I've been staring out of the window for nearly two hours with nothing but a bouncing knees and running thoughts. Clarice hasn't returned, and the blue light hasn't gone out yet. After she left, Garrison and Ozzie pushed me back into the room and have been in here ever since. Garrison took one look at the flame and sent Benny to put the castle on lockdown as quietly as possible, though we all know quietly and efficiently don't mix well in this castle.

He told me that the flame was a signal to all Jade's to come home. It either meant that they're having a party – though that was highly unlikely - or there's been an attack on the House of Jade. Every second that flame is on it means the attack is still going. Once it's put out then that means they either won, or lost. I want it to go out so I'm not anxious, but if it does go out, how do I know that she was the one who won?

Because she's the Ebony Nightingale and she doesn't take prisoners, you idiot.

The glass keeps fogging up from me breathing against it and I have to keep wiping it away. It's pissing me off. The rain hasn't slowed, and it's making me even more nervous. I mean in every story or book when it rains, it usually has to do with a sad scene. I can't help but get this feeling in the bottom of my stomach like something's not right. Not like "you're in danger," but more like...."there's been a shift in the world." Something tells me the flame has something to do with it.

A soft knock comes from the wall. I'm on my feet quickly, but Ozzie stops me before I can take a step. The door opens and Garrison peeks through. He drops his arm holding the sword and shakes his head. My stomach twists.

"She's back."

Thank the Gods and their Saints.

My stomach starts to untwist, but it doesn't fully fix itself before tightening again. I step onto the stairs and instantly know there's something wrong. There's something...off with Clarice. Her eyes are looking at me with focus, but it's like they're in a haze. Her pupils dilate to focus, but she's not entirely here. I can't explain it other than a fuzzy feeling, but I know Clarice when I see her, and this isn't her. Not really.

The whole hallways is quiet. I look around waiting for someone to explain, but they're all doing the same thing. r"What happened?" I askslowly.

"Shit," she says in a harsher voice than normal. She turns and starts walking down the stairs without another word. I feel like there should be a black mist coming from under her cape and trailing her like a shadow.

Following her down the steps, I can feel whatever she's feeling oozing off her like water overflowing from a bucket. I can't put a pin in it, but it's not something I'm going to start poking at like a dead animal. Even then there's no guarantee the thing won't open its eye and take a big chunk out of you. A glance to Henry beside me and I know he senses it too. We all do. Whatever happened at the House of Jade wasn't good, which makes me wonder if there's really a light at the end of the tunnel. She doesn't speak, doesn't even make a sound as she walks. I've lived the past two cycles with her constantly talking or in some way annoying me. Her being quiet and the twitch in her fingers is starting to make me rethink calling her names.

We reach the top of the stairs in my tower, and with a small wave of her hand to Garrison, calls all of them in. As we follow her to the bedroom and down the secret tunnel, I keep having this reoccurring thought that she's leading us into a trap. But what do I know?

"Don't get involved unless you want a nasty scar," she warns coldly. That twisting feeling comes back again. "Don't comment on anything, and whatever you do...do not stop us, or else you'll find a knife in your chest half a second later."

We reach the clearing in the tunnels that we use to train at night - or we did use until my nightmares - only this time Lance is waiting in the center ring. Without another word to us, Clarice strolls right up to him and pulls out her Ebony knives.

"First to tap out," Lance says pulling out his own orange and black vicious-looking knives. The Sinister Blades. I've seen them in their sheathes and they looked deadly then, but out of their sheets they look...sinister.

Where do they get those? Cause I want one.

"Or first to die," she finishes.

Wait, what?

