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Rin saw a lot of odd characters walk into the bar at this time of night in this part of the city — it was one of the quirks of it that she really hated. All she wanted was something to warm herself up before she tucked herself into her cot and got a restful few hours of sleep before work in the factory in the morning. The last thing she wanted to deal with was commotion, or attention. Attention got you killed.
Attention got people noticing that you were the key common denominator between several missing persons.
So when the girl who very obviously didn’t belong there walked in through the doors, she pulled her hat down a little farther over her bangs and pulled her mug a little closer, hunching over it so she wouldn’t have to look at her.
The girl hesitated just briefly in the doorway. She was so, so obviously not a part of this part of the city, painfully not a part of it, and painfully unaware of how badly she stuck out. She wore a long black cloak made of a fine, soft material — she probably thought it was disguising herself, with the hood pulled over her face, but no one was fooled at all. She was noble . There was no hiding the lily white softness of her hands and cheeks, or the smooth, graceful way she walked despite her obvious nerves. She was just waiting to get robbed, or kidnapped and ransomed. Rin groaned as she hunched herself a little lower over her mug, and tried to pretend not to see her.
The girl walked towards the bar, steps hitching at the stickiness of the floor, and she hesitated before sitting down on one of the barstools, as though checking to see it was stained. Rin rolled her eyes.
She stared into her mug, trying very hard not to listen to the girl when she leaned forward and caught the attention of the bartender. At least she had the sense to keep her voice very low, so no one except the bartender could hear her. Rin was just busy trying not to notice the other people in the bar who were starting to give the girl looks — some less friendly than others.
She finally looked up when she heard the bartender bark a loud laugh. He pushed back whatever the girl had given him and waved her off.
“Go home, princess,” he said. “You’re not going to find what you need out here.”
“Please,” the girl whispered. “Please, I need...”
“Get out of my bar before you attract trouble.”
The girl held her ground for a moment, body trembling slightly. All eyes in the bar were on her now, and they weren’t hiding their looks, either.
Finally, she pushed away from it, turning on her heel and stalking out. She definitely had the noble stalk down — the way she walked, like she expected people to notice. Rin sighed, and took the last sip of her drink. She heard chairs scootching out of tables, and boots stomping against the floor. She stood up, and she walked out the door first.
She caught up to the girl quickly enough. The girl flinched when Rin tucked her arm into hers, trying to pull away, but Rin held tight.
“Pretend you know me,” Rin said. “We’re just two gals, out on the town.”
The girl froze up, but kept walking along with Rin — she didn’t have much choice with Rin’s grip, after all.
“Are you going to rob me?” she said tensely.
Rin chuckled.
“No, princess, though I probably should. You’re in the wrong part of town.”
“I’m not a princess,” she grumbled.
“Differences like that don’t matter down here. Now look alike, and stay with me. I’m not going to rob you, but those men behind us might have other ideas.”
The girl flinched, and started to look back over her shoulder. Rin threw an arm over her shoulder and laughed loudly, pulling her in towards her as though she’d just said something funny.
“Don’t be stupid and look,” Rin said through grit teeth. “I’m sticking out my neck for you. Be grateful.”
The girl didn’t seem grateful, but she didn’t look back, either. She didn’t pull out of Rin’s grip. Rin relaxed, pretending like she was just on a comfortable stroll. All the while, however, she kept her ears back behind her, listening to the soft, steady scuffle of boots, keeping pace without overtaking them. They were being cautious.
“There’s a door up ahead. To your left. See it?”
The girl flickered her head towards it ever so slightly, and nodded almost imperceptibly.
“The minute we’re almost past it, turn back and run through it. I’ll be right behind you.”
“What? How do I know you’re not just sending me into...into a trap of some kind?”
“You’ve got two options,” Rin said. “Trust me and go through the door, or don’t trust me, and see what those guys behind us want to do with you instead.”
