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yrae
As far as Nimay knew, there was nothing wrong with her technique. She had her feet planted comfortably on the sand, side-on to the target; she drew the bowstring firmly; she held her left arm slightly bent so the string wouldn’t snap painfully against her skin; she sighted along the bow slightly above the target so the arrow wouldn’t drop short…
Why in Lin’s name did it always land in the outer two rings, or even in the wooden board behind it, when other archers could hit it dead centre? The only way Nimay ever managed to hit the middle red was when she directed the arrow there with her magic. While the yrae stone worked well enough on missions in Kazin with the Own, there was nothing to say the stone would be with her forever. Two of the six, smaller blue stones embedded into the silver had already evaporated into nothing, so there was no reason why the yrae stone itself shouldn’t do the same.
She shook her head to banish the thought, then glared at the tiny red thumbprint at the other end of the archery range. Even if it was the size of her fist, as the ones in the pubs were, she would still not hit it. She sighed in frustration, then knocked another arrow into the bow.
A pair of strong hands grabbed her own before she had a chance to draw the bow.
“You’re too tense,” Nol whispered in her ear. His body was pressed firmly against Nimay’s back, sending a shiver up her spine and causing the hairs on her head to stand on end. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the target.
She could feel the prince’s arms tense as he drew the bowstring, hands still gripping Nimay’s. His head arched over her shoulder so he could take aim. “Ready?” he asked.
Nimay nodded, and they let the arrow fly.
Once the arrow had slammed into the wooden board behind the target, Nimay turned her head, looking wryly into Nolryn’s puzzled eyes.
He was still pressed against her back, chin resting on her shoulder as he frowned at the arrow and drummed his fingers against the bow. Suddenly he grinned. “I think I’ve found the problem,” he said triumphantly.
Nimay raised her eyebrows in question as she awaited instruction.
“These get in the way.” He slapped her on the chest with one hand, kissed her firmly on the neck and darted off before the swordswoman had a chance to respond.
‘Men,’ she muttered in her mind, grabbing another arrow. This one didn’t even hit the board, preferring to spring off the stone wall and clatter to earth.
She narrowed her eyes and shot three arrows in quick succession, grinning triumphantly when each of them landed miraculously in middle red.
“Well shot.”
Nimay shrugged as she made her way to the target to retrieve her arrows, choosing to ignore the presence of the yrae stone for the moment. She raised her eyebrows in question to the messenger who had appeared at the entrance to the archery range.
“His Majesty wishes to see you in the throne room immediately,” the messenger informed her.
Nimay nodded her acknowledgement and unslung her quiver. She’d finished archery practice for the day, anyway.
Nimay had been in the throne room often enough, usually whenever King Mithé wished the fifteen riders of the Own good luck before they departed on a mission, or when he congratulated them on a job well done. It was, as its name suggested, little more than a large room with a long rug leading to a pair of thrones crafted from imported woods to look like an yrae stood behind them. The smaller, less-impressive of the two was where Nolryn sat during what he disdainfully referred to as ‘king training’.
Mithé currently sat in the larger throne. One hand hung limply over one arm of the throne, holding a sheet of parchment, and the other held his temple.
Nimay frowned, not used to seeing her king in such a position, then realised her escort was walking down the carpet towards the thrones, so she followed.
The messenger bowed, though Mithé didn’t appear to have noticed that they had entered the room.
“Your Majesty,” the messenger said formally, giving no indication in his voice that he thought anything was amiss. The king lifted his head at this, and though his expression remained neutral, Nimay was struck by the anxiety that was plainly written in his eyes.
“Nimay of the King’s Own,” the messenger introduced needlessly, then bowed again and left.
Mithé attempted a weak smile in greeting, then stood from his throne and indicated to the heavy oak door leading to his office. He said nothing until the door was closed firmly behind them, and even then he spent a few moments resting against his desk and fiddling absently with the piece of paper.
