Assassin's Revenge

Chapter 6

(River)

River had one job, but she hated it.

‘Blend in with the crowd’. All she can see are crowds of a bunch of ladies in their frilly dresses batting their eyelashes under their masks, to impress ‘his highness, crown prince Arden Edevan.’ Honestly, it’s all disgusting.

It’s not like she hates dresses or anything. Anyone would be surprised at the amount of dresses she has in her wardrobe. For an assassin, it’s unexpected for sure. But for Lady Jane Evans, it’s perfectly fine. 

As the ‘royal assassin’, the only way to fit in the castle is to go under the name of the woman she had killed, Lady Jane Evans. And as the princess’s lady-in-waiting, she had to attend Prince Arden’s masquerade ball. 

“You look tense, Jane.” The princess says, “this isn’t really what I expected of an assassin.” She says the last part in a whisper.

“You’re bad at reading emotions, princess,” River says, lowering her voice, “I’m not tense, I’m disgusted.”

The princess scoffs as she adjusts the golden mask on her face. River must admit that the princess looks pretty in her pastel cyan gown, decorated with golden lace at the neckline, hem and sleeves. 

River doesn’t look too bad herself in her Aegean teal gown that the king had ordered for her. It’s easy to hide weapons in and is made from rare and enchanted bulletproof silk. But the most favourite thing she likes about it is that blood can’t stain it- it could easily be wiped off as if it was cream. 

Perfect for tonight’s mission.

“Seriously, how many women has Arden danced with till now?” the princess asks, as she eyes a man coming closer to us.

“Good evening, may I have the honour of a dance, my esteemed lady?” a blonde noble in a blue suit asked, as he bows to the princess, his hands outstretched.

“No, I am fine.” The crown princess says as she looks away from the man, disinterested.

The man looks down and turns to leave as the princess takes River's gloved hands and leads her over to the dessert bar, where her older brother stopped to catch his breath.

“Seventeen.” River says as she remembers the princess’s earlier question. Fully alert of the crown princess’s personal guard, as she walks behind them- only a few metres distancing the two and
her. As being a professional killer for many years, River developed a sixth sense sensing the loyalty and the distrust someone could give off, and there’s just something about Aelita that throws River’s radar way off.

“What's seventeen?” the princess asks as she sees Arden take another woman to dance with him.

“The women the prince has danced with. Now it’s eighteen.” River says as she grabs a piece of cherry tart, observing the prince’s new dance partner- she looks quite pretty in her lavender dress, the white sheer lace just accentuating the beautiful colour.

Her long and voluminous chestnut brown hair flowing elegantly behind her as she and the prince twirl around the ball.

“Are you sure you don’t want to dance? It looks fun.” She directs her words to the princess while her eyes are still focused on the prince.

“No, I am just fine where I am.” Princess Lillith Edevan says as takes a bite of the grape flavoured soufflé, “You can go dance, I’ll wait here.”

“And leave your highness alone? No way.”

“Aelita is my guard, not you.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“And who said I trusted you? I’m just following my father's orders.”

“Wait here.” River says as she leaves the princess at the desserts bar and goes towards the beverages’ bar. Not to drink but to kill.

As she walks towards the bar, she spots the Second Prince Reginald stopping briefly at the bar with a red-haired girl in an emerald dress. They sneakily drink some shots of whiskey, while laughing at their success at not getting caught.

“Your highness.” River bows as she reaches the prince and his companion, “I saw you drinking.”

His smile disappears, “R- er Lady Jane. What brought you here?”

“Destiny. To see you drinking alcohol at age fifteen.”

“It didn’t taste good anyway.” Prince Reginald’s companion says as she shrugs it off. The prince chuckles at her statement.

“What’s s-“ River starts but just finds the prince taking the girl and leading her onto the dance floor again, completely ignoring her. 

Brats, they’re all brats.

“What’s a beautiful woman such as yourself doing here all alone?
And now I dare ask for a dance?” a man says from behind her.

