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No one would remember her story, she thought, as she looked up at the night sky, no one would remember her, nor would they remember the people she had loved, who had their own stories to tell. She would be lost in the whirlwind that is history and strangely, it didn't bother her, as she stood under the apple tree, it's blood red fruit glistening in the moonlight.
Life had not been good to her, it had been cruel even, but she had tried her best to prove it wrong, to prove to herself that she would be able to fight off whatever it sent her way.
She was born on an uncertain day to a father who never got the chance to love her, and a mother who had never been capable of giving her the attention she needed. She was born with Nordic blood in her veins to make her strong and resilient, and Imperial blood to tone it all down, to make her blend with the population, to help her go unnoticed.
And she used it to her complete advantage.
For it was at the tender age of ten that an assassin crept into the night to murder her mother and stepfather, to send their souls to the void. She had been scared then, but the assassin had been kind to her, he had held her to him when she had let her tears fall down her pale cheeks and he had explained to her the ways of the world, that bad people always get what they deserve, no matter how well they hide.
He brought her with him that night, on a steed as black as enony, holding her in front of him as they made their way towards her new life. He had presented her to his family, and they had all accepted her with wide open arms for she had been a promise long awaited. She would bring glory to them all, they knew, they could see it in her dark eyes.
They taught her how to be a killer, how to dance amongst the shadows and how to lead unsuspecting men and women into the dark abyss that is the void with a tilt of her head and a sweet smile to her lips.
But every time she took someone's life she remembered the words her assassin had whispered to her as she lay crying; bad people always get what they deserve, no matter how well they hide.
For years these very words plagued her, as she destroyed and created with a simple flick of her blade. They jumped to the front of her mind the day she met the Speaker overlooking her Sanctuary, dark eyes, so similar to her own, shining under the candlelight as he told her how pleased to meet her he was, grinning, his voice soft as satin and as sharp as the blade she held at her side. She knew then, why people called him the best assassin to ever join the brotherhood.
She also learned, years later, as she stood in the middle of her home, surrounded by the people she held most dear, a dripping dagger in her cold hands, why people called him the cruelest assassin to ever join the brotherhood.
But she loved him, perhaps more than the man who had saved her, perhaps more than the father she had never known, with whom she shared her eyes, always so dark, even when the sun's blinding light shone upon them. She loved him, deeply and irrevocably.
And she liked to believe that he loved her too.
She remembered the heartbreak in his eyes the day he claimed her to be a traitor as she stood over the corpse of an innocent man, and she remembered the relief moments later when he realized the error of his accusation. He had taken her in his arms then, whispering sweet nothing in her ear as he left a trail of kisses along her jaw. He had promised her that they would meet again soon, when the cloud that stood above them dissipated, he had promised her that he would wait under the apple tree of a farm long abandoned.
She had believed him.
But when she returned to him, a week later, good news on the tip of her tongue, she saw how naive she had been. A circle of smiling people dressed in familiar black robes was what greeted her when she entered the desolate farmhouse, all so excited to show her the body hanging from the rafters. Later, when she had only herself as company, she would scream, scream until her voice was raw, scream until the pain of loosing him was no more.
But then, she would have to scream for all of eternity,
She would find the man who had betrayed her beloved, she would kill him in front of all those ready to witness, showing them how wrong they had been, throwing the fact that they had killed an innocent man to their faces as her goddess praised her and gave her a title wanted by all.
She would find no satisfaction in it. She would only remember the words a man long gone had given her to make her own; people always get what they deserve, no matter how well they hide.
She never found the strength to hide after that.
She would wander aimlessly amidst the green plains of her country, taking every apple she could find and planting them where nothing grew. She would remember how fond of them he had been when she finally decided to eat one, digging her teeth in it's sweet flesh, memories of a laughing man dancing amongst the dead flashing before her eyes.
For many weeks she would wait with baited breath for the night where a figure cloaked in shadow would end her lifeless existence. She knew that she had no purpose to serve, she had betrayed her family with a stab to the back, and she had betrayed the man she loved by not being there for him.
Is there no greater dishonour?
On a day like any other, she found herself walking a familiar path to a familiar house, a house filled with stories of murder and treachery, of betrayal, of disbelief. As she walked around the grounds, tears escaping her eyes, she found a tree with fruit as red as blood where once upon a time, her beloved would have met her. Where he would have pulled her into his arms and spun her around in a whirlwind of black.
But he would never come.
She understood then, as the smooth blade he had given her pierced her heart, the stars atop her head mocking her with their brilliance, that no one had to exact their revenge on her, but that she had to exact her own revenge on herself. Out of all the people she killed, the people she hurt, the people she tortured, out of all the people that had felt pain by her hand she had been the one who had suffered the most. It was time that she had her say, she was the only one that held that honour after all.
As her life's blood slowly flowed down her torso in a jet of glittering rubies, she couldn't help but smile, for in her delirium, she would feel a slight and oh so familiar caress on her cheek, and hear the sound of someone taking a bite of an apple.
She had known from the moment she could consciously think that she would be forgotten, she had never been spectacularly special, she had never stood out in the sea of people she was forced to swim in every day, but looking back on her life, she could only be happy that no one would know the story of the assassin that learned how bad people always get what they deserve, no matter how well they hide.