A Change of Ways
an excerpt

Saethai ate slowly, sitting on a padded wooden chair beside a window. At first she had forced herself to feel enjoyment, or at least contentment here, figuring that so long as they were treating her well, she might as well try to like it. Now however, she found herself truly liking being here.

In the house of my enemy, I am more comfortable than I ever was with my Lord. Think the world is trying to send me a message? She shook her head sadly over her empty dish, then set it on the floor with a clunk.

"Maybe I should, oh, I don't know, I've come this far, maybe I should just join him." She said to the window.

No! They loyal part of her cried out. You had so much there. You've come so far!

"No." Saethai countered aloud, "I had a lot going for me. That's gone now, I've blown it, and you know it. I have nothing there but death."

I had power! I was part of something, I WAS something!

"Idiot." She snapped, glaring out at the darkened sky. "I lost that. Blew it! Do you understand? It's done! I can't go back! Besides, Kyjern would never really have given anything, except maybe slavery and death. Are you so blind that you cannot see that even now?"

If you had stayed faithful, you might have gotten something, you had a chance. Get out of here, you don't belong in this house while there is work to be done. Remember what happened last time? You blew it then, too. Are you going to let it be the same? You lost everything then, don't do it again.

The assassin turned away from the window, shutting her eyes tight. "I can't go back. I have no choice but to start over, and don't bring that up again!" Her head snapped up, and she shook it violently to try and clear away the old images.

No... Both parts of her tried to stop, but it was too late now. Saethai sank to her knees before the window, leaning her forehead against the painted wood. Her shoulders shook as memories flickered in her mind.

She was a just a girl, brown hair hanging long and windblown down her back. She watched her brothers sparring with the other town boys, wooden swords clacking. How she'd wanted to join in! She could have beaten them all, she had just known it. She wanted to show them, but every time she picked up a stick they laughed. 'Girls don't fight!' They would say, and she would always try to prove them wrong, reminding them of the old stories of the women-heroes, but they'd just said she was a dumb baby to listen to the old tales passed between drunk housewives, and they would run away, laughing, to spar in another street.

Then the bandits had come. It had been a hard year, to much sun at the start, then to much rain drowning the struggling crops. The bandits had been having a hard time too, and had finally been forced to raid the village. Because they were resisted, a simple theft of stores had turned into a massacre.

Mostly they had set fire to the buildings, then they had come to the stables, the animal pens, and then the houses. The bandits had gone mad. They had taken as much as they could, and destroyed what they couldn't.

They'd broken into her house, smashing down the door, and then her father as he tried to defend, all with their big clubs. She didn't know what had happened to her mother, didn't want to think about it, but they'd taken her, and would have done horrible things to her had she not slipped away in the confusion of fire and bodies. Weeping, she had hidden beneath the charred remains of a woodshed until dawn. Then she had walked the empty streets like a ghost, watching for anyone. But if any others had survived, they had fled to other towns, leaving her behind. She never found her brothers' remains, nor her mother's. She had been alone until the gypsies found her, more than a week later. She had been only eleven years old.

They were a hard lot. Not your usual dancing, story telling around a fire gypsies, but rather they had been cold and distant. Yet even so they had raised her and cared for her and taught her. She had fallen upon the offer of weapons training almost as hungrily as she fell upon the food they gave her. For now, added to her enjoyment and longing for the possibilities and adventures the sword opened for her, now something new burned in her. If once she had thought she had hated the boys who teased, it paled to wilted flower petals in comparison to her rage towards the bandits. She had turned hot tempered, angered by the slightest thing, and as they had said, she fought like a demon with two long knifes they had first trained her to use.

The gypsy master who trained her had recently begun with the sword, the weapon she begged to learn from the start. She never learned much from him, for once again her life had been snatched from her. She had been with the gypsies for all of seven years, had been learned the way of the sword for just a little more than one when her world was torn apart by the sounds of battle for a second time. The bandits, cruel, pale skinned, dark eyed men from the North this time, had killed almost all of her surrogate family, including her teacher, but though she had sustained several wound in the fight, once again fate had spared her.

