Body on the Gate

"There's another body on the castle gates." Mellia looked up from the bruised apples she'd been appraising. Bodies hung on the castle gates weren't unusual, but they always elicited a flurry of rumors and curious onlookers. Normally, Mellia wouldn't react to such news at all, especially now, with her impending escape from the city on the horizon.

But she hadn't heard from Ivann in two days. And without him, all of her preparations were pointless. But he wouldn't be dumb enough to get himself caught. He couldn't be dumb enough to get himself caught. The two of them were the only ones who knew the truth about the queen, and they had a responsibility to tell the world. They couldn't safely spread the word in the city, and that's why they were leaving. 

Nodding at the merchant, Mellia twisted away from the apples so quickly a few wisps of her carrot-red hair slipped free from her bun. The two gossiping men by the next stall over snickered as she hoisted her heavy pack. She didn't blame them. Mellia's slight frame and short stature made the pack look too heavy for her to lift. 

The weight barely registered as she stalked through filthy city streets toward the castle. Going to view the body was a risk, but she had to ensure it wasn't her partner strung up like a wanted poster for all to see. People cursed at her as she passed, darting between them the way she had since she was a girl, little more than a ghost, searching the gutters for her next meal. 

Ivann got her out of that life, gave her a purpose. And then they learned the truth, and that purpose went from survival to necessity. People needed to know for the greater good of all. 

The crowd by the gates murmured in horror. That meant whoever the person had been, they'd likely suffered before they'd died. Because the presence of a body wasn't surprising, wouldn't be worth more than a passing glance, even for the people who'd travelled just to see it. But the extra gossip? The prolonged observations? That always meant suffering.

"What do you think he did?"

"Even for the queen, this is horrifying."

"Rebels always get what's coming to them, one way or another."

"I heard that tattoo means he's an assassin."

Of all the gossip, it's the last that halted Mellia's advance. If the queen caught a marked assassin...things were worse than she feared. Or it would be better to say things were exactly as bad as she feared. Her mind changed. She stalked away from the crowd and clambered up a nearby drainpipe to the roof of a building. It would offer her an unobstructed view of the body without onlookers to see her reaction.

There was a body by the castle walls. A living one. Tortured, bruised, and bloody beyond recognition, the still-breathing corpse shuddered from where he hung, nailed against the gate by his hands. Blood still dripped steadily from him, a plop, plop, plop she swore she could hear from her position on the roof nearly fifty feet away. 

The dragon tattoo, marking him as one of the foremost assassins in the world, inked onto his collarbone, was the only unbloodied square inches of flesh on him. Ivann was still struggling to breathe. The queen left him to die, hung on the castle gates in unimaginable pain. And the people were just standing there, watching him die.

Blood rushed in her ears, drowning out the imagined sound of his blood hitting the cobblestones below. Ivann wouldn't survive, couldn't survive those injuries. She knew that well enough. But the way he hung there, he might suffer for hours more. 

Mellia couldn't allow that. She owed him that much. More than that, this was an insult to his order. To her order. She couldn't let that stand. A dagger sprouted from Ivann's chest less than a minute later, and Mellia was the last thing he saw. 

Screw running. Screw spreading the word. She launched off the roof as every person in the crowd whirled in her direction, searching for whomever would dare defy the queen in such a way.

Searching for whoever would dare destroy the queen's new toy.

They'd never find her, though they'd find her pack. Where she was going, she wouldn't need provisions. just weapons. And The Dragon's Claw had weapons caches hidden all over the city. 

She replaced her dagger first, pulling one from under a flagstone in a back alley. A sword hidden in a barrel in the river district came next. A bow and quiver from behind the eaves of the temple. For good measure, she also purchased a brace of poisons from the local apothecary. 

By the time the sun set, Mellia was a walking arsenal. It was stupid, of course, to attack head-on like this. Every second of her training whispered that this would be the death of her, and then no one would know the truth. No one would know how the Undying Queen kept her power. 

In fact, every second she, and anyone who one held magic, remained in the city, they contributed to the problem. Because the magic circle under the city was draining everyone's energy, their life force, and using it to sustain the queen, long after she should've died. 

