Secrets of the Villainous Empress

Chapter Fourteen: Kids, From Whichever Era, Are A Pain

The window opposite my bed crept slightly open, and a dark figure sneaked in, holding three kunai in his right hand.

“Purification,” I whispered, then pressed my glowing hand to his back, and he leapt from my touch, but it was too late.

 {Activated skill: Divinity- Purification set to H2O 100%}

The man dressed in black turned to face me, and before the supposed hostility took a course on his face, blood oozed from his facial orifices, and he fell lifeless before me.

“That makes seventeen,” I muttered under my breath.

 I had purified most of his blood to water, causing him to die of haemolysis, which is the rupturing of the red blood cells due to water imbalance. It was the quickest and least bloody way to die as, despite everything, this is still my set room, and I refuse to sleep next to rotting blood.

“They really aren’t letting me sleep tonight,” I muttered, and a shadow landed on the open window sill.

I placed my hand gently on their chest as fast as possible when glimmering green eyes met my own.

“Relax,” the familiar baritone voice spoke, “It's me, Hends.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Why are you back? Is everything clear outside?” I asked, then moved away from the window to the body lying on the floor, “Could you get this as well.”

“It’s all clear, but why the hell did you invite that pink rabbit?”

“Pink rabbit?” I frowned, then walked to the lamp next to my bedside table and turned it on to dim as that was the most assured way to lead all the assassins away from my staff's quarters.

“Yeah, pink hair, timid personality but a big mouth?”

-Pink hair?-

“Oh, you mean Fuscia’s arrived safely? That’s good.” I smiled. Now that the female lead is here, Aleu will pay close attention to what will be happening behind palace walls, “What do you mean, ‘big mouth’? Are you put off by someone who has an opinion?”

“As if!” Hends scoffed, then lept from the window sill to the floor.

He then turned to close the windows, then leaned casually on the wall next to it.

“This isn’t the countryside; she will be eaten alive for having an opinion without the strength to back it!”

“She’ll be fine.” I said dismissively, then pointed at the body once more, “That, take care of it.”

He gave himself a quick push from the wall, then bent down to pick the corpse and turned to me.

“Outside or with the rest?”

“Don’t even tempt me with the notion of ‘outside.’ You know how much this pains me,” I responded as I walked to the bathroom and pointed to where he could place the corpse. “I would gladly do this outside but, I can't risk being spotted. The element of surprise needs to work in my favour.”

“This grand reveal thing is really it for you, huh?” he said as he placed the body on the large stone bathtub that sat atop three steps.

“I could do this louder and bolder, but I really want to play,” I smiled, then stretched my hand out at the body.

“Riiight…I forgot how terrible your personality is.”

I did like toying with people, that was true, but the main reason I am using this slow method is first to identify who my enemies are, not to fight them, but to give them more ammunition to use against Aleu.

To most, moving from cowardice to tyrannical sounds like a quantum leap, but truthfully, tyrants are cowards. Allios feared losing me, so he kept me bound to him. He feared betrayal, so he did not trust. He feared heartbreak, so he only ever loved possessively. He feared war, so he killed countless in the name of peace.

I hate tyrants to the very core of my being. Still, I am curious as to what a brave tyrant looks like, and I intend to experiment fully with Aleu, as the role only called for an outcome of a ‘tyrant,’ and I refuse to believe that there is only one kind of tyrant out there. So I will not clear his path or eliminate any potential problem.

I will do anything and everything to push him to the very limits so that I can see the oblivion behind his fear.

“Purification,” I uttered, and just like the rest of the assassins before, the body lying lifelessly in my bathtub began to glow. Before long, the assassin's body turned to water that pooled down the drain, leaving no trace behind but a memory of its existence. But that too, like many things, will be lost to time.

Assassins were trained in the Southern Isles, quite different from ninjas who had an academy set up with a master/disciple training system. Assassins were mostly young orphaned slaves trained enough to be empty killing vessels that never question orders. Always leaping from job to job without knowing when they might meet their end.

I pressed my palms together then bowed.

Perhaps it was a kindred sense of spirit that I felt with them, but I closed my eyes and uttered a small prayer that whoever was listening with a keen enough sense of kindness to grant all that have lost their lives meaninglessly today peace in their next lives.

“So…?” Hends propped his foot on the raised bath area then turned to face me, “What do you mean she will be fine.”

I rolled my eyes then turned to leave the room.

“Because she will be,” I said nonchalantly as I re-entered the main bedroom.

“Simon, why is it that you killed all those assassins? Wasn’t it because you were stronger than they? If you were weaker, wouldn’t you have died? I mean, look at the knights outside your room? They are standing outside your door in the name of ‘guarding you’, but they let more than fifteen assassins slip by?!”

“Are you trying to say that the assassins are more trained than they?” he asked, “I mean, for me, I understand, I am strong-,”

According to the system, my room was soundproof. However, Hends did have a point. A keen enough knight could smell blood.

-Hmm…I am certain Cyril is a spy, but what if Luke is too?-

“What is your point, Henderson?” I asked, crossing my arms on my chest as I walked him casually to the window.

“My point is that the weak have no way of surviving here, yet you claim that she will be alright?”

“Are you concerned about the rabbit’s safety?” I teased.

