Four: Assassins, a Dagger, and Garrick

Ewan’s people were looking for me. Not surprising, considering I’d just ruined his life, but annoying nonetheless.

Say what you want about Ewan’s faults, he was surprisingly efficient. I hadn’t even made it all the way back to the inn where Isabel was waiting for me before I noticed people following me.

About four blocks from the inn, the fine hairs at the back of my neck rose, and a tingling down my spine told me that someone had their eyes on me.

My first thought was that it was the annoyance who’d beckoned me from the alley earlier, but a quick check over my shoulder assured me it wasn’t him. Instead, I saw three thuggish looking men with swords at their waists a ways down the street, pretending to be interested in a card game going on at an outdoor table in front of a tavern that was nothing so fancy as The Premier, but it was a decent place, clean and well-tended, and I often grabbed breakfast there. My inn was in a slightly worse part of the city, a place that a nobleman like Darren Faraman wouldn’t deign to stay. I would have to pretend to be going to a shop or something to give me an excuse to be heading this way, rather than towards the vacant Faraman house closer to the palace.

If any of these three men survived, I couldn’t risk them giving Ewan any indication that I wasn’t who I said I was.

With that in mind, I dove into the first shop I saw, a small metalworking place that specialized in selling gold and silver jewelry and accessories.

I brightened up a little. How fitting. It wouldn’t be suspicious at all for love-struck Darren to look for a little trinket for a princess.

Other than the clerk – a bearded, elderly man polishing something with a soft brown cloth – the shop appeared empty. Perfect.

Delicate wooden hangers shaped like trees with low hanging branches showcased various necklaces and bracelets. The delicate gold and silver chains dangled carefully from each branch, glittering in the afternoon light filtering through the windows. Very few of the necklaces were studded with gems, instead, most seemed to be hung entirely with carefully molded metal pendants.

Shelves near the counter were lined with pretty metal rings, also very few inlaid with gems, but still unique and definitely more affordable than shops that featured gemstones in every piece.

More interesting than the jewelry was the far wall hung with gorgeous daggers, swords, and darts.

Well, don’t mind if I do.

After checking to see where my pursuers were – loitering at a small vegetable stand across the street – I scampered to the back wall, eagerly eyeing the display.

I had my own set of weapons, of course, one could never be too careful in my line of work, but I was never opposed to grabbing one more.

My eyes settled on a pretty silver dagger, the hilt carved with waves and sea dragons, the blade delicately etched with a phrase written in a language not spoken in Pansolum. I tensed and glanced at the old shopkeeper suspiciously, but he appeared to still be consumed in whatever he was cleaning.

I pursed my lips and grabbed the dagger just below the one I’d been looking at. It was a fine dagger, but not nearly as ornamented and clearly subpar compared to the other one.

I plopped my purchase on the counter unceremoniously, looking at the shopkeeper flatly. He didn’t react much to my rudeness, calmly setting aside the piece he’d been polishing to wrap my purchase.

As he finished wrapping the dagger in blue cloth, sheath and all, he hesitated to set it back on the counter, looking at me with a strange quirk to his lips.

“Are you sure this is the one you want?” His voice was quiet and rough, like he’d been inhaling the smoke from the forges for so long that half his vocal cords had fried away.

“Yes,” I said, annoyed.

“Too bad,” the shopkeeper muttered, putting the dagger in a brown paper bag. “The one just above this one on the wall is free today only. This dagger’ll cost ya 50 gold. Are you sure you still want this one?”

My eyes narrowed. “Oh, I’m sure. And tell Garrick to stop fucking following me.” I flung enough gold to pay for the dagger at him, snatched it off the counter, and stormed out, so enraged I briefly forgot that people were outside waiting to kill me.

Fortunately for me, it didn’t matter, because my pursuers had vanished. I scanned the street for them for several minutes, sure that they were hiding somewhere to ambush me, but there was no sign of them.

At least, not until I spotted a small alley farther down the street, dark and damp from rainwater runoff. The alley itself wasn’t unusual in any way, but the familiar, scraggly face peeking out of it was.