Lance makes the first move, a clean and hard swing aiming for her stomach. Clarice easily sidesteps it and his secondary before going onto the offensive. Watching them fight is like nothing I've seen before. They move with both speed and strength and still aim with absolute precision. The rumors of their skills do them no justice whatsoever. I've seen Clarice fight - heathens I've fought her myself. But looking at her now, I know she's been holding back entirely, because this...this is both hell and beauty wrapped into one. Where one swings, the other dodges and is already pushing a swing of their own. They fall on the ground one second and the next they're on their feet and somehow behind the other. They don't hold back, don't stop when they cut each other. This isn't sparring. This...I don't know what this is, but I do know I'm not getting involved, nor am I going to blink. Trust me when I say that if you blink, you miss about three moves they've both just done.

"Whatever happened in town," Mal says coming up next to me. "It broke them."

"What makes you say that?" I ask rhetorically just as Arthur lands a heavy kick right into Clarice's chest. I hear as she takes a gulping breath, but as I said, she's up the next second.

I try to track their moves and find the techniques she's been teaching us, but they move so Godsdamn fast that I can't even keep track of who's who. They're like two blurs moving across the ground, only coming into focus when one gets knocked down or trapped in a compromising position that doesn't last long.

Garrison orders the rest of them into warmups, simple but draining moves Clarice taught us, but I don't join in. Trying to physically tire myself out hasn't worked in the past with my nightmares, so there really isn't a point to doing it tonight. Plus, there's no way I'm passing up a chance to watch the Ebony Nightingale and Sinister Fox fight until one yields...or dies. It should concern me that those are the only rules, but it doesn't. The thing that concerns me the most is why such a fight is needed. It's obvious to me that the reason they are fighting is that they have some pent-up anger they need to release. If you don't believe me, then you should hear the strong words they keep calling each other between hits. Not to mention the cuts and bruises that will be, or already are, purple and blue. They fight fast and hard, and they don't give up a step without gaining it back.

People get angry, and when someone is angry they punch a wall or someone's face. This isn't just anger. There's something else, something I'm missing but can clearly see. I mean Clarice isn't one to show much emotion on her face or in her actions unless she wants to, Arthur just the same. So why now?

Watching as Clarice takes out Lance's legs and then moves to pin him down, I go through the events of tonight in my head. Everything was fine before she saw the fire. I found out she knew my grandmother and we sang her song together. I knew the Nightingale could sing, I just didn't know how good until she played the piano and sang that song. It felt angelic to the point where I wanted to die just to listen to her.

Anyways, after that, she saw the flame on the roof of the House of Jade and then ran. Garrison said it meant danger - that there was an attack. Judging by their skills in the fighting ring and the fact that they don't even look winded tells me that the attack didn't last long. Clarice talks all the time about the House of Jade and it's code and what it looks like. She told me that despite being raised and trained in it, she doesn't necessarily think of it as home. I asked what home was, but she just shook her head and said a home is never a place. It reminded me of something my grandmother used to say.

People think that if a castle falls, the kingdom falls, but that's never the truth. A castle is a castle, nothing more than a pile of stone slapped on top of the Earth. A kingdom is what the people make it, for, without the people, the castle would be empty, and the land would be bare and lifeless. People and family is one's home. Not the house itself.

I always thought my grandmother was wise, but it did get annoying at times. I could be talking about how good an apple tastes and she could make a whole inspiring and riddled speech about the "juice of the fruit we call apple." They called her the storyteller, a fitting title, but I just called her Grandmother Adeline.

Holy shit.

Replaying my grandmother's words and watching the two assassins fight before me, the two brain cells in my small, ill-fitted head put two and two together. Clarice freaked out about the flame not because it meant there was an attack, but because there was something more.

And yes, I didn't just call myself stupid. Focus.

Clarice is affected by little, but every time she goes off into another part of her mind like that night with the piano and staring at it for hours, it was because of family. They may have thought that I couldn't hear them when they made the deal within themselves - which I didn't, not entirely - but I was able to pick out a few words, and mother was one of them. She never mentions her mother and always avoids the subject. It wasn't necessarily hard to figure out that she lost her mother after that. If both Clarice and Arthur came back with rage to spare, then something happened to their family. To their father.