“Bro-?!”

“How did you survive as a snot-nosed brat?” I asked him, hoping that if I answered his question fast enough, he might drop the entire issue, “Wasn’t it because I protected you?”

“Are you saying that she is yours to protect?”

“No, but she will be protected.” I sighed, “What? What is it that you want me to say, Henderson? That you are right in your assumption?”

“Well, you are, but luck is an insane factor in the game of life,” I explained, then opened the window for him. “Unlike you or I who have to bleed to understand the joys of living, others do not carry that burden. Lucky them.”

“Look,” I calmed the emotion in my voice, “the rabbit will be fine; maybe she will grow strong or awaken during her stay here, I don’t know?! But if I were you, I’d be kissing her ass right about now.”

“What? Why?”

-Because she will be your Empress after I fall.-

“Because it is kissable, now out.” I pointed outside, “I need to sleep.”

“With those duds as guards?”

“I have a purpose in leaving them be, now out!” I pointed again then yawned.

Hends walked towards me then ruffled my hair as though I were his pet.

“What the-“

“Why? Why do I have to kiss her ass while yours is more kissable?”

-Wow, who raised this bastard?-

I grabbed his arm forcefully, then twisted it to his back, causing him to groan.

“Who do you think you are petting, you brat!!”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!!” he whimpered, and I let go.

He neared the window while rubbing his shoulders, then turned back to me.

 “Bro, I really hate it when I see you and then the next time I come back, you are gone, missing or dead.” He said in a still voice.

“How many funerals do you think I have attended, just praying that this will not be the one that takes you from me.”

-This brat, he’s only known me for what? Two, three lifetimes?-

-Kids!-

“That is why this time, I will not let you die!” he proclaimed, a statement that would have filled me with hope had this been my first or second lifetime, but you do not understand, Henderson. I am awfully tired.

“Everything will be settled by next week, after which we shall sit and have a nice long chat.” I said, “I promise.”

“Why next week? Why not now before you vanish?”

“Because I need your head in the game for now, so please?” I pleaded as I pointed to the cold night, and though he looked torn, he nodded, and seconds later, Henderson lept outside my window, leaving me in the semi-darkness of my room.

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5 a.m. Mayflower Central Station

The entire station was abuzz with reporters who looked as though they had literally camped outside, all for the opportunity to photograph the major houses as they emerged from the train.

More than the cold of the morning, the scent of coffee was dominant in the air as boundless chatter filled the streets.

All exits to the station were blocked by management, except the main central one lined in a glamourous ruby carpet. Temporary fences were lined to allow the reporters to keep a respectable distance from the prominent families set to arrive, and suffice to say, anyone in the train that was currently carrying any of the noble houses would be forced to experience delays.

Knights surrounded the pathway, jolting all the paparazzi to focus. As the tense silence filled the air, the next duchess of the Southern Isles, a famous playwright and actress Alivai Isles Nichols and the Duke, her fiance Nickson Isles Nichols walked down the paved carpet waving.

The duke slid his hands in the future duchesses as they made their way quickly into their carriage.

“Man! I heard that she took his name early because hers was tied to a scandal.” One reporter dressed in green said to his friend passively as he examined the pictures he had taken from his crystal-based camera.

“No, you i***t? Where do you get your news from, hearsay?” a slim, raggedly dressed girl with an outdated crystal camera asked, “It's because she was an orphan, and most orphans do not have second names. Pair that with the fact that she gave birth to his child last year, and you get that she only took his name before their marriage because she did not want her child to be nameless.”

“Huh? i***t?” the man fumed, “How dare you disrespect your elders!!”

“Gilbert, calm down.” His friend soothed, “You'll be kicked out if you cause a fuss!”

“Tch! Watch your back, kid!!” the man called Gilbert threatened, then changed locations allowing the ragged girl to claim their former position easily.

“I give you facts, and you insult me. Aaahhaa, you really can't help everyone,” The girl shrugged, then aimed her camera that threatened to give up at any second at the carriage.

“Is what you say about the duchess true?” a woman who seemed as though she was in her late thirties, dressed in a tight navy blue suit and matching tight skirt, asked the girl.

“It could be.” The girl replied, “I got it from a reliable source, so it probably is.”

“A reliable source? And what is this..source?”

“Ah! Ah! Ah! A reporter never reveals their sources.” The girl replied cheekily.

“You wish to become a reporter?” the woman asked, and a shadow crossed the girl’s face at the question.

The little girl knew what the woman would say, even before she did. She would mention the stiff competition at the royal academy and how she could never be accepted, especially considering that she reeked poverty.

But that was fine. The Royal Academy was not the only school teaching Journalism or Photography. She could go to the Western territory, they had equally established schools, and perhaps, those will give her a chance if she scored some good scoop today.

“I am Preston Lee. I am the creative director at Mayflower news,” the woman smiled then turned to pull a card from her purse, offering it to the girl.

“Mandy.” The girl said in introduction, half in awe that her bland and worn out prediction had not come true, and half excited at the doors opening up before her very eyes.

As much as the lack of etiquette was a turn-off to Preston, it indicated untapped potential.

“I think we can help each other out, Mandy.”

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Yes, the breaking day was one filled with promise, some of which will surely leave a mark on the Empire.