Memoirs, Part I

A reviewed and edited except from the Memoirs of the Scarlett Assassin, Retrieved by myself, Carl Markos, from the Hands of my fellow scholar Malali Arachi, a woman of Candor, of Irridace.

 

I couldn’t shake the flakes of his blood off my hands. They clung beneath the fingernails, glued on my flesh.

I decided needed a washbasin. Looking at myself in the reflection from my steel wristband, I also needed to desperately to wash my hair and face.

 

I crouched over the body, the metallic scent of recent death mingling with the stench of his relaxed bowels. I pondered, as I pulled the knife from his chest, hearing the blade grate against a bone, why he had tried to use a rune to defend himself. Surely he had heard of me " Gretel, against whom such magic was as much use as a feather against a bear. If he had drawn his knife, he might have had a chance.

 

Then again, he probably wouldn’t have - I was pretty good at my job. I wiped the knife on the wet grass, the drizzle of the predawn rain cleaning the metal so it shone like a sliver of the sun n my delicate hands.

 

I sighed. I still had two people to kill this day, and all I wanted to do was return home to my husband, embrace him on the warm hearthstones and become human once again. As I saw it at that time, duty for my Lord was a worthy burden, but a burden nonetheless. I sheathed the knife in the hidden pocket of my red dress.

 

The wet grass of the courtyard squelched as I walked towards the mansion. The party continued, of course, completely unaware of my acts, unaware even as I entered the doors, exchanged a few words with the guards, thrusting my bodice forward while wiping a droplet of red off my thigh. The guards were too pre-occupied with my bulging flesh to notice.

 

Sinful flesh, it was - broken and blasphemous and sickening. I had tried to prune myself of that very flesh with my knife; but my husband had stopped me, grabbing both my arms and pinning me to the ground until I lay still.

 

I slipped past the doorway into the manor proper. Slipping through the crowds of masked women " purple masks, mostly, with dyed feathers " and fancily dressed men. No one stopped to stare at me and my red dress or my bare feet.

 

As I moved through the party, knife in the sheath by my thigh, I had to make sure to keep the dress from shifting. I didn’t want any of these blasphemers to see what I bore. A man offered me his hand, asking for a dance in the aristocratic, formal way such men are wont to phrase these things. I brushed him off and kept walking deeper into the building.

 

Unfortunately, to get to my destination, I was forced to walk beneath one of the Soliar; and, powered by magic as it was, my presence caused it’s normally steady light to flicker and grow erratic, sending tall shadows dancing on the walls.

 

I pushed ahead, ignoring the gasps.

 

I was a shadow, a thought, a knife - but never a woman.

 

I rubbed my left collarbone for comfort, feeling my Lord’s mark there. I was a breath of wind, but I was his breath of wind, his exhalation given substance. I was his harbinger of judgment.

 

I didn’t know the man’s name, but he was gasping at the Soliar with everyone else when my hand slipped up his cloak and planted the small knife through his heart. He gasped again - though not at the Soliar this time, then was still. I leaned him against a nearby woman.

 

I used to hide my killings, but had since realised that most people wouldn’t see what was right in front of them. Most people didn’t know the difference between a live man and a dead one until it fell to the ground.

 

I left the knife in his body and slipped out of the party like a ghost, leaving the shocked cries and screams behind me.

 

It took me the best part of an hour to reach my lodgings. My husband waited for me in the bed, I knew, but I had to do the ritual first. So I wandered slowly towards the mirror, slipping one of the red dress’s straps off my shoulder, feeling it fall from my body. I looked into the mirror.

 

A tired, young woman stared back at me, creases beneath her eyes. Her dark hair tumbled artfully down her back, and there were brown flecks of dried blood on her fingertips. I smiled, but the thing that appeared on the reflection’s face could not be described as happy. Or pretty.

 

My gaze drifted down and ghosted over the ridges of my scars. They twisted over my breasts, my stomach, my thighs, my chest. Circles and curves and squares and triangles, and wherever two or more lines met, a rune carved into my skin.

 

When I first received my scars, I had been dumb enough to look at them directly. When I did, the sheer wrongness of them hit my mind like a hammer; and I had come to an hour later, dried blood on my face. There had still been trickles of fresher blood trickling down from my nose and eyes as I lay in a pool of my own vomit.

 

I began to wash myself with water from the washbasin, cleaning off the sweat and blood and memories.

 

I had learned quickly to never look directly at the runes, even in a mirror. My husband had been forced to learn to avert his eyes from my body altogether. I knew that had been hard for him. I glanced over at the panelled door, knowing that both my husband and my bed lay behind it, but I wasn’t ready yet. I pulled the red dress back on. I still had one person left to kill today.

 

The owner of the inn greeted me like an old friend as I walked out of the front door. I nodded in return.

 

The streets of Candor were beautiful. They always had been, and probably always will be. The sun reflected off the whitish sandstone of the buildings, and performers littered the streets " fire breathers and sword swallowers and petty magic-users.

 

One of the latter was standing almost directly outside the inn, clumsily forming runes in the air. He was halfway through a peculiar curving, arching rune when it suddenly crumbled into sparkling grey dust and drifted to the ground. He stared at his hands, shocked. I frowned, wondering how long I could stay here before I was discovered and hunted down. I looked away from the confused young magician and the confused, scattered clapping following the spectacular failure of his spell.

 

A few minutes later, I was standing outside my destination. The establishment had no roof, just an open-air kitchen and a few tables, but their business was nevertheless frequent and bustling. The scents of the exotic spices that Candor was famed for mingled in the air.

 

I made my order and sat down at one of the rough wooden tables. I breathed in the bitterness of the late autumn air, feeling the pleasant burn in my lungs. It got cold in Candor, but not unpleasantly so. I had heard that, on the Verich Coast, it got so cold that water left outside would freeze solid. I would have liked to see that.

 

My food arrived, the thick clay bowl warm to the touch. A white cloud rose from the broth inside, and the scent of beef and coriander and chili and lemongrass mingled in the steam as I breathed it in.

I speared a few noodles with my chopsticks and sampled them. The heat of the dish suffused my palate. Both the warmth and the spice helped counteract the chill of the night, and I felt like a new woman.

 

After all, you love me, Gretel, the voice in my head murmured. You don’t need him.

 

I guess not, I replied silently. I ate the rest of the noodles hurriedly, and then drank the broth in a most unladylike fashion. I thanked the cook, left my money on the table, and walked back to the inn, my resolve intact.

 

After all, I still had one more person to kill that day.

 

The owner of the inn didn’t greet me when I return. I supposed he had already retired for the night.

 

I stopped in front of the paneled door to my bedroom, my surety wavering.

 

You are strong, the voice whispered. I knew it was His voice. You can do this.

 

“Yes, lord,” I answered in a whisper.

 

Trembling, I pushed open the door.

 

He lay there on the bed. My husband. Sleeping, his shaved head and heavily muscled shoulders. I went and straddled him. He opened his eyes sleepily.

 

“Honey?” he murmured. “What is it?”

 

I leaned over him and kissed his hard lips. He remained still for a moment, and then began to kiss me back. I bit his lower lip until I tasted blood. He groaned underneath me as we pressed our bodies against one another, and I felt his eagerness.

 

I still had one more person to kill that day.

 

The knife slipped between his ribs with an ease born of long practice. He bucked against me like an impatient lover, and then lay still.

 

I held him, curled up next to him, kissed his cooling lips, and fell asleep.

 

The voice in my head was content.