I try not to imagine the worst, but with the way this fight is going, it's kind of hard not to. Clarice came back with her hands encased in blood, twitching for a fight, and her eyes glazed with a look only a trained killer would have. I've never seen someone in the killing calm, and I'm not sure I've seen her entirely in it, but there was enough left in her eyes and spilling off of her on the way here that could only mean one thing. One thing whose pain is an old friend and just doesn't seem to want to leave her alone.

The Jade King is dead, and they're struggling to stand the weight of it.

*****

They've been at it for a while now. I can't hear the clock to tell exactly how long we've been here, but people are starting to fall asleep. Ethan and Gabe are knocked out on each other's shoulders, and Mal, Ozzie, and Alister are dozing against the wall. Everyone else keeps "resting their eyes." Garrison and I are the only ones still awake to watch.

I keep trying to wrap my head around the fact that their father is dead. I mean he's the King of the Jade Assassins, if he's dead, then what does that mean for everyone else? I feel safe so long as Arthur and Clarice are here, but if they don't get some rest then I'm not sure how effective they'll be. That's not the only problem. Losing someone isn't physical pain, it's every kind of pain you know and some you don't. Both of them are going to be changed after this, and who's to say it will be a good or bad change?

I walk to Alister and kick his foot. He jolts awake his hand going straight to his sword. "I need you to do me favor."

"What is it?" He asks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Take a message to my mother."

*****

"That's enough," Lance says twenty minutes later.

"Yield or die. Those are the rules." Clarice throws a dagger, Arthur ducks and rolls, and they go on for another five minutes. You know, I thought I could never get tired of watching them fight.

I was wrong.

Another twenty minutes, and they go to the ground, rolling a few times before coming to a stop. Her body is trapped withing his. Lance's arms have hers pinned and her legs unable to lift to gain a footing.

"Yield," he demands.

"No!" She lifts her hips, body twisting wherever it can in defiance. Her arm manages to snake free of his own, but he reacts quickly and catches her by the wrist before she can sock him in the jaw. He returns her arms beneath his and she still strains to break free, but there's a sort of childish attempt to her effort.

"Yield."

"No." Her voice shutters and falls. She still kicks and wiggles, but she's already given up. She probably did a while ago, but she's always been so stubborn.

Slowly, her attempts to break free turn mild and then still. Her chest rises and falls in rapid succession, something not entirely of fatigue but anger and pain. That's why she kept fighting, because the pain started to come back and she didn't want it there. I know because that's what I did. My grandmother died and I tried shutting it out by making stupid decisions and sneaking into town to drink until I had to be carried back to the castle. I did it until I felt better, and it was a long time until I even started to feel a little bit less everything.

Clarice and her brother sit there for a while. Their shaky breaths echoing off of the walls. Looking to Garrison who watches with a blank expression, I turn and -

A terrifying scream blasts through the room. I whirl, expecting people to be sprinting at us with swords and fire and arrows already flying, too quick to stop. The Dozen all wake and jolt to their feet likely expecting the same thing. We all stand there, readying for the fight to come, only it doesn't. There are no arrows or attackers. It's Clarice.

Still clutched in her brother's tight arms, she screams up at the ceiling so loudly and...achingly. It's loud and it-it hurts - it hurts me. She screams and screams and I swear the ground and earth above us start to quake with it. I've heard mothers cry out when their child falls dead to a sickness or lose their husbands to the cost of keeping the borders at peace. They yell as if it'll summon the Gods down to the earth to answer their call, but not a single one of them sounded like this. So broken and - and lost by it. That's how she sounds - broken. I don't know how anyone could sound like that, but it pierces like a shard of ice, and still her brother holds her against him with tense arms and white knuckles, his head buried in her neck. She screams until she runs out of breath, and even then the tunnels echo with it, never really leaving.