It made the queen unstoppable. When Mellia and Ivann discovered the truth, they'd agreed that they should inform the rebels of the truth as soon as possible. Destroy the circle, destroy the queen. 

So why had Ivann risked an attack on the castle? He wasn't reckless, not like Mellia was. He had to have learned something else. Something that would make an attack like his possible. Something that would make an attack like hers possible.

And the queen made one fatal mistake when she left Ivann alive on the castle gates. All Dragon's Claw assassins' training ensured they could function under duress. And Ivan, hanging by nails driven through his hands, blood dripping from his body, traced a single symbol on the castle gate with his bloody foot. 

Gone. Mellia knew that could apply to anything. But she knew Ivann. He wouldn't risk his life for nothing. The Undying Queen tortured her friend for a reason. Somehow, he'd damaged the circle. No, he'd destroyed it. The proof was humming in her veins, alongside her rage. Magic.

No one in the city would recognize it immediately. Magic vanished from all but the most powerful mages a hundred years ago, and even in those, it only lasted through childhood. But there it was, crackling in her heart once more, fueled by the sound of her friend's blood plopping on the street.

The guards at the gate, removing Ivann's body, didn't get the chance to scream.

Mellia moved like a viper, tossing a dagger from her left hand into the heart of one, then decapitating the other, who'd just pulled Ivann's lifeless hands from the nails. All three bodies slumped to the ground. She paused only for a moment, retrieving her daggers from both Ivann and the guard's heart. 

Some part of her died with them as she left his body to lie with theirs as she continued towards her vengeance. 

The guards by the ornate iron door put up a fight, one of them actually drawing blood from her elbow. But they died too. As did the guards who came to investigate the noise.

She dripped crimson blood on polished wooden floors during her journey to the throne room. More blood sprayed on the golden tapestries hung on every wall. And when the humming in her blood became too much, she lifted her head to the vaulted ceiling and screamed. The sound of her voice paired with the magic resulted in a shockwave of death, and guards approaching her with weapons drawn slumped to the ground, dead.

The door to the throne room was already open.

She let herself inside.

The Undying Queen sat on her silver throne, her golden hair draped over one shoulder, her chin propped on her fist. The epitome of boredom.

"You're not supposed to be here." The bitter voice reverberated through the room. 

"I know." 

"You Dragon's Claw assassins are quite annoying. I thought my message was clear enough."

"Ivann's message was clearer." Mellia lifted a hand, letting her power crackle through her fingers.

"Ah. The rat thought he knew something, didn't he? Thought he'd brought down my entire empire, just because he destroyed a crystal in my bedchamber. I should've known he'd find some way to let the rest of you know he'd done that, even though I cut out his tongue." Mellia screamed again, imbuing it with the same energy she used before. 

Everyone in the room died except herself and the queen. The Undying Queen laughed.

"And they say I'm the monster. Look around you, assassin. Look at the destruction you've wrought in such a brief span of time. Ridding this city of magic is the greatest gift I could've given it. I intend to rid the world of it soon enough."

Mellia didn't care. Mellia couldn't care. The power was echoing in her mind, in her heart, in her soul. It was bouncing off her rage, becoming a lethal combination she couldn't contain. And in some distant part of her mind, that terrified her. 

So it wasn't magic Mellia threw at the queen to end her life. It was a dagger. The same dagger she collected from Ivann's body on the way in. Maybe the Undying Queen hadn't realized she could be killed. Or maybe the circle never protected her from physical attacks, only age and magic. But Mellia let the queen bleed out slowly.

Once the queen was dead, Mellia made her way to the queen's bedchamber. The shards of the crystal Ivann shattered were laying on a dresser, glittering in the candlelight. Mellia used her power to repair it and felt the circle restore itself. She felt that wild energy leave her veins. She didn't tie the energy to herself the way the queen had. Mellia tied it to the city itself, making it an exchange. A small amount of life force for their magic.

Her sigh could've been one of relief, or one of sorrow. Mellia wasn't sure she could tell the difference.

Mellia drug the queen by her golden hair, and hung her using the same nails Ivann had once hung from.

Then she hoisted her friend's body and disappeared into the night.

What happened after was no longer her concern.