Stalemate | A Rise To Power

𝘊𝘢𝘪𝘶𝘴

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It was easy enough to 'convince' someone to give them a horse. A simple knife flying past a groom and missing his head by millimetres made the man hurry to saddle one for Anastasia while Caius helped himself to his food supplies. It wasn't long before they were on the Main Road, Anastasia riding alongside him on her new horse. They rode right past highwaymen, not wealthy-looking enough to be a target, quietly recounting what had occurred in the years they had been apart. When Giulio betrayed them, splitting them as they all went their own ways, Anastasia had run back to her sister, and lived with her for a while, until her brother-in-law found out who she was and turned her out. After a year of travelling around, searching for jobs where she could, she had settled at a small village in the upper South, despite an opening to go back to the Free Isles to live with her parents.

"Why didn't you?" Caius asked her.

She had shaken her head. "They had raised me to be a respectful, hard-working girl. When I lost it all on risky living and joined Vittorio to repay my debts..." She sighed. "They won't want to see me again. I'm a killer."

"It's not your fault for surviving."

"I was foolish. An irresponsible girl." Anastasia flicked her dark hair from her face. "And, for some reason, I feel an attachment to this country of war. Maybe some part of me likes the chaos that is mostly absent in the Isles."

She had stayed in the village, painting walls and pictures for the villagers, taking on gardening as a hobby, and stealing what she couldn't afford. Despite a few advances from men tempted by an unmarried woman living alone, Anastasia had sent each of them away with their heads bowed in shame, and sometimes bruised faces, until they soon stopped making open approaches.

"You took on gardening? You didn't let me see your garden," Caius noted.

She smiled. "Why, I didn't think the moody assassin would care."

"I love flowers."

"Right." She laughed. "I'll show you after, then. I'll bring you back to my cottage and you can make me a pretty bouquet."

"I was kidding."

"Gloomy bastard," she snorted. "Now, tell me what's been going on with you these past years."

They rode North together, only stopping to sleep at occasional inns to the side of the Main Road, and their talking soon filled with a comfortable silence as they ran out of conversation. Border control was harsh, but they were allowed through after Caius flashed some coin at them.

It was on the third day when they rode into trouble. A group of men, all in their twenties and thirties, wearing raven masks to conceal their identities, approached and surrounded them. There were at least a dozen of them, all riding black horses and wearing the same black clothes with a crown badge pinned above their left breast.

"Halt!" cried the rider at the front.

Caius and Anastasia obeyed.

"We are on the lookout for Audrey Everwood," the rider said. "Any information will be rewarded."

"You want reward money for capturing a fleeing young girl?" Anastasia frowned.

The rider at the front ignored her.

"Remove your hood," he told Caius.

"Says the man wearing a mask," Caius replied calmly.

"Nice try, but you're outnumbered. If you don't take off the hood, we'll take it as a sign of aggression and be forced to kill you," the rider informed him.