She prepares to say no, before she sees the man’s masked face. His features are plainly obvious even with it.

Perfect. Just the person she was looking for. Archduke Arnold of House Loftus. Her target.

River takes his outstretched hands and lets him lead her to the dance floor. Dancing is never taught to assassins, everyone knows that. But that wasn’t the same with River, for she was taught dancing long before she was taught shooting, sword fighting or any other murder methods. Which was probably what got her to fit in at the palace.

“What is your name, my lady?” the archduke’s voice brings her out of her thoughts. Right. The plan. She smiles up at the man and leads him out of the ball room into a wide balcony covered with red velvet curtains to give privacy to whoever enters there. The most suitable place for murder. 

The man smirks as he mistakes her intentions, she leaves him to his fantasies as she closes the curtains back to leave them alone.

“My name is Lady Jane Evans,” she says as she approaches him, “but you may be familiar with my real name, River.”

The man looks at her in confusion, she gets out her polished and frighteningly sharp stiletto dagger from under her dress and wraps her fingers tightly around its hilt when she’s inches away from the man. River swiftly buries the dagger into the man’s gut, and flicks her wrist to the right, ripping grotesquely through flesh and skin. 

She hides her blood-stained dagger back to where it was, hidden under her dress, strapped at the hips, as the man falls backward about to topple from the balcony. She steadies his lifeless body and pulls his corpse away from the balcony’s railing. River leaves the body on the floor and she climbs the walls from the outside, then opens all the roof and upper windows of the room’s walls. River immediately felt the wind pick up and crouched down next to the largest glass window- situated atop the hanging candle chandelier inside. As she felt wind pick up even more, she opened the big window and rolled away, as a big gust of air forced its way in the room from all the windows she had opened. The force that allowed the wind in immediately extinguished all the lighting on the chandelier and put out all the wall lights. The ballroom went black, with the light of the moon barely reaching it.

River then climbs down her way back to the balcony where the archduke lays dead on the once white polished floor now stained with the dead man’s gushing blood. She drags him back to the dark ballroom, as she hears the Crown Prince Arden’s booming loud demanding voice, “What is going on?!”

This is the part where he acts all concerned and takes his dance partner out of the room. Prince Reginald must’ve led his dance partner out of the room too. Such actors, they are.

River quickly slashes at the corpse’s wound once more with her dagger, so that it bleeds fresh blood, as if someone killed him in the sudden dark and not earlier. River quickly runs towards the dessert bar where Princess Lillith should be.

“Princess is that you?” she says as she bumps into someone.

“Yes.” She says, her voice surprisingly balanced, “are you done dancing?” she says, the underlying word ‘killing’ lies on her tongue but saying it when anyone could be near would cause trouble.

“Yes, though the lights disappeared so I came to fetch you.”

Someone knocks into us, “Excuse me.” He says in a familiar voice. Prince Arden.

“Your highness. It’s her highness and I.” River says as she grabs the princess’s hand.

“Ah, lady jane. Glad to see you’re okay. My brother went to call for backup lights. I hope you weren’t scared, sister.”

“I am fine.” The princess says. Royalties are such actors, no wonder they deceive the public so easily, with their claims of peace, that clearly doesn’t exist.

“Isabella! Isa-“ a woman calls out in the dark as her voice gets near.

“Darlene. Leave the ball room, and as soon as you see light, turn right and you’ll find Lady Isabella in the room safely.” The prince’s voice.

“Thank you, your highness.” The woman, Darlene, says as her footsteps become more distant till they’re not heard.

The lights gradually light up, as servants move in a hurry with their ladders to finish lighting up the rest of the oil lamps.

Suddenly the screams of some noblewoman startle everyone when Archduke Arnold of House Loftus’s dead body is found among the chaos. Another life taken for his majesty, the high King Edevan, by the hands of his royal assassin.

*Chapter edited by bbashii make sure to give her a follow

Also chapter 7 may come a little late since im on a writer's block at the moment so bear with me 😅*