Finally, he fixed his eyes on Nimay’s, resolve partially masking the fear still in them. “You are aware that three nights ago, someone tried to kill me, yes?”
Nimay nodded carefully. Everyone in Ni-Yana knew.
“The palace guard caught him before any harm could be done,” Mithé continued, giving her no time to react. “He was executed the next morning.” He sighed and looked back down at the parchment. It wasn’t the assassin’s execution that troubled him, Nimay knew. Raykin had always been strict with killers, regardless of their target, and Mithé was no less severe. No, there was something more.
He sighed again and handed the parchment to Nimay.
On it was drawn a stunningly realistic portrait of a middle-aged man with his hair tied back in a loose pony tail. Four lines of text were written below the portrait in a flowing script that could only be a scribe’s. It was nobody Nimay recognised, but the pallor of Mithé’s face indicated that he clearly did.
“Intelligence showed me that picture three days ago,” the king explained, “I disregarded it at the time, but the very same man burst into my room that night, brandishing two knives.”
He drew a shaky breath, then began rifling through the papers on his desk, finally selecting one and handing it reluctantly to the swordswoman. This page bore a different face, and another four lines of text, written in the same flowing script.
“I received this picture today.” The implications of the king’s statement were obvious.
Nimay glanced up from the face to frown in puzzlement. Why was she being told all this? She already rode with the Own. Did he want her to be a palace guard as well?
“I would like for you to be my personal assassin, Nimay.”
She blinked, then opened her eyes wide, completely unprepared for what Mithé had just requested of her. She didn’t know what she was expecting when the messenger had first appeared, but that wasn’t it. Mithé had never been known for sugaring his words. Regardless of the news he was breaking, he it straight. There were never any questions regarding what the king wanted.
“I’m not forcing you to do this,” Mithé was saying. “I would not force such a task on anyone.”
Nimay stared down at the portrait, but not really seeing it. If she accepted, it would mean taking lives in a manner far removed from what she was used to in the Own. In Kazin, bands of archers attacked, so they fought back. The Own themselves had never attacked first. The Kazinians liked to argue that they were always going to, or that they had already attacked by setting foot on Kazinian soil, but the first arrow always flew from a Kazinian bow. As an assassin, she would basically be killing in cold blood.
On the other hand, if she didn’t accept, she would be fearful for the king’s life anyway. As far as Nimay was concerned, Mithé was her father. She couldn’t remember her own, but since the day she’d awoken in the palace’s healing house, two months under a decade ago, Mithé had treated her as his daughter. She wouldn’t let his life be protected by any other hand than her own.
Slowly, she nodded her acceptance, her frown of confusion setting into one of determination.
Mithé gave a grim nod of his own, then pressed his hands together under his chest in thanks.
Daylight draws treasures of midnight depths
Moonlight brings dawn bird’s song
White shadow looms large
One alone but two lives lived
‘What in Lin’s sweet name…?’ Nimay shook her head helplessly at the four lines of beautiful script below the drawing. Evidently it was supposed to be a description of the person, or maybe where he lived… But every single line was a complete contradiction. There was no daylight at midnight. Neither was there ever moonlight at dawn. Shadows were at lightest grey, never white.
Only the final line made any sense: The person lived on their own and lived a double life. Fair enough, considering he was an assassin. He would have to have another occupation to keep up the ruse that he was just another citizen of Ni-Yana. It was odd that he should be alone when his portrait placed him around thirty years old. Raykinian tradition dictated that men married the full moon after their hrai-dani, when they turned twenty.
While there were few men still single at age thirty, it was still not much to go on in a city as large as Ni-Yana.
She shook her head again, and rolled over on her bed, holding the picture above her as she ignored the words for the moment and focused instead on the portrait. It was a very distinctive face, one Nimay was certain she would recognise were she to see it again. The man looked to be in his early thirties, with a heavy brow and deep-set eyes. He grew a short, wiry beard and kept his hair cropped short. Just by looking at him, Nimay could tell he was a killer. He seemed the kind of person who wore a perpetual frown.
