An Assassin's Demise

Prolouge

One of the better aspects of having been raised to be an assassin was that I knew when someone was coming to wake me. Would be nice to have a couple of extra minutes of sleep though.

The sound of footsteps pounding down the hall wakes me, quickly I slip out of my sheets and grab the dagger that hangs behind my headboard. Dagger in hand, I walk over to the door of my bedroom and hide in the shadows, waiting on whoever it is that's running down the hallway in the middle of the night.

" Fallon, are you awake?"

I sigh and toss the dagger onto my couch, it's silver handle glinting in the moonlight that breaks through the curtains. I open the door and glare at my sister, standing to the side of her and looking much to excited about being up in the middle of the night, is my younger sister Elaine.

" It's the middle of the night, why the hell would I be awake?" I ask, getting more irritated by the second. It doesn't take much for Arabella to get on my nerves, one would think we would get along better, we are twins after all.

" Because Father wants to speak with us, it's important." She says, not at all surprised by my sharp tone.

" It better be important for me to have been woken up over it." I turn to my younger sister and ask if she's been summoned to our father's midnight meeting as well. Typically she's left out of things like this, seven year old's don't typically need to know the inner workings of a kingdom.

Elaine's face falls at the question, and she mumbles out a barely audible no. I turn back to my twin, beside her, Elaine looks happy over the fact that she's no longer being questioned.

" If she's not supposed to be going to this meeting, why is she even up? Did the servants wake her?" I question.

" The servants didn't wake her up, she was already up playing with those damn knives you gave her for her birthday." Arabella responds. She's still caught up on the fact that I got our youngest sibling knives for her birthday. I don't see the issue, they're rather dull knives, they probably couldn't even slice butter. I turn back to Elaine, who now looks even more sheepish than before, and grin at the child and haul her up onto my back. Arabella sighs and starts to down the gold lined hallway, towards fathers office. I turn to follow her, and quickly overtake her, the girl on my back hardly slowing me down.

" If you're going to stay up all night,' I say over my shoulder to Elaine, ' then you best learn how to do so without being caught."

I hear Elaine gasp at the fact that I would suggest that she wasn't careful enough to not be caught with her late night escapades, she then begins to counter that she only was caught because she left her room.

" I wanted to see what the servants were going on about, really they should learn how to be quieter." The seven year old says, so much attitude in such a little person. I laugh and don't even need to look behind me to know that, Arabella is shaking her head at the whole interaction, always playing the perfect princess that she is.

When we reach Father's office, I tell Elaine to get off of my back before pushing open the door to the room. As the door swings open I see the rest of my siblings, all of which are clearly anxious about whatever Father has to say, my mother is also present, she's sitting in the corner looking rather upset. My father is sitting at his desk flipping through a pile of papers, behind him stands my oldest brother, he's whispering something to father, father doesn't bother responding. Mother looks up at my sisters and me, her eyes going wide as she spots the youngest.

" Elaine, go back to bed sweetheart." Mothe'rs tone is kind and sweet, like she is. I swear there isn't a violent bone in her body. I hear Elaine sigh and grumble about how unfair it is that she never gets to know anything, and she turns to walk away. Father doesn't look up from his papers, as he calls out to his youngest daughter.