His Lips Were Made From Poison

Chapter 2

"Ok, now that we have went through each of your case files, we are going to go through some simple exercises. Let's imagine that I am Cullen for a bit." Sam, our spy instructor told us, he looked pointedly at Kane, "Hey, my name is Cullen, what's your name?"

"Alex Wu," Sam's eyes narrowed as he looked at Kane from head to toe.

"No. I mean what's your actual name?"

"K- Alex Wu"

Sam pursed his lips and gave Kane a disapproving frown, "The first rule of spying, never hesitate, never slip up. If you want any chance of successfully completing this mission you better have that case file memorised inside out. That means no hesitations." Going back to being Cullen, Sam looked at me now, "And you are?"

Mustering my broadest smile I reached forward to shake 'Cullen's' hand, "Shanaya (Shun-eye-ah) Parekh and this grumpy being beside me," I said with a slight chuckle, "is my brother."

"Really, you don't look a lot alike?" 'Cullen' replied a testing tone to his voice.

"Well-Umm" I bit my lip to show my nervousness and looked down a little pretending to be sad, "We aren't actually related by blood you know, we are just both orphans. Both our families got killed during the fighting that happened when the Zander ended the rebellions on West Coast of Olia. We were both very young but our families were good friends. We just migrated from the suburbs of Zandaria." I smiled a bit at that,"Here in the city to start a new life!"

"Ohh so you're both Olians! That must have been awful having to leave your home and everything else behind!"Cullen replied, gasping in shock.

"Yes it was horrific, to say the least, we were just so lucky to have not only survived but to have been taken in by the farmers over there. It really provided us with something to work towards in life." I said, eyes shining brightly. In truth, not everything I had said was exactly a lie.

In fact, me and Kane were both orphans, only it had been the Rebellion who had taken our childhood lives from us. When Demir found me eight years ago in a Rebellion camp used for conducting experiments on children when I was 10, he had adopted me and taken me for his own, it had taken some persuading but eventually, he relented and allowed me to train alongside the Assassins at the keep to become one.

It gave me a sense of purpose to know that I was working towards helping The Zander in eliminating the group that had taken me away from my parents. Eventually, we had found Kane and countless other children on the streets due to the Rebels who had destroyed their homes and before long we managed to open an institute for the displaced children, providing them with the skills for different jobs they would want to do in The Zander as they grew older.

Breaking his Cullen impersonation, Sam smiled at me proud of the progress I had made, "Well done Azura, that was excellent!"

Then, he started fiddling around with his sleeve until he found a small black ear piece chip the size of a mini button and held it precariously upon one of his fingers, he chuckled, "I knew there was something fishy about that handshake we had earlier. You know, you are actually really good at this; spying and all. Really, you should consider joining!"

"No, I really don't think I could, my duties already lie here with Assassin's Keep" I politely declined.

"I thought you might say that," he said looking at his watch then sighing to himself, "Well, that's our time up, I hope you are satisfied with your lesson. And Azura, if you ever feel like not being an assassin, you can always find me at the spies burrow, just ask Demir he would know where it is."

"As for you," Sam said pointing a wrinkled finger at Kane, "You could take some notes from her, smile a bit more too, I doubt Cullen would be willing to share information with you when you're looking like that. You need to be more........Welcoming, more.. comforting to be around."