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Julius felt consciousness chase his pleasant dream state away. He could feel the warm comforting presence of his twin lying in bed beside him. They had been discussing how they were going to convince their mother to let them go camping with their cousin Keyra for their seventeeth birthday when they had fallen asleep. Sleepovers weren’t uncommon for the two of them. Julius didn’t particularly like being away from Oliver for any length of time.
Even if he does always steal the blankets, Julius sat up fulling intending to right the comforter when he saw the figure standing by the bed, short sword raised. Oh Shit.
The assassin, however, flinched and reared back.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Julius felt his instincts take over as he covered his waking brother’s mouth with his hand and reached for the sword leaning against the bedside. He didn’t think at all as he stabbed their would-be assassin with it.
“Mrrrf!” Oliver.
“Sorry, brother,” Julius muttered, but he was looking towards the door.
He watched as their little sister lifted her finger in a gesture of silence and then vanished into the darkness.
Varya looked on as Julius stabbed the figure looming over him and Oliver. She stood in the doorway and as her brother caught her eye she lifted her finger to her lips.
Be logical like Papa, she thought firmly as she reloaded her silencer. Protect my family first, panic later.
Her silencer had been a work in progress since she had been ten years old, but finally she and Papa—with some help from Aunty Allura and Uncle Gilmore—had finished it in time for her twelfth birthday. He hadn’t thought it would come in handy so soon.
Be brave like Mom, Varya steeled herself. Strong like Aunty Kiki.
As she willed herself to disappear into the shadows,Be quiet and precise like Uncle Vax. The darkness is your friend.
Vary stepped out into the hall and raised her pistol, an assassin had exited Oliver’s bedroom and stood in the hall.
She took a shot.
Then a second.
And a third.
The assassin flinched and turned towards her. Although hurt—her aim was almost always true—he grinned menacingly at her and Varya felt her blood run cold.
Be a Monstah like Aunty Pike, immovable like Uncle Grog, she stood tall. Be clever and quick witted like Uncle Scanlan.
“I am Varya Elaina von Musel Klossowski de Rolo. Get the hell out of my castle.”
As the words left her mouth, she heard two loud cracks behind her and knew the twins were at her back. A gentle wisling sound cut through the air, and the assassin fell forward, a crossbow bolt in his back.
A growl pierced the air as Embassy, Jonathan’s bear, came barreling down the hallway; intent on making certain their attacker was good and dead.
“You three all okay?” their older brother hurried towards them, his nightshirt soaked in blood.
“Um…”
Jonathan glanced down, “Oh, it’s not mine.”
Oliver grinned then, “The two of us aren’t any worse for wear.”
Julius looked at her intently and she realized her nightshirt was probably stained as well, “How are you holding up, sister?”
Varya swallowed thickly, “Not thinking about it.”
Jonathan stepped over to his younger sister and marveled at how little she was given the usual de Rolo height. Varya was clutching her pistol in one hand, she had a few bullets in her other one and she seemed to be breathing deeply the way their Father did when he was stressed. Her long dark hair hung in waves along her back and as she stood in her blood soaked nightshirt calmly reloading her silencer, Jonathan couldn’t help but see so much of their Uncle Vax in her.
The emotional Assassin Prince and Champion of the Raven Queen.
He shook his head of the image and held out his hand, “C’mon, Treasure, let’s get cleaned up.”
Oliver was briefing the guards on what had happened and Julius was assisting with details. The castle was going to be in shambles, they had no idea how many assassins there were nor what they had been after much less who had sent them.
“It was probably a hit,” Julius looked at him almost daring him to say otherwise—no daring was the wrong word—pleading with him to say otherwise.
Oliver, however, nodded, “With Mom, Papa, and Aunty Cass out of town. They must have known.”
Varya held tightly to his hand, but didn’t add anything.
“Secure Mom and Papa’s rom,” he told the twins. “We’ll sleep there for the rest of the night. It’s—”
The twins nodded, “Better.”
He took Varya to her bedroom to retrieve pajamas. The sight of the bloodied mess that had been his sister’s would-be killer startled him. Varya had slept with knives under her pillow ever since Uncle Vax had given her her first set when she was eight years old. NO matter what their parents had tried or told her, she insisted that it was for safety that she kept them so close. A silly childish worry. Now, no one would ever convince her that it wasn’t a necessity to sleep armed. Jonathan fought the urge to have the man who had stolen that innocence from his sister revived so he could kill him again.
Varya knelt and pulled the dagger out of the corpse, she didn’t say anything as she picked up the one lying next to the body—Jonathan felt his eyes grow wide as he realized that she had used the knife to slit the man’s throat. She stepped over the corpse and pulled a set of pajamas out of her dresser. Jonathan noted that she dug a little to find a set with pockets. Then, she grabbed a pouch from inside of the drawer and returned to his side.
“What’s that?” he asked as they rejoined Embassy in the hall.
She looked at the small poucj for a moment then said softly, “Ammunition.”
He didn’t reply.
It took them the better part of half an hour to clean all of the blood off and change, but fresh clothes felt nice. The twins already had a fire going in the master bedroom and were waiting for them when they arrived.
“Hey Treasure,” Oliver knelt in front of his sister and pulled her into a hug. “You really saved us back there.”
As if she had been waiting all night for this moment, Varya broke down in his arms. She dropped her daggers and pistol. She clung to him and just wept like a small child. She was a small child. As he held her, Oliver couldn’t help but think of how incensed it was that anyone would want to hurt her.
She’s just a kid, he felt the rage building inside of him. She doesn’t deserve this.
Remember, you rarely get what you deserve and you rarely deserve what you get, Papa had said once when he and Julius had been complaining about fairness.
Their mother had retorted that those were some wise words from a man who had also said, Life needs things to live.
But now, as he held his weeping sister, Oliver couldn’t help but see what his father had meant when he had tried to console them about the unfairness of life.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he murmured as he picked her up. “I’ve got you.”
He and Julius settled into bed with Varya finally quieted and asleep between them. Oliver knew better than to think that Jonathan would sleep. Instead he hugged his brother tightly and allowed himself to be tucked into bed like a child. He watched Jonathan settle in front of the fire against Embassy. And, after what Jonathan might have supposed was sufficient time for them to have fallen asleep, Oliver listened as his big rother sang prayers of gratitude in Celestial to Saranrae, to Kord, to Melora, to Bahamut, and finally to the Raven Queen.
The End.