The Sword Made Of Ice

The cold down here was a creature. It clung to the stones, wrapped itself around my exposed skin like a fish gasping for air outside the water. I had been lying in the dark for what felt like hours, or maybe only minutes. I don’t know anymore. My time bled away with the heat from my body, and I wasn’t even thinking about any other form of warmth I could dig my fingers into. I couldn’t hope for any mercy, because of my failure.

So I pressed down harder.

A muffled sound escaped my throat, something I would never dare to do in front of my Queen. I focused on her face as the grit of the cave floor burned against my cheek. The wound on my stomach was ragged. Weak.

I am weak. And it never happened to me.

My enemy was playing with me like a puppet master enjoying their new toy. And the scissors are missing.

A fine knife had sliced through my leather belt during the chaos of the Queen’s chamber the night before. I had burned my skin and pulled the barbed head out with my own teeth. But the damage was done. My insides felt loose, and every shallow breath sent a new wave of agony radiating up my aching spine. I suddenly forced myself up onto my elbows. The movement made white sparks shine in my pupils as I tasted ash and copper on my tongue. I bit down on the leather strap and reached for the needle I kept sewn into the hem of my black tunic.

I pulled the thread through and steadied it with trembling hands, the strong drink still burning through my veins. The needle hovered while my skin turned every shade of purple possible. Beneath it, the slimy coil of my own intestines pushed against the breach.

This is not looking good.

I bit harder on the leather before I pushed the needle in. The world went white while my hand went red. I would say I’d survived worse. That’s not true. In this case, I have to survive. I have to live.

I forced my eyes to stay open, and my fingers moved on their own accord. I’d done this before, only the pain was new. The needle emerged from the other side of the wound, trailing a red thread now resting against my flesh. The skin puckered closed with a wet sound.

Four stitches. Five. Six.

The moment I realized it was over, I collapsed back onto the floor. My chest felt heavier, and the leather strap fell from my mouth instantly.

My breath was still ragged as I looked around, my eyes falling on the rat droppings and the mold. This was the only place I could find, and it would have to be enough even if I knew my wound wouldn’t agree. I reached for the bottle I had stolen and tucked it further into the folds of my cloak.

For the next few minutes, I was not in a cave anymore. I was back on the royal balcony roof, waiting for orders that never came. These wounds are nothing next to what I’ve survived by my own hand. Her eyes. Her sorrow. As if she wanted to be honest, just once. I never asked for more, she was the one who let me have it. I won’t ask for more now either.

I clenched my teeth harder and focused on my mistake, so I could repair it. I was hidden. Even if I was bleeding to death, I was hidden. I was waiting for an open door, but every way was closed to me.

I calmed myself down. The city did not.

It started as a very low vibration passing through the stone floor. I looked up, knowing exactly what the sound was.

This is it. Many of them.

The sound was coming from the bar above. The floorboards groaned under the weight of armored men. I could hear the low murmur of gruff voices ordering the frightened patrons to the floor. Then a door slammed open upstairs. A man’s voice bellowed, “By order of the Crown Regent, this establishment is hereby placed under martial seal! No one leaves! Every corner, every barrel, every shadow ,turn them inside out! She is wounded. She cannot have gone far.”

I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The blood was still seeping through the stitches, dripping down my hip to the ground, and it was louder than anything else.

A trail of blood too fresh to be anything but hers.

“Check the back. Move the crates.”

And then silence. I held my breath, hiding in the shadow of the cave. The knife in my hand was too slick, but I gripped it tighter anyway.

Suddenly, a shadow fell across the trapdoor. A beam of candlelight pierced through the crack in the seal. It was a void-lamp, powered by crystallized whale oil, its beam bright enough to cut through any shadow hiding an assassin. The light swept across the cave, illuminating the dangling roots and the puddle of blood at my feet.

I didn’t flinch. I waited. There were too many of them for me to get away alive in my state. The Royal Guard yelled something I couldn’t understand not because his mouth was moving too fast, but because in reality, I was just too slow. My knife felt useless in my hand, like it had the night before, but even so, I never begged for mercy or grace. The trapdoor burst open, and the men encircled me in a well-rehearsed formation, weapons pointed toward me. They fanned out, forming a semicircle, swords drawn, as I looked at them, knowing deeply my fate. Thinking that we will die someday is one thing. Actually seeing no way out no passage hidden in the dark, no trap that would lead me somewhere else, is something else entirely.

I thought for a second about raising my knife and fighting. But for what, and for who? Death was already mine, and it would have been a pathetic gesture. I dropped the blade with a loud thud, looked down, and put my hands behind my back.

“Assassin Herin of the Fireagen Kingdom, by order of the Crown Regent, and by the authority vested in the Royal Guard of the Edwynmore Throne, you are hereby arrested for the murder of Her Royal Majesty, Queen Hildegarde Edwynmore.”

I stayed silent and let them bind my limbs as my sight went blurred.

“Tie her securely,” he ordered. “The Princes want her alive.”

I felt blood on my tongue as everything went dark, and my body gave out when the guard brought me up into the light.