Even so, distinctive though the man’s face was, she could hardly line up all four thousand of Ni-Yana’s residents to find him. Only the four lines below his portrait would give her any hint as to his location.
She took a deep breath and tried to look at the words more objectively. “Daylight draws treasures of midnight depths.” The person lived two lives, that much she knew, and whatever it was he did by day… had something to do with night? She shook her head. No, that wasn’t right.
Midnight depths. Somewhere dark and deep down… The palace dungeons? No, there were no treasures there. As far as she knew, there were no caves anywhere near Ni-Yana. There was only the stone quarry, a day’s ride upstream, and even that had little shade, let alone midnight depths. Further upstream from the quarry lay a few small towns that had quite literally been carved into the rock. The people there lived in ‘dugouts’ rather than mud brick houses. But that was too far away from Ni-Yana for his portrait to have been handed over this morning when he planned to kill the king tonight.
Nimay racked her brain for anywhere else in the city that could be dark. The river, maybe? “Daylight draws treasures of midnight depths.” He was a fisherman. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it was right. Something just clicked in her mind to let her know she had the answer. She grinned to herself. She was narrowing it down.
Next line. “Midnight brings dawn birds’ song.” Something told her it wasn’t so simple as a daytime bird calling at midnight, more likely to be something that sounded like it. She closed her eyes briefly, recounting the sounds of the dawn chorus. It was a trying task, considering she was rarely awake to hear it.
All she could draw up was the cacophony of hundreds of different birds, all apparently vying for the title of Ni-Yana’s loudest vocal chords. It sounded nice enough to some people, but for Nimay, it was something that occasionally cut short her sleep. There was no tune, no harmony, just a clashing, grating sound of thousands of tiny vocal cords scraping against each other, like the blades in the army barracks when she trained.
Her eyes snapped open. This man owned a sword, and used it by night for his assassinations.
The swordswoman’s grin spread further. That fact would narrow it down to maybe ten individuals. Every Raykinian owned a dagger, but swords were more of a rarity, only owned by the wealthier of the kingdom’s people. There could certainly be no more than ten fishermen in the city who owned a sword.
She rolled over again, staring at the third line, determined that she was going to solve this here and now. “White shadow looms large.” Shadows weren’t white, she’d already established this. Maybe the shadow of something white, then? The only white buildings in Raykin were the healing houses, of which there were perhaps forty in Ni-Yana. So he lived next to a healing house, but which one?
She scanned her eyes over the words again, finally focusing her eyes on the last of them. Large. That would have to be the palace healing house then; no others were larger.
The palace healing house was situated in the north-eastern corner of the grounds, and if the wall wasn’t there, it would most certainly cast its shadow on three or four dwellings nearby.
Nimay stood and walked to her eastern window, glancing out over the healing house to the houses beyond. Each one of them lay south of the Main Road—nobody in those houses would be able to afford a sword. All she needed to do was glance in the windows of three or four of the one-roomed huts by the palace’s outer wall, and whichever one had a sword resting proudly against one wall was her man.
She grinned maliciously and looked back down at the paper in her hand.
‘You’re mine,’ she whispered silently.
The sun had well and truly set as Nimay drifted on silent black wings to the district in the shadow of the healing house. The white dome was stark silver in the weak moonlight.
She wore the darkest clothes she owned—dark blue pants and a maroon shirt. One sleeve as cream-coloured, but it would have to serve for tonight.
She lit as quietly as she could on the roof of one of the houses, quickly sheathing her wings in their clasps and scanning the surrounds with eyes and ears to make certain nobody had seen her. Since no-one had yet screamed blue murder at the sight of a person with wings, she figured she was safe and drew her sword with agonising care. Every minute scrape of steel on leather that the blade made as it came free made Nimay cringe, certain that someone must have heard.
Finally, with her blade free, she dropped to ground and peered inside the home whose roof she had been crouched on. She dismissed the dwelling immediately—at least six people were camped under the one roof. The next hut was shelter for a couple, then two buildings each housing a family of four.
