An Assassin's Recovery

Morning sunlight filtered through the narrow cellar window for the eighth time. Kaelan still counted the days. 

For the first few days, he had rarely gotten out of bed. At most, he rose just to shoo away curious, beady eyes peeking through a crack in the door. But at some point, he started agreeing more often to join them at the dining table, or to get some fresh air in the courtyard, watching from a distance as the children played without a care. 

It seemed like another of those days was ahead of him.

He made his way out and leaned against a porch pillar overlooking the entrance of the chapel grounds. He put a hand to his side. The phantom pain had long vanished, and his head spun less and less each day, but his daggers still weighed heavily in his grip.

He watched as a farmer hauled a heavy crate of autumn apples onto the porch, the wood groaning under the weight. Behind him, a young woman balanced a basket of eggs, while an older man dropped a heavy bag of flour with a thud.

“Sister Maria around?” the older man said.

“Out back, probably bandaging another scraped knee.”

Or maybe doing some type of miracle, Kaelan thought.

He recalled a few days prior when the little girl with the knotted hair wouldn’t stop crying because her favorite flower in the field out back had withered. In seconds, Maria had created a bloom of flowers across the field. Last time he checked, it had turned into a rainbow-colored meadow, inhabited by soft bunnies, singing birds, and all other types of critters straight out of a children’s tale.

The young woman by his side chuckled. “Never enough of those around, I’m sure.” Her eyes ran over him from head to toe in a quick glance. “You must be the guest she mentioned.”

“...Not for long.” Kaelan side-eyed the goods they’d dropped off. “Is this the fee?”

The farmer wiped sweat from his forehead. “Fee?”

“For the miracles,” Kaelan said. “A woman with her power... what does she charge you? Protection? Land? A percentage of the harvest?”

Then again, Maria didn’t seem the type. 

But there must have been some benefit. That’s how it had always been around the kingdom; he’d seen it plenty firsthand.

The farmer looked at Kaelan with a low smile and furrowed brows. “Sister Maria helped us first, lad. When the blight hit the eastern field, she prayed until the soil turned green. When my boy was dying of the lung-rot, she didn't ask for coin. She just asked if he liked soup.” He hoisted the empty crate. “We don't give because we have to. We give because we can’t imagine this village without her.”

Kaelan watched them leave. Maybe things were different in small, far-off villages. But it seemed inefficient. In his world, everything had a price, and a debt that wasn't measured in gold or blood was sure to bring regrets.

***

The first week bled into the second. Though he’d somewhat grown to tolerate it, Kaelan was still a predator in a place that didn’t believe in prey. The friction made his skin itch. 

He stepped into the cooling evening air, his boots crunching softly on the dry pine needles behind the chapel.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. A figure with a heavy presence loomed behind him in the shadows.

Kaelan froze. His heart rate spiked. Poor visibility, and a silhouette bearing down on him? He caught the glint of steel—a heavy axe resting casually on a broad shoulder.

For a heartbeat, Kaelan had no doubt: the "insurance" had returned to claim his head. And just when his body was finally starting to listen to him... It was still not nearly ready to keep up.

He gritted his teeth, expecting the worst.

“Oh! Kaelan!”

The figure turned into the lantern light hanging from the porch, wiping a sleeve across her smudged face. It wasn't a killer. It was Maria, her amber eyes bright as ever. He almost wished it had been the killer.

She lowered the axe, leaning it against her hip. Her palms were raw and reddened. “Enjoying the fresh air?” 

“No.”

Maria giggled in response. It was a straightforward answer, Kaelan couldn’t see the humor.

“What of you?” he asked.

She gestured proudly toward a large stack of split wood. “I wanted to finish this before the children sat down for their evening stories."

Kaelan stared at the pile. “You did this? By hand?”

Maria raised a thin arm. “Hey! I’m stronger than I appear.” She threw the axe across her shoulders. “But well, the axe did most of the work.”

