The Girl Who Asked A Question

Prologue: End

 

Mount Vinceret, Berodium

Year 540 After the Mighty Above’s Salvation (AMAS)

 

Despite what everyone thought, she didn’t enjoy killing. She was bothered by her reputation, and even more bothered that she cared about her reputation. Assassins didn’t need to be liked. In fact, jobs tended to be easier when they weren’t.

​

She closed her eyes and released a long, slow breath to clear her head before leaning around the corner. The guard was turned away from her, and it was all too easy to reach out and slash her blade across his throat. She finished him before he realized he was under attack. The body collapsed, and she dove forward to catch it. The weight was too much for her, and they both slid to the ground. She allowed herself a small, satisfied smile as she shoved him off to the side. The last kill had been sloppy-it had taken not one, but two knives thrown across the courtyard to bring the soldier down-but this…this one was perfect.

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Then again, maybe she could understand why everyone thought she enjoyed killing. However, there was a big difference between being good at it and enjoying it.

​

After dragging the guard’s body into a small alcove, she took a moment to wipe her knife clean before slipping it back into her boot. In doing so, she caught sight of a strange, jagged shadow. It looked similar to one she had seen earlier that evening. Her hand reflexively went to the hilt of her sword. She glanced around the corridor, but no one was there. When she looked back, the shadow was gone. She scolded herself for her nerves; this was rookie behavior. Her mission was a hair's breadth away from impossible, and she would need her wits about her to have any chance of succeeding.

​

A part of her resented the fact that The Twelve had given her so little time to prepare, but the other part understood that this might be their only window of opportunity to bring down the ruler of Berodium, or the “Mighty Above” as he was more commonly known. It was now or never, and never was not an option. Not after what he had done.

​

The thick wooden doors of the throne room were around the next corner. She knew from her previous reconnaissance work that there would only be two guards stationed there when the Mighty Above was absent from the castle, like he currently was.

​

She approached the guards confidently, this time not trying to hide her presence. After her previous, brief moment of uncertainty, she was once again in control and in her element.

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“Gentlemen,” she said to the guards, a cocky smile on her face.

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“Adrial the Reaper,” they gasped and reached for their swords.

​

Adrial the Reaper.

​

It had taken her years of training, missions, and kills to earn the look of fear now on the guards’ faces. She marveled at how she could both hate it…and love it.

​

The Twelve had promised Adrial that tonight was the last time she would have to use the pseudonym. Then again, they had promised her that before. It wasn’t lost on her that if she died on this fool’s errand, their words would remain true. Surely, they had known that.

​

Adrial was loath to admit it, but she was starting to grow weary of the constant missions. Ecrym had pleaded with her again last week to trade in her current life for a small cottage in the hills with a white-washed fence, chickens, a carefully tended garden…and him. The old-as-time cliché. She was almost tempted.

​

The cottage would need an archery range in the backyard, though. She’d need something to keep busy out in the country, and she wasn’t much for needlepoint. 

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Get this right, and there won’t need to be any more missions, Adrial told herself. 

​

The first guard took only moments to eliminate. The second put up more of a fight. “You’re an excellent swordsman,” Adrial complimented as her blade crashed against his. It was a rare treat to encounter someone with strong enough skills to make the fight interesting.

​

The guard said nothing as he struggled to parry her blows. Adrial finally finished playing with him and knocked the sword from his hand with a simple flick of her wrist. The guard’s eyes showed his horror, and he sank to his knees, arms up in surrender.

​

“Please, Adrial,” he begged. 

​

Normally, Adrial would be disgusted by such behavior. He should be spitting in her face, not pleading for mercy like a coward.

​

The guard and his wife though, were expecting their first child in a few months. He had told Adrial that himself a few weeks ago, though he hadn’t known who he was speaking to at the time. Perhaps the thought of his first child was why he was willing to show such weakness. It made it almost excusable, she decided. 

​

Almost.

​

Adrial ended him as cleanly and quickly as possible. It was the only mercy she could give him under the circumstances. She then stood for a moment staring at the two dead bodies. Her handiwork.

​

No. She did not enjoy killing.