*****

We left to wait in the tunnels for Clarice. Figured they needed a few minutes. She came through the archway some fifteen minutes or so later, not saying a word, her hood pulled low. We stuck to the walls to let her pass, then followed at a distance. I expected her brother went back to his rooms, and though solitude is probably what he wants, he won't be alone. No one should be alone after that.

I thought the stairs from the hallway up ware bad, but having to go up to double that is literal hell. Clarice tells me that her father had a staircase this long that the trainees need to climb in order to get from their beds to the training room, and then additional stairs to get to the ground floor of the house. I feel awful that the man is gone, but did he have to be such a monster to people's thighs?

The Dozen go to take up their spots outside the bedroom and I look back to make sure Clarice is distracted - not that it's entirely possible - then walk to Garrison before he closes the door.

"No," he says when he sees the look in my eyes.

"Thirty," I bargain instantly.

"No."

"Don't make me say it, Garrison."

I've never once ordered any of The Dozen to do anything, and I don't want to. They're my friends before my guard, and as such, I won't be the Prince who bosses everyone around because there's a crown atop his head. Garrison knows I hate even the idea of pulling the Prince card, so I know he won't deny me thirty minutes without him or anyone else posted inside.

I watch his eyes go over my shoulder. When they snap back to my own I nearly hug him. "Thirty minutes. No more, no less."

I wait until all of them are out in the hall and the doors click shut before closing the bedroom door. Clarice is still relieving herself of weapons as I walk into the bathroom and change. Look, I'm not trying to do it with her, I'm still afraid of even trying to punch her when we spar. I just want her to talk. I remember the look in her eyes in the Moonrise Tower, both when she saw the fire and when she returned. If it was the other way around and it was my mother whose life was in danger, then I would be going out of my mind. I don't know what exactly happened, but I have no doubt that she's racing through her head trying to figure out ways that she could've saved him. I always wondered that if I paid closer attention to Siscilla's lessons, then I could've come up with a remedy to cure my grandmother's sickness.

Soon enough I realized that if Siscilla who has healing magic couldn't heal my grandmother, then no one could. Knowing that didn't change a thing. I still think that there's something I could've done. I could've convinced her to stay, to fight longer so that someone could find something that would help her. If I'm being honest, I still go through some healing books to see if there was anything that no one thought of using. I know it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't the one who put the sickness in her, but it still hurts. It still feels like I didn't do everything I could've.

Since then, I knew that if someone ever went through pain like that, I would help. Ozzy's sister died about two years ago on his birthday from a fire in their house. She went in to find their mother and got trapped beneath the ceiling on their way out. Her mom didn't even realize her daughter wasn't behind her until she got into the street. We were finishing a bottle of Kidzra in celebration of him turning sixteen when word got to Ozzy. He left the next minute and disappeared. Three days later, he came back tired and covered in smoke. He was digging through the remnants of the house to find his sister's body. From the second he got back to a month later and every year on his birthday, I was there for him. I listened to him when he told me about her, sat with him when all he would do all day was stare out his window. I met her once. Her name was Clementine, and she was the light of his life.

Then Benny lost his mother, and he and Amel their father, and I was there. I know what it feels like to lose someone, not as many as Clarice has, nor do any of us know what it's like to lose someone to a blade rather than a natural cause, but someone. Even if she ends up putting a knife to my throat another at my stomach and tells me to leave her alone, I'm still going to try. My grandmother lived her life impacting people's lives for the better, it's only fair that I try and continue her legacy in the best way I can.

I leave my pendant I only take off every now and then in a small drawer and walk back into the room. Ever since the nightmares, I haven't wanted to take the chance of possibly losing, damaging, or using it as a weapon against her. I got it when I was a child, too young to remember from who, but my grandmother put it around my neck, so on my neck, it has stayed.

Clarice has changed into nightclothes, her suit hidden wherever she puts it. After that first night, she's made sure that her nightclothes are loose pants and long-sleeved. I'm still not sure if I want to complain about it or not.

