The King's Assassin

Chapter 1: Selene

Dusk loomed as Selene crested the top of the hill. The warmth of her dapple-grey mare was a comfort, as the chill of the autumn air had soaked through her tunic hours ago. Selene's muscles ached from the long ride, her fingers stiff around the worn leather of the reins. Every jolt of her horse's steady gait seemed to throb through her bones, but it was a discomfort she had grown use to. She spent more time on the road these past months than she did in the palace. 

Her mare huffed, tossing her head as Selene halted at the sight of the Capital city before them. The castle cut into the skyline the walls surrounding the city hiding most other buildings from sight. Golden fields, ripe for harvest swept out before her. Sprinkled throughout the country side  were small cottages, their chimneys puffed thin trails of smoke that disappeared into the darkening sky as families gathered for their evening meals. 

Selene knew she had to return to the city; her mission had been completed almost a week ago now. She could ride through the night and make it to the city gates by morning with ease, but every bone in her body revolted at the idea. Even at this distance she could feel the oppressive air crushing down on her. Selene despised the crowded streets, houses stacked practically atop one another, and the ever-present stench of rot that assaulted her senses at every turn. The very air seemed to be the source of the dull headaches she had lived with her entire life. 

Out here, in the countryside, the air was clean, and the headaches always vanished the farther she traveled from the capital. Escaping the city was one of the few things she enjoyed about the missions the King sent her on. These tasks allowed her to breathe freely again, if only for the few precious weeks she spent away from the oppressive city walls.

Selene shook her head to clear her jumbled thoughts. The burlap bag, darkened with dried blood, thumped against her saddle—a reminder that she should have returned from her mission by now. Narak, her horse, made a sound that almost sounded like a complaint as they passed through the last of the towering white oaks of the wyldwood. Their branches stretched toward the sky, arching over the dirt road like a regal archway. Yellow and golden leaves glinted like small gems in the fading sunlight. It was peaceful here, easier to think. The fog that crowded her mind in the city lifted when she was out here. Yet the dreams had returned, as they always did. Vision of war and death. Dreams of magic. They haunted her nights, only vanishing once she had returned home.

The dreams were a small price to pay for her temporary freedom. Unlike most, Selene felt no fear of the wyldwood. Deep in her bones, she knew nothing within those trees could—or would—harm her. She had no logical reason to believe it, only a quiet certainty that settled deep within her, a feeling of belonging among the white-barked trees. The forest felt more like home than the opulent palace she'd been raised in ever had.

It had been nearly four weeks since she'd walked the palace halls. The King's orders echoed in her mind, growing louder with each passing minute, and dread pooled in her stomach. She had been given three weeks to find a man named Roland Terry—a banker in the city of Valen, east of Orion, the capital. Three weeks to find him and kill him. Then she was to return with his head. Selene had never once defied an order, and technically, she still hadn't. She'd realized only a week into her mission that King Erebus had instructed her to kill the man within three weeks but had said nothing of returning within that time.

Selene wasn't sure why finding—and exploiting—the small loophole in King Erebus's orders had brought her such joy. Guilt tugged at her gut. The King had taken her in when she had no one else. He had clothed her, fed her. She couldn't remember ever living anywhere else. King Erebus had been the only constant in her life, a towering presence that she had both admired and feared. He loyalty felt unshakable–yet that small voice, always silenced, whispered that loyalty and fear weren't the same. It was that same voice that screamed for her to run and never look back whenever he fixed his dark blue eyes on her. But where would she go? She had no other home, no family beyond him. She was the King's ward.