AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I ran back through to gather his gear and dropped it with him on the way out. He didn’t move an inch when the heavy steel landed on his torso. Maybe four drops were overkill.
Two days later, I forwent the mask, opting for something that would blend in a crowd. Still, dresses weren’t for me, but I twisted my dark hair out of my face, donned a simple blonde wig, applied red lipstick, and went for a long brown cloak with a deep hood. A perfect disguise I’d used several times, because no one outside of my father’s castle ever looked hard enough. Though children were scarcer now, with no Life Maiden around, there were still a few. And if I weren’t disguised, their mothers would clench their shoulders, hiding them away as I passed, teaching them without words that a Death Maiden would always be someone to fear.
They were not wrong. But then the people would talk, giving me away. And the magic was already thrumming within me, pushing me to study the name etched into my palm. To visualize Bram Ellis’s death and deliver his body.
I rarely went a full day without stalking my victim. Never two. But these special circumstances had required a different kind of reconnaissance. By the time I set out to fulfill my duty as Maiden, I knew the exit plan for my mark to leave Silbath’s castle. I knew which carriage he’d be in and who would ride with him, as well as the names of all of his closest companions, their bonded wives, their whores, and even which bathhouse most of them frequented, though most of that knowledge had come from previous trips to the castle.
Bram Ellis preferred an opium den owned by the Maestro blocks away from the Dancing Ghost, and that would be my backup plan, should tonight go to shit. But the theater would be the better option. He’d travel alone afterward, giving me a ten-minute window.
I’d only need one.
Giant black crows rested on glowing streetlamps, watching the dark, misty world from their posts, as the richest and vilest of Requiem gathered outside of Misery’s End, the Maestro’s dark burlesque show. Years ago, my father refused his request to open his theater in Perth, but the Silbath king feared him more. Though no one used his given name, Drexel Vanhoff was, at his core, a magic-bearing crime lord anyone would have been hard-pressed to go toe to toe with. Many of our kingdom’s people donned the Maestro’s blue bands around their arms, proof they’d become magically bound to the repugnant man.
I kept to the back of the building a few blocks down, pacing as I waited for the line of carriages to descend upon the infamous theater, adrenaline racing as I felt the danger to my very core. Like clockwork, the Maestro arrived first. The spokes of his carriage imitated the keys of a grand piano, and the black iron doors were molded to replicate curtains. Polished boots splashed in a puddle as he exited, placing his signature top hat upon his head and flexing his fingers in leather gloves. I couldn’t see his face from here, but I knew the scar down his cheek would be there. The mark of a man that even I would rather avoid. A man who had hunted me since I was a child.
Five women wearing just enough fabric and feathers to cover their bits accompanied him as he leaned on the cane he didn’t need. He waved to the growing crowd, his coat tails shifting along his calves as he followed his personal guard inside.
The king of Silbath was next. And though he did not don the adoration of those gathered, they still managed to bow and silence themselves as he and his entourage entered Misery’s End. Death’s magic roared in my veins, urging me to follow, to stalk, to kill.
The patrons would enter through the front of the building instead of the back. I contemplated the rooftop access, but the Maestro’s security was infamous and brutal. I didn’t need extra roadblocks tonight, knowing what was to come, so I hid the weapons they’d take at the door. Each harbinger carried themselves differently. Most commanded attention and were unapologetically ruthless, killing for Death less than they killed for themselves, but I preferred solitude and respite from people.
Stashing my weapons and circling the building to the main entrance, I managed to slip into the line in front of two women fighting over the man between them. I didn’t need to go in, and probably shouldn’t, but there were few places in Silbath I’d never been, and knowledge was always power. Anytime I’d hunted a patron obsessed with the scandalous show, I waited until after the curtains fell, content to end them in their sleep. Due to the nature of this kill, I’d need to keep eyes on Bram Ellis at all times. Anything could change in an instant, and if I didn’t kill him soon, the magic would completely consume me, driving me to madness until I took him out. And when I was pushed that far, carnage followed. I’d learned the hard way that nothing fed Death’s magic like murder. Copious amounts of it, if I lost control. So, I’d stay nearby and keep my wits about me. The ramifications of this night would already be severe without mistakes.
A hulking man at the door, with fists the size of sledgehammers, stood beside a beautiful tanned woman with stunning eyes, one green and one blue, who surveyed the crowd as thoroughly as I had, though she was dressed in a sheer gown. A performer watching the door. Interesting. Her gaze landed on me for mere seconds before she moved on, searching for something, or someone. When I approached to enter, the man held an arm out to stop me.
“You’re new.”
I narrowed a glare. “You’re observant.”
The woman cleared her throat but did not speak.
“It’s three coins to enter, four if you’re looking for work. Did Lady Visha send you?”
I drew an even breath, pulling coins from a small bag in my pocket. “I’m not a whore.”
The woman piped up, assessing me with an unamused sneer. “Spoken like a member of high society. Anyone worth their death knows most of the women ensnared are not whores. They’re too poor or too indebted to save themselves.”
I handed over the coins without responding and slipped inside the theater. She was right, of course. And that was why I didn’t begrudge this world its disgusting nature. We were simply a product of our self-inflicted misery.
The entry room was no more than two grand staircases to the left and right. People pressed into me, shoving me toward the group of guards dressed in all black, siphoning us into a single file line.
“If you have any weapons, now’s the time to say,” the closest said, gesturing for me to turn around.
I had to tilt my head back to look into his mutilated face. “No weapons,” I answered, omitting the tiny throwing knives sewn into the hem of my dress.
Rough hands trailed down my spine, making my skin crawl. I gasped, trying to remember the last time anyone other than Ro had touched me. Years. It’d been years. He slipped one hand up the inside of my thigh, the salacious look on his face turning my stomach as he moved down the other side, enjoying his job far too much.
He gripped my ass, and I stumbled forward before rounding on him. “Touch me again, and I promise you’ll be eating the rest of your meals through a fucking straw.”
“I doubt that, sweetheart, but it sounds like a good night. Come find me after the show.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
He sniffed the hand he’d groped me with. “Maybe I will.”
“Keep it moving,” another guard from down the line shouted, pinning me with a stare as if I’d been the one to hold everyone up.
Shuffling forward, I hustled up one side of the grand staircase and stepped into a different world. A world of elegant obsidian finishes and dim lighting focusing down on a stage draped in black velvet curtains. The outside of the building gave nothing away to indicate such finesse lay within. Its decayed edifice fit right in, mere blocks from an opium den. This was why my father hated and feared the Maestro in equal measure. His wealth and power and his ability to bind people into magical contracts made him the uncrowned third king. He had every opportunity to conceal himself in plain sight, and an unofficial army of prisoners to protect him.