I sit at the edge of the bed and pat the spot next to me. She eyes me for a moment before slowly walking over and sitting down. Her whole body is still tense, but it's her hands and the side of her face that have me staring. They're still covered in dried blood. There's cracks in it on her knuckles and the side of her eye from scowling and gripping the weapons. It's one thing to see her in her suit, another to see her in pajamas, but an entirely different thing to see her covered in blood and making no move to wipe it off.

"What happened?" I ask plainly.

"I told you. Shit." She looks down at her hands and slowly clenches them.

"Clarice." I wait for her to look at me before continuing. "What happened?" I know she knows that I know. I can see it in her eyes. Not to mention that I'm terrible at keeping a neutral face. One of my few flaws.

She looks away and we fall into silence. I'm no mother who has a sixth sense on how to comfort someone, but if she doesn't want to tell me, fine. I'll just squeeze it out of her. Gently. People don't respond well when you keep nagging them again and again on a subject that they don't even know how to comprehend themselves. It's better to just start the conversation and then let them think about it themselves. Sooner or later they'll come around, it's only a matter of patience. Lucky for her, I've got plenty of that right now. It's strange, I know.

"Come on." I take her hands, ignoring the matte feel of them, and pull her up.

I lead her to the bathroom and motion for her to take a seat on the counter beside the sink. I open one of the cabinets and pull out a cloth, getting it wet while she sits, staring into space. Blood doesn't just wash off, not in the way you need it to. Yes, water can take it off your skin, but it's the feeling of it still lingering on your skin that's hard to get rid of. Scrubbing makes you feel like you're actually getting rid of it. Don't ask me how I know that. After I ring the cloth, I take her right hand and start scrubbing. She makes no move to stop me, but I can feel her eyes on me as I do so. Knowing her, she's probably wondering why in ten hells I'm wiping blood off her hands but am not pushing her further to tell me what happened. I just keep my eyes on my work, and wait.

She's got calluses on every finger, her palm rough and scratchy where another woman's would be soft and smooth. Our society puts women in the more delicate of hands. When you think of a woman, you normally think of a girl who handles the simpler things in life. It's the men that get their hands dirty and take on the harder, more strength demanding tasks. Yet here is Clarice, a woman who can kill a man eight feet tall and four feet wide with a few swipes of her daggers and the voice of death. She saw what society had planned for her, and rather than become the typical teenage girl, she transformed into this badass woman who will protect all that she loves herself. And she doesn't need a man at her side to accomplish such goals.

Minutes go by when I've finished cleaning her hand. I glance up, meeting her stare before picking up her other hand and start scrubbing. I doubt she cares if I'm too gentle or too rough with her hand, but I'd probably irritate her if I did start hacking away at it.

"We were too late," she says in a hoarse voice. I stay quiet, letting her tell me what she wants without me pushing her. "There was too much blood. On the wall, the floor...his hands." Well, that explains the handprint sticking out from under her balaclava. "My mother taught me the ways of healing, but everything I learned flew out of my mind when I saw him. I should've done more."

She pauses, waiting for me to tell her that she did all that she could. When I don't, she sighs and continues on. "We found him pinned against a wall in his office by an arrow." This time I do look at her.

Pinned. On a wall... by an arrow? Dear Gods, this isn't what I thought it was at all.

"We got him down, and when I went to see if I could stop the bleeding..." She drifts off, a shadow passing over her face as her eyes start glistening. Is it bad that I want her to cry so that I can watch her eyes shine? Focus Darius.

"It nicked an artery, a few inches from his heart. We were too late."

This is...so much worse than burning buildings and a virus. As she closes her eyes and leans her head back against the wall, I watch as two tears fall over her cheek and get soaked up by her balaclava. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do, when your family dies, you can't help but feel like there was so much more you wanted - needed to tell and do with them. Once they're gone, all you get is this big hole inside your chest you feel will never go away.