​

The throne room doors towered above Adrial. They were engraved with images of planets, crescent moons, and an elaborately decorated sun. An outline of the earth stretched across the middle of both doors. It was an appropriate work of art for a ruler who had given himself the humble moniker of “The Mighty God of the Celestial Above.”

​

Tonight, Adrial would learn if the divine really were immortal.

​

The throne room was empty. Adrial had been informed it would be but nevertheless felt a sense of relief to find her information credible thus far. 

The cavernous room was eerie in the dark, though, admittedly, it wasn’t a particularly comforting room in the daylight either. Light from the three full moons streamed in through the windows, revealing morbid gold masks staring down at Adrial from around the ceiling. Each gold mask was molded from the face of one of the Mighty Above’s victims, those he was especially proud of ending. 

​

Adrial grimly took note of several masks representing kills that she had brought in herself. They were reminders of her previous, dark life. It had been a necessary part of her goal. She had long since accepted that fact, but she also refused to take pride in it.

​

A jagged shadow slipped across the floor. Adrial drew her sword and readied herself for an attack. It was the same shadow she had seen when shoving the guard’s body into the alcove. Her eyes darted around the throne room. There was nothing there; the room and the windows were completely devoid of life. 

​

Nonetheless, Adrial remained in a fighting stance. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong; she had felt it all night. Everything was going to plan, but it could fall apart so quickly…

​

With sword in hand, Adrial felt her way in the darkness to the area behind the throne. Once there, she began to slide her hand across the floor until she found the loose tile she had located several weeks earlier. She hadn’t had time to investigate it then, and she had precious little time now. 

​

Adrial pulled a rope out of her bag and set it to the side. She then pulled out a lux orb to provide light for the task at hand. It shone brightly in the otherwise dark corner behind the throne. 

​

A bout of nausea overtook her, and Adrial closed her eyes. She had been under the weather for the past week or so, but her health wasn’t poor enough to keep her from completing her work.

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She hoped.

​

The moment passed, and Adrial dropped the lux orb inside the hole under the loose tile. She then used the rope to lower herself down into the chamber. The lux orb allowed Adrial to see a few feet in each direction but no more. She ran her hand over the walls for the door that she knew would be there. If she couldn’t find it in the next few minutes, she would have to leave without completing her mission. It was too risky to stay much longer. 

​

There! Adrial’s fingers found a door handle, but it was locked-hardly a surprise. She knelt down on the ground and peered into the keyhole. It was too dark for her to work. She brought the lux orb as close to her face as she dared in order to illuminate the inside of the ward lock. It would be simple enough to pick. Fortunately, she didn’t even need to. 

​

Adrial’s fighting, though exceptional, was not what made her such a formidable assassin. It was her unique and highly renowned…skills? Talents? Dark Magic? The label didn’t matter. Some wanted them exorcised, others wanted them for hire. Everyone, though, considered them with a mixture of fear and awe.

​

Adrial squinted and imagined the lock opening. It did so without even a groan of protest. The door then swung open, and she stepped inside.

​

A pulsing purple and black boulder sat in the room. Legend said it was a meteor gifted to the Mighty Above from the god of the high heavens. Adrial had always scoffed at the notion, but looking at it now, the only way she could describe it was ‘otherworldly.’ The colors inside of the stone swirled and moved causing it to look alive…which it more or less was. For a moment she stood in awe. So many years of searching for it, and it had been right below her feet. Now the question facing her was this: how did one destroy a boulder of such size and power? 

​

The door slammed shut behind Adrial. She whirled around, sword in hand. A hundred lux orbs were uncovered and revealed an army in the chamber. It was an ambush. 

​

“Ah, how good of you to join me,” Adrial said with a nod of her head and a wicked smile. “What took you so long?” 

​

A few of the men closest to her looked unnerved.

​

 If the army thought Adrial would surrender once she knew she was overpowered, they were severely mistaken. The guard outside of the throne room died on his knees. Adrial intended to go out on her feet. She made the first move, and everything became a blur.

