(Alice’s POV)

 

    My head throbbed violently and bile rose in my throat, as two uniformed men dragged me through the streets of whatever god-forsaken town I had the misfortune of stumbling into. Slipping in and out of consciousness, the world spinned around me and nothing made sense. Pedestrians came by to gawk and cheer at whatever was happening at the moment.

“Why were they cheering?” I thought to myself. I tried to lift my head to see what was so interesting, but a stone hit me in the forehead and I slipped back into the comfortable silence of dreams.

I opened my eyes again and the world came into a blurred focus. We were in some kind of dungeon with walls the same dull gray of the floor and ceiling. A tall bearded man barked orders at whoever was carrying me. He wore a strange tunic with a dragon standing on top of a sword.

“That’s ridiculous, dragons don’t exist.” I slurred with a slight laugh, and a fist hit me in the face. Darkness surrounded me, and I fell with it.

 

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My eyes snapped open and the world melted into absolute clarity. Dark stone walls and a barred gate surrounded me, illuminated only by distant torchlight. I took stock of my body. Aside from a dull ringing in my head, and a few cuts on my shoulder I was fine. The black tunic and dark grey pants I usually wore were gone, replaced by some itchy material that I would never willingly don in a lifetime. I imagined some nasty guard wrestling my unconscious form out of my clothes and into these, and very nearly threw up.

“Okay, somebody’s going to die.” I said aloud, my voice thick with sleep.

“Yeah, you. That’s how an execution works.” A voice on the other side of the cell said. I glanced over to see a teenage boy emerge from the shadows. He stood with legs slightly apart, and knees bent as if he were preparing to lunge. Something about him reminded me of an arrow, nocked and ready to fly at his enemies. Dark black hair fell gently over his face, and a cocky smile sat relaxed upon his lips. This boy was accustomed to being in trouble.

Recovering from my momentary distraction, “I mean whoever put these clothes on me is going to regret it.”

“I’m regretting it right now. The color does nothing for you, and, my how it clashes with your hair.” He joked. He gestured down to his own clothes, and said “Unlike you, I was conscious when they were giving me these clothes. It’s the captain you’re looking for, if you’re serious about the whole killing him thing. Who knows, you might be in here for murder.”

“You could say that.”

“Well now you’ve got me interested.” He said. He put on a gruff accent “What’re ya in fer.”

“Officially?” I asked. He nodded his head and I listed off the charges. “Twenty seven counts of arson, 151 counts of murder, and 12 counts of resisting arrest.”

His jaw fell open. “Wow! With a track record like that you’d think I would’ve heard of you. What’s your name.”

“Alice.” I said

If it were possible for his jaw to open even further, it did. “Are you telling me, that I am currently sharing a prison cell with the kingdom’s most notorious prisoners? With a bounty of 100,000 crowns?”

“That is correct.”

Before I could realize what was happening, I saw his arm flash and a sharp pain appeared in my shoulder. “That is for stealing my title.” He said crossing his arms. “I used to be the most famous criminal in all of the five kingdoms. People used to whisper my name because they were afraid that I would overhear. I was told as a horror story to children when they were bad, and then you came along and messed everything up.”

“It wasn’t my fault that I blew up a town, it kind of just happened.” I pleaded.

“Relax, I’m only messing with you. Really it is an honor to be in a prison cell, with the witch of the west kingdom.”

It was the first time I had heard my title. “Really, the witch of the west kingdom? Could the legion be any more original in their name selection?”

    He put on an exceptionally deep voice “We have a new criminal from the north kingdom. We need a name for the bounty posters. He is a thief, from the north kingdom. I know! Why don’t we call him the thief of the north kingdom?”

    “I could have been The Destroyer, or The Reckoning, but no, they go for Witch of the West kingdom.” I laughed.

    He joined in. “I knew you had a sense of humor. So aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?”

    I obliged him, “Why are you here?”

    “Because I’ve got to. I didn’t really get a choice in the matter.”

    I laughed again. “No...What’re ya in fer” I asked with the same gruff voice he used on me.

    “Disorderly conduct.” He replied.

    “I don’t believe you for a second. What was all this crap about being the ‘horror story for the children’ and all that?”

    “That’s all true. I am Jack Sentan accurately named The Assassin of the Central Kingdom. The Legion don’t really know what I look like, so they just think that they have someone who was making a fuss in town square.”

    “Never heard of you.” I admitted.

    “Really?” Jack said slightly put out.

    “Nope, never even heard of you.” Jack looked down sullenly. “but it was probably because everyone spoke your name in whispers.” I said hurriedly.

    “Yeah, they can’t be talking about me in the open like that.” He replied back to his cocky self.

    “Of course not.”

    “Yeah! I am the greatest assassin who ever lived!” He shouted.

    I was about to respond when the grating noise of metal on stone bounced through the cell. We both looked up to see a tall man, heavily bearded, step into our cell flanked by two guards. Each of them wore the mark of the emperor, a dragon perched on a sword, upon their tunics. The central one, whom I took to be the captain, looked over me disdainfully before turning to Jack. “I heard what you told the witch, and you should be pleased to know that you will be joining her in the gallows tomorrow. In fact, we were going to let you go today, although your confession means that we can call off a five year long search.” He walked over to Jack and punched him across the face. Jack fell to the floor grabbing at his jaw, cursing. “I gave you the title The Assassin of the Central Kingdom.” He motioned to his guards and then turned to leave.