"I watched my mother-" She stops herself, probably because it's personal and I'm not supposed to know these things. So I'm surprised when she keeps talking. "My mom was tortured to death. Right in front of me. My best friend and her family stabbed in the heart by my ex-boyfriend, the same man who has now killed my father."

Trying to understand even an inkling of what she's been through, I look back down at her now clean hands and imagine that every callus, every layer of skin hardened to protect her, is because of the things she been through. All this pain, leading to all this armor. That's what evil causes: Others to build walls and hide behind a suit of armor like rats under a rock trying to avoid the eyes of the circling hawk above. This world preys the weak and gives it to the strong. Why do you think we have Gods?

"Now, just like all my bad choices, he's coming to kill me. I've lived through a thousand deaths, most of them by my hand. And I've trained, and trained, and trained so that I could defend him and every other person I've loved, and it still isn't good enough. I've now given death more souls to last a lifetime and three in which I lost in the process, and still, no reward I'm given. Instead, he takes more and more never once giving me the satisfaction of knowing my family will be safe. I kill nearly every day, and yet I can't help but wonder what leads people to think my parents deserved the ending they got. And still, after everything, I am not strong enough."

Something snaps in me thin. Something vicious and tenacious and resolut. Something I've never felt before, but fear of how potent and raw it is.

"Look at me." She gives a slight shake of her head. "Look. At. Me." Her eyes open and the look in her eyes feels like an arrow nicked my artery and pinned me to the wall. It reminds me of her scream. Broken.

"You are more than enough. You think that all these losses and the pain it causes are because you and your suffering are worth nothing. But Clarice, you were given this life, pain and all, because you are the only one strong enough to live it. All that you've lost has been taken from you so that when the time comes, you will see that you are enough, and you have always been and you always will be."

"So then why couldn't I save them?" Her voice is nothing more than a whisper. A plea to the wind to give her answers.

I look down at her hand that looks so small lying in mine. "People aren't meant to be saved. They are made to be loved."

"And if I can't save you?" She hardens her voice in challenge. "What then?"

I hesitate. "Then the sun will rise the next morning, and you will live the life everyone else fears because there is no one more capable of doing so than you." She shakes her head, denying what she likely always will.

"You barely know me."

"I don't need to. I trust you."

Her eyes snap back up to mine, and I don't let myself show any doubt. It isn't hard to fake something you truly mean. I hadn't realized it until now, but I trust Clarice. I may not know her name or her backstory or what she looks like, but I trust her. She's not what everyone else thinks she is. She's more. She's not a monster created to bring about violence, but rather she's the result of what violence and evil bring about. All this time I've been worried about whether or not someone will kill me or even if she will kill me, but my true fear has been whether she'll be fighting beside me when it'll count the most.

"Here," I say holding out the cloth to her. "You should get your face."

She doesn't take it. Instead, she just...looks at it.

This is the pain that is brought about by someone who takes no care for other's lives. I know that at the end of the day Clarice has taken people from this world just like her ex who seems like a real dick, whoever he is. But there's a difference between killing for hate and the balance of good and evil. Garrison told me earlier about how the Jades aren't wired to the normal "assassin genes." They don't kill because someone looked at them weird or spilled kidzra on their clothes. They kill those who have done an innocent wrong, and that's why I trust her. She won't kill me. She'll be here to watch my back, and I'll be there to watch hers.

"Clarice?" I ask when she still hasn't taken the cloth from me.

She looks at me again, this time with a different meaning hidden in her eyes that I can't decipher. Grandmother Adelina used to look at me like this. I never knew what it meant, and she never told me, but I didn't need to know. Now, I kind of wish I had asked her what it meant. It's one thing to get looked at like this by a family member, but from Clarice...I don't know what to do.

"You said you trust me. Why?" she asks.

I shrug, kind of weirded out at the fact that I'm still holding out a cloth she won't take. "Because you've earned it."

"How?"