She felt the girl shiver against her arm. Rin had to simply trust she’d do what she was told. If she didn’t, well. Rin had done what she could. They got near the door. Rin kept walking as though she were going past it, deeper into the alley. She let her arm fall from the girl’s.
The girl did what she was asked. The moment they were past the door, she stopped, whipped around, and bolted towards the door. Rin turned and ran straight after her. She caught sight of the men on their tail — they’d stopped with confusion for just a moment when Rin and the girl had changed directions. But they recovered quickly. They charged after them — Rin wondered if she’d misjudged the distance, if they were going to make it —
The girl slammed through the door and it burst open. Rin scrambled in after her, grabbed the handle, and swung the door hard shut on them. She flipped the lock, and turned away.
The girl’s hood had flown off during their flight. Her hair spilled out of her cloak like a wave of obsidian water, and for just a moment, Rin was actually struck dumb, mouth hanging open as she stared. The girl was gorgeous . Her dark hair was long and expertly tied in an intricate series of braids. Her brilliant magenta eyes reflected the light of the candles all about the room, setting a contrast to her porcelain smooth skin.
The girl’s eyes widened as she stared at the door.
“What if they break through?” she gasped, cheeks slightly flushed.
“They won’t try,” Rin said. “They’re superstitious.”
She waved her hand at the surroundings, and the girl blinked. She turned in a slow circle, lips parting to take it all in. There were candles sitting in every nook and cranny, and all over the floor. It was a wonder she hadn’t caught her dress on fire on one of them. Paint splattered the floor and walls in designs. The girl shivered, and pulled her cloak in close.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“The closest thing you’ll get to a temple down here,” Rin said. “And also, where I live.”
She started down the hallway in the open, gaping door on the other end of the room. The girl hesitated, but then Rin heard the sound of her slippered feet coming after her. Rin pushed into her little living room — this “temple” was actually a burnt out house from a long while back, back when a fire started here had nearly wiped out the whole district. People had gotten superstitions and put all the offerings in it as an offering to whatever god had caused the house to burn down. Dumb, really. Putting all those candles down in an attempt to stop another fire.
Some of the house was salvageable, though, and no one came to check, so Rin had set up her cot and the rest of her shit in there. She opened the door to the little living room she’d cobbled together and bowed sardonically to the girl when she walked in after her.
“Milady,” she said.
The girl sniffed at her, not looking amused. She stepped inside, and looked around at Rin’s junky home. Rin didn’t bother checking to see if the girl approved or not. She just sat herself down in her chair and sighed.
“You can hide out here until morning,” she said. “They won’t follow you during the day. Don’t expect anything nice for a bed, though. I’ve only got one cot and an old futon.”
For a moment, there was no answer.
“Thank you,” the girl said, soft and...sincere. Rin blinked. She hadn’t expected that. Sincerity, from a noble.
“Don’t thank me. Just don’t come back,” she said, shaking her head. “Honestly. What were you thinking, coming down here looking like that?”
“Looking like what?” the girl asked, frowning.
“You know,” Rin said, nodding at the girl’s ensemble. “Rich.”
The girl tugged her dark cloak around her tighter, as though trying to hide what you could see of her very fine, but simple blue dress. Rin rolled her eyes, and turned to her hot plate, fumbling for her lighter so she could get the gas going.
“I can’t go back.”
The girl’s voice cracked like china. Rin glanced up as she lit the hot plate. She grabbed her kettle and set it on top. The girl wasn’t looking at her. She wasn’t looking at anything. A faint tremble had come to her shoulders.
“Well, you’d better,” Rin said. “If you don’t, you’re going to get yourself killed.”
“That might be better.”
Rin raised both eyebrows, finally turning to look straight at her. The girl still wasn’t looking at her. Her gaze was somewhere else entirely.
“Okay, fine,” Rin said, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She tilted a hand towards the other rickety chair. “I’ll bite. What are you running from? And what were you looking for?”
