They had an overwhelming advantage in numbers. We were only winning through skill.
“How can a puny noble girl fight like this?! No one said anything about that!” cried one of the assassins.
And here I thought the event at the Festival was famous. Didn’t you hear? Or maybe you just didn’t believe the stories. You shouldn’t insult your opponent just because you made no effort to learn about them.
“Lady Selena!” cried Tiegel as my dagger was struck out of my hands. He sounded panicked, but it wasn’t a problem.
“Not all of you are small fry, it seems,” I said. I pulled my hairpin out and jabbed it in my opponent’s eye. As they flinched and lost their footing, I kicked my dagger up and caught it. Next, I just had to do what I always did: use my dagger to slice their carotid.
“You gave this to me just for times like this, yes?” I said, twirling the hairpin as I cast Tiegel a glance. He looked relieved. “Looks like we’ve cleaned up most of this mess.”
All that was left was Ismail.
“Ismail,” said Shaghad, pointing his sword coated in the assassins’ blood at him.
Ismail’s face went pale, and his body trembled, but there was no unsightly sobbing or begging for mercy. His remaining shred of dignity probably kept him from doing that.
“Don’t think you’ve won, Shaghad,” he hissed. “I’m not the only one after you. You might kill everyone who comes for you and take your seat on your blood-soaked throne, but bloody kings are always overthrown someday. Even if I’m not the one to do it, someone else will.”
“And if I don’t have a shield to protect me at that point, it just means that’s all I amounted to.”
Shaghad removed Ismail’s head with his blade. It wasn’t wrong for a royal present at a scene to judge and carry out an execution for someone who attempted to kill a royal. The law said as much.
As long as Ismail lived, he would continue to threaten Shaghad because he never was able to find a way to live other than that. Just like I could never find a life in my previous world where I wasn’t an assassin.
“It looks like things are done here,” said Evan, stepping out of the shadows. He watched everything so he could act as a witness. He ordered Ismail’s body removed, then told the other nobles present at the picnic that he’d gone home because he wasn’t feeling well. He would keep both Ismail’s death and the plan that led to it a secret.
It was Evan’s job to decide how to wrap everything up.
“He who flies too close to the sun will plummet when the wax in his wings melts,” I murmured.
Ismail, did you understand that and still want to fly close to the sun? And is the sun Shaghad, or being king?
“What drivel,” I said. “Tiegel, let’s go home.”
“Yes, my lady.”
I followed Ismail’s body from the corner of my eye as it was moved.
There are still things to do, and I have no interest in some weakling who died here.