Chapter 1 #2
“She is waiting for you. Out in the training quarters,” Tava whispered, fidgeting with her spirit amulet at her neck. Three interlocked circles, side-by-side— the symbol of Falein, the goddess of cleverness and wisdom.
Scarlett slowly dragged her eyes back to her. “How long has she been here?”
Tava’s voice was hushed. “Only a few minutes. She nearly made my heart stop when she stepped from the shadows and sent me to you right away.”
“Is she alone?” Scarlett asked.
“I do not know, but we do not have much time. Drake and the other men are out hunting, and they will return soon,” Tava answered.
Scarlett uncoiled from the chair, tucking her book under her arm. “Lead the way.”
The girls walked silently from the parlor, nodding to a couple of passing servants in the hallway. They slipped out the back terrace doors and crossed the grounds to the training quarters.
The Tyndell Manor resided on a sprawling estate, complete with its own stables, garden, training quarters, and archery grounds.
The manor itself was two stories with a dozen suites, several studies, sitting rooms and the like.
Lord Tyndell was the noble of the manor, residing there with his two children, Drake and Tava.
His wife, she had been told, had passed from a wasting disease when the children were young.
While Scarlett currently resided with nobility, she was not noble by blood.
Not this type of nobility anyway. She had plenty of wealth thanks to her mother, who had been a highly sought after healer in the capital city until her death when Scarlett was nine.
She had never known her father. When her mother died, she was taken in by the Fellowship across the street from the Healer’s Compound her mother had run.
She had resided at the Fellowship until she had been sent to live with the Tyndells a year ago when she was eighteen.
Scarlett’s long dress swished across the grass as they hurried the final few feet and pushed open the doors to the training barracks.
The main room was empty, and Scarlett glanced at Tava.
The girl shrugged her shoulders, biting her bottom lip nervously.
Scarlett huffed a loud sigh, then snarled to the empty room, “While I certainly have all the time in the world these days, I don’t particularly enjoy being summoned like a godsdamned dog. ”
“So temperamental lately. Although, I guess that is nothing new,” a female voice drawled, flipping a dagger in her hand as she came into view from the darkest corner of the room. “For the love of Arius, did you take a stroll around the grounds before you came to see me?”
Scarlett rolled her eyes, throwing the woman a vulgar gesture as she meandered to the wall of weapons. Swords gleamed, their hilts varying from large and intricate to basic and dull. Hunting knives, bows and quivers full of arrows, daggers, and hatchets all adorned the wall.
“You’ve been living here nearly a year now, and you still haven’t learned how to act like a Lady?” the woman asked, coming up beside her. Two scimitars hung at her waist while a sword was strapped to her back.
“It would appear not,” Scarlett replied, picking up a basic sword.
There was nothing special about it as she checked its balance.
Deciding it would do for today, she turned to face the other.
She was slightly taller than Scarlett and had pale skin with ashy blonde hair. Her eyes were the color of honey.
“Good,” she replied, a feral smile spreading across her face. “I’d hate to have to break in a new partner. The guys at the Fellowship just aren’t the same.”
“You mean none of them are as pretty to look at?” Scarlett asked, leading the way to one of the training rings.
“I mean,” the woman said, getting into a defensive sparring position, “that none of them are as wonderful as myself; and they bore me to no end, despite being plenty pretty to look at.”
“The self-love in this room is truly astounding,” Tava mused from her position by the building’s entrance, keeping watch.
Scarlett and the woman both laughed as they entered into a dance of thrusts, side steps, twirls, and lunges.
Their swords sang as they whipped through the air.
They were blurs, moving so fast you couldn’t tell where one stopped and the other began.
Scarlett cursed as she realized a mistake too late, and the woman brought her sword down in a winning maneuver.
The other woman snickered, lowering her sword. “You’re out of practice.”
“Unlike you, I don’t live in a keep full of thieves and assassins who can spar with me at all hours of the day,” Scarlett scowled.
“Now, now,” she chided, “we could have you gone from here tonight. You know what is required of you.”
“I have no desire to go from one prison to another,” Scarlett scoffed.
“He wants you to come home,” the woman said softly, closing the small distance between them so that Tava could not hear.
“That is no longer my home, Nuri.”
“And this place is?” she asked, her brows rising.
“No, but for now I am protected here, I suppose. Until I figure out…something else. Until I can disappear.”
“Please don’t do anything stupid.”
“You’re one to talk,” Scarlett replied with a pointed look.
“We’re not talking about me,” Nuri said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Come home, Scarlett. You want to disappear? No one knew you were alive for years there.”
“Yes, but again, I have a measure of protection here…from all of them.”
“You would be just as protected there. He has said so more than once. You just need to give in on this one thing,” Nuri insisted.
“I will not be shoved back into a cage of hiding,” Scarlett snarled.
“You’re in a cage now,” Nuri bit back, readying herself in the training ring again.
“Because he shoved me into one,” Scarlett replied, anger seeping into her tone.
“You shoved yourself into one and refuse to let yourself back out,” Nuri snapped.
Scarlett lunged at Nuri, initiating their next sparring match, and nearly tripped on her long gown.
“You wouldn’t have to wear such things at the Fellowship,” Nuri said with a smirk. “Just saying.”
“Tell me why you’re here, Nuri,” Scarlett ground out as she blocked Nuri’s thrust.
