Secrets of the Crown Assassins

14

XAVIER

I was climbing up the steps up my brother's tower again. The windows shook with the storm outside. Lightning struck and thunder boomed.

Cressida was best in storms. Just on the regular streets of Cressida, you were only a thousand feet below typical rain clouds. Start climbing in one of the skyscrapers and you could easily get much closer. After a few too many accidents with buildings not taking the appropriate protective measures against storms and collapsing or starting a fire, the engineers of Cressida placed a height limit on all buildings.

However, the tallest towers in the Golden Palace, the ones that pierced through the sky and peered over the clouds, remained. They had the needed precautionary equipment of course, with their ability to repel clouds and form a hundred-foot wide vortex of storm clouds around us. Still, the highest towers were restricted during storms, hence why the assassins visiting the palace who often spent their days admiring the view were wandering around the rest of the palace, wondering what to do.

Perhaps someone should guide and entertain them, but I was in no mood to converse with those idiots. I'll leave the job to Arielle, though she was most likely hiding away as well.

At the thought of Arielle, my traitorous mind drifted to our encounter earlier in the hidden garden. I could still feel the way my lips touched hers, the warmth of her body pressed against mine, the way her hair tangled around my fingers. But mostly, I could remember the feeling of loss building from the way she suddenly pulled away. I bit my tongue and cursed myself, willing the emotion to go away. It was irrational, just like my involvement with her in the first place. I pushed it all away as I climbed past Damien's first level.

I pushed open the door of his second-level room and found it empty. Things were worse than I estimated then.

I climbed the last flight of stairs and swung the door open. The flash of lightning tumbling into the room through the floor to ceiling windows was the only source of light in the room. Damien sat on the ground, leaning against his bed, and fiddled with a part of machinery in his hands.

Shutting the door behind me, I sat across from him in silence and looked out the window. Damien didn't look up at me, only stared at his fingers, until he finally sighed.

"I didn't drink anything today," Damien snapped, the annoyance clear in his voice. "Not a single drop."

I didn't look at him, keeping my eyes glued to the window. "I know."

He already knew that I knew of his abstinence from alcohol since I was the only one in this palace who could track the alcohol intake with such accuracy, as everyone else was such fools. And he tried his best to evade my tracking abilities.

"Fantastic. You can leave."

"I know." I didn't move.

I could sense Damien staring at me, his gaze unflinching. Finally, he threw up his hands and leaned his head back.

"How?"

I settled him with my glare and couldn't help the condescending smirk starting to form.

"Mrs. Amelia Balker, who was already a peevish, querulous old lady only became more so after her son's death and is an absolute pain to handle without added assistance. Combined with the way she grows increasingly loud when her medication is missing and it wasn't hard to understand that it had been stolen."

Damien glared before giving up and averting his eyes down in shame. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small bottle. He tossed it to my hands, the contents inside rattling. I looked down at the bottle in my hands and inspected the pills inside and the prescription. Realizing that the bottle was nearly full, I counted the number of pills inside just to make sure I was right.

"You didn't take any," I pointed out.

Damien shook his head. "It was an in the moment thing. I stole it and then I had time to think about how bad of an idea it was on my way up, given my history with other addictive substances."

I nodded. Perhaps he wasn't doing quite as bad as I initially expected then. We could start hunting the Ravens again in two days, maybe even tomorrow depending on his state of mind in the morning.

I pocketed the stolen medication and stood, giving him a final smirk. "Next time, don't get caught."

I reached the door when he called out, "I think Arielle left the palace earlier. She was all alone when I saw her in the cameras walking out the front door."

I nodded. I'd been expecting her to leave again sometime. Between the bombing, the death of a Royal Assassin, and the influx of new assassins in the palace, the Crown Fortier's strict stay at home orders had been forgotten. Besides, no one would expect the last possible Fortier Crown Heir to sneak at a time like this. It was the perfect opportunity to speak to Phoenix one last time, perhaps even guilt her into returning if only to attend my mother's funeral and visit her own mother in the hospital.

"I thought she would take you along," Damien added.

He wasn't wrong. There was a high possibility that she would've looped the two of us to go with her, but between the encounter in the garden and Damien's current state, she must've decided against it.

"She didn't," was all I said in reply.

I was just about to twist the doorknob when the door flung open to reveal my father standing in the hallway.

"Xavier, Damien," he greeted. I placed my arm at an angle to hide the bulging medication in my pocket without looking unnatural.

"Hey, Dad," Damien mumbled behind me, not making any move to stand.

Our father looked the two of us over, no doubt inspecting our frame of mind. I inspected him back, taking in the dark circles under his eyes, the way he clasped his hands tightly together as if to stop them from shaking, noticing how his hair wasn't quite as organized and proper as normal, the way his back was less straight and firm than before.

He openly broke down in front of the two of us the first day, when we had just returned to the palace after spending quite a while in the hospitals of Indianapolis. Ever since then, he tried to hide behind a facade of strength. Perhaps I was too. After all, there were too many people in this palace ready to eat up any weakness we showed. Maybe, if no one was around, I would've visited the Music Hall. But now, that wasn't an option.

"The funeral will take place tomorrow afternoon, storm or not," he announced. "There will be a High Court meeting afterward in which both your attendance is expected."

He paused after the last line and looked into both of our eyes, making sure we understood the meaning of it. After the premature death of a Royal Assassin, the High Court will be particularly vicious. They will be vultures swooping in, ready to pick away any weakness, any gap in the armor. Or they will be the foxes, waiting and watching for the perfect moment to strike down and claim more power for themselves.

Too bad, we learned to be snakes since we were young, ready to hide and strike whenever needed. We'll let them walk into the throne room buoyed with confidence, and we would let them leave poisoned and once again under our command. But we had to be ready, not like we were now.

Our father nodded. "Sleep well."

And then he was gone.

Question: What would y'all do if I... maybe, like, I don't know, made Damien jump off the palace and die a gruesome, horrible, death? Wouldn't that be so much fun? *cue devilish laughter* ;)

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this Kingston family scene. See ya guys again next week with possible death, betrayal, and villainy.

~Sree Paruchuri, Queen of Psychos