The Chessboard Undead Prince

Chapter the Second

Being called the Executioner of Empire was his own life balancing on a tipping scale. The King of Estela kept the Executioner under his iron thumb. Emotionless, without empathy, and cold-blooded, he had carved his name as the finest Executioner by carving a path of blood across the empire since the time that Alice fell into the world of Glass. If he dared to disobey the King, he was promised he'd end his glass heart by torturing him in ways unimaginable, then destroy him from the Empire. The scale would then tip to his personal life, and he knew the King had his informants everywhere. Adonis was a master of all trades—weapons, hand-to-hand, hunting, bribery, and corruption. He had been an Executioner for the last fifteen years, and he was a trainer for the palace guards. They had paid him the highest price any man could ask for Executioner— one million gold crowns per year. And in return, he educated every guard living there, including His Majesty's assassins.

Only he and the Princess shared a secret. So dark and deadly. Scalding and poisonous. So dangerous that he'd kill anyone who knew.

The guards and soldiers who saw him entering the princess's chambers, shut their traps. They fully knew his capability as Executioner of Estela. Two guards on duty stiffened as he swept past them into the courtiers' wing of the palace. He smirked. Where was their cockiness now?

The Palace of Hearts' guards and soldiers held him in contempt. He was their head assassin— a boy who was still wet behind the ears? Until they witnessed the brutal execution of a murderer in the fashion of flogging him till half-dead. Watching the blood letch of the mutilated body as the tiny shards of bone and iron balls rip open flesh to reveal skeletal muscles, veins, and bowels, had made them drop their haughtiness and unfortunately, empty their bowels. The murderer was at last crucified on the tips of the palace gates. The suffering lasted for six hours until the King granted himself small mercy by breaking his legs.

The royal jeweller was waiting for him, anxiously pacing outside his workshop beneath the stairs.

"You have it?"

He removed a flap over a bundle of macaron pink cloth. He opened the lid and the Executioner smiled at what rested in the rich velvet cushion. "How much for your work?"

"As you promised; three thousand gold hearts."

"I can pay better than that." He held up the blood-soaked satchel from his cloak. He slid it over to the jeweller's twiddling fingers. "One glass soul."

Quickly, the jeweller snatched it up, peering inside the treasure. He tucked it under his apron, out of sight and mind until the end of the day. Glass hearts were worth more than diamonds and gold. People of the empire would sell their gold and even their souls to a slaver to get their hands on a glass heart for another loved one.

"It's a relief to see a man who will not stoop to such treachery; most of those I see every day."

"I promised you should have them in three days, my lord."

And true to his word he had delivered what the Executioner had asked. The Executioner carefully took the item under the cloth. He slunk like a shadow through the servant quarters, down a hallway, and out a window. He balanced on the lip, heaving his lithe body up the smooth walls, and went up three stories like a monkey. The guards on their wall patrol barely noticed his dark shadow shimmying up. 

Ellius was at the powder pots. She huffed, folding her arms. Why must she strut with a thousand men for marriage? The last ball with Lord  Klaus Demoire nearly broke her ankle. She put out her back with Baron Claude de Noir. Who was it this time?