The Ruler and Her Assassin

You appear before me the night I am crowned, and I almost think it is a dream. But how can it be? In all my dreams you are young and sprightly, your laughter echoing from my memories, and your sadness from the depths of my soul. This person before me right now is but a husk of the young girl I knew.

"Queen," you address me. Not by my name, but by title. And just like that, I know that the child I had loved all my life was dead.

*

It seems such a long time, doesn't it? We've both changed a lot since then.

I've no way to prove it, but I like to think it was today. A day lost in the summer, indistinguishable from the sea of checked boxes on an old, decaying calendar. Indistinguishable, not because it was uneventful, but because every other day was just as plump and colored by adventure. Tell me, were the days longer back then, or does nostalgia paint a halcyon? Perhaps it's just that I've relived those moments so many times that it begins to feel longer than a day.

It could have been any day. It might as well have been today.

We were the daughters of youth, you and I. There were none livelier than us. You, a whirlwind of movement, all laughter and scraped knees, unable to keep still for even a second. Me, with all my schemes and ideas that took us to the ends of the earth, the farthest reaches of space, and back home just in time for dinner. We would go to the Burgundy Wood everyday. You loved the trees. I remember you hopping from branch to branch like a sparrow, your hair a golden halo lit by the sun, and your eyes somehow brighter.

The Wood was your domain. There was nowhere I could hide that you would not find, no place I could run without you tailing after. That's how you won every game of hide-and-seek. Not to mention tag, you cheater.

One.

Two—

You'd have caught me by then. I wouldn't last three seconds with you in pursuit.

One.

Two.

Three.

And I'd be in your arms again, squirming, pouting, laughing. You were always the athletic one, muscles firm even in childhood. This should have made me jealous, but I wasn't. I felt...

Safe.

The Wood was your kingdom, and so my sanctuary. I was never afraid of the looming trees and thick foliage, even as the sun began to set and the land began to thrum with the life of night. I never feared it, because it was yours. And you would never have let anything happen to me.

And so I was just as devastated as you, my Queen, when the City cut our Wood down.

Progress, they said. Advancement. Words that meant nothing to homeless children. I lived in a mansion by the sea, and you in the floor above your father's bakery. But the Burgundy Wood was the home that we made together. And, as it would turn out, the first of many that we would lose together.

You weren't the type to cry when sad. You still aren't. Instead, I watched you wilt and grey as the sorrow you fought so hard to keep inside corrupted you from within. I put my grief aside to comfort you. "We'll build our own kingdom!" I said, my arms wrapped tight around your shoulders. "One the City can't touch. A better kingdom, just for us!"

You snorted, and it sounded wet. You put on a brittle smile, for me. "You'll be the ruler then," you said in an attempt at light-heartedness, "and I'll be your assassin."

I laugh hard enough for the tears I've been holding back to stream down. "Does that mean you'll kill for me, or that you'll kill me?" I asked.

You narrow your eyes, teasing. "You'll just have to find out, wouldn't you?"

And just like that, I knew we were okay. I thought we were okay. But calendar boxes only last a day unchecked. And no matter how long a day felt to me back then, time had the uncanny habit of catching up. Summer came and passed. I was entered into the Academy to begin my training as a model citizen. And you...

The City took you as its own.

*

The Academy molded me into its image. I was it's pride, it's poster girl. I was the perfect citizen. Intelligent, courteous, and a noble at that.

But you...

Last I heard of you, your father had lost his bakery. He had succumbed to his vices and lost his honor, or so I was told. No one could ever be more specific. They didn't know what exactly befell the baker, let alone the fate of his daughter. I had pressed my father for as much information as I could. He was part of the City council. Surely, he would know such a thing.

My father wouldn't look me in the eye. "The Oracle took her in," he finally revealed in a slurred mutter. His face then blanches of all color, as if his whole spirit was breathed out in that single utterance. He scrambles off his seat, out of the dining hall. "Do not worry about your old playmate," he said, pausing at the threshold. "The City has her in its care."

*

Every Ruler had their own assassins. This was common knowledge. No Queen or King was ever seen without an entourage of burly men, armed to the teeth. But you were different.

You were not an entourage, for one. You were singular, not as muscled as most bodyguards, not even as tall as the average man. Could you really hold a candle to anyone sent to kill me?

I make the mistake of asking you this, when you first appear in my chambers at my inaugural night.