The fifth hut was considerably more interesting. There was only one figure in the modest home, and while the people in the other houses had been sleeping, this man sat on his pile of blankets that served as a bed, running one finger down the length of a sword to test its sharpness.
He glanced up when Nimay appeared in his doorway, her own, considerably more impressive sword in her grip. In the dim moonlight, it was difficult for her to see exactly what expression he wore beyond the deep-set eyes and heavy brow that gave him the permanent glare.
She stepped through the doorway, noting the distinct fishy aroma that the building had as she crossed the distance between them.
The malicious grin disappeared from her face as she levelled her sword’s tip against his jugular. The eyes that looked back up the blade at her definitely had a wary cast to them now. She tried to keep her expression neutral to show she wasn’t hesitating before she performed the action they both knew she would.
The fisherman closed his eyes briefly. When he looked back up again, his face was filled with anger. “Do me a favour when ye next sees yer king,” he spat, “Let him know there’s more than just southern folk baying for his blood.”
Nimay raised her eyebrows in disdain, though she struggled to keep the alarm from her eyes. She nodded once, then flicked her wrist almost negligently, letting the sharp tip of her yrae-sword’s tail slice cleanly through the man’s throat.
He sat choking on his own blood for a few moments, then slumped forward, a pool of the dark liquid forming around him.
Nimay nodded satisfactorily, cleaned the blood from the tip of her sword on the man’s blankets, then sheathed the blade with a sigh. There was absolutely no doubt that the fisherman was going to make an attempt on the king’s life that night. He was a killer. He would have died whether he succeeded in killing Mithé or not, either in a brawl trying to gain entry to the king’s room or by execution the next morning.
There would be palace gossip, naturally, and the police would investigate for a while, but as soon as they discovered that the fisherman had been plotting against the king, they would soon decide it was for the best. Within a month, people would have forgotten. The man had lived alone in an unsavoury district—nobody would miss him.
He would have died anyway.
~ ~ ~
Stuff~
o First and foremost, omfg it's public! =0 Yes, my three beta readers seem to be somewhat indisposed for whatever reason, most of which I understand completely. However, it unfortunately results in me ending up with SBA (sweet bugger-all) in regards to tips on where to go with the damn thing. So, this chapter, at least, is public, in the vague and largely improbable hope that I'll actually get comments on it this time. Stranger things have happened. I know it's up to seven, but really, nothing's happened in the previous six-and-prologue that you don't already know from mini!fics, so you shouldn't be too lost. The beginning is, in fact, a modified mini!fic, because I'm lazy like that.
o On the chapter itself, aside from the blatantly obvious, I'm also trying to introduce a couple of other things in this chapter, namely something more than friendship between 'may and Nol, at least on Nol's part, (next chapter will be on Nol's proposal and 'may's rejection of it, yasee) and~ stuff about how seriously murder is in Raykin, especially against the king. Did that come through clearly enough?
o The last couple of paragraphs are basically 'may's thoughts, trying to justify her reasons for bumping the fisherman off, cos obviously she's not incredibly comfortable with the whole assassin thing just yet. She's not overly repulsed, since she's killed people before with the Own, but still not comfortable. Anyway, main question there, does it seem too much like she's just brushing it off, or like she's trying to convince herself she's doing the right thing?
o I swear I had something else. I guess just the almost standard question to the betas; is the backstory too long? I ask this virtually every chapter, I know, I must be sounding like a broken record, but nobody ever says~ anything >< Most frustrating.
o Finally, I'll take the opportunity to poke the general public and beg/plead that you sign up for betaing. If you're too busy to, that's fine, but I would ask that you consider it. Pritti please with sugar on top? This particular post is pretty standard--5 page chapter with basically three questions at the end. That's it. If you can manage this one, you'll do fine with the other stuff. Plus it's a cool story =DD;;
Why in Lin’s name did it always land in the outer two rings, or even in the wooden board behind it, when other archers could hit it dead centre? The only way Nimay ever managed to hit the middle red was when she directed the arrow there with her magic. While the yrae stone worked well enough on missions in Kazin with the Own, there was nothing to say the stone would be with her forever. Two of the six, smaller blue stones embedded into the silver had already evaporated into nothing, so there was no reason why the yrae stone itself shouldn’t do the same.
