Chapter 4: Suspicions

“Ellaine… why didn’t you help me?”

The voice did not belong to the living. It was a wet, bubbling rasp, cooked raw by heat and stripped of whatever humanity it once held. Along with the voice came the smell—dense, suffocating, and sickly sweet, like rendered fat and charred bone. A burning corpse stood over me, its blackened flesh splitting open to reveal glowing, crimson embers beneath. It reached out with fingers that had melted into stumps, trailing wisps of oily smoke into the dark.

I choked, my lungs seizing as I snapped awake.

I bolted upright, gasping for air that didn’t carry the reek of burning meat. Sweat slicked my collarbone, cold and clinging. I slammed a hand over my racing heart, forcing my chest to expand, forcing the stale, cool air of the guest chambers into my lungs until the phantom smell of ash finally began to dissipate.

What the hell was that?

I pulled my knees toward my chest, burying my face in my hands as the lingering static of the nightmare settled into razor-sharp clarity. The face in the fire had been featureless, a ruin of melted skin, but the identity of the woman was undeniable. The dream had laid it bare.

It was Mary.

I let out a long, shuddering exhale, pressing the heels of my palms into my eye sockets until I saw stars. What happened back then, left an emotional scar that seemed to drag forgotten events of my past. The phantom stench of charcoal seemed to cling to the back of my throat. It mirrored the memories I’d spent years trying to bury.

Mary and I were tethered by blood and iron, bound by a shared past that ran deeper than simple camaraderie. What locked us together—the inescapable foundation of our bond—was our shared hatred for the King.

When the Guild finally released me from their grip, recognizing that I had survived their crucible, my first target hadn't been a assigned contract. It had been him. I wanted the man who tore our lives apart dead.

To the public, the King was a paragon of virtue—a benevolent monarch whose reign brought stability, trade, and order to the realm. Bards sang of his wisdom in the taverns; nobles toasted to his longevity at grand banquets. But glory is a curtain painted to hide the abattoir behind it. Few knew about his dark side, and fewer still had survived it.

Fifteen years ago, the royal vanguard rode into my village under the cover of a moonless night. The official record, if one even existed, likely cited "suspicions of treason"—a convenient label stamped over any community that dared look too self-sufficient. They didn't just clear the village; they put it to the torch. They did it to mine, and they did it to dozens of others scattered across the outer territories.

Mary’s home had burned on the same night, under the exact same orders.

Only a handful of us survived the ash and the steel. Children, mostly. Small enough to hide in root cellars or crawl beneath the bodies of our elders until the horses rode away. And all of it—the slaughter, the scorched earth, the ruined lives—had been set in motion by a single, paranoid whisper. An oracle had delivered a premonition to the throne: A rebellion will rise from the outer lands, led by the child of a commoner.

There was no rebellion. There were only farmers, blacksmiths, and children. But the King, consumed by the terror of losing his crown, chose to bleed the kingdom dry to ensure the prophecy found no soil to take root in. The massacres only ceased years later, when the first prince was born, satisfying whatever bloody omen had kept the monarch awake at night.

When I left the organization, I tracked the King to his private quarters, slipping past the palace wards like a ghost. I had stood over his sleeping form, the edge of my blade hovering a hair’s width from his exposed throat.

And I had hesitated.

Why? That was the question that haunted me more than the nightmare. Did I truly smother fifteen years of accumulated rage, betray the memories of my family and my burned village, simply because I…of what?

I forced the thought down, shaking my head to clear the cobwebs. Ponder your weakness later, Ellaine. You have an immediate problem.

I looked toward the shadows near the corner of the room. The elephant in the room was no longer hiding.

"Ellaine," a voice grunted from the dark.

"Sortitas," I said, keeping my voice level as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I forced a faint, dismissive smile onto my lips. "I appreciate you giving me a visit. Though your timing could use some work."

The man stepped into the faint moonlight filtering through the high arched window. Sortitas did not wear armor, but he didn't need to; his frame was broad, composed entirely of dense muscle and old scars. His eyes were completely devoid of warmth or hesitation—a dead, piercing stare that felt less like a look and more like a blade trying to pry open my skull to scrape out my thoughts.

I felt the instinctual urge to gulp, but I locked my throat, keeping my expression entirely serene. He was here for an interrogation. He wanted answers about the guild, about Mary, and about why a trained killer was sitting comfortably in the guest wing of the royal estate.

Steer him away, I thought quickly. Acknowledge the debt, shift the focus, buy time.

"I really appreciate what you did back there," I said, leaning back against the wooden headboard with deliberate nonchalance. "If it weren't for your intervention, I wouldn't be breathing right now. May I ask how Lady Amelia is holding—"

Before the name fully left my mouth, the air snapped.