The girl didn’t sit for a moment. She just stood there, trembling. Rin kept her hand held out towards it. Finally, the girl awkwardly perched on the very edge. She fiddled with her cloak hem.
“My name is Duchess Ruri Kurosaki,” she murmured. “And I was looking for someone who could...assassinate someone.”
Rin raised both her eyebrows so high this time that she thought they might have launched into the stratosphere. Ahhh, she thought.
This girl was looking for her .
“And you think you’re going to find one down here?” Rin asked, leaning forward. “Can’t someone like you maybe...buy someone secret? Someone from another country? Anything other than putting yourself down here? Could have even just sent a servant.”
“There isn’t an order form, you know,” Ruri said tightly. “I thought to use poison myself, but that’s also more difficult to procure than you’d assume. I heard a rumor that there were assassins for hire in the lower city.”
She dug her hands into her skirt and took a long, shuddering breath.
“It seems I was wrong.”
Rin leaned back in her chair. She studied the girl for a while — Duchess Ruri Kurosaki. She didn’t know her, not off hand, but Rin didn’t pay attention to the nobles too much. There were so many counts and princes and earls for so many damn things that it was too hard to keep track of. There were only two or three dukes or duchesses though. This girl didn’t seem like any of them that Rin remembered. Had she married in? Must have.
Either way, Rin might be a killer — but she was small time. Cursing an underground trafficker here, a corrupt police official there. People no one would really miss . This girl sounded like she had perhaps bigger prey in mind.
“Okay,” she said. “And why would a soft, pretty girl like you want to kill someone?”
Ruri’s eyes lifted to Rin’s, and Rin suddenly felt cut to the bone by that gaze. It was a hollow — but sharp — gaze. The gaze of someone who had very little left to lose.
“And why should I tell you?” she said. “I appreciate you coming to my aid, but you don’t have the right to know everything. I don’t even know your name.”
Rin leaned back in her chair again, considering. She blew out through her lips. Then she reached over the arm of her chair for the now whistling kettle, and fished up two chipped cups. She poured hot water into each, and dumped a spoonful of already used-once tea leaves after it. She held the cup out to Ruri. Ruri only stared at it, lips parting.
“Rin,” said Rin. “That’s my name. And maybe you should tell me, because if you want to kill someone? Well.”
She took a sip of her own tea, still holding one out to Ruri.
“Tell me a good enough story, and I might help you.”
Ruri’s eyes shot up to Rin’s. Her eyes widened.
“Are...you...?” she whispered.
“No,” Rin lied flatly. “If I were an assassin, I’d be making a lot more than what this room cost.”
She tilted her cup towards Ruri.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t maybe think of a way to help you out. If I feel like it.”
Ruri carefully took the cup from Rin. She held it between her hands, shaking slightly. Then she nodded. She tucked the cup between her knees for a moment, and reached up to undo the ties of her cloak, letting it fall around her waist. Carefully, she pulled the tall neckline of her gown down.
Rin’s lips tightened. There were bruises the size of hands around her neck. Ruri’s eyes were hollow.
“All right,” she said, softly. “Rin. Can you help me kill my husband?”
If Rin was frightened off by the sight of Ruri’s bruises, she didn’t show it. Her eyes only narrowed, her hand tightening around her cup.
“Your husband did that to you?” she said stiffly.
Ruri nodded. She rebuttoned the neck of her gown, up to hide the bruises. She put the cloak back on over her shoulders, and brought the tea cup to her lips for a quick sip. The warmth was appreciated as it spread through her.
“I was recently married,” she said, the words coming out thick. She hadn’t been able to speak them to anyone. It was almost hard to force them out. “To the Duke Roget.”
Rin’s entire face changed. Her hand tightened around her cup so tight that it seemed like it might shatter.
“That one?” she said.
Ruri clasped her hands around her cup, willing them to stop shaking.