She shook her head to banish the thought, then glared at the tiny red thumbprint at the other end of the archery range. Even if it was the size of her fist, as the ones in the pubs were, she would still not hit it. She sighed in frustration, then knocked another arrow into the bow.
A pair of strong hands grabbed her own before she had a chance to draw the bow.
“You’re too tense,” Nol whispered in her ear. His body was pressed firmly against Nimay’s back, sending a shiver up her spine and causing the hairs on her head to stand on end. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the target.
She could feel the prince’s arms tense as he drew the bowstring, hands still gripping Nimay’s. His head arched over her shoulder so he could take aim. “Ready?” he asked.
Nimay nodded, and they let the arrow fly.
Once the arrow had slammed into the wooden board behind the target, Nimay turned her head, looking wryly into Nolryn’s puzzled eyes.
He was still pressed against her back, chin resting on her shoulder as he frowned at the arrow and drummed his fingers against the bow. Suddenly he grinned. “I think I’ve found the problem,” he said triumphantly.
Nimay raised her eyebrows in question as she awaited instruction.
“These get in the way.” He slapped her on the chest with one hand, kissed her firmly on the neck and darted off before the swordswoman had a chance to respond.
‘Men,’ she muttered in her mind, grabbing another arrow. This one didn’t even hit the board, preferring to spring off the stone wall and clatter to earth.
She narrowed her eyes and shot three arrows in quick succession, grinning triumphantly when each of them landed miraculously in middle red.
“Well shot.”
Nimay shrugged as she made her way to the target to retrieve her arrows, choosing to ignore the presence of the yrae stone for the moment. She raised her eyebrows in question to the messenger who had appeared at the entrance to the archery range.
“His Majesty wishes to see you in the throne room immediately,” the messenger informed her.
Nimay nodded her acknowledgement and unslung her quiver. She’d finished archery practice for the day, anyway.
Nimay had been in the throne room often enough, usually whenever King Mithé wished the fifteen riders of the Own good luck before they departed on a mission, or when he congratulated them on a job well done. It was, as its name suggested, little more than a large room with a long rug leading to a pair of thrones crafted from imported woods to look like an yrae stood behind them. The smaller, less-impressive of the two was where Nolryn sat during what he disdainfully referred to as ‘king training’.
Mithé currently sat in the larger throne. One hand hung limply over one arm of the throne, holding a sheet of parchment, and the other held his temple.
Nimay frowned, not used to seeing her king in such a position, then realised her escort was walking down the carpet towards the thrones, so she followed.
The messenger bowed, though Mithé didn’t appear to have noticed that they had entered the room.
“Your Majesty,” the messenger said formally, giving no indication in his voice that he thought anything was amiss. The king lifted his head at this, and though his expression remained neutral, Nimay was struck by the anxiety that was plainly written in his eyes.
“Nimay of the King’s Own,” the messenger introduced needlessly, then bowed again and left.
Mithé attempted a weak smile in greeting, then stood from his throne and indicated to the heavy oak door leading to his office. He said nothing until the door was closed firmly behind them, and even then he spent a few moments resting against his desk and fiddling absently with the piece of paper.
Finally, he fixed his eyes on Nimay’s, resolve partially masking the fear still in them. “You are aware that three nights ago, someone tried to kill me, yes?”
Nimay nodded carefully. Everyone in Ni-Yana knew.
“The palace guard caught him before any harm could be done,” Mithé continued, giving her no time to react. “He was executed the next morning.” He sighed and looked back down at the parchment. It wasn’t the assassin’s execution that troubled him, Nimay knew. Raykin had always been strict with killers, regardless of their target, and Mithé was no less severe. No, there was something more.
