“ι
кηєω
ѕнє
ωαѕ
∂郃єяєηт
тнαη
αℓℓ
тнє
σтнєяѕ.”
Princess Amani and her assassin
тнє first time I killed a princess, it was the easiest job I had. I danced with her under the light of the crystal chandelier, while she gazed into my eyes. She did not know that they were my eyes though. She thought that they were the eyes of Prince Ravi, but she would never find out that he had been drowned in the moat along with his supervisor.
Ballroom dancing had not been my expertise, but within a few minutes of drifting from arm to arm of the ladies, I had become a professional. I swooped her around in my arms, and then, there had been the moment. The flicker in her eyes as she straightened up and curtsied to me, taking my hand and leading me towards one of the back rooms. I pretended to be eager as I walked up the stairs after her, though the shine in my eyes was as false as the grinning smile on my face. As soon as the door was shut and she whipped around to kiss the man she believed to be an excited prince, she only found a knife that had plunged into her heart. I expected that she would scream, maybe writhe around for a bit, and I prepared to cover up her cries for help, but nothing came. As she died, I looked into her brown eyes, a few tears leaking out of them before she had collapsed and stopped breathing. I was unemotional, cleaning the edge of my blade and tucking back inside my jacket before leaving the room, locking the door behind me with the key that had hung around her neck. Then, tossing it aside, I slid down the staircase with ease, and I was deep in the woods before the screams of horror even started. I imagined the sound of the king as he kicked through the door to the aid of his daughter who would be long cold and dead when they tried to bring her back.
Coming back to my hometown, I received a gracious amount of money for her death, so I continued with my job. An assassin for the citizens who protested the lives of royalty. It was my job to get rid of them.
The job was paying well, providing my family and I with money in glorious amounts. Just one job a month would have lasted me a year, and with multiple jobs in weeks, I was soon living like a king. Unfortunately, despite the money that I made, my wife was soon to leave me, and after that followed my parents. They were disgusted with the blood that stained my hands, but sadly, I couldn’t stop. They money drove me forwards, killing more and more people in my path until I had soon hit the twenties. My hit list would grow shorter and shorter, and then, the jobs would poor in and I would be back on top once again.
But then, then came Princess Amani.
My opportunity of kill would be the Masquerade Ball, a festival held by the princess herself. She was expecting Prince Charles, whom I would be taking the place of. We were all required to wear masks that night, the night in which the true souls of people emerged. Where you could be yourself for that one night…
"ρяєραяє yourselves for the savior of the kingdom and the most beautiful woman in all of the province, Princess Amani.”
I stood by the side of the staircase in which the princess came down, clapping along with the many others who did, cheering in response to the appearance of the princess. Her mask was beautiful, carved with intricate blue and gold designs that swirled around her eyes, contrasting the dark black hair that swirled around her head. I would admit, at that moment, she was the most gorgeous woman in the whole world, but I soon averted my eyes, choosing not to become too attached to my target.
My own mask was a pale cream color, dark blue shaping the beak that protruded from the front of my face. It was instant, the moment her eyes met mine, as if she was drawn to the only fake in the room. I could see as she directed her path towards mine, but I took the moment when another man pushed in her view for her attention to slip away into the crowd of couples that had already begun to dance. Sliding in behind a pair, I leaned against one of the marble columns and watched her with a small smile that could not be seen. I could practically watch the annoyance waft off of her as she tried to be polite to the younger boy, but he would not quit. He continued to keep himself within her sight, stepping in the way when she tried to move. Soon enough, I knew she would explode, and although I felt bad, I kept my place.
Finally, he got the point and stepped out of the way, but I could see when he wanted to leap at her and beg for her hand. I could see that he wasn’t the only one that wanted to try, my gaze meeting several others of men who waited by like dogs, eagerly awaiting the call of their master.
But she was only looking for one man, and that one man was me. The man she believed to be a rich brat prince, whom I had killed not only a few minutes ago, an arrow shot through his chest with expert precision before he had even made it in the castle walls. Soon following his death was the bystanders, three in all, and the frightened steed he had been riding on. The partners that I had hired soon disposed of the bodies, and I believed that they had now sunk to the bottom of the moat, the easiest place to hide a body.
