Sin: Path of Poison

Chapter 23 Part 2

I stood with my hair down and dress covered in blood. I looked past the scattering of corpses on the ground and towards the direction I'd tossed the sheath and hair pin. Blood dripped from my shoes as I walked over to calmly pick them up. Not having anything on my body to wipe the accessory off with, I took it to one of the dead assassins and semi cleaned it.

"Torch." I said in a normal voice. He jumped down from a nearby building, landing just outside of the bloody scene. The three men behind me jumped in surprise, unaware that he'd been there. "Take this back to my room, clean it up for me. Try not to cut yourself on it." He was smart enough to realize if it had poison I wouldn't have given it to him. "I'm not finished with my mission, I'll stay here a bit longer." I waved him away. He smiled and left, probably happy I wasn't in danger.

Nomi had peeked out of the carriage when she heard Lei say she won't hurt you, inevitably she saw the whole thing. I turned around to look at them for the first time since everything happened. Blake was still holding his sword. Overconfident. Jin was standing next to him without a weapon, looking confused. Nomi's eyes were wide, she looked like she wanted to scream. She was probably wondering how she could have touched me so casually all these times. Lei looked like he was piecing something together, a frown finally came to his face.

"That's the guy that wanted to marry you?" Lei finally asked, scaring the other three as they looked at him.

"Mm." I nodded.

"How do you know him?" Lei asked, earning more looks.

"I didn't." I shrugged. "Should we head back?" I added. Remembering our driver was dead, I briefly pondered who would drive.

"You're staying here!" Blake yelled, the bottled up frustrations finally reached a boil. I tilted my head at him.

"We're not leaving her!" Lei retorted.

"You knew about this!" Blake accused. "How long have you known?" He added.

"It's okay Lei, just go back with them." I smiled.

He nodded, realizing I could make my way back just as easily. Backing away from them, I shadow stepped towards the palace. Some distance away, they finally got back into the carriage. Traveling forward I kept my energy channeling with them, just to make sure they didn't come across any other problems. I made a quick stop at one of my hideouts, quickly wrapping up a clean set of night robes and shoes before grabbing a couple medicine jars. Leaving as quickly as I came, I continued forward.

Light stepping over the palace wall was an easy task. Already familiar with the patrol patterns, it took minimal effort to break through. I shadow stepped in grassy areas to hide the bloody footsteps my blood soaked shoes were leaving. Heading towards a pond on the way to the Crown Princes room, I removed the bloody shoes and scrubbed the blood off my feet. Careful not to get them dirty I tried shadow stepping to clean areas.

Avoiding the stairs into the Crown Prince's room, I light stepped straight to the window, balancing on the ledge as I opened it and went inside. Ever so carefully I made my way inside, not leaving any signs of blood. Once again a courteous maid had left a bucket near the washtub. I quickly removed all the bloody items from my body and placed them inside.

Regardless if the Crown Prince planned on bathing or not, the bathwater was always freshly added to his tub just before nightfall. Although the water was barely warmer than the room, it still felt good. Submerging myself under water, I scrubbed my hair and body clean. Just passing through the front gates, the four others still hadn't said a word about what happened. No longer trying to hide the fact they went out of the palace; Blake pulled the carriage right in front of the Crown Prince's room and left it there along with the more evidence, including my torn robes.