He sighed again and handed the parchment to Nimay.
On it was drawn a stunningly realistic portrait of a middle-aged man with his hair tied back in a loose pony tail. Four lines of text were written below the portrait in a flowing script that could only be a scribe’s. It was nobody Nimay recognised, but the pallor of Mithé’s face indicated that he clearly did.
“Intelligence showed me that picture three days ago,” the king explained, “I disregarded it at the time, but the very same man burst into my room that night, brandishing two knives.”
He drew a shaky breath, then began rifling through the papers on his desk, finally selecting one and handing it reluctantly to the swordswoman. This page bore a different face, and another four lines of text, written in the same flowing script.
“I received this picture today.” The implications of the king’s statement were obvious.
Nimay glanced up from the face to frown in puzzlement. Why was she being told all this? She already rode with the Own. Did he want her to be a palace guard as well?
“I would like for you to be my personal assassin, Nimay.”
She blinked, then opened her eyes wide, completely unprepared for what Mithé had just requested of her. She didn’t know what she was expecting when the messenger had first appeared, but that wasn’t it. Mithé had never been known for sugaring his words. Regardless of the news he was breaking, he it straight. There were never any questions regarding what the king wanted.
“I’m not forcing you to do this,” Mithé was saying. “I would not force such a task on anyone.”
Nimay stared down at the portrait, but not really seeing it. If she accepted, it would mean taking lives in a manner far removed from what she was used to in the Own. In Kazin, bands of archers attacked, so they fought back. The Own themselves had never attacked first. The Kazinians liked to argue that they were always going to, or that they had already attacked by setting foot on Kazinian soil, but the first arrow always flew from a Kazinian bow. As an assassin, she would basically be killing in cold blood.
On the other hand, if she didn’t accept, she would be fearful for the king’s life anyway. As far as Nimay was concerned, Mithé was her father. She couldn’t remember her own, but since the day she’d awoken in the palace’s healing house, two months under a decade ago, Mithé had treated her as his daughter. She wouldn’t let his life be protected by any other hand than her own.
Slowly, she nodded her acceptance, her frown of confusion setting into one of determination.
Mithé gave a grim nod of his own, then pressed his hands together under his chest in thanks.
Daylight draws treasures of midnight depths
Moonlight brings dawn bird’s song
White shadow looms large
One alone but two lives lived
‘What in Lin’s sweet name…?’ Nimay shook her head helplessly at the four lines of beautiful script below the drawing. Evidently it was supposed to be a description of the person, or maybe where he lived… But every single line was a complete contradiction. There was no daylight at midnight. Neither was there ever moonlight at dawn. Shadows were at lightest grey, never white.
Only the final line made any sense: The person lived on their own and lived a double life. Fair enough, considering he was an assassin. He would have to have another occupation to keep up the ruse that he was just another citizen of Ni-Yana. It was odd that he should be alone when his portrait placed him around thirty years old. Raykinian tradition dictated that men married the full moon after their hrai-dani, when they turned twenty.
While there were few men still single at age thirty, it was still not much to go on in a city as large as Ni-Yana.
She shook her head again, and rolled over on her bed, holding the picture above her as she ignored the words for the moment and focused instead on the portrait. It was a very distinctive face, one Nimay was certain she would recognise were she to see it again. The man looked to be in his early thirties, with a heavy brow and deep-set eyes. He grew a short, wiry beard and kept his hair cropped short. Just by looking at him, Nimay could tell he was a killer. He seemed the kind of person who wore a perpetual frown.
Even so, distinctive though the man’s face was, she could hardly line up all four thousand of Ni-Yana’s residents to find him. Only the four lines below his portrait would give her any hint as to his location.
She took a deep breath and tried to look at the words more objectively. “Daylight draws treasures of midnight depths.” The person lived two lives, that much she knew, and whatever it was he did by day… had something to do with night? She shook her head. No, that wasn’t right.