"You've done nothing to show me that you don't. You've saved my life more times than I can count, stayed with me, and pulled me out when the nightmares get rough and I wake up wanting to chop your head off. My trust isn't held by many people, but I'd be a liar if I said I don't trust you."

She watches me for a moment, and I don't blame her. I mean if I were her, I'd be doing the same thing. No doubt that her trust is going to be hard to earn in return, but for now, this is better than nothing at all.

She doesn't reach for the cloth still and I'm left standing here with my arm slightly extended at her, looking like a complete idiot. What is she waiting for?

"I trust you," she says.

A blink is the only sign of my confusion. Here I was thinking I'd have to take a few arrows for her to trust me. Why do I always speak too soon?

I must've not understood her completely because she leans forward and repeats herself. "I. Trust. You."

This time I notice the look in her eyes. All this time I thought my grandmother was looking at me like this because she was silently judging me but didn't want me to know she was judging me. Turns out she was just looking at me like that because she...she trusted me entirely with the kingdom, just like Clarice said my grandmother had told to the town all those years ago.

Glancing to Clarice's balaclava and her blood covered cheek, I know what she's saying. She trusts me enough to let see who she is. There's just one problem. "What you look like won't change my mind. I don't need to know your face to know you'll be here when I need you." I say.

Something like a spark of amusement glints in her eyes. "I know. But I trust you."

I search her eyes, for some sort of trick or even some kind of illness that might explain why she's acting so strange. Then again, Clarice is always acting strange. This is just...stranger. When I don't find anything, I look back at her balaclava and slowly raise my hands to the fabric. She doesn't move and I'm not even sure if she's breathing. I'm not even sure I'm breathing.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale...dammit, I forgot how to exhale.

This isn't just finding out what rumors are true and which aren't. Clarice is trusting me with the task of knowing who she is and trusting that I won't go telling The Dozen or anyone else, including my mother. This is trust, and it's scaring the living shit out of me for no apparent reason. Actually, there are plenty of reasons.

I gently pull down the cover, my fingers brushing against her skin until it falls to her neck and I'm looking at her.

You know, I've tried thinking about her and what she'd look like. Slightly plump lips, small dimples, long eyelashes, a cute nose...but nothing that I've imagined has even come close. Her lips aren't plump, but they're not flat either. She doesn't have dimples, but she doesn't need them. Her eyes I haven't been able to unsee since the day she walked into the throne room that first day.

If you could picture the most casual beauty in the world, it'd be Clarice. Don't get me wrong, she's always been someone I've seen as beautiful. Beautiful dangerous, beautifully violent, beautifully independent and strong willed and brave and loyal above all else. It's just...there's darkness in her beauty. Not from the death of her father and the pain of losing him, but unclear darkness that settles on her like a shadow of its own making. It's darkness, but it's also beautiful. It's like something out of a poem.

Once I figure out how to start breathing again, I start gently rubbing the cloth over her bloodstained cheek. I can feel her gaze watching mine carefully, but I've seen beauty before, so I see no reason to stare.

Oh get it together people, I'M FREAKING SCREAMING MY MIND OUT! If I had seen someone like this before, I'd be making my mother proud and marrying the Godsdamned woman. It's strange to think that there's no one in this world like Clarice - and there isn't - but her beauty could always be somewhat matched with others. I know it's odd to say that, but it's true when you think about it. But she still stands out - to me, at least, I think she always will.

"Lance is all I have left," Clarice says pulling me from my thoughts. "My parents are gone. He's all the family I have now."

"I'm sorry," I whisper, unsure of what else to do. Finding her face clean of blood, I turn to the sink and wash my hands to busy my suddenly jittery nerves.

"My father left me something. Made me promise to grab it and take it with me. I don't know what it is, and I don't know if I want to."

"You want to." She looks at me, her brows furrowed. "Otherwise wouldn't still have it."