"No one sent to kill you will succeed under my watch. Your death is my prerogative." You say this mechanically. Your skin is pale in the moonlight, and your eyes are less expressive than a corpse's.

You are not the child I grew up with. You aren't even human. What did they do to you? Did the Oracle keep you in a dungeon, never to see the light of day until my coronation?

"I think you mean 'your life is under my protection,'" I scoff. The windows are bolted. How did you get in? "You make it sound like you're going to kill me."

You step towards me. Even if you are not as tall as a man, you have a few inches on me. It takes my all not to stumble back.

"Perhaps I'm not transparent enough," you say. "It is my job to keep you alive until the time is right for me to kill you."

"W-What?"

"The City wills, and I enforce." Your eyes lock onto mine, and I've never seen anything so empty. "This is the curse of every Ruler. To deny me is to deny the City. If you have qualms, step down."

You retreat, making a path to lean against the bay window. You look bored, like you'd rather be anywhere else than here in my bedroom, threatening to kill me.

"What is this about? Tell me!" My voice shakes and my eyes find the door.

"If you leave me now, you leave your position. If you want to remain Queen, accept the law. You will rule, then I will kill you."

"Do you..." Do you have to? I want to ask. But I know the City has its secrets. You were one of them. It makes sense that they would only be revealed to me now, after I'd sworn myself into their nest, their web of laws and lies. 'Ruler' was just the name of their favorite puppet. And they like to change its costume every now and then.

What better apparel than the Academy's best and brightest?

Right. It isn't like I didn't have my suspicions. "When?" I ask instead.

You stare at me, hollow, lifeless. Maybe you are the puppet.

"Will you kill me when I am old?" I demand.

"Pray that I will," you drawl. "But not even I know when it will happen."

"Will you kill me when I displease you?" I throw the door one last look. I have worked too hard to let death get between me and my crown.

"No. It isn't about that," you say, straightening. "Nothing you can do will ever displease me enough to warrant murder."

"Then why must you kill me!"

Your eyes glint like evening stars. Cold. Distant. "That's just the way this story goes."

*

I shouldn't have worried about the quality of your protection. You had always been more athletic than me. Whatever training the Oracle put you through, it bested any entourage of bodyguards I could ever ask for.

I was a beloved leader, but not everyone agreed with the City. I was the face of their dissatisfaction, the new target of their rebellion.

None of them got within a meter close to me.

You were always there, guns blazing, sword drawn, fist pulled back and ready to swing. You never faltered.

It's already months into my reign, after you save me from a nasty bombing, that I first see you injured.

You're bandaging an arm in my cloakroom, and it slips out of my mouth. "I didn't know you could bleed."

Your face turns wry. "If I were a god, I wouldn't be in this service, my Queen." If you weren't so monotonous, I'd have sworn that was sarcasm.

"No?" I ask, but in my thoughtfulness, it ends up sounding like a statement. No. She does not want this, even now. Not for the first time, I wonder what they had done to you.

My Queen, I turn your words over in my head. Do you even remember my name?

You don't act like a stranger, but you aren't my friend. I don't know what to make of you. Of us.

In the years to come, you save my life more times than I can count.

"It's just a job," you say.

"You bleed to much for 'just a job,'" I snap. "Or maybe you're just bad at it!"

Another ambush had overwhelmed you. I waited at your bedside for days before you woke up. Me? There wasn't a scratch on me at all.

"I'll make a better kingdom," I grumble. "One the City can't touch. Just for us."

"I've heard this before," you say. Was that disappointment or fondness? You'd fallen back to sleep by then, so I hadn't asked.

*

The idea of a live-in assassin was something that put me at edge at first, but over the years, the domesticity had caught up to us.

The City was changing under my rule, but many didn't like that. Some of the tensions were a long time coming, taking root far before either of us was born. Roots can only bide so long in the soil before breaking the surface, rearing their head.

We stayed home, more often than not, in those later years.

Home. It had crept up on me. Home.

When was the last time we had one together?

I never brought our childhood up, but I could see glimpses of it. When you sit in a patch of sunlight and close your eyes. When you strip from your leather armor and don loose cottons. When you hum to yourself while watering the plants. When you always, always, always catch me, whether in the battlefield or from the library ladder.

It was nothing like the Burgundy Wood, ephemeral halcyon, idyllic and long gone. This was something new. This was something old. This was you and me, doing as history and choruses and broken records do. Despite the distance and the years that had separated us, despite the forces that tore us apart, here we were again, stubborn, inveterate, building a home together.