Midnight depths. Somewhere dark and deep down… The palace dungeons? No, there were no treasures there. As far as she knew, there were no caves anywhere near Ni-Yana. There was only the stone quarry, a day’s ride upstream, and even that had little shade, let alone midnight depths. Further upstream from the quarry lay a few small towns that had quite literally been carved into the rock. The people there lived in ‘dugouts’ rather than mud brick houses. But that was too far away from Ni-Yana for his portrait to have been handed over this morning when he planned to kill the king tonight.
Nimay racked her brain for anywhere else in the city that could be dark. The river, maybe? “Daylight draws treasures of midnight depths.” He was a fisherman. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it was right. Something just clicked in her mind to let her know she had the answer. She grinned to herself. She was narrowing it down.
Next line. “Midnight brings dawn birds’ song.” Something told her it wasn’t so simple as a daytime bird calling at midnight, more likely to be something that sounded like it. She closed her eyes briefly, recounting the sounds of the dawn chorus. It was a trying task, considering she was rarely awake to hear it.
All she could draw up was the cacophony of hundreds of different birds, all apparently vying for the title of Ni-Yana’s loudest vocal chords. It sounded nice enough to some people, but for Nimay, it was something that occasionally cut short her sleep. There was no tune, no harmony, just a clashing, grating sound of thousands of tiny vocal cords scraping against each other, like the blades in the army barracks when she trained.
Her eyes snapped open. This man owned a sword, and used it by night for his assassinations.
The swordswoman’s grin spread further. That fact would narrow it down to maybe ten individuals. Every Raykinian owned a dagger, but swords were more of a rarity, only owned by the wealthier of the kingdom’s people. There could certainly be no more than ten fishermen in the city who owned a sword.
She rolled over again, staring at the third line, determined that she was going to solve this here and now. “White shadow looms large.” Shadows weren’t white, she’d already established this. Maybe the shadow of something white, then? The only white buildings in Raykin were the healing houses, of which there were perhaps forty in Ni-Yana. So he lived next to a healing house, but which one?
She scanned her eyes over the words again, finally focusing her eyes on the last of them. Large. That would have to be the palace healing house then; no others were larger.
The palace healing house was situated in the north-eastern corner of the grounds, and if the wall wasn’t there, it would most certainly cast its shadow on three or four dwellings nearby.
Nimay stood and walked to her eastern window, glancing out over the healing house to the houses beyond. Each one of them lay south of the Main Road—nobody in those houses would be able to afford a sword. All she needed to do was glance in the windows of three or four of the one-roomed huts by the palace’s outer wall, and whichever one had a sword resting proudly against one wall was her man.
She grinned maliciously and looked back down at the paper in her hand.
‘You’re mine,’ she whispered silently.
The sun had well and truly set as Nimay drifted on silent black wings to the district in the shadow of the healing house. The white dome was stark silver in the weak moonlight.
She wore the darkest clothes she owned—dark blue pants and a maroon shirt. One sleeve as cream-coloured, but it would have to serve for tonight.
She lit as quietly as she could on the roof of one of the houses, quickly sheathing her wings in their clasps and scanning the surrounds with eyes and ears to make certain nobody had seen her. Since no-one had yet screamed blue murder at the sight of a person with wings, she figured she was safe and drew her sword with agonising care. Every minute scrape of steel on leather that the blade made as it came free made Nimay cringe, certain that someone must have heard.
Finally, with her blade free, she dropped to ground and peered inside the home whose roof she had been crouched on. She dismissed the dwelling immediately—at least six people were camped under the one roof. The next hut was shelter for a couple, then two buildings each housing a family of four.
The fifth hut was considerably more interesting. There was only one figure in the modest home, and while the people in the other houses had been sleeping, this man sat on his pile of blankets that served as a bed, running one finger down the length of a sword to test its sharpness.