I watch as she thinks about it. I mean you think about it. Someone gives you something or tells you to do something, you say you don't want to, but you end up keeping it with you or carrying out the task. It's like me with my pendent. I don't know who or where it came from, but I was told to keep it on me and so I have. At first, all I wanted to do was throw it in the moat and stick my tongue out at my mom to show her that she can't make me do anything. As a child that's like shoving the middle finger in her face and feeling all grown up until she sends your teacher to hit you with her sandal and lock you in your room. Instead, I kept it on me because I really did like it. It was strange and unique and beautiful. I wasn't about to let it slip through my fingers.

"Tomorrow," Clarice states softly. "I'll look at it tomorrow. It's already been a long night."

"That it has. Come on, we should get some sleep." I offer her a hand, half-convinced she's going to slap it away, make a typical Clarice smartass remark and plop down on the bed like she owns the world. Surprisingly enough she takes my hand and lazily slides down. I'm even more surprised when I loosen my hand to let go and she doesn't. If trust with her is like this, then perhaps I should try it with Arthur and see where that leads. Restoring my grip, we walk to the bed and take our respective spots.

"Lay down. Sleep," I tell her when she goes to sit up.

"You know I can't-"

"No nightmares tonight."

"Oh?" she says, her eyebrow raising. "And how can you be so sure?"

"I just know. Trust me."

It's a low blow, I know, but it works. She settles herself under the covers, a body's width between us as usual. I don't know why, but we end up laying on our sides facing each other, just staring at one another, wondering what the world has come to for an assassin and a Prince to suddenly find trust in one another.

Tonight's been...a night. They have been for a while, and I have no doubt the universe and the Gods have more and then some to come. My life has been threatened, I've been attempted to kill, trained by and befriended not one, but two, Jade assassins, and now have gained the trust of one. And that's just naming a few events in the span of fourteen days. Now I lay in a bed with a girl who isn't like any other, has darkness in her beauty, and a past, present, and future as chaotic as it can get...and...I'm happier than I've been in years.

"We're burning my father's body in three days." And there goes the happy. "It'll take up the entirety of the night, so Arthur and I won't be here."

We fall back into silence, my head trying to find solutions to keep me asleep and in control in three nights. I'm not having a nightmare tonight. That's final. Clarice has been through enough tonight, the last thing she needs is to be staying up all night with her thoughts circling around the memory of her father lying dead, and then having to fight a creature that seems to like the taste of her blood. So no. There will be no nightmares and creatures tonight.

"I want to come." The words form in my mouth before I can even think about what I'm saying.

Her slowly closing eyes snap open, her jaw opening into a surprised gap. "What?"

Trust me, I'm asking myself the same question.

"Look," I say still not in control of my own words. "I know I never knew your father, and I wish I had, but I want to go. He gave his life tonight so that mine could continue. He sent his best to watch over and protect me and my mother from a mad man, and for that, I want to say thank you. So I want to go."

"Darius it's too dang-"

"Please." She thinks about it as she bites the inside of her lip. "Plus you're going to need someone you can trust to cry on."

She rolls her eyes, though I don't miss the slight tug of her lips. "Last time I tell you I trust you."

"Too late, I already know and don't plan on losing it anytime soon." A little grin of my own starts to break out.

She looks right at me, the debate still going through her mind. "Fine. But you do exactly as I do and whatever I tell you to."

"Only if you teach me the song," I bargain while I'm on a roll.

"What?"

"Earlier you said that during the ceremony you guys sing a song. I want to learn it."

Her mouth opens as if she's going to object, but she closes it and gives me another weighing look. Am I really that awful that she has to question my every request?

Don't answer that.

Just when I think that I should just give up and take what I've been given, she sighs one of those "goddammit" sighs, and starts singing. The song is slow and sang as if the world is in pain. I commit every note and every word to the best of my memory, praying to the Gods I don't make a fool of myself in three days' time.

As she sings the Dirge of the Jades, her eyes close in either memory or concentration, and I can't help but stare at her hands laying between us, wondering if they ever will be clean, and finding myself admiring them anyways.