​

One of the soldier’s swords caught Adrial’s left arm, but the pain barely registered as she slashed her way through the battalion. The room was frustratingly devoid of loose objects that she could weaponize with the force of her magic; she wondered if they had cleared it on purpose. 

​

The soldiers, however, had plenty of things on their person that Adrial could use against them. She caught sight of a knife in a soldier’s boot, and she willed it into the air and into his abdomen. He cried out and crumpled to the ground. She heard another soldier gasp as he witnessed the event. She would have thrown more, but her attention was forced back onto the soldiers in front of her.

​

It soon became apparent that Adrial wasn’t getting out alive, something she had suspected long before. Ecrym was naive, and she loved him for it. Assassins didn’t die of old age in hillside cottages while their family recounted tender memories. They died from the sword and were mentioned only in infamy by dealers in dark alleys and blowhards in public houses who swore they spotted the assassin once. 

​

It had been nice for a moment, though, to dream.

​

There remained a small chance that the mission could be completed, at least rendering her death meaningful. Adrial needed to get to the supplies in her bag; however, the numerous blades aimed at her throat never gave her enough time to do so. The fighting was growing in intensity, and she had never been good at multitasking with her magic. It took copious amounts of concentration, and her mind was fully engrossed by the effort to stay alive. 

​

The explosive stone Adrial carried in her bag quivered as she strained to lift it with her magic. A soldier to her right thrust his sword inches from her face, and she felt the rock drop back down as her concentration was broken.

​

Adrial muttered angrily to herself as she finished the soldier in front of her. Before the next could move in for his shot at glory, she chucked her entire knapsack up onto the boulder. She hadn’t been planning on destroying all of her supplies along with the rock, but so be it. She wouldn’t need them if she was dead, and at this rate her chance of survival was hovering somewhere between “any last words” and “one foot in the grave.” 

​

The special stone inside of Adrial’s bag was strong enough to demolish the entire chamber and was activated by water. Her original thought had been to plant it in the room, get out of harm’s way, then use her magic to pour water on it. Her canteen, though, was now up on top of the purple meteor with the rest of her things. Unscrewing the cap and pouring the water with only magic was going to take more energy and focus than she could spare. Moving something that she couldn’t see was always far more difficult, if possible at all.

​

The blood currently dripping down Adrial’s arm caught her attention. Maybe blood could activate the stone as well. It wouldn’t take much for the temperamental stone to react. She imagined the trickle of blood on her arm lifting off into the air above the fighting and flitting down onto her bag. 

The blood did her bidding, creating a morbid little river through the sky. At the last moment she dropped flat on the ground, much to the surprise of the soldiers currently fighting her. She jammed her fingers as far into her ears as she could. 

​

Adrial knew the moment the blood touched the explosive; so did the entire room. The ground shook and pieces of stone rained down from the badly damaged ceiling. The soldiers fell prostrate. Those nearest to the meteor were killed instantly, while the rest of the men looked dazed. Adrial’s ears rang as she climbed unsteadily to her feet, and blood dripped from a deep cut in her left cheek where a piece of stone had sliced her. 

​

The living meteor remained.

​

Adrial’s heart plummeted; she had been so sure that would work. It had been plan A, B, and C; neither she nor The Twelve had expected it to fail. Nothing else could withstand the force of an exploding vekpos stone; why had the meteor been able to? 

​

The soldiers who had survived the blast were beginning to return to formation, and Adrial knew time was running out. She may have been the land’s best assassin, but she was also human. For a moment she felt defeated.

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Get up on the meteor, a little voice in her head whispered. It was suicide as the boulder had its own defenses, but then again it wasn’t as if she had any other ideas. Adrial ran toward it, stepping directly on several fallen bodies, and threw herself at the giant rock. A few swords came breathtakingly close to her body as she tumbled through the air, but none struck skin. 

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Adrial’s body hit the meteor hard, and she gasped for breath as the air left her lungs. The lights grew more vibrant within the space rock; it was awakening. She could feel it begin to suck the oxygen from her body; there was probably less than a minute before she would lose consciousness. 