    Before they left the cell, I threw my hands in the air and shards of stone erupted from the ground and blocked them in. We were all plunged into absolute darkness. I shut my eyes and imagined a ball of light in the corner of the cell, and I felt the heat on my skin before I opened my eyes. The captain released a slew of oaths and drew his sword. Positioning it inches from my throat he said in a small voice “Let us out.” The shake in his breath and his blade were noticeable, and they gave me an idea. I focused on his sword, and imagined it becoming hotter than fire. The air above the blade began to shimmer, and before long the captain dropped the sword and grabbed at his burnt hand.

    Jack found his way to his feet, and grabbed at the fallen sword. I cooled it, and soon he was standing at my side, blade drawn and pointed at the cowering guards.

    The captain looked absolutely terrified. He backed away nursing his hand, and fell into his two companions who hadn’t even worked up the sense to draw their swords.

    “I think it’s time to put them out of their misery, don’t you agree?” Jack asked me.

    “I agree completely.” I said. “I’ll take the captain and the guard on the left.”

    “Oh come on, at least let me take both of the guards. You’ve got the awesome magic light, and stone thing you did. All I have is a dozen years of my life that I’ll never get back training to be an assassin.”

    “Fine, but if we end up in this situation again for whatever reason, you better remember this.”

    “I don’t think I could ever forget it.” He promised and we leapt into motion. I willed the air surrounding the captain to harden and trap him inside.He noticed what was happening and banged on the air, but to no avail. He was trapped. My guard finally drew his sword and threw himself at me. Without time to think, I snapped my fingers and he fell to the ground, undeniably dead. I turned just in time to see Jack’s guard impaled, and Jack pull the blade from his chest.

    “What did you do to him?” Jack asked gesturing with his bloody blade to my guard.

    “Broken neck. What did you do to yours?” I asked.

    “Broken heart.” He joked.

    “Oh that’s unfortunate. Well now what do we do with this scumbag?” I asked gesturing to the still imprisoned captain.

    “Scumbag, that’s a new one. If I remember correctly you got him, it’s your choice what happens to him.” He conceded.

    “Alright well that depends on his answers.” I released the air around him and he fell to the ground, with tears streaming down his face.

    “Please, please.” He begged. “I’ll answer whatever questions you want, just don’t hurt me.”

    “How many witches have you executed.” I demanded.

    “Twenty...four.” He replied in choked sobs.

    “How many of them were children?”

    “Don’t make me answer that, please don’t make me.”

    “Answer the question!” I ordered. I raised my hands menacingly, and pictured every one of his nerves on fire. His screams filled the room, silenced rapidly followed by the thunk of his head hitting the ground. It rolled to rest at my feet, while Jack stood over the captains decapitated corpse, with his sword held limply at his side.

    “What the hell was that!” I demanded.

    “You were torturing him. I get it, he’s a bad dude, but nobody deserves pain like that. Even as an assassin I did some pretty horrible things, but I never tortured anybody.”

“Still you’ve heard the stories of the witch burnings. Anybody with magical power can resist fire, so that means that every witch he’s killed is innocent. Don’t you think he deserves a little pain for the people he’s killed?”

“He got a little pain when you locked him in an air bubble and forced him to watch as we killed his friends. I don’t know what you did to him, but I have never heard anyone scream that loudly.”

“I’m not going to sit here and argue this with you, do you want to escape or not?” I said.

“That would be fantastic.” He snapped.

“Don’t you get rough with me. I can kill you right here, and you wouldn’t even stand a chance.” I regretted it as soon as I said it. I looked back on my years of travel since I burned my home village. I gained more control of my powers since then, but I never thought that I had become cruel or harsh. I did kill a lot of people, but it was always necessary. Wasn’t it?”

“I’m sorry. I see what you mean now.” I apologized.

“You can’t just treat human life like that. People aren’t your pawns to kill whenever it suits you.”

“Funny how an assassin is giving me a lesson in the sanctity of human life.” I joked.

He calmed down and returned to his happy self. “Aw, this was our first fight. Now we can look back and tell our kids that our first fight was over mommy torturing a dude.”

“Wow lover boy, back it up. We’ve got a long way to go before then, besides I’ve only just met you.”

“Alright, can our first date be somehow getting out of this prison cell?” He asked.

“I’m sure that can be arranged.” A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I laughed from the ridiculousness of it all.

“What?” He asked.

“You and I are talking about dating and marriage, surrounded by the mangled corpses of our guards. Not exactly the most romantic situation.”

He burst out laughing, and wiping away tears said “Trust me I’ve had worse. Wait until I’ve told you about my first kiss. She was also oddly enough my first assassination contract.”

“Oh, breakup must have been killer.”

“Believe me, I could’ve died.” By this point we were both laughing so hard that tears were sliding down our cheeks. After years of little human contact aside from death threats and assassination attempts, just talking was nice, even if we were surrounded by dead bodies.

Wiping away a tear, I turned to face the stone spikes that separated us from freedom, I pulled my arms close into my chest, and threw them towards the wall.

The stone disintegrated and the world erupted into chaos.