Rating Warning!
For Violence and dark thoughts

CHAPTER 3 ~ Zoe's Questioning Eyes

FOUR MONTHS LATER

The ale I drank was stale, but then so was the tavern and it was to be expected. The room held only a few occupants, including the owner and his supposed wife. Three other people were seated at various tables. My table in the corner was lit only by a small flame on a single candle. It was still too much light. My eyesight had become so used to the darkness, I saw better in it and I preferred it.

The stranger at the farthest table from me got up and walked up to mine. He paused there and stood watching me. I chose to ignore him for the moment. He wasn’t carrying my food, so it made him of little consequence. Still, I covertly flicked my wrist dagger into my hand.

“I was told you can sneak into anywhere,” he finally spoke in a very low voice.

No one in the room was close enough to hear him, but let him think he was being subtle. He was obviously here for a job.

“I have a job for you if that’s true.”

This guy was not the smartest in the bunch.

“Oh?” I finally responded.

My slight acknowledgment seemed to put him at ease, because he pulled out a chair. I flicked my eyes up to his and he stopped cold. Steal gray blue eyes could come in handy.

“Um, yeah. No questions,” he clarified.

“I got a reason to ask any?” If this guy wasn’t so dumb, it might have been fun torturing him.

“No, of course not,” he answered quickly.

This guy was more trees short of a forest than I originally thought. Who could a coward like this possibly want to murder so badly?

My silence must have unnerved him more because he quickly pulled out a pouch and placed it on the table. Then he glanced around, presumably checking to see if anyone had noticed. His attitude would make a blind man notice him. It was disgusting.

“I can pay you well. I need it done tonight.” He was looking at the floor as he talked.

I lifted my hand above the table and used the tip of the dagger I still held to slit the bag open. Coins fell out. He looked at the bag, eyes wide. I paid him little attention. It was a lot of money. More than a simpleton like this should have had on him. I glanced up at him.

He swallowed, but this time held my gaze.

“Where?” I asked finally, having made my decision to take the job.

“He’s in a house on the outskirts of the forest,” he answered with a rush of breath.

I nodded. “I’ll need a map of the house.”

He agreed eagerly. “I can get that. I know the house well.”

“Then do it,” I commanded in an even tone.

He nodded again and quickly went to the owner’s wife. She disappeared from the room for a moment. I watched with detached interest. Whoever this man was, he hadn’t thought this through. He was acting on some instinct inside him to protected what little he had and he was willing to pay dearly for it. Either the man I was to kill was a bully or he was operating scared on someone else’s orders. Either way, didn’t matter to me. It was just one more job to learn from and there was always the easy money. He was going to get his murder.

Simpleton appeared back at my table and handed me a folded up piece of parchment. He had folded it, why? I opened it to find a very simple drawing. Four boxes made up the whole cottage. The back left one was the bedroom and the front right one held the front door. A second bedroom and a kitchen were the other two rooms. It wasn’t a difficult setup.

“Um, how will I know its done?” Simpleton asked.

“He won’t come out tomorrow,” I answered.

He was silent for a moment, then said, “Right.”

I waited and then glanced up at him. He was standing there frozen.

“Stand there any longer and you won’t be coming out either,” I informed him coldly.

His eyes widened for a second, before he nodded and exited the tavern quickly.

Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as I thought. I grabbed the money, replaced my dagger, and headed out after him. I had a job to do before I left the town too.

***

I slipped into the house and glared at the door when it let out a small creak. The room was fully dark, but it was only slightly more so than outside and my eyes adjusted quickly. The room was highly simple. Two chairs, one slightly smaller than the other, a fireplace, table, pile of wood, and a single wall hanging. It wasn’t the house of a hardened bully.

My mind made the observation as I moved toward my objective, the closed door on the left. The first open door led to the kitchen. I saw the loose floorboard before I stepped on it and avoided it. One creak in the night was enough. If the second room was occupied I didn’t want to wake whoever it was. I already might have to deal with a wife or something. I opened the door slowly, satisfied when it didn’t make a noise. A single occupant was in the bed. I was almost disappointed. Two people in bed made it more challenging and that was the whole point.

A single window let in some of the moonlight. It didn’t quite reach the bed, but it would still cast a shadow. Unnoticeable usually, but if he was a light sleeper I couldn’t take the chance. I crept up on the other side. As I got close, I slid my dagger into my hand. It would see one more kill tonight. I stopped suddenly and frowned. He couldn’t have been too much older than me. Still, it meant he was no longer a boy and I could complete my job.