You had come to my chambers at my inaugural night, and here you are now, sprawled out on my bed even after I tell you 'You have your own bed!' for the hundredth time.

You're as beautiful as our Wood. Your hair aglow like the sun through rustling leaves, your presence as easy as a quiet breeze. I bask in it. Outside, I was the Ruler, wise and ever-vigilant. But in these quiet moments alone with you, I felt like no one. No sword in my hand, no burden of the crown. Only the effortless peace of your company.

Let's be no one together, I want to say. I never do. How foolish, after all, to feel safe with one's murderer. You're the sun on my skin as well as the nimbus curtain hanging over me. Always on the horizon.

"Will you regret it?" I say instead. What a conversation starter, my death. I bring it up all the time, as if I could die more than once. You indulge me either way.

One.

"Why regret how the sun rises and sets when nothing will change its course? I will not regret what was always bound to happen." You're stretched out on my couch, the same drawl as when you were eleven.

Two.

"I will kill you because one day, you will be killed. And I will not let anyone else have that honor." You're pulling a blade from the terrorist's corpse. There's blood on your cheek.

Three.

"I will kill you, because who else is more deserving than I?" You're in my bed and your hand is at my throat. I think, perhaps this is it. Then your hand travels lower, and lower, and—

*

We'll build our own kingdom.

I wanted to. There was nothing I wanted more than to build something with you.

I wanted to give you all the strawberries that would make your eyes widen in delight. I wanted to give you a bed stuffed with the world's softest feathers to hear your contented sigh. I wanted to hide you from the years we spent apart so you'll never have to wake up in the middle of the night and say nothing's wrong.

I wanted to give you back your Wood.

I wanted to take everything the world could offer and put it in your hands. It's yours, it's yours, it's all yours.

But to hell with what I wanted.

You weren't mine.

You were the City's.

*

The City wasn't the city. The law wasn't the people. I wonder if I could have done anything to change the course of history. But I suppose one can only fan the flames so long before it sets fire to the house. The underground forces keeping the kingdom in line had fanned enough flames.

This isn't personal. This is revolution.

They're on their way here now, the people. I can hear them, screaming, crying, wailing. The nobles have been slaughtered, the guards, overthrown. I can't say I didn't see this coming.

You've barricaded us in my chambers. You're the best warrior in the kingdom, but there are thousands of them, each willing to die to get to their purpose.

The purpose is me.

Fish eats shark. Ant eats grasshopper. There's no escape from this.

That's just the way this story goes.

You look at me. You're always so calm in a crisis, always assessing, hand a second away from a concealed weapon. But now, I can see it on your face.

There's only one way out.

Your voice does not tremble, but I know you like I know the house I grew up in, the land I reign over, the mattress we share. You are afraid.

"I will kill you," you say, "because I don't want you to go through killing yourself."

The look in your eyes say you're trying to believe it. You're upset, you're in denial, you want to scream, to throw something, to back out. I know you won't.

I take your face in my hands. You're as beautiful as our Wood. The City had taken it too, had altered it, enslaved it. The City ravaged our childhood, devoured our future.

I tangle my fingers in your hair. The burning chaos outside catches on it like a dying sun. Your eyes glisten like evening stars, harbingers of the long, freezing night ahead. I cannot look away, not even as you lift your pistol, hand eerily steady. You're mesmerizing.

Of all the things I've lost, you're the only one that's found its way back to me. My life begins and ends with you. I wouldn't have it any other way.

"Hey now," you say. The breeze is in your voice. Cool, quiet, calm. Leaves tremble in the undertone. "On the count of three, it will be over, yeah?"

I nod. My thumb grazes your bottom lip.

One.

"Do you regret it?" I ask as the cold metal of the pistol presses the bottom of my chin.

"What does that change?" Your eyes, evening stars, rising tides, don't meet mine.

Two.

"Do you regret it?"

I press our foreheads together until finally, finally you look at me.

You weren't the type to cry when sad. You still aren't.

Your eyes search mine like all the other times we lay together. How could I ever think them empty? There is so much brimming in them, I could drown.

You brush my cheek with the back of your fingers. "I'll be with you soon."

I clutch your hand and laugh. I'd give anything up for you. This kingdom, this world, this life.

"You were my Queen first," I whisper against your lips.

You put on a brittle smile, for me.

One.

Two—