Mia
The full moon was already in clear view deep in the center of the sky by the time Mia reached the end of the mountain trail leading to Freedom’s Reach. This village made a better place to rest than the one in which she had stopped to eat dinner. The houses were somewhat isolated by varying elevations and the local inn was nestled into a grotto. She’d be out of luck if she required a hasty escape, but privacy didn’t seem hard to come by, at least.
Mario’s suggestion be damned. This community, which sat on the border between Resta and Galeon, was nowhere near as treacherous as he had warned. Her disguise, as a Galean travel writer, had been so perfect that she had tricked everyone she saw. She was confident that she’d have little trouble blending in with the Galean citizens and thus easily avoiding any spellwarriors. But as she would learn the next morning, the success of her disguise had a lot more to do with her exclusive exposure to Restans.
“Where did you learn to talk, girl?” the morning cook had demanded when she had asked him for breakfast. “Were you raised by ridge wolves?”
Mia had done enough research to know that ridge wolf was an insult. These fiercely territorial beasts had once overrun most of the world, but Tanis, Galeon, and Heron-- the three countries which border Resta--had all driven the species out of their respective lands. Now Resta was the only place you could find them and, consequently, the world had come to agree that the ridge wolf stood for everything Restan. Mia could have throttled the man’s neck for that remark; she hated passive aggression. Instead, she remained committed to her role.
“You must know a lot of ridge wolves,” she replied coolly. “Do you see many up here this close to Resta?”
The man’s face had turned a color that made Mia sure she shouldn’t eat there. Thankfully, she was saved the trouble of placing an order that would end up covered in spit by Mario’s sudden appearance. Wonderfully enough, he handed her a loaf of sghitsi bread and a lump of dried pork. The cook glared at him, but he had responded with a stronger look and the words “Take a break” delivered in a tone that left little room for argument. Still, he had said it so casually and the man didn’t hesitate to obey. How does he do that?
Mario smirked at Mia, saying. “You’re falling out of character.”
Mia had been staring admiringly at her cohort and her face quickly flushed when he pointed that out. She tried to glare instead, but that only caused him to snicker, which in turn only made her feel more foolish. Desperate to recover, she decided to get down to business.
“Fuck it! Now that I’m here, what’s the word?”
Fortunately, Mario knew when it was a time to be serious, thus he said “Well, first of all, nice work on finishing the job. It wasn’t really a part of the plan, but it did move things along a bit.”
“Well, I’m not one to leave things undone,” Mia said coldly, stung by the confirmation that Dinorah had expected otherwise. “You may want to tell Mother that she shouldn’t expect me to go along with a plan that assumes otherwise.”
Mario nodded defensively. “I know that! And believe me. Our mistress does too now. The next job is someone she definitely wants dead, and she thinks you’re ready for it.”
“What about this plan of ours? What exactly are we doing?”
Mario glared reproachfully, leading Mia to instinctively infer that she had done something wrong. “What makes you think I know?”
“Well, why shouldn’t you? Offing royals isn’t exactly the sort of thing the Starlings are known for. It seems like we ought to be clear on why we’ve moved from vigilantism to high treason.”
“Well, then you have definitely given this more thought than I have,” Mario said nonchalantly. “It’s not our place to question our mistress.”
Mia rolled her eyes, disappointed that her hero seemed to have been running without his wits. “Well, you got me there. I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway. I can think of plenty of reasons that Johnny’s death was a good thing without Lady Dinorah‘s help.”
“Good to hear. I thought we were going to have a problem.”
“No, I’ll do my job. Which is…?”
Mario smiled as he handed her a furled scroll. “You, my dear, are off to a ball for a date with an enchanting beauty named Esther.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Pass. Unless she’s the person I’m supposed to kill, I don’t think I even want to know Esther.”
“Of course she is, spoilsport! Esther Clark?”
“The princess?”
“No, the cobbler’s daughter.”
“Smart ass.”
Mario continued, “She’s hosting a party in Amora today and it’s so exclusive that even we can’t get an invitation.”
“So, I have to kill someone and gatecrash a party? Who do you think I am, some sort of criminal?”
“The whole country knows about your work with her brother by now, so security will be impeccable. There’s no way anyone’s getting in without permission. Fortunately, you shouldn’t have much trouble getting permission with the cover I brought.”
