Enemies and Lovers

She watched the prince dance. Agile and swift. A worthy opponent perhaps. But she didn’t want a worthy opponent. She didn’t have the luxury to ravel in the fight. Not when her survival depended on it. There was a time when she would fight amongst friends, where even loss would be accompanied by a giggle. Now it was simply kill or be killed. It was a lesson she had learnt the hard way. She moved amongst the guests, a phantom presence. There was a simple mission for the evening. Kill the prince. She hadn’t believed it at first. Her last target had been a noble man, but a prince was a long way up. Go on, they had said, we trust you can do this. You are good enough. Bullshit. She had known then that they had wanted her to fail. For her to be out of their hair. They didn’t seem to want her any longer. She had simply nodded when the Handler gave her the instructions. He expected theatrics. She would prove them wrong, she thought, as she followed the prince as he left the hall. She had survived far greater odds than that. ** The tinkling of the bells in her anklet resonated in the empty hallways. She had to get out of the shadows eventually. What kind of a fool was the prince to walk into the deserted part of the palace. There were no guards, no torches. The glow from the moon lit the courtyard and the pillared hallway. With every step she tried to draw attention. A hard task for someone who had spent two years dodging it. The bangles and the anklets made enough clamor to annoy her, but she needed the prince to approach her, she couldn’t risk a fair fight. Survival seemed to favor the cheaters rather than the honorable ones. The prince turned and her hand reached to the tip of her knife. She plastered on a smile. It felt foreign, the tug of her lips. It reminded her of the times at school, when life seemed to focus around homework and assignments. She waited for the prince to approach her, but he stood still. He looked formidable. He was tall, and well built. Power rippled through his movements. She gulped. Kill or be killed. She had waited long for the prince to halt, and she would wait for him to approach her. The breeze flitted through her hair, caressing her cheek. Even the wind in this land felt sinister. Her dress was made of thin gossamer silk and it danced with the wind. A chill passed through her. A part of her hoped the prince would be just as stubborn as her and would never step forward so she might not have to kill him. She developed this sympathy, this pang of conscience before every kill. Hoping time be frozen so she may spare the target. She saw the way they smiled at their children, or the beautiful sound of their voices, and collected them greedily, those moments of beauty she would destroy. And the prince had so much beauty in him. In the way he brushed aside his dark curly hair as they fell into his eyes, in the way he smiled when he spoke with his sister. There was beauty in the sharp cut of his jaw and the graceful movement of his muscular form. Beauty she would destroy. “Who are you?” He broke the stalemate, though he stood afar. His hands were crossed. She was not a threat to him. “Why don’t you come here and find out?” She tried to sound playful. “I am not interested,” he said, impassive. She was annoyed then. He hadn’t noticed her attempts to follow him and now he was completely rejecting her. She had heard reports of the prince and his dalliances. Layla had gone through great efforts to make her look stunning for her evening at the palace. She wasn’t going to fail just because a man didn’t find her attractive. The stakes were too high for her. She walked up to him. He had already turned his back to her, a perfect opportunity. “You’re not as good as you think,” he said, just as she pulled out the knife. Her hand froze on the hilt, long enough for him to grip it and twist it behind her back. It may have hurt once. He was close enough for her to see circles beneath his black eyes. She kept her gaze on him. Get it over with, kill me already, she wanted to say. Put me out of this misery. For she didn’t know how many more men she could kill. “You could’ve killed me from the shadows, but you hesitated,” he smirked, “an assassin with a conscience, you’re in the wrong profession.” It was her turn to smirk when she pulled out another knife, in the brooch in her hair, from her free hands and aimed it at his throat. But he had moved fast and she felt the edge of the knife on her stomach. “Go on then, do it,” she dared. Moving forward, so the dagger drew blood from her stomach. “Who sent you?” “You’re a prince, I suppose you have many enemies.” She paused. “Why drag me here if you knew, you could’ve informed the guards” “I didn’t know you were there until you began banging your feet on the ground, after that I was impressed enough to see what you might do, I don’t encounter many beautiful assassins with a conscience” He was playing with her, she could see that. It angered her then that her plan might crumble because she had hesitated then. Kill or be killed. It was a simple rule. She stabbed him, even as she felt his knife graze her stomach. She saw the shock in his dark eyes. She pushed him away onto the ground and she ran.