Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

Raevyn Elspeth Eresyn sat on the roof of her home, looking out across the city, aimlessly tossing a rapier the size of her forearm from hand to hand. Her red hair whipped across her face with an eerie glow from the moon and the light green hunters gear she wore showed off every curve on her toned body. Tucking her blade back in the hidden compartment in her arm, she listened to the sounds of the early morning.

 

Hearing some movement inside the house, she stood and jumped off the edge of the roof, spinning and catching the edge just in time to fling her body nimbly onto the terrace. Her muscles a bit sore from the morning’s run around the edge of the city.

 

“I thought I heard you up there” a soft, velvet voice came from the door and Raevyn looked up to see her girlfriend, Elewys standing against the wall. Her frail arms crossed and a stunning and very revealing nightgown draped across her delicate frame. Elewys stood just shy of a meter and a half and didn’t come anywhere close to filling out her own physique. Her slender legs and deep turquoise eyes sending shivers through Raevyn’s skin, and her full lips seemingly wrapping around every word that left her tongue.

 

“You’re awake” Raevyn smirked, casually walking toward her. “And just as beautiful as when I left you” Pulling her face to hers in a passionate, however brief, kiss. Releasing her, she brushed past and walked into the kitchen. “Is there anything in the way of food around here?”

 

The bland exterior of the house was deceptive to the beautiful blue painted walls and decorative throw pillows leaned against delicate couches in its interior. Two modest windows with green curtains slowly let the morning sunlight trickle down onto blue and purple rugs.

 

Elewys was a master decorator, whereas Raevyn couldn’t care less about her house except that it had a bed and a big enough closet for her weapons and clothing.

 

Their house laid atop two separate houses and was painted just so it looked like an extension connecting them. According to Raevyn, only her and Elewys knew the way in. Only one window stood on the face wall and it had the appearance of a storage room with wooden shutters on the outside.

 

“Of course, Rae, how was your run?” Pulling a plate full of scrambled eggs, toast and sausage links from on the antique wooden table and placing it in front of her. “Did you check the bounty board today?”

 

“There’s one contract up today, but it has Faren’s signature on it” Raevyn sighs, speaking about her rival.

 

Her line of work was far from ordinary and even farther from strictly legal in the eyes of the King’s guard. Though it was true some turned a blind eye to the flashes of her daggers and the spilling of rotten blood, she was careful that her targets always bore the reek of evil.

 

Pulling out a small dagger from her leather boot, she dug into the plate given to her. Smiling gratefully, she thanked Elewys with her eyes.

 

“Are you going to take it anyway? We could use the gold”

 

“Probably” she mumbled with a full mouth. Swallowing, Raevyn smirked, “The ink was still fresh so I still have a chance of stealing this one out from underneath him. It’s only a local merchant from Salesian charged with abusing slaves and leaving a woman to die in the desert between Daran and Falreth. Don’t worry by the way, she was saved by a passing merchant.” 

 

Raevyn, chewing the last bite of her meal, smiled. Grabbing her silver lined bow from under the table, she slung it over her back and headed outside. Time to go to work.

 

The late morning’s lazy sun rays peeking over the rooftops caused her to shield her emerald eyes as she stepped onto the edge of her roof. Their hideaway’s side wall was backed up against the edge of a small bluff and she turned, sauntering toward it. Flipping a switch with her foot, she released the mechanism holding a thin slate of rock over the tunnel and jumped down feet first.

 

As the soles of her boots touched the cobblestone, she straightened up and pulled her black face mask over her nose and mouth to conceal her face.

 

The city of Aramore stood a majestic jewel compared to the barren wasteland of sandy hills and deserts as far as the horizon line. The Behan Seas lay just beyond in a haze of fog and mist. The lazy morning sun peeked through reluctant clouds and a crisp breeze waved laundry lines and whipped her cloak around her figure.

 

After rounding a corner into the marketplace, Raevyn moved into the shadows towards the tailor’s stand. The bustle of people, young and old, around the marketplace made the silent trek easier for her as she slipped from shadow to shadow. A small family of a man, woman and toddler stood next to the baker’s stand close to the wall, and she hesitated. The little girl with bright green eyes and long blonde braids noticed her as she slipped by, pausing her happy chewing of a baked sweet roll that her mother gave her to keep her active mind busy.

 

Raevyn paused as the little girl went to tug on her mother’s flowing, patterned skirt and pursed her lips, letting loose an intricate layered bird call, loud enough for the inquisitive ears of a toddler but soft enough to be mistaken for one of the blue and black birds winging around the courtyard.

 

The little girl’s eyes widened as she locked into her gaze and drifted to her outstretched hand as Raevyn produced a small silver coin from her pocket and nimbly flipped it around and around her fingers. She rolled the coin toward the girl but when she wrapped her tiny fingers around the coin and looked up in joy, her eyes only found an empty wall and bustling merchants.

 

Finally reaching the edge of the bazaar, Raevyn slipped into the corner taproom and with a flick of her wrist tossed a silver coin at the bartender and sauntered into the back room.

 

Her silvery blue eyes flicked around the alcove and jumped from face to face of the assassins that lined the room, she knew them all. Some were sitting and drinking, some standing and talking about nothing, but whatever friendly words spoken all were violent, uncontended rivals. A few of them glanced up as she walked in, the majority of the men’s faces covered by hoods and masks. 

 

“Tenebris” Nods of respect and whispers of the name she was known by the surrounding areas. Tales of her vengeance had spread as far as Farne, a place of wild men.

 

Her name in the local tongue meant “Darkness”, but she was even more commonly known as the “Black Rose.” A black rose lain on a window sill a request for her services and grateful pouches of gold for compensation.

 

She ignored them all and strode to the back of the room where a wooden board stood with several papers nailed to various spots.

 

“Tenebris, you’re back.” exclaimed the taproom keeper, a tall stout man with a thick black beard and moustache behind the counter.

 

She glanced at the board and snatched the one off with Faren’s name on it, ripping it free of the nail. The exquisite calligraphy depicted one name on the crisp paper with a ink F blotched on the bottom. “Why didn’t you save this one for me, Sam?” she purred, turning to face the man.

 

“I tried, Tenebris, but Faren was insistent on it. He..”

 

“How long ago did he leave, Sam?” Raevyn cut him off mid-sentence, throwing daggers of ice with a single look.

 

“Just this morning.” Sam gulped down nervous air. Tenebris and him had an arrangement, his best contracts for her best coin and customers.

 

Turning on her heels with the contract’s name burned in her mind, she began her hunt.