Emeral In Shadow

The Ragged Assassin [#1]

The sky was clear that night, with stars twinkling above, dazzling off the reflective roof of the Emeral Palace.
That night was supposed to be a night of celebration; The King had convinced the Ame family from the northern part of the country to trade with the Emeral kingdom!
This was truly a miracle as the Ame family had always had a grudge against the Emerals for usurping more land.
Such a miracle, in fact, that none of the drunk revelers noticed a lithe figure dressed in shadow and crimson slip into the roof of the palace.
Nor did they notice a certain rich young man being led back to a room with a fair young woman, locking the door behind them and turning the lights low.
And that as the man laid next to the woman, a lithe figure moved beside the bed, his soot colored hair extra hidden within the shadows of the dimly lit.
The man thought he had heard something, but 'mentioning it at a time like this would absolutely kill the mood...' he thought.
The man felt a sharp pain in his chest, and before he could say a thing he felt his throat split open. His last words were meaningless death gurgles.
The young woman, afterward, moved out of the sheets shivering from adrenaline, as is natural after witnessing such a gruesome death, wrapping herself in a blanket for modesty.
"My part is done, I expect to be paid before the next full moon." She told the lithe figure, who held a knife tipped with blood in one hand.
"You must stay for the party, otherwise they'll start asking questions." The figure moved closer to the woman, making her flinch a little,
"And once they learn you're a low-ranking Ame royal, they'll be especially suspicious..."
He brandished the knife, and the woman backed up, and he stepped forward until the woman was against the wall. He wiped the knife bloody on a crimson stripe of the ragged coat he wore and put it away,
"And, I don't think that I trust that you won't mention me in a torturous interrogation session."
"So stay at the party till you're dismissed, and have fun."
He backed away from the woman, and back to the bed, taking out a note of paper and laying it on a nightstand.
"You should probably change too." He added, now balling up the soiled sheets and tucking them in a rucksack he had left under the bed.
The woman nodded and gathered up her clothes from a corner of the room, and slipped out of the bedroom to change in a dressing room elsewhere.
The lithe figure grabbed a different airtight bag from inside the rucksack, and after grabbing a cleaver from the rucksack, began to quickly butcher the dead young man, and stuffed the pieces unceremoniously into the bag.
He resealed it, and then slung it over his shoulder, and then grabbed his rucksack. Other then the missing sheets, the room was mostly how it had been beforehand.
The lithe figure slipped out a side window, and after some struggled climbing he reached the roof once more.
The guards had been told to have most their numbers inside the palace, so the drunk revelers couldn't get too rowdy, and to guard the main gate to show any prospective criminals that they were still prepared to apprehend them.
Luckily this meant that the royal gardens, a small forest with a fresh orchard and stocked with game walled in from the rest of the city, were wholly unprotected.
So the lithe figure carefully maneuvered to the top of the roof; a tall metal spike atop the green crystalline domed roof, and slid down and off the northern side.
As he plummeted to the gardens off the roof, he didn't feel a shred of fear. He caught the edge of a branch of a tree, making it bend and snap under his force.
It also slowed his descent, so he landed gracefully on the fertile soil of the royal gardens.
He had to get the bag of remains back to the client, and pick up the remaining half of the pay, which meant he had to go to Thrushhome, often called the Aristocrats District. He headed west through the gardens ears alert for footsteps or otherwise living noises. He readied his blade.
A rustling in the bushes alerted him and he bolted up a tree, leaving his rucksack at the base. He held his knife and narrowed his eyes at the bush. As a small white shape emerged he leaped down and stabbed through flesh; it was a bunny. Luckily it wasn't a lethal kill as otherwise he'd have to waste time hiding it, and it ran off back into the bushes.
He slipped out of the gate on the west side of the palace and soon he was winding between buildings in the city. On a perfect day, he'll stay out of sight, not have to kill unnecessarily, and get to the client in a timely manner and collect his payment.
Unfortunately, that day was not a perfect day.