***
Amora, the sacred city of Serenity.
If this quaint little settlement could be called a city, it was definitely one of the smaller ones in the kingdom. Mia had just arrived and was gripped with an odd sense of cold glee. To do what she had come for in such a sleepy town spoke of so much coming chaos that she barely contained the urge to sing. She, however, was not supposed to be a she at the moment. Her popping, colorful hair had been replaced with a neat black pompadour and she wore the clothes of a male noble.
Mario’s idea had been cunning, but she had not been completely honest when she expressed her faith in it. She had never had to pretend to be a different gender before, but this was the most crucial part. She had taken the place of Esther’s paramour, now a stinking corpse lying in the undercroft of Serenity’s Grand Temple. Although her appearance had reasonably matched his boyish features, what worried her was her voice; no matter how she tried, she couldn’t manage to sound like anything but a teenage girl pretending to be a man.
But Mario had anticipated this problem, so her first stop had been to the home of an unscrupulous mage who altered her voice at Mario’s indirect request, no questions asked. She had been warned that her newly deepened voice would only last for an hour, but she couldn’t see needing much longer than that. She had already run the risk of being horribly late to the party, so she would at least avoid a long queue to her target.
When she cleared the long cobblestone path to the three-story mansion, she presented the guards posted at the door with the scroll that Mario had given her, as instructed. One of them took the unfurled the paper and stared at it for a long time. When she had begun to wonder if he was searching for more than just ink on the page, he gave her a genial nod and stood aside.
“Welcome, Lord Whitetree. Her highness has been eagerly awaiting your arrival.”
When Mia replied, her voice had startled her at first, nearly causing her to stutter, “I shall give her my apology for my tardiness when I see her. I’m afraid I couldn’t help being tied up.” Nor could the real Lord Whitetree, I heard.
The guards admitted her to the party and she was soon greeted by a working man of the house. He greeted her absurdly graciously and escorted her to the banquet hall, where Esther Clark stood reciting some official-sounding speech about how she would put the safety of her guests before that of their host, despite the danger she currently faced, and so they should all relax and enjoy themselves. What a beautiful sentiment, Mia thought wickedly. I think you’ll find that we have this in common.
When the princess had concluded her speech and feasting resumed, Mia was brought to her side. Esther seemed to be beside herself with a bewildering blend of both joy and irritation.
“Matthew, where have you been? You already missed the first course!”
Mia bowed repentantly. “I am terribly sorry. I got held up leaving the temple. The templars there nearly had the nerve to quarantine the place!”
“Oh dear!” Esther moaned in the faint, disconnected shock of someone who had never experienced anything half as inconvenient in her life. “Why on earth would they want to quarantine the Grand Temple?”
Mia shrugged. “They believe that it was broken into by grave robbers. I suppose they hoped to find some evidence among the innocent worshippers of the day.”
“You poor thing! At least you made it! Come, have a glass of plum wine!”
Well, two things were confirmed at this point. Esther had been about as smart as her older brother, and just as inexplicably attached to the taste of fermented glacial plums. She accepted the drink with a courteous bow to the server and flicked him a gold coin. She took another sip, hoping to find that it was an acquired taste. Sadly, she hated it just as much now as when she’d had it force fed to her.
“Delicious,” she gulped tearfully.
“Wonderful!” Esther was beaming at the assassin. “Now that you are here, I can finally dance!”
All-in-all, Mia had a pretty enjoyable time at Esther’s party. The food was delicious, the drinks were tolerable as long as they weren’t made from out-of-season mint-flavored fruits, and the music was charming. The other guests and the host herself were all intolerably boring, but the slayer didn’t have to suffer long. In just under an hour, she slipped quietly from the mansion. An hour later, the princess was pronounced dead due to alcohol poisoning.
It didn’t seem fair when she thought of it. If any of the royal family had deserved to die from her poison, it was Johnny. But as much as she would have appreciated that turn of events, she could still take solace in the irony of it all. The worst part was that she had been even less resolved this time. Unless being boring had recently become categorized as the work of dreadful monsters, she couldn’t see any reason to kill Esther. Still, she had held her duty close to her heart and was extra careful not to fail her mother this time.
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