Queen Of Glass

Book 2 Chapter 5

She ran her hands up and down the bricks of the stone wall of the building, testing, measuring, weighing, and calculating with the barest of touches. She looked up towards the light that streamed from the window fifty feet above the ground and felt the cracks between the blocks of stone with the tips of her fingers. She knew that she could scale this wall with no trouble at all.
Strategically placing one hand on the wall in front of her, and the other a few feet higher, Adarlan's assassin placed a soft-soled foot on the base of the wall and began to climb.
Moving like a predatory demon from Hell, she crawled up the wall, slowly placing one hand in front of the other and pushing upwards with her feet. It didn't bother her that no human should have been able to climb up a smooth stone wall; climbing things like this had always been as easy as walking to the assassin. Foot by foot, she neared the window, gliding like a shadow towards the light. The guards stationed around the base of the house didn't even notice her.
Sliding smoothly as a snake in the grass, she reached the window and squatted on the large windowsill, listening for any noises that might present her with an uncomfortable situation.
Silence.
Carefully placing a foot down on the wooden floor, the assassin kept her head cocked to the side, waiting for any sign of life. Still nothing. She fully dismounted the windowsill and straightened, a smug smile appearing on her face as she began to take in her surroundings.
Aside from the window, there were no other exits. Surprisingly, her smile didn't fade—she had been in worse than this and escaped without any trouble. The only problem that now faced her was finding the bastard's room.
Adarlan's assassin moved like a mountain cat across the room, head moving from side to side, her muscles tense with the prospect of her prey being near, sleeping and unaware of the danger that approached with every passing second.
She opened the door to the hallway silently, keeping hidden in the shadows, making it seem that the door had opened of its own free will. She was about to open it further when a cackle of laughter exploded in the hallway—a woman's voice—and the assassin retreated back into the room. She listened to the woman as she passed by, her face darkening with malice as she heard the conversation that the woman was having with her companion.
"It doesn't really matter if we use diplomacrasy or whatever it's called—they're all just a bunch of savages who should be thanking us for helping their economy and taking over. It's not as though they could use the land properly anyway!"
"They may be savages," her male companion said—he was undoubtedly the man she was supposed to kill—"but they're savages with weapons and lots and lots of anger."
The woman laughed dismissively. "If they object, just toss them in the salt mines of Endovier—Gods above know that we need more workers there! Honestly, Huntion, you'd think from listening to this conversation that I should be the one in the king's council!"
Their voices were shut off as a door closed down the hallway. Adarlan's assassin fought the reckless rage that was beginning to boil in the pit of her stomach, convincing herself that as long as she kept a cool head until she got into that room, she could torture the damn woman as long as she liked without causing a single guard to notice. But still...

Another country slipping under the belt of Adarlan.
A ferocious snarl appeared on her lips despite her attempt to calm herself. How many more countries would bow to Adarlan's sword?
She took a moment more to calm her temper, closing her eyes and breathing deeply out of her nose. When she felt steady once more, she subtly opened the door and slipped through it, her eyes taking in her surroundings. There was a large window at either end of the hallway—easy exit routes. There were no guards in sight—even though there had been whispered warnings that Adarlan's assassin had come to feed at the watering hole called Renaril.
On silent feet, she crept down the hallway and placed an ear to the door that led to the chamber where the politician and his whore had entered. A wicked grin contorted her features as she heard the blatant noises of lovemaking. This was going to be as easy as killing an animal caught in a trap.
Applying the correct amount of pressure to open the door silently, she turned the doorknob and slipped into the room. With an instinctive flick of her wrist, a long silver dagger appeared in her hand and glittered dangerously in the candlelit room.
The politician and the woman were still going at it, unaware that Death had just appeared through the doorway.
Gliding like a ghost, she neared the bed, and a second, smaller dagger appearing in her hand—a second weapon for a second corpse.
Another country destroyed.
She paused a second, letting her hatred and disgust sink in so that she could fully enjoy killing the couple. But it was a second too many.
The woman, though almost flattened beneath the thrusting man, looked over his shoulder and let out a blood-curdling scream as she saw the assassin standing at the base of the bed, with daggers in hand and a terrible gleam in her eyes.
Reflexively, Adarlan's assassin threw the first dagger deep into the man's back before he could react, and it buried itself into his heart with a pleasant thud. Despite her excellent aim, the man collapsed onto the screaming woman, trapping her and yet protecting her from the deadly second dagger of the assassin. Her screams continued.
Knowing that it would be a matter of seconds before the guards appeared, the assassin leapt forward, grabbing the first dagger out of the man's back as she hurled him off of the woman. The woman instinctively raised her hands to shield herself, but with a singing slash of a dagger, the woman's throat burst open, spraying her life's blood over the front of the assassin's black attire.
She was dead. They were both dead. Mission accomplished. The gold was as good as hers.
She rushed towards the nearest window in the room, throwing it wide open as the sound of soldiers appeared from the hallway. She was halfway out of the window as five men burst into the room, and the assassin, knowing that to attempt to jump without a landing cushion could be fatal, whipped back into the room, poised to fight.
They rushed towards her with a few cries of fury, and before they could catch her movement, she leapt upward towards the chandelier that hung over their heads and grabbed onto the gold bars, swinging over them with ease. She landed behind them and buried her smaller dagger in the neck of the closest guard, causing him to fall forward onto his fellow guards—dead. A free guard charged and made a swipe at her belly with his sword, which she deftly avoided by rolling to the side and slashing open his insides as she passed. Two down, three to go.
By now the other three were coming at her, furious and frightened. Her leg swung upward in an arc and she broke the neck of the closest guard with a kick of her foot. Before he reached the ground, she leapt forward slammed into the guard beside him, digging her dagger into his heart upon collision. Why where these men so slow? Didn't anyone train them properly? The last remaining guard had barely time to swing his sword before the assassin had taken up the fallen sword of one of his comrades and rammed it through his body, digging upward and slicing his heart in two.
She smiled darkly as she slid the sword out of the man and let his body fall backwards on the floor. Seven people killed in less than five minutes. Impressive. Very impressive. This would be something to gloat to Symeth about.