The Assassin’s Way

Chapter 1

Iwas going to die if I didn’t get my hand out of this hole. A bead of sweat slid down my temple, and I pulled harder. Sharp boulders trapped my wrist and scraped my knuckles, but I kept my fingers curled around the precious metal. A mockingbird in the pine tree next to me laughed at my struggle.

“Ha ha ha,” I yelled back. A jagged edge of the stone cut into my skin. I hissed at the sting, but worse, the blood would attract them. I should have been more careful. “Come on, you stupid rock!”

Bits of dirt and pebbles gave way from the side of the mountain before me. I put my foot against the boulder and jerked. A smaller stone finally moved, spilling bits of dirt around my boots, and my hand came free.

“Yes,” I said triumphantly, and held up the gold nugget.

It was only the size of my thumbnail, but it was the perfect addition to the bone-handled dagger I had started.

With real gold I could sell it to the village chieftain and feed my family for months.

I could even get the new pair of boots I needed.

A deep horn blew, stealing away my triumph in a blink.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I glanced up through the evergreen trees at the deep crimson sun staining the horizon.

How could I have lost track of the hour?

“Shit.” I had five minutes to make it to the house.

Five minutes before darkness blanketed the land and I became prey.

I was a fool for not watching the sky, and it could cost me my life.

I shoved the gold nugget into the pouch on my hip and ran. Dry needles from the thick wood of pine trees crunched under my worn leather boots. I despised the night, the darkness, the things in it. I loved the sun and the safety of its light.

A screech behind me made me jump. My toe caught on a root, and I fell forward, slamming onto my hands.

My pant leg tore, and a small blot of blood stained my left knee.

My throat clamped. I didn’t pray often, but I started to.

I heard people did before they were about to die. Goddess of life, help me.

Another screech. I snapped my head up to find a tawny owl in the tree tilting its head, watching me with big yellow eyes. “Damn bird.”

The horn blew a second time.

The final warning.

Get inside or die.

I pushed myself to my feet and into a sprint. I was used to running for my life out here in the forgotten lands. All of us were.

The shadows from the trees grew longer as I chased the last of the sun.

“Aesira!” My father’s deep voice echoed faintly through the pines. “Get inside now!”

He shouldn’t be out here at this hour, but he was the kind of man who would lay down his life for his family. I couldn’t let him do that.

Faster. I pushed until my legs and lungs burned. Everything around me began to blur as I weaved between the looming trees and the patches of wild mushrooms. I put my hand on a mossy log and catapulted over it, landing in a puddle of mud on the other side.

A branch snapped behind me. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

I peeked over my shoulder. Why didn’t I ever listen to the reasonable voice in my head?

The woods were dark now but between two tree trunks the figure waited.

I was being hunted.

I stuck out my hand and smeared blood across a leafy bush, hoping to distract him.

“Aesira!” my father boomed, closer this time.

Damn it, he was outside at sunset because of me. There was really only one rule in our lands, never be outside after dark.

Thump, thump, thump. The hunter’s footsteps followed close behind me.

Something brushed against my back, and my skin crawled.

I wanted to scream but that would take the breath I needed to keep up this pace.

A branch smacked into my face, but I didn’t feel pain.

Smoke from my house’s chimney came into view like a beacon. I was almost there.

I burst out of the tree line of the Wraith Woods into the clearing at the edge of our village. The two men on night watch were already in the tower, the ladder pulled up so no one could climb up after them. “Get inside!” one of them shouted at me.

“Aesira!” My father was somewhere near my neighbor’s cornfield.

“I’m here!” I yelled and sprinted in his direction.

“There’s one chasing her! Shoot him!” the night watch shouted. An arrow whistled and thudded into the ground behind me.

“Aesira, turn!” Kace roared from up high. I recognized his voice.

Turn which way? I risked looking up at the tower, they both had their arrows pointed behind me. My heart felt like it was going to beat from my chest. Is a stupid gold nugget worth your life? that voice said again. Or your father’s?

