrus Lands help us?” Hero asked.

  “Only within the Mortrus Lands, where all things are coming together, will we be able to stop Adam and save Ami’s life, for she may have done bad things already under my son’s influence, but if we fail to stop her, she will forever be a monster and the bringer of death.”

  *

  Ami rose over the side of the road, keeping herself between the rocks that marked the edge. The castle was dead ahead, the gates shut, the wall high; easy money.

  Groups of people scattered the roadway, waiting for news of their heir.
This wasn’t going to happen though. Even if Hero wanted to replace her with his next-girl, it still wasn’t going to happen. Soon he’d be dead, and she’d be dead, and Adam would come.

  That was the plan, and she intended on sticking to it, no matter how many times her blade flashed a bright white; no matter how much she thought of the body miles below, laying hidden in an abandoned and rotting room; no matter how much doubt was building in her mind, how much she missed her family, her life, or however many flashes of that other place came to her. She would stick to the plan, because without it, what else was there?

  With a quick hop, Ami sailed above the plebs, and landed on the high wall. Guards walked to the left, to the right, and at any moment they’d look round and see her.

  Quick to the left, she ran a blur, her sword out and up, and the head of the first Guard hit the ground with his body. She flattened against the wall, ducking into shadow.

  “What the—” Two Guards ran from the right, and Ami threw her sword. The tell-tale singing of steel was their only warning as the blade pierced their skulls.

  Somewhere in the distance a bell was struck, voices raising the alarm. The bodies by the city gates had been discovered and soon Guards would be all over her as they ran from their posts to answer the call.

  She pulled the sword from the dead heads, a sloppy cracking sound, and grabbed the top of the wall, somersaulting over it and dropping down into the courtyard. The keep was close, but Guards now emerged from doors and down steps. Keeping to the wall, she cartwheeled to the left, in silence, in stealth, until she was behind a stable building. The horses were neighing, whinnying, knowing somehow that the bells rang for danger.

  She waited and watched as the three Guards on the wall were found, and more bells rang loud from the keep.