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Someone else materialized on the meteor beside her. Adrial stared at the figure in horror, wondering what kind of powerful magic allowed a man to appear out of thin air. She couldn’t help but think he seemed surprisingly familiar. “Put the sword down, Adrial,” he reasoned. No one else in the room seemed aware of this new presence. However, the soldiers watched Adrial closely. None dared follow onto the rock. It was clear they hoped it would save them the trouble of killing her themselves. 

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Adrial clutched at her throat as the meteor stole the last of the air in her lungs “Come now, you look like you don’t know me,” the man said.  He seemed completely unfazed by the lack of oxygen.“Surely after all these years…”

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“You are…” Adrial gasped, eyes widening. “So he’s not really…” She was unable to complete her thought. 

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“It took you long enough to figure it out,” he said with a devastatingly handsome smile. She hadn’t expected him to look like this. “And right before you die, too. Such a pity.” 

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Adrial’s head swam, but she lifted her sword into the air and brought it down hard onto the boulder. Pain shot up her arms as the sword hit the top of the rock but didn’t penetrate. The man gave a cold laugh. “Adrial, sweetheart, surely you didn’t think that would work.” No, she supposed she hadn’t. She dropped to her knees, dangerously close to falling asleep. Her fingers were splayed out on the rock, and she could feel her ring scrape across the stone. The gold band had what seemed to be a sapphire set in it, but Adrial knew it was merely glass filled with a deep blue powder. She considered the piece of jewelry.

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It was worth a shot.

​

Adrial pulled her knife out of her boot, but it dropped clumsily from her fingers. Black spots began to appear in her sight. She heard the man laugh, but she fumbled with the knife until she had punctured a tiny hole in the gemstone on top of her ring so that a few flakes of the blue powder fell onto her blade. She pushed herself upright and jammed the knife into the rock.

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“No!” The man screamed as he lunged for her. It was too late; her small blade cracked the surface, and the rock reacted explosively. The purple and black colors swirling within it changed to a blood-red, and she and the soldiers who hadn’t been killed in the first blast were thrown back by a tidal wave of energy. 

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The room was filled with groans of pain, and the sound of debris falling to the floor. Adrial stumbled to her feet, blood flowing from her right cheek where she had struck it against the wall. 

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In her tilting sight, Adrial looked for the man who had stood beside her on the stone. He was gone. Perhaps he was dead, but Adrial couldn’t help but think that seemed too easy.

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The blast had blown a hole in the wall of the chamber, and Adrial staggered toward it, climbing over bodies killed by the explosion and as well as those who remained unconscious. One soldier loosed an arrow, and it grazed her side. She turned and threw her knife. He dropped instantly. 

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Adrial made it into the antechamber and stared listlessly at the rope.  She made a feeble effort but fell back to the floor. A few of the surviving soldiers were beginning to crawl into the antechamber toward her. She pulled out her sword and watched it shake in her tired hands

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“Adrial!” A voice called down from the throne room. It was a grim-looking Salvone. He yelled something down, but she couldn’t hear. 

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“What?” Adrial called back, her ears still ringing. 

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“Tie the rope around you; I’ll pull you out,” Salvone instructed. With clumsy fingers she managed to tie the rope around her chest and under her arms. Salvone began to pull her inch by inch out of the hole. She could barely keep her head up. 

​

Salvone’s face became clouded with worry when he took in Adrial’s sorry state. He himself looked a mess, but she barely noticed. “We’ve got to move fast,” he told her. She nodded, though she leaned heavily against him. He hauled her toward the door of the throne room, but it flung open and more soldiers streamed in. He swore under his breath. Adrial’s brows lifted in surprise; they must be in a tough spot for Salvone to lose his gentlemanly manner.

 

“The window,” Adrial whispered to him. 

​

“What?” Salvone replied sharply. Adrial took a deep breath to draw strength and then turned and ran full force toward the massive windows, wincing with every step. Salvone would have to follow her closely; there was only one way to survive the fall.

 

Adrial crashed through the window, using her arms to shield her face. Glass cut deeply into her as she broke through. She hit the slanted roof across from the throne room windows and grimaced. Salvone came after her, arms and legs flailing in the air. He too hit the roof but slid backward toward the edge. She lunged for him and gasped as the weight of his body pulled against her. 