Speaking of Garrick. Fuck.

A cramp started up in my stomach as I made my way to the alley as surreptitiously as possible. I had a feeling I knew what had happened to my pursuers, and my guess was confirmed when I entered the alley and splashed into a puddle, but not of water.

Blood.

“Ugh, really?” I hissed. Now my boots were covered in blood. Great. That’s not suspicious at all.

A stack of bodies further in the alley confirmed that Garrick had indeed gotten to my pursuers before they could get me, which, yeah, great, thanks so fucking much.

But now we had to figure out how to get three fucking bodies out of the alley in broad daylight and figure out where to dispose of them. I had been planning to lead them to the river and drown them, which was a much neater way to get rid of bodies and didn’t immediately point to murder as the cause.

But Garrick had never been the brains of the operation, and unfortunately, I had been seen going this way by who knows how many people on the street, and I couldn’t just leave the evidence here.

“You’re a goddamn idiot,” I told Garrick in our language. He scratched his unruly hair and frowned.

“I was helping.”

“No, you were murdering people in broad daylight and not giving a single fucking thought to how you were going to get rid of them. This isn’t the slums, Garrick, people aren’t just going to turn a blind eye if you carry a body out of here.”

He snorted. “They don’t turn a blind eye in the slums. They’ll turn you in for slivers of bronze down there. And for your information, I did think about how to get rid of them.” He swung his chin to gesture to the dilapidated, clearly abandoned building on the right side of the alley, and glanced at a small window flush against the ground. “Basement access. I’ll throw ‘em down there for now and bring them out at nightfall. I’m not totally useless.”

I disagreed with that statement, but it wasn’t worth arguing over. “Those men are much bigger than the window. How are you solving that conundrum, oh genius?”

He patted the sword at his hip roughly. “Dismemberment, of course. What else?”

Oh, sure. I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, just get it done with quickly. I’m not going to plead your case if the palace people catch you.”

“Well, Mr. Faraman, I’d never ask you to. When did you get so rude, boy?”

My spine tensed like a cracked whip, lips curling. “Oh, around the same time we washed up here. How many times do I have to tell you to stop following me? I’m finding my own way off this hell continent and I’m not bringing you with me, so figure it out for yourself.”

“And how are you planning to contact your father? Huh? You don’t know how. I do. So, dearest nephew, we’re going to have to work together if you want to get back home.” Garrick crossed his arms and stepped into my face, close enough that I could smell beer, body odor, and salt. He reacted to my anger with his own, always prickled by any sign of disobedience. And unfortunately, a small part of me curled up in fear at the threat, long since conditioned to hide from Garrick’s rage.

But I wasn’t a kid anymore.

I stood my ground and raised an eyebrow. “Who said I was going back home?”

Garrick froze. “…What?” His voice was little more than a growl, the first crack of thunder before a storm.

I shrugged and backed up to pace casually up the alleyway, feigning confidence while really giving myself a bit of distance from him. The tightness in my chest loosened when I was out of grabbing range.

“Why the hell would I go back to the people that abandoned me? That’s even worse than staying here forever. I’m leaving. But I’m going anywhere fucking else. Tell my father to choke on a flaccid penis when you see him, uncle. If you ever see him again. Now stop following me, or I’ll be forced to make sure you can’t follow me – and I’m sure you remember which one of us is better in a fight. Goodbye, Garrick.”

With those parting words, I left the alley, leaving Garrick to clean up his own fucking mess for once.

“You can’t forget who you are, boy,” he spat after me. I walked faster, but his words followed me out. “Wear all the pretty costumes you want. It’ll find you no matter where you go.”

My boots left bloody prints, but thankfully, there was a gutter nearby that I splashed through before going on my way.

Garrick didn’t follow me, didn’t dare to leave his mess behind to be discovered by others, but I knew that wasn’t the last I’d ever see of him. He wasn’t the type to give up easily.

But I meant what I said. I was leaving – leaving him and the rest of our family far, far behind.