He glanced up when Nimay appeared in his doorway, her own, considerably more impressive sword in her grip. In the dim moonlight, it was difficult for her to see exactly what expression he wore beyond the deep-set eyes and heavy brow that gave him the permanent glare.
She stepped through the doorway, noting the distinct fishy aroma that the building had as she crossed the distance between them.
The malicious grin disappeared from her face as she levelled her sword’s tip against his jugular. The eyes that looked back up the blade at her definitely had a wary cast to them now. She tried to keep her expression neutral to show she wasn’t hesitating before she performed the action they both knew she would.
The fisherman closed his eyes briefly. When he looked back up again, his face was filled with anger. “Do me a favour when ye next sees yer king,” he spat, “Let him know there’s more than just southern folk baying for his blood.”
Nimay raised her eyebrows in disdain, though she struggled to keep the alarm from her eyes. She nodded once, then flicked her wrist almost negligently, letting the sharp tip of her yrae-sword’s tail slice cleanly through the man’s throat.
He sat choking on his own blood for a few moments, then slumped forward, a pool of the dark liquid forming around him.
Nimay nodded satisfactorily, cleaned the blood from the tip of her sword on the man’s blankets, then sheathed the blade with a sigh. There was absolutely no doubt that the fisherman was going to make an attempt on the king’s life that night. He was a killer. He would have died whether he succeeded in killing Mithé or not, either in a brawl trying to gain entry to the king’s room or by execution the next morning.
There would be palace gossip, naturally, and the police would investigate for a while, but as soon as they discovered that the fisherman had been plotting against the king, they would soon decide it was for the best. Within a month, people would have forgotten. The man had lived alone in an unsavoury district—nobody would miss him.
He would have died anyway.
Stuff~
o First and foremost, omfg it's public! =0 Yes, my three beta readers seem to be somewhat indisposed for whatever reason, most of which I understand completely. However, it unfortunately results in me ending up with SBA (sweet bugger-all) in regards to tips on where to go with the damn thing. So, this chapter, at least, is public, in the vague and largely improbable hope that I'll actually get comments on it this time. Stranger things have happened. I know it's up to seven, but really, nothing's happened in the previous six-and-prologue that you don't already know from mini!fics, so you shouldn't be too lost. The beginning is, in fact, a modified mini!fic, because I'm lazy like that.
o On the chapter itself, aside from the blatantly obvious, I'm also trying to introduce a couple of other things in this chapter, namely something more than friendship between 'may and Nol, at least on Nol's part, (next chapter will be on Nol's proposal and 'may's rejection of it, yasee) and~ stuff about how seriously murder is in Raykin, especially against the king. Did that come through clearly enough?
o The last couple of paragraphs are basically 'may's thoughts, trying to justify her reasons for bumping the fisherman off, cos obviously she's not incredibly comfortable with the whole assassin thing just yet. She's not overly repulsed, since she's killed people before with the Own, but still not comfortable. Anyway, main question there, does it seem too much like she's just brushing it off, or like she's trying to convince herself she's doing the right thing?
o I swear I had something else. I guess just the almost standard question to the betas; is the backstory too long? I ask this virtually every chapter, I know, I must be sounding like a broken record, but nobody ever says~ anything >< Most frustrating.
o Finally, I'll take the opportunity to poke the general public and beg/plead that you sign up for betaing. If you're too busy to, that's fine, but I would ask that you consider it. Pritti please with sugar on top? This particular post is pretty standard--5 page chapter with basically three questions at the end. That's it. If you can manage this one, you'll do fine with the other stuff. Plus it's a cool story =DD;;
no subject
Date: 2005-03-11 06:23 am (UTC)huh wha?
And yeah... that's a lot of building up to such a quick finding and killing of the guy.
And her grinning maliciously disturbs me... if she's having problems with killing him... yeah that's a little vindictive and cruel.. maybe that's her character more than the confusion about never killing "on her own" before, but it contradicts her previous thoughts about killing in cold blood, seeming like she wants to kill him