She had turned cold after that, fearing nothing and caring for nothing. Some deep, unacknowledged hope had twisted inside her and driven her to join Kyjern. Now she was here. Here.

On the floor, Saethai lifted her head, her brown eyes glittered like obsidian shards in the faint silver moonlight that was all that lit the room. I know what I have to do. And this time there was no dispute. The assassin went to the door, and was mildly surprised to find that it was not locked. Ha, overconfident fool. She smiled grimly, and opened the door.

The round room of doors was empty and silent, the marble walls oddly warm looking in the golden glow of a rush light. Amazing how different two places lit the same way can be. She looked at the doors. If I were the Earl, where would I be...?

This time, no answer was forthcoming. No footprints, no broken branches, there was nothing to track by, and no way to do so if there had been. He could be anywhere. She closed her eyes for a moment and considered giving up, but no, she wouldn't do that. She'd made up her mind, and that was that.

She looked about, examining the doors for some clue. They each had simple designs carved into the woodwork. There was a sword, and leaf, a cat, a bird, a twist of vine, a flower. All were delicate and yet so softly carved that they were almost unnoticeable, merely adding to the overall sense of slumbering calm. They were also totally unhelpful.

Shrugging, Saethai picked a door, any door. Turning the handle, she slowly opened it a crack. A long chamber rather like a shorter version of a throne room, seeming as empty and lifeless as the rest of the mansion extended into the shadows. She opened the door the rest of the way and stepped inside. Her footsteps, faint though they were so that under any other circumstances they would have been inaudible, tapped and echoed until she halted in the middle of the room and looked around. The walls were stone, with wood carvings and tapestries breaking up the rough greyness. Two vines grew from pots on either side of the door, curling and looping around the perimeters of the room, their long, leafy tendrils upheld in places by the carving, the bars that the tapestries hung on, and some strategically placed hooks.

"I had a feeling you would come." A voice spoke blandly from the end of the room.

Saethai started, her hand going to the sword that wasn't there. Then she forced herself to relax and walk forward. She jumped again as pale, soft light illuminated the room, coming from no source that the assassin could see. I did want to come here. Stop worrying, he accepted me before, I'm fine. The worst that can happen is that he will refuse me.

She halted before chair made of wood carved to look like a living tree. Delicate leaves hung from the arms and the legs twisted like roots. In the chair, dressed now in a gold embroidered, green satin evening robe and looking more like the leaves on the 'tree' than anything else, was the Earl.

"Yes?" He asked. He didn't sound impatient, or angry or anything but politely interested.

"I- I came to ask if you will accept my service. I know it might sound suspicious, but I have no love nor loyalty for Kyjern any longer. I want a second chance, I want to do something right for once. Anything I can do to help, anything." She trailed off uncomfortably, unsure of the emotions that swirled inside her, unsure of the strange man before her, unsure of everything.

A smile spread itself over his distinctive features, making him look almost boyish, but for the seriousness of his eyes. "Yes, you have seen much. You speak the truth, and even what you have not said I see. However, there is one thing I must ask before I consider your service. Currently, that something is in your pocket."

Saethai blinked. At first she had no idea what he was talking about, then slowly it dawned on her; Kyjern's stone.

"Of c-course." She murmured, reaching into the pocket of her threadbare vest. With trembling hands she removed the small black orb and handed it up to the Earl. He took it, his face suddenly grim, his eyes keen and focused as razors, making the assassin grateful it was not her beneath that piercing stare.

Then he pressed his two palms together over the stone, and when they separated there was nothing but fine, dark powder, which he blew into the air where is shaped into a crystal flower, which fell to the floor between and shattered with a crash as of sword on shield. Then their eyes met, his holding hers in one timeless moment of reading. At last he broke the contact, and spoke.

"I gladly accept your service, Saethai of the Assassin Order."