𝐏𝐚𝐱𝐭𝐨𝐧

Since then, the woman had hardly crossed my thoughts. Over a year, the king and my associate spies had settled our matters with Aragand and their slimy governor. I had been on more than a few assignments, with seemingly more important things on my mind.

And yet here I lay in the darkness, surrounded by snoring men in their own cots, so close to her. So close to completing this mission.

It was hard to believe she was one of the warriors I was searching for. She was small and thin, not burly or intimidating at all; not to mention incarcerated by her own kingdom. And why would she have been at that party? What business did she have with Dames?

Questions ran through my mind. I had answers for none of them. I tossed my knife in the air, watching its silhouette spin. Tossing and catching. Tossing and catching. It helped me think.

Tucking my knife back into its sheath, I decided to go on a midnight stroll. Not that it would be pleasant.

The dormitory door shut behind me with a soft thud, sending a small cloud of dust swirling by my feet. I really didn't have anywhere to "stroll" aside from a musty hallway, a washroom, and the dungeon. How eager I was for this excursion to be over.

On the other end of the pitch black hallway was the dungeon, oddly quiet in the night. Normally it was filled with tortured moans of the prisoners and metal ringing as they threw themselves against the walls of their cells. Now there was only an occasional faraway echo—a shout, or the rattling of chains against stone.

Two soldiers were posted in the doorway, and I guessed about four more inside. They nodded to me as I passed, recognizing me as one of their own. Strange how easy it had been to convince them so.

The room was lit by a few torches along the walls that flickered and cast eerie shadows over everything. It had no windows, and looked just as cold and uninviting in the day as it did now. A few shadowed faces watched me wearily from their cages, and the stench of the unbathed prisoners filled the stale air.

It wasn't hard to find her cell. I had stared into its depths all the previous day, trying to catch a glimpse of her at least once. But the only times I saw her was when she spat occasional insults at her captors, which admittedly were quite clever sometimes.

Now I could see her closer, a huddled sleeping form that hardly moved besides to breathe. Though they were hard to see, her marks were there, reminiscent of the ones I had inked onto my arms for this job. Lines and spirals trailing up her arms. The glinting of metal adorning the rim of her ears. All Zhyne had those.

But the men—and woman, it seemed—I was after had something else alongside that. Skulls, tattooed all over their neck. I couldn't see them all from under her dark locks, but they were there.

One for every life they stole.

They were fighters. It was their job. But only monsters wore their victims like a badge of honor. The thought made me sick, and I wondered if there was some other twisted meaning behind the earrings that cluttered each of her ears.

Whatever reason the king wanted the Shavan under his watch, it must've been a good one. For now, all I had to do was get them to him. Somehow.