 

“Grab the edge,” Adrial yelled. Salvone let go with one hand and caught the edge of the roof. She grabbed his collar and helped him pull himself up.

 

Archers had now begun to open fire on them. Once on the roof, Salvone sent a volley of arrows back. When the archers paused, she and Salvone raced across the roof into a nearby window.

 

Now back inside a different wing of the castle, the world seemed quiet. Adrial knew they had just moments before the soldiers caught up to them. She ran on ahead, knowing that Salvone would follow. Every step caused her to grit her teeth in pain, but pain was good. Pain meant she wasn’t dead. Yet, anyway.

 

Adrial and Salvone had made it to the courtyard and almost to the outer wall when another soldier rounded the corner. It was Colonel Clur. “That’s enough,” he called out to her in a patronizing tone. “It’s over, Adrial.” She whipped her knife out of her boot and sent it flying, but it went nowhere near him; she was spent. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Salvone draw his sword.

 

“You’re outnumbered and overpowered. Let’s stop the bloodshed now,” Colonel Clur yelled. 

 

Adrial laughed tiredly. “That’s cute, coming from you.” 

 

Colonel Clur sheathed his sword. “Come now, Adrial. The Mighty Above would rather have you alive. Perhaps if you come nicely, this will go well for you.” 

 

“And by ‘well’ you mean he’ll kill me quickly?” 

 

Colonel Clur shrugged. “It’s better than slowly.” He signaled to someone out of sight, and a dozen archers appeared on the wall above them. “Tell your friend to put his sword away,” Colonel Clur instructed. 

 

Salvone didn’t move.

 

“Do it,” Adrial whispered to him. 

 

“Smart decision,” Colonel Clur said as he began to walk toward them. “You wouldn’t want him to end up like your friends.” 

 

Adrial’s hand twitched. 

 

“No, they will not open the gate for you when you arrive,” the colonel informed her with a cruel smile.

 

Salvone looked down at the ground. Adrial saw and looked at him in terror. 

 

“What happened?” Adrial demanded. 

 

“It was a set-up; they knew we were coming. I was the only one to escape. I went to you because I knew they would try to ambush you as well.” Salvone couldn’t contain the tremor in his voice.

 

“What do you mean, ‘you were the only one?’” 

 

“I’m sorry, Adrial, but we had our orders,” Colonel Clur told her, not looking the least bit apologetic. 

 

Adrial felt numb. It was as if she were looking at the world from above her own body. Ecrym couldn’t be dead. No, it wasn’t possible. 

 

“I’m so sorry,” Salvone whispered, his voice cracking. 

 

“Oh, and your other friends? The ones who thought they could distract the Mighty Above’s forces while you snuck inside? I wouldn’t expect to see them again either. I foresee a lot of boring eulogies to sit through in your future, my dear.” 

 

“You can tell the Mighty Above to burn in hell!” Adrial screamed as tears streamed down her face.

 

“That’s a nice threat, but who, exactly, do you think will bring that to pass? You and your band of misfits have no one left.”

 

Adrial allowed herself to feel only her rage. She threw out her magic toward the archers. For an agonizing second nothing happened, though the veins in

 

Adrial’s forehead popped with her strain. She heard a cracking sound and then watched with satisfaction as the overhang above the archers fell onto them before the world went dark around her. A display of magic that big would kill her too, but she didn’t care.

 

Colonel Clur ducked as large stones rained down around him. Salvone took advantage of the chaos to pick up Adrial’s limp body and run. She floated in and out of consciousness as Salvone carried her into the dark. 

 

Patches of moonslight revealed a shadow with uneven edges following them, but Salvone was too intent on saving Adrial to notice. He could hear Colonel

 

Clur and his men in hot pursuit, growing ever closer. Salvone could only run so fast with Adrial clutched close to his chest. It was going to be close.

 

A voice in Adrial’s head told her to fight against the darkness pulling her away, but the grief was too all-consuming.

 

A lifetime of planning, training, sacrifice…it had all failed. 

 

There would be no second chance.