Who Said Life was Fair? - A Novella

Chapter Eight

"Diora," he managed weakly. "Hi."

"What do you mean, hi?"

His eyes finally adjusted as he took in the stranger before him. Her black hair was cut shoulder-length, curling slightly at the edges; it fell everywhere on her face as if she'd never bothered to tuck it around her ears. Her eyes were a vibrant, electric blue. Were human eyes even allowed to be that pretty? It wasn't fair.

She stood up, and Lucas saw that she was short and lean, with small, deft hands. It might seem small, but he'd never seen her hands before, only in gloves. I count this as a victory.

"Burning stars. I guess you've seen my real face now," she said, shaking her head and looking ten years older. He wished he could say something to make her smile.

"You're really pretty." He did not mean to say that.

She blushed violently. "What are you doing here." It came out as more of a statement than a question.

"Trying to, uh." He squeezed himself out of the trapdoor, and sat on the floor, his face heating up. "Help you with your mission, I mean."

"You're here to help me? With my job?"

"I... yes." Why did he feel so foolish all of a sudden?

"I already told you. You don't want to know." She let out another long sigh, sitting down in front of him. "I'm murdering King Ivory ten weeks from now and framing it on one of the advisors."

Lucas gasped. I knew it!

He would figure this out. He owed her that much.

"You don't seem too happy about it, though."

"It's because your kind, marvelous brother decided to pay me half of what we agreed on." She scoffed, but he could tell she was lying.

"No, it's not." Lucas swallowed before finally saying, "You wouldn't murder King Ivory."

"What do you know?" she spat, her eyes gleaming with irritation. "You don't know anything about me. I could murder you, right now. You don't know who I am."

"But I do know you." Lucas didn't know what was possessing him to say this. All he knew was Rodric's voice in his head wasn't around to criticize him. "You're Diora, code name Thousand. You think the fashions in Plumsk are 'pretty backwards'. You're an only child. You love all the characters in your head but you're too embarassed to talk to anyone about them." He listed off his items on a finger each. "And you're trying to protect King Ivory for some reason – and whatever it is, I'll help you do it."

They stood in silence for what felt like years. Diora sighed. "I'm not surprised you have your family's deduction skills. You were never as dumb as they all say." I wasn't? But I've never even scored a political victory, he thought.

"But you don't know everything," she continued. "You don't know why I choose to do this. You don't know where I'm from or my exact age."

"You always impersonate people in their twenties, so I figured you must be too." Lucas pleaded to every star in the sky that she would listen.

"I'm two years older than you, so you guessed right. You really are a Riel." She let out a breathy chuckle, but her gaze was dark and melancholic. "But you don't know me, Lucas. You never knew me."

He shook his head. "You're really throwing away my help?" She looked away, and he took her hands in his.

The skin was rougher than he'd expected, probably from years of picking locks and crawling through tunnels – miles away from the soft, delicate hands of a Feyrganian noblewoman. He didn't care. He wanted to hold onto them forever, Rodric and his murder plot be damned.