Silently I lifted the knife when the man in the bed shifted. His eyes opened, just as I grabbed his mouth. “Hush,” I whispered coldly, even as I slid the knife across his throat. His eyes widened and he raised a hand towards me, but it was far too late. The light in his eyes died and his hand fell with a soft thump. This really was getting far to easy. I needed a better challenge and quickly. I slid the broad side of the knife down his clothes, cleaning off most of the blood. Then I turned to leave.

I stopped cold. Standing in the doorway was a young girl. Her startled green eyes were wide in horror as she looked at the bed. He must have been her older brother. He hadn’t been reaching to me, but to his younger sister. The girl clutched a small corn silk doll tightly to her chest. Her red hair fell all over her shoulders and a small whimper came from her. Only then did she look towards me. Her green eyes met mine in a connection that shot through me like a wave of harsh judging fire. They held such sorrow and questioning. Suddenly, she seemed to morph before my eyes. Her mouth and nose became slightly wider, her eyes grew greener and her red hair longer.

“Zoe…” I whispered horrified.

“Why Aiden?” she asked me her voice so full of sorrow that it felt like she had ripped what heart I had once into pieces far too small to ever pick up.

“I didn’t…” but the words caught in my throat. Zoe had seen me murder someone. I had done it.

“Caltryn?” a small voice asked. “Big brother?”

Zoe disappeared and a different girl stood in her place, but she still had Zoe’s eyes. My feet moved suddenly and I raced out of the house and into the forest. I ran blindly and I would for a very long time.

***

I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. The taste of bile still firmly there. The puddle in front of me reeked of my insides now spewed all over the forest floor. It was no help to get it all out. Zoe’s face was firmly before my eyes. She asked and accused me of crimes worse than…no, exactly like I had committed. And I had no defense.

I struggled to my feet and walked on. It seemed I had run for hours before I had lost any food in my system, but it wasn’t enough. I was still thinking. I could still hear Zoe’s voice repeating over and over, “why, Aiden, why?” For once in my life, I didn’t have an answer.

***

I will never understand how I managed to find myself in the tavern that had started the whole incident. I only know I was there with the same stale mug of ale. I sat at the counter this time, no one dared bother me… almost no one.

“What’s the problem, Stranger?” The tavern owner’s wife asked.

“It’s stale,” I replied, aching for a confrontation as much as I didn’t want one.

“It always is, love, but you drank it last night. So, what’s your problem now?” Her voice was low and had a sugar sweet quality to it.

“Ever heard of Caltryn?” I asked suddenly, not lifting my head from staring at the mug.

I could feel her surprised gaze. “He’s a good boy. Has a farm not far from here. Helps out the blacksmith now and again. Why? What’s he done to you?”

Nothing, and maybe that was the problem. “He got a sister too?”

“Not biological. Emma was an orphan at his doorstep one night. He never turned her out. How do you know them? Are they okay?” Her voice was thick with concern now.

I knew I was going to hurl at any moment. I put the mug down and slid off the stool, putting all but a few of the coins the simpleton had given me on the table. “Kid’s in trouble. Help her.”

And I walked out.

***

I walked for weeks, or days, something like that. I had no direction, no point, I had failed yet again. Facts I should have known haunted me and the blackness inside and out seemed darker than ever before. Though that might not have been actually possible.

No matter how far or fast I went, Zoe’s voice followed me. Asking my ‘why’ and badgering me with questions I could not and would not answer. Eventually, I stopped trying to mount a defense and simply let her go on asking as I kept walking.

When I at last broke free of the forest which ran behind me and too my south, I found a vast empty land in front of me. It was so large there was no end in site. At my north was a mountain range, but that was all the stood out in the landscape. I needed to choose a direction. There would not be much wild game where there was no forest. The wide expanse in front of me was something I didn’t feel like crossing. I needed to be able to work too.

I had to keep learning, developing my skills. It was important, despite any defiance my siblings might raise with letters, Duard had to be taken down directly. I had to take him down. And I would. But I wasn’t ready. Not yet. If he was asleep in his bed, it might be easy. But I wasn’t even sure the old codger slept. It was too risky that he would wake and I would have to fight him. I couldn’t let a single word stop me this time. That meant I had to be stronger, I needed skill enough to fight him in any situation that rose. A new way to learn.

I could gain nothing else from murdering people in their houses. I needed awake opponents. People who would have a reason to fight back. I was through killing people without all the facts. I couldn’t make Zoe suffer for it.

Emma.

I shook off her name. I needed new lessons and victims that were awake and fighting that was all. I would go where I could find that. I looked at my two choices again. North or east were my only real options. East was safe. The castle would keep her that way. North to the mountains. I needed to go in that directions.

I turned to the looming mountains. There might be dangers to hold at bay from that direction. New challenges. My thoughts tumbled over each other. They were not all coherent, but I knew I needed to go to the mountains. So, that is the direction I headed.

***