“It happened only a few months ago. I’m not from here. I’m the daughter of an earl from Heartland.”
Rin nodded — likely, she knew that much. The occupation. The forcible abdication of Heartland’s king, and assimilation of the kingdom into the City. She reached one hand to the ties of her cloak, fingering them nervously.
“I was a peace offering,” she said. “I didn’t get asked.”
Now she blinked back tears. Her body shook no matter how hard she tried.
“I haven’t gotten to see my brother, or my family, or my friends,” she whispered through a choked throat. “And — and gods, I don’t know how much longer I can keep him from...from...”
“From your bed?” Rin said softly.
Ruri bit back a choked keen. She had to closer her eyes and put a hand over her mouth, trying to still the tears getting ready to escape her. It was too much, to even think about it. How close she’d come already. The days ticking down until she knew she would no longer be able to find excuses, or a way to distract him, or be able to make him drunk enough to pass out and forget about taking her. She was living on a time limit.
Rin sucked down the last of her tea with a long, loud slurp.
“I’m impressed,” she said, putting the cup down. “Most girls like you don’t jump to ‘murder’ as the answer to their solutions right away.”
“He kidnapped me,” Ruri said fiercely — she felt, for a moment, some of the fire in her, Heartland’s fire, rising with her and crackling with her words. “He took me away from everything I ever loved, and ruined it so that even going back would mean pain.”
She trembled slightly, closing her eyes once again. She summoned up the images of her brother, her best friends — the people of her household, the people she’d left behind in the hopes of sparing them.
“I want to ruin him back.”
Rin was grinning when Ruri opened her eyes again.
“You’ve sold me,” she said. “Wait here.”
Rin stood, and walked towards a door in the back of the room. She pulled it open and disappeared, leaving it open behind her. Ruri waited. The tea was getting cool in her hands by the time she heard the sound of Rin’s footsteps again. In her hands, she held something that looked like...like a small red grape.
She held it out to Ruri. Cautiously, Ruri took it. It felt like a grape, too, as she carefully rolled it between her fingers.
“The day you want to kill him, swallow that,” said Rin. “You’ll have to kiss him.”
“I’ll have to what?” Ruri said, eyes widening.
Rin did look apologetic, but she only said back down in her chair.
“This is the most subtle way I have on me at the moment. You swallow it the morning you want him to die. You give him a kiss. Three hours later, he’s dead. No evidence. No way to trace it back to you.”
Rin smiled.
“Just a freak heart attack. Imagine that.”
Ruri swallowed. She stared at the grape in her palm.
“How do I know it won’t kill me?” she said. “Is it poison? How does it work?”
Rin lifted her fingers one at a time, counting on them.
“One: because at this point, killing you would be ridiculous, after I risked my life for you. Two: no, it’s not. It’s a curse. Three: It’s a curse.”
Ruri’s brows drew together. She didn’t have the slightest clue what Rin was talking about. Curses? Her mind wandered back to the room full of candles and strange sigils. Rin had said she wasn’t an assassin, but...
“Rin,” she asked. “Who...are you? What are you?”
Rin only smiled broadly. She shrugged, and leaned back with her hands behind her head. There wasn’t going to be an answer. And yet...
Ruri looked at the grape again. She closed her hand around it carefully. It felt warm at in her hand. It felt like fire. Like freedom . Oh, gods, could it really be that simple? Could she really...?
She looked back up at Rin. Tears filled her eyes all at once, and she flew from her seat. Rin’s grin slipped and her eyes widened when Ruri threw her arms around her.
“Thank you,” Ruri gasped, unable to hold it back. “Oh, gods, thank you.”
Rin hung there for a moment, before awkwardly patting Ruri on the back.
“Yeah, yeah, no worries,” she said. “Okay, you’re squishing me.”
Ruri quickly released her. She wiped her tears away and inhaled.
“How much for it?” she asked. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing.”