“The firewood could have waited until tomorrow. I'm sure those villager friends of yours would've lent a hand."

Maria blinked at him. “Could it?”

“Could it what?”

“Wait until tomorrow?” She tilted her head, her wavy honey hair drooping to her side. “The children need warmth tonight, and Mother Martha’s joints ache when the hearth goes cold. If I can do it now, why wouldn't I?”

“You're a disaster, Maria,” Kaelan muttered. “Also, if you truly wished... did you know you’d make a great assassin?”

Maria stood there, processing his words, but Kaelan walked off with a blank face before she could even hope to finish.

***

Another day passed, or was it two?

Kaelan had Maria’s routine almost memorized. It mostly consisted of preparing breakfast, helping with lessons, preparing lunch, watching over the children who seemingly loved to trip while playing, doing various chores, preparing dinner, and finally, reading to them before they went off to bed. 

Well, just the children going off to bed. She herself just went off working into the dead of night. Yet, she never lost her smile.

Kaelan exhausted himself just watching her. And here he was, trying to fully recover so he could finally leave this place. Why’d she have to be so ungrateful?

He sat on the stone lip of the well near the edge of the courtyard, his eyes tracking a hawk circling the ridge. It was a tactical vantage point, or so he told himself, though the only thing he was currently "scouting" was a group of orphans playing a frantic game of tag in the dirt.

No wonder they're always getting hurt.

His side no longer burned when he breathed, but a different kind of irritation was settling under his skin—the itch of familiarity.

“Oof!”

A small, wet thud drew Kaelan’s attention to the base of the well. The toddler with the unruly cowlick, whose name Kaelan had stubbornly refused to memorize, was struggling with a wooden bucket of water.

The bucket was half-full, but to the boy, it might as well have been a boulder. He was gripping the rough hemp rope with white knuckles. 

A little warrior, that one. 

If Maria had caught sight of him, she'd for sure had thrown a fit. The boy’s face turned bright red as he tried to hoist the bucket of water over the stone edge.

He’d drop it and soak his shoes. Mother Martha would have to dry them, unless Maria beat her to it. 

Not my problem.

But as the boy’s foot slipped on a patch of mud and the bucket began to tilt dangerously toward his small frame, Kaelan didn’t think. His body acted with the same automatic reflex he’d used to deflect the rival assassin’s blade.

In a blur of motion that would have cost a client thousands of gold, Kaelan was off the well and had his scarred hand wrapped firmly around the cold iron handle of the bucket.

“Use your legs, not your back,” Kaelan growled. “And don't grip with your fingertips. Wrap your palm around it. Keep your center of gravity low.”

He adjusted the boy’s tiny hands. To Kaelan, this wasn't kindness; it was a survival correction, the same way he’d check the balance of a blade. The water bucket would've done some damage to his tiny frame. Or worse. If the boy had fallen into the well with him nearest at the time, well… it wouldn’t have painted the greatest picture.

The boy looked up, his bright sapphire eyes wide with an excitement Kaelan hadn't expected. “Are you teaching me to be a knight?”

Kaelan released the handle. For a fleeting second, the courtyard vanished. He wasn't in a village; he was back in a cold cellar, not Maria’s warm one. And the boy was a different one—he was one of the children Kaelan had failed to save far too many moons ago to even begin counting.

“No,” Kaelan snapped. “I'm far from a knight…”

He turned on his heel and strode toward the chapel. He felt a flash of annoyance—not at the child, but at the realization that such buried instincts were surfacing once more without his permission.

As he passed the kitchen window, he caught a glimpse of a honey-haired figure standing by the hearth. 

Maria didn't call out to him. She simply watched him with a knowing, gentle smile that made his assassin's skin crawl.

He realized then that the “monster” his employer had sent him to kill wasn't just Maria. It was the way this place at times made him feel like a human being again. It felt like a proper home. And to an assassin, a home was the most dangerous threat of all.