Snow White Queen [NaNoWriMo 2018]

Chapter Twenty-Five

Lilia sat in her room, staring intently at the glass jar in front of her. Amantha had assigned her to practice this skill: she'd carefully shatter the jar, then piece it back together, all without touching it once.

She thought she saw a small crack appear, though she wasn't sure if it was actually there or just her delusional hopefulness. She refocused her mind on the task, and the crack widened and branched off. Before she could process what was happening, the jar burst and shards of broken glass were sent flying around the room; Lilia just barely avoided getting jabbed in the eye.

Lilia kept her face hidden for several moments, then peeked up once she was relatively sure it was clear.

Broken glass was scattered everywhere. Several shards had impaled themselves in her until then perfectly good curtains. Another was stuck straight up in the carpet.

Well, great.

She almost stood up to pick them up by hand before she remembered what she was supposed to be doing. She focused her attention on the shards in the curtain and willed them to gently return to her desk. This went off without a hitch.

Then she turned her attention to the shards on the floor. She must have forgotten to specify gently this time, since the shards came hurtling at her full speed.

Once she had gotten over barely escaping death for the second time in five minutes, she looked around the room for any shards she had missed and gently called them to her desk one by one.

Once the shards were all on her desk, she focused on getting them to stitch themselves back together. The shards created an approximation of the jar, but no matter what she did, they refused to stick back together. She tried for another ten minutes to get them to stick together, but had to give up.

Mentally exhausted, Lilia stood up and walked over to examine her curtains. I wonder if there's a spell to fix these.

~~~

The second assassin found their way in through an open window. It was high off the ground, which was probably why it had been left unlocked as many people wouldn't expect anyone to try and get in that way. However, the assassin happened to be an experienced climber, so getting in through that window was no problem at all.

The assassin made their way through the castle by the light of the near dawn. Servants were likely awake, or would be waking up soon. Hopefully, they wouldn't be near Lilia's rooms for several hours. As she was technically considered a noble, she'd be expected to sleep in until after sunrise.

As the assassin had expected, they encountered no resistance on their way to Lilia's rooms. The few people they did encounter assumed that they were one of the staff and simply nodded politely as they passed.

Lilia's door was cracked open slightly, which the assassin found odd, but decided to think nothing of it.

The assassin pushed the door open silently, scanning the room for potential threats. Nothing seemed to notice their entrance, so they continued inside and closed the door behind them. They looked back into the room towards the bed and froze in shock.

The bed was empty.

The assassin looked frantically around the room. If she wasn't in the bed, then where-

Their eyes landed on a form slumped over a desk on the other side of the bed. The assassin relaxed. She must have fallen asleep in the middle of whatever she was working on.

Silently, the assassin approached the sleeping figure, drawing their weapon as they went.

~~~