Sortitas moved with a speed that defied his bulk. In a blur of movement, he crossed the room and slammed me backward into the mattress. The back of my head rattled against the frame as his heavy palm clamped down hard over my windpipe, instantly cutting off my oxygen.

I choked, my hands flying up to grasp at his wrist, but his grip was made of iron. A hysterical, bitter laugh bubbled in the back of my throat at the absurdity of it. Out of the fire, straight into the butcher's hands.

"Lady Amelia may have chosen to ignore your stunt back there," Sortitas growled, leaning down until his face was inches from mine. "She is young, and she possesses a dangerous amount of mercy. But I will not risk my Lady's safety for a snake like you."

He pressed harder. The edges of my vision began to fray into static, dark spots blooming across the ceiling.

"Back there," he hissed, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, "you told me Mary was forced to attack Lady Amelia. You claimed she had no choice. But according to everything I know, the syndicate she belongs to accepts contracts willingly. Their operatives choose their targets. So how the hell can you look me in the eye and tell me what she did was a 'human mistake'?"

The pressure on my trachea was agonizing, but his words hit harder than the lack of air.

He wasn't entirely wrong. I knew how the organization worked better than anyone. Skills like ours weren't born; they were hammered into us through years of deliberate, brutal conditioning. You don't learn to sever a carotid artery in your sleep by accident. To say Mary harbored no killing intent would be a lie—a comfortable fiction I had crafted to make her actions palatable.

I couldn't defend her choices. I could only offer the reality of her cage.

"She..." I gasped, straining against the suffocating weight of his arm, "...she only did it... to become free..."

Sortitas’s eyes flickered, not with understanding, but with a sudden, volatile flash of disgust. "Killing an innocent girl isn't something you do to 'deserve freedom,' Ellaine. That isn't desperation. That's evil."

"You'd never understand," I choked out, a raw edge entering my voice as my blood thrummed with panic and rage. "If you grew up... in the dark with us... you’d be desperate enough... to burn the world... just to see the sun."

"I know what it means to serve," Sortitas snapped, his grip tightening until my lungs screamed for air. "I know duty. And I know a threat when I see one."

"You know duty because you serve a crown that feeds you," I spat back, my voice barely a whisper now as my vision narrowed to a pinhole. "Sortitas stands comfortably beside Her Highness. You have a title. You have honor. What about you? What were your intentions back then when you stayed your blade?"

"My intention," he whispered, "is to eliminate anything that threatens the princess. Starting with—"

I didn't wait for him to finish the thought.

With the absolute last reserve of my strength, I stopped fighting his grip and shifted my weight. I threw my legs up, hooking my right ankle behind his knee while trapping his left wrist against my chest with both hands. I bridged my hips upward violently, throwing his center of gravity off balance, and rolled to the right with everything I had.

The leverage worked. Sortitas grunted in surprise as he was swept sideways, his heavy frame crashing onto the mattress beside me.

Before he could recover, I scrambled over him, pinning his shoulders down with my knees. My fingers moved on instinct, flicking the leather clasp at his hip and drawing the short, heavy dagger tucked into his belt. I pressed the cold steel firmly against the soft spot beneath his jaw, breaking the skin just enough to draw a single bead of crimson.

My chest rose and fell in ragged heaves as I stared down at him, my knuckles white on the hilt.

"If you wish to stay alive," I panted, my voice low and lethal, "you're going to help me get out of this castle. Right now."

Sortitas didn't flinch. He lay beneath me, his jaw set, his dark eyes tracking my every breath with calculating precision. He was preparing to reverse the hold—I could feel the tension coiled in his thighs, ready to throw me off—when a sudden commotion burst through the heavy wooden door leading into the corridor.

"Princess Amelia! Sir Timothy! Please, step back!" a guard’s frantic voice echoed from the hallway. "You are not permitted entry! Not until Sir Sortitas finishes his questioning!"

"How many times do I have to explain this to you?" a sharp, noble voice snapped back—Timothy, his tone laced with exasperation. "She is not a prisoner under interrogation! She is a guest of the royal house! Please, move aside!"

Snap.

The lock gave way, and the heavy oak door swung wide open, flooding the room with warm torchlight from the hall.

Standing on the threshold was Princess Amelia, dressed in her formal riding cloak, flanked by Timothy, who had his hand resting casually on the pommel of his sword. Behind them stood two bewildered guards, their pikes half-raised in confusion.

Every single eye in the doorway froze, locking onto the scene in the center of the room.

I sat straddling the Princess’s trusted guard, chest heaving, hair wildly disheveled, holding his own dagger tightly against his throat while he held my waist in a tight grip, ready to flip me.

Silence stretched across the room, heavy and suffocating.

I blinked down at the princess, then down at Sortitas, then back up at the open doorway.

"I can explain," I said flatly.