Wrapped up in my thoughts, I almost jumped when her mask appeared in the front of my vision, but I kept my composure, only raising a visible eyebrow and smirking. She held out her hand with her own eyebrows raised, eyes sparkling with humor. I couldn’t help but notice that she was different. All the princesses before her had practically leapt into the arms of the man they saw as their princes, though this one waited by patiently. With a practiced ease, I had slid us into the middle of the dancers and stepped into a careful waltz, pulling her hand with mine as we floated through the crowd. All eyes found their way to our figures as we easily made our way around.
As I pulled her into a spin, and then a dip, the same thing flashed in her eyes as the first princess had, and I knew my moment to kill would be soon. But instead of pulling me towards a more private space, she continued dancing. I had to strain my ears to hear her voice ring from behind her mask, her words clear to only me as I held my head close to her’s.
“You are not the prince, are you?”
Startled, I kept my eyes neutral when I met her gaze, shaking my head slightly. I mentally screamed at myself that I should not have told her, but she only nodded, and I could tell that she was smiling.
“You are my assassin, here to kill me, are you not?”
This time, the shock rang out clearly in my eyes, and I had to hold onto her to keep myself from scrambling backwards, and her beautiful laugh echoed through my eardrums.
“I expected as much. The real prince is quite a terrible dancer if I do say so myself. My father warned me that I may be targeted, though I didn’t believe him. I guess I should have, but I never expected my killer to be this handsome.”
I was astounded and I could not form words in my mouth, my throat dry and parched as I tried to find something to do. All I could think of is that she laughed, even though she knew I was here to kill her. The way she scoffed at death made my eyes widen in shock and narrow in confusion. I knew that she was different than all the others, though I didn’t expect it to be like this.
“Well then, what are you waiting for my good man? If not ever, I would say this is the best time to strike, seeing that at any moment I could easily call out my guards.”
Blinking and trying to pull my scrambled thoughts together, I slid the dagger out of my sleeve in which I had it hidden, making sure that it was still not visible to any others who were watching. It was poised just over the point where her heart beat, and with a flick of my wrist I could have easily plunged it through her back, but something stopped me. I squinted my eyes shut, and when I opened them, the princess had taken off her mask, staring up at me with the blue eyes that floated like oceans. They searched my gaze, trying to find something there, but when they found nothing, her laugh sounded again.
“And yet you cannot make the kill. I wonder why. You are a very well known assassin, yet you do not kill yet another princess. Why is that?”
Finally, some words formed in my mouth, spilling out in a hushed voice that only she would be able to hear. “My princesa, I cannot kill you because I know you are different, and that keeps me from pushing a knife into your heart. You are too lovely for words and do not deserve to die a way such as this.”
Just then, as her smile widened, it also grimaced in pain, and I looked over behind her to see the same young boy that had been bothering her since the beginning of the ball. A grin crossed his face, and when I looked down at the princess, she was slumped in my arms, going cold with each passing second. Her muscles had gone limp, and only a faint shimmer of life stayed within her eyes. In those final moments of life, she met my own gaze, staring straight into my soul. I could only barely make out her words, but it was enough to make tears form in my eyes.
“You should have finished me while you had the chance." Her voice was fading faster and faster, and I had to lean into her to her last words. “On the bright side... You made my last night a wonderful one. You are a better prince than the real one. Thank you for not killing me.”
It was only then, when her life force slowly died, that I noticed my fingers gripped around the arrow that protruded through her back. I followed it around her body, following the tip until I realized that it had made its way clean through her body…
And into mine.
I couldn’t even feel the pain as I held her in my arms, my vision clouded with black spots as I fell onto the floor. The screams around us soon disappeared, my hearing quitting with the other organs in my body. The blood that was left in my veins was too little to keep me going, it having all spilled out on the floor around us.
And, with one last look at the princess’ pale face, my own mind drifted into black, my eyes closing and my mouth curving into a small smile as the last words escaped my mouth in a whisper.
“I am glad that I didn’t kill you either princesa.”
••• 