“He has an assignment for you,” she said, ducking to avoid Scarlett’s next move. She swiped out with her foot, and Scarlett jumped her attempt to knock her to the ground.
“You cannot be serious?” Scarlett whirled and thrust out with her sword.
“I would not joke about something like this,” Nuri replied as she shoved back against Scarlett’s block. “And neither would he. In fact, he has sent the assignment with a very enticing payment when completed.”
“I do not need any further funds from him,” Scarlett seethed. “I need nothing from him, not anymore.”
“He knows this. Which is why he offers something else,” Nuri said.
The girls were both breathing hard, equally skilled in almost every way.
“Gods, it’s been an age since I’ve sparred with anyone of worth.
” Nuri’s grin was one of wicked delight as they moved around the ring in a dance of maneuvers that can only come from intense training and practice.
“Apparently, I’m not as out of practice as one thought then,” Scarlett managed to get out between breaths.
“I mean, you’re still not at your best, but your mediocre is still better than most of those at the Fellowship,” Nuri said, somehow managing to shrug as she said it.
“Whatever,” Scarlett muttered, landing a blow with her foot to the girl’s stomach.
Nuri laughed as she held up her hands to stop the match. “A truce then, Sister. We do need to discuss this assignment.”
“You can tell the Assassin Lord he can take his assignment and shove it up his—”
“You haven’t even heard what he is offering you yet, Scarlett, and trust me. When you hear what he is offering for payment, I think you will change your mind.”
“I highly doubt that.”
Nuri closed the distance between them again and lowered her voice. “He has learned who hired Dracon.”
“I know who hired Dracon. I know who ordered my mother killed. We discovered that shortly after we took out Dracon,” Scarlett replied lethally.
“But he knows how to find him and will aid you in ending him.”
Scarlett nearly dropped her sword to the dirt floor of the training building. “He is lying.”
“He is not, Scarlett.” Nuri’s honey-colored eyes were fixed on her. “He knows, and he will tell you if you agree to and complete this assignment. He also said that if you agree to the assignment, you will be allowed back into the Syndicate to train and utilize our resources.”
“Did he tell you?”
“He’s not stupid,” Nuri drawled. “He knows I would tell you even if he forbade it.”
“Who is the assignment?”
“I am not to say anything unless you agree first.”
“Why? Am I to kill you that I must agree to such terms?”
“Of course not,” Nuri snapped. “Not that you could.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“I don’t think we know that at all.”
“Is this his target or the king’s?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know who the target is,” Nuri answered.
“How are you supposed to tell me the assignment then?”
“He will send it to you.”
“He’s always so fucking dramatic,” Scarlett grumbled, rolling her eyes.
“The men have returned,” Tava hissed from the doorway. “They just entered the stables.”
“What am I to tell him?” Nuri asked, pulling the hood of her cloak up and sheathing her blade at her back.
“For fuck’s sake, Nuri, of course I’m going to do it if he will aid me in this,” Scarlett snapped as she hurried across the floor to put the sword back. She turned to face her, but she had already vanished into the shadows.
“Hurry, Scarlett,” Tava whispered. “They are going to come out any time.”
Scarlett joined Tava, and they hurried from the training quarters but not fast enough.
As they stepped out into the sunshine once more, two men came from the stables at the same moment.
“Shit,” Tava muttered. The young Lady rarely swore, being of nobility and all. She turned to Scarlett and whispered, “Mikale is here.”
“I know,” Scarlett said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s fine. I can handle him.”
The Lairwood Family had long been the Hands to the king, and Mikale Lairwood was in line to be the Hand to the Crown Prince, Prince Callan.
Mikale had also set his sights on Scarlett and made his intentions clear about a year ago.
The same time she had come to reside at Tyndell Manor.
Despite having refused him on more than one occasion, he was persistent; and because Lord Tyndell was the leader of the king’s armies, and Mikale was currently a Commander in said armies, she found herself in the young Lord’s presence far more often than she wished.
However, the fact remained that she had no noble blood in her veins, and there was no way Lord Lairwood would approve of a union to anyone without noble blood in the family.
Mikale, however, was also the reason she was now living at the Tyndell Manor.
“At least Drake is with him,” Tava said tentatively.
“Yes,” Scarlett whispered. Drake wouldn’t do much though. She closed her eyes and willed the ice in her veins to calm, soothing the anger that threatened to spill from her mouth.
“Tava. Scarlett,” Drake greeted them as he neared, eyeing them suspiciously. “What are you two doing down here?”
“Looking for you, of course,” Tava replied to her brother.
“For?” he asked with a raised brow.
“I was hoping you were back so we could go riding,” Scarlett cut in with a wink at Drake.
“Go riding in dresses?” Mikale drawled with a sneer. “How demure you have become, Lady.”
“You’d be surprised at the things I can do in a dress,” Scarlett replied coolly.
“I am sure I would be,” he answered, his eyes sweeping over the lavender colored gown that was fitted across the bodice before flowing to the ground. “Care to enlighten me?” He took a step closer to her.
“Come any closer to me, and you’ll find out exactly what I can do in a dress,” Scarlett said with calm fury.
Mikale’s lips twitched in amusement, and Scarlett saw red, her hands curling to fists at her sides.
“Take that next step, Mikale. We all know Scarlett would wipe the floor with your ass,” a man said, coming up behind Mikale and Drake. “And we’d all love to see it.”
Scarlett’s heart stumbled, and she couldn’t help the smile that filled her face as she breathed, “Cassius.”