My spine tingled. I felt the hunter’s presence behind me and took a sharp turn left. Corn leaves whipped my cheeks until I slammed into my father’s broad chest. He brandished his huge axe and without a word grabbed me by the back of my shirt and we dashed for the house.

“Go!” he rasped, pushing me. He knew I was faster than him, but I would never leave him behind. If we were going down, it was together.

We broke through the end of the cornfield and there was our log house. The thick metal shutters were already secured behind the windows. My mother stood in the doorway, one hand on her swollen belly.

She’s insane standing in the doorway. She stepped aside as soon as we reached the back steps, and we rushed in. The door slammed shut, my father secured the metal latch at the top then placed the wood board in the slat.

Booming fists slammed into the door, and I backed further into the house.

“Open the door!” the hunter growled. “Open! Open! Open!”

My mother put her hand on my shoulder and pulled me close to her side. Father stood in front of us with his axe in both hands, ready if the door didn’t hold.

A quiet cry and sniffle from the stairwell felt like a gut punch.

My younger sister Kayda hid there in the shadows.

The stairs creaked and my silver-haired grandmother came down faster than I’d seen her move in years and smacked me on the cheek.

“Reckless girl. You could have been killed. Your father could have. If my son dies, we all do.”

The sting hurt less than her words. Women didn’t often survive on their own out here.

“Quiet,” my father growled.

The pounding had stopped, but scraping nails on the metal shutter in the kitchen sent a shudder down my back. Then rapid tapping clicks at the other door where our shop was. “I smell her blood,” a voice hissed. “So sweet.”

The taunts and scratching and pounding went on for hours.

I’d say it was a nightmare, but it was our reality.

It had been years since I’d been so close to a vampire.

My stomach ached. The nausea would persist all night probably.

The what ifs were already running through my mind.

If I died, my family would mourn me of course, but if my father died with me.

.. I couldn’t bear the thought. My brother was not ready to take on the care of my family.

I didn’t even know where he was tonight.

Probably staying with his lover, Erika, shirking his familial duties as he often did.

We stayed gathered near the kitchen until it finally went quiet.

The silence lasted until my father’s deep voice rumbled, “Aesira.” My stomach dropped, and I slowly raised my chin to find his mountainous frame in the doorway.

His head almost reached the top of it. I deserved whatever harsh words were about to be spoken.

I waited for the beratement, the tears already brimming.

The floorboards groaned under his feet as he pulled me into him and wrapped his arms around me.

“Please, don’t ever scare me like that again. ”

He didn’t ask what I was doing. He didn’t yell and scream, although part of me wished he would. Silent tears fell down my face as I hugged him back. My mother joined us, and with all the adrenaline gone my legs felt weak, and I sobbed. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Father kissed the top of my head and gave me a brief nod. The disappointment in his eyes cut me. “I know. To bed. Everyone.”

The walk up the stairs felt longer than usual, like wading through mud.

Kayda shoved me into the hallway wall. “They won’t say it, but I will.

What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just follow the rules like everyone else?

” she hissed. She was only a year younger, and it often felt like we were in competition with each other rather than friends.

Ever since the incident with my hand, we’d grown apart.

“I was trying to help.” I reached into my pouch and curled my fingers around the gold nugget I’d found.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t. Father could have died trying to save you and it wouldn’t be the first time you cost someone their life.” She grabbed my hand with the glove I used to hide my scars and shoved it into my chest. “You’d think this would have taught you.”

My chest felt like it was crumbling. I couldn’t take seeing the anger in her. She was right. I pushed past her into my room and shut the door behind me. I fell face-first onto my pillow and screamed into it until my throat burned.

Tonight was just another reason I’d learned to enjoy being alone.

It wasn’t long before horrible screams in the Wraith Woods filled the night.

Sometimes locks and shutters didn’t hold.

Sometimes it was the vampires screeching like a pack of coyotes surrounding prey.

Sometimes they just screamed. No one knew why.

To scare us, I believed, or drive us mad enough to run out into their waiting teeth, or not let us sleep in peace.

Living in the vampire’s hunting ground wasn’t a spot anyone wanted to be, but we weren’t given a choice.