Part 27

As I looked at the stars, the memoirs of my family seemed to bleed into my mind, one after another. Happy memories of times now long gone as I stared at the sky for what must have been hours.

My tears started to fall again as I remembered what my uncle Kuro had told Lionel that day.

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It had been a long day, surely, perhaps even tiring if I were a lesser man. But I am not a lesser man.

Maintaining two lives amongst the guarded walls of the palace was exhausting though. Having to keep that old king believing that we were on his side in their pointless war. Keeping him happy, keeping him delusional.

If we kept him so, this war would end sooner rather than later, with less lives lost and more people returning to their happy families. And then we would all disappear, to live happily out on our own, our little found family in peaceful bliss for the rest of our days and the rest of our children's days.

That was how it was supposed to be.

We truly thought anything of it, none of us did, when we were summoned to the throne room by that bastard in a crown. He probably wanted to rant to us again, complain about pointless losses on the battlefields, demand frivolous explanations about our tasks, all useless things he used to take up our time.

We were all summoned. Ashur, Naiser, Kiaan, Corentin, Bjorn, Emeric, and myself, even the children. The little princess stayed in her room, she had been feeling unwell recently. From the stress of the war and that old king’s pressure on her no doubt. I don't know what it is, but he is oddly obsessed with her. Out of all of his grandchildren, she is his favorite.

Perhaps it's because she is the only granddaughter. Or because he himself had only had a daughter before adopting Ashur and Naiser. Does she remind him of her? Regardless, his focus on her is too much. It rubs me the wrong way.

I need to look into why.

Still that would have to wait until this thing was over with. The sooner we are out of this meeting the better. We all have things to do, unlike him.

By the time I arrived most of the others were here. I was joined on my way by Kichii, who was watching Hanan today. The three of us made idle conversation, the young boy was definitely getting better at lip reading, being able to answer me faster than I was able to finish signing to him.

“Kuro.”

My father called me from the King’s side. How he could choose to serve that man over Naiser is beyond me. He knows the atrocities that he has committed.

Still, however much I may hate his master, he is my father and I will not shun him. Not when we have so little family left with us.

“Father.” I met him halfway on the stairs leading up to the raised dais that the throne sat on. He wanted to go over the usual things. Kichii’s training, my training, I ate, was Kichii eating. What we were doing, what the guards were doing, if there were any suspicious people within the walls- within our ranks- that we had noticed, whom we had gotten rid of since last we spoke, all the usual things an ex-assassin asks his son who had once walked the same path.

He focused heavily on the topic of traitors this time around, the king must be getting paranoid then. Who wouldn't be, if you were as vile as that thing on the throne was.

Was he still a man after all he had done?

I hoped so, men could be killed after all.

Once the rest had filtered into the room I was waved off, my father returning to his master’s side and I to Naiser.

All of us were here, Ashur with his children; Noble Andranik, protective Sahid, gentle Amal, and kind Hanan. Altan with his bright little son Clem. The Bear-like brothers Emeric and Bjorn, both quite literally larger than life. Corentin with his boys Olive and Paxton. Myself and Kichii, standing next to their royal highnesses. Little Haku, his mother Kiaan and Naiser, his father.

Seventeen of us, out of the eighteen. I don't think they bothered to count, to see which was missing.

Or Perhaps it was purposeful, to leave her out of this.

I fear what that means, and I have seen enough to fear next to nothing.

We all stood there, gathered in front of the dais. Naiser in front with Kiaan and Haku by his side, I stood slightly to the right of him and Kichii right next to the boy. Andranik was herding his brothers into place besides Ashur. Altan was smoothing over Clem’s messy hair and fussed up outfit, Emeric prodding Bjorn into a proper posture. Corentin fidgeting with Olive’s hand in his, Paxton leaning tiredly against his father’s side.

None of us were expecting it. None of us were expecting it at all.

All of us, every one of my brothers, the ones I had gained through trial and bloodshed on the battlefield, knew what the man on the dais before us was capable ofm and still we did not expect this.

The children, warned and warned over and over again about the madness of their thing that led their kingdom did not expect it.

Even Kichii and I, the ones who had witnessed so much of it with our own eyes, did not see it coming in the slightest.

Even with all we had been doing. Allying ourselves with Reobeth, with the enemy. Working against the king, working to dethrone him, working to free ourselves of this life and the burdens it had saddled us with, working to free our children from it. We saw none of it, until it was far too late.

I do not know how the guards managed to stay hidden, where they were hiding, how they slipped out so soundlessly while that bastard droned on and on.

Suddenly, I saw it. The flicker of movement from out of the corner of my eye. Right near bright little Clem.

The King’s tone changed, he screamed at us -“Traitors!” -

And the first blade fell. Right through the blonde, sunny smiled boy. Atlan’s flower child, our darling Clem, crumpled to the ground. Mouth opened in a silent scream as first one blade pierced him, through the chets and out the mouth and then another, pinning him to the ground as he fell.

Atlan wailed, went to hold his boy, but Emeric was quicker.

He threw him aside, into Bjorn who hid the sobbing father behind himself, as his older brother lunged at the two guards, tearing them in half with his hands.

But it was too late. Far too late.

I tried to move, but my father was on me in an instant. If there had ever been any doubt in my mind about the difference in our abilities, it was erased at this moment. The disparity between us was clear. An assassin that had lived a full life as a killer, had breathed and slept and killed as an assassin for his full life, verus one who had barely made it out of his first mission alive, one who had abandoned life as soon as he could.

I didn't stand a chance.

None of us did.

Atlan was next, followed soon after by Bjorn. Emeric raged, but it did nothing to stop the five spear tips that held him to the ground as two swordsmen plunged their blades into him again and again, into his blood covered the floor, long after he stopped moving.

Andranik screamed, sword clashing into another man as he fought, blood was streaming down his chest.

Sahid laid on the floor, a sword put straight through him , the man who held it sat nearly severed in half in front of him. Amal was holding him, sobbing silently. Blood from his brother's wound was on his front, the eldest triplet had jumped in front of the blade meant for him. He was next anyways, a coward of a swordsman slitting his throat while another ran Andranik though after chopping his hand clean off. The three were in a pile on the floor.

Ashur was fighting, still fighting, I don't know if he knew what had happened to three of his sons. But I saw his face when Hanan cut open before him.

The man who did it fell quickly to the elder prince’s blade, but he was killed even faster while he cradled his dead youngest to his chest.

By the time I was able to throw my father off it was too late to save any of them.

Corentin was pinned to the floor by a sword through his neck, Olive to the wall by one through his gut, and Paxton’s tear stained face stared blankly at the ceiling while his wounds weep onto the floor.