Rin patted off her vest, smoothing it out. She tilted her head and thought about it for a moment.
“Curses do take a minute to make,” she said. “So how about this.”
She smiled and leaned forward.
“When he’s dead, and you’ve got his house and all his money, put me up for a night or two. One night for the curse, and one night for the night I’m letting you stay here.”
“You could have much more than that ,” Ruri said.
Rin shrugged and put her hands behind her neck again, grinning.
“I might end up pocketing a few things from your house while I’m there,” Rin said nonchalantly. “But maybe what I really want is just a chance to see your pretty face again. Sometime when he’s not hanging over you.”
Ruri had to resist the urge not to throw her arms around Rin again — and then the words caught up with her, and she flushed a bright red. She hurriedly put the grape away in her pouch under her cloak.
“All right,” she whispered. “Then it’s a deal.”
Rin smiled perkily.
“That’s what it is, all right.”
Several days went past. Rin heard nothing of a duke falling ill or dying. She was starting to get a little worried.
Actually, okay. A lot worried. What if Ruri’d been picked up by someone on her way out the next morning? What if she’d lost the curse? What if Roget had caught onto her, or had her followed, and knew what she was doing? What if...what if she wasn’t all right?
It kind of irked her how much that bothered her. Why should it matter so much that a noble girl she’d only met once was all right? Why couldn’t she fall asleep without
So when Rin heard that the Duke Roget was going to be speaking at the anniversary of the country’s founding in two days, for the first time, she decided she had better attend.
The crowd was thick and restless. Body odor stained the air, and Rin wrinkled her nose. She pushed herself ahead of a particularly large man, getting a better view of the stage. There were stands behind it, full to bursting with nobility. From this distance, it was hard to tell who was who in the shaded stands, so she couldn’t see Ruri. Her heart beat nervously. What if she’d gotten home, and he’d hurt her for disappearing? What if he’d killed her before she had a chance to use the curse?
Applause rang through the crowd, and Rin followed, more out of the need to blend in than anything else, and her heart quickened as she recognized him — Duke Roget. Even from this distance, he looked like a disgusting, evil man. He smiled and waved politely to the crowd. Rin’s heart raced in her ears, so loud that that combined with the shuffle and cough of people around her, she hardly heard Roget begin to speak. Where was Ruri? Where was she? Why was this man still alive?
“...it is my great honor to...to...”
Roget’s voice hitched. He frowned. He tried to speak again.
His body seized forward, and his hand clutched at his chest. His head banged into the podium as he fell, and for a moment, there was only a stunned silence while he crumpled to the ground, dead.
Someone screamed. For a moment, Rin thought it was someone in the crowd.
Then she saw her. Ruri.
Ruri bolted down from the stands, nearly tripping on her dress as she fell dramatically to her knees beside her slightly convulsing, nearly dead husband. She screamed again, called for a doctor. Finally, people reacted. The crowd began to yell and shout — soldiers ran to keep the crowd away from the stage, while a doctor rushed out to the podium with the screaming, crying Ruri.
A soldier had to pull Ruri away from Roget while she shook so hard she was nearly jelly in his arms. Rin’s heart thrummed in her chest, and throughout the smell of body odor and spilled beer and bird droppings, she could just barely tasted it — the metallic, icy hint of a curse, dissipating as it took its victim.
Even though there was no way Ruri could see Rin from here, Rin imagined, for a moment, that the two of them met eyes. She imagined that Ruri smiled imperceptibly, before breaking down into hysterical sobs. Acted sobs. Oh, she was good.
Rin smiled, and stuffed her hands in her pockets. She quietly slipped out of the roiling crowd, and disappeared.
In a few days, she’d check on Ruri. Just to check in, of course. On how the grieving widow was doing without her dear, dear husband.
And then, perhaps, she’d claim at least one of her nights in Ruri’s home.
It would be nice to have a chance to get to know her, after all of this. Rin was looking forward to it.