Path of Ruin: The Dawn of a New Era

26. Ena 1317 of the solar calendar, the capital of Rout Nitis-Rout-en

Luke POV

One hour had passed since the arrival of the last visitors when a beautiful decorated carriage rattled up. He came from the north, across the bridge from the palace.

When they stop in the mansion's courtyard, a servant opens the door. Princess Elizabeth comes out first, I recognize her by her golden-green hair, passed down through the royal family. She has a dark green dress stitched with gold lines forming eagle head patterns on her back and flowers embellishing the entire dress. The second person to appear is Sofie, her eleven-year-old cousin. She has a white dress woven with silver threads.

The girls, escorted, enter the house and soon disappear from my sight. No one else will come. The silence of the night is occasionally broken by screams coming from the building.

I wait a little longer before I slowly approach the mansion in the shadows. Two guards outside the gate. I wait a while for their vigilance to subside and then quietly sneak into the courtyard.

I zigzag through the carriages until I get to Emilia's. I draw my dagger and damage his wheel. Before I quietly go back.

My shadow flickers and one of the guards sees it in the flickering light. He goes to see me. I quickly roll under the carriage and breathe shallowly, almost inaudibly.

A guard with a bow walks next to the carriage and, judging by the movement of his feet, is probably looking around. Finally, he turns and starts walking back. He suddenly stops and bows. He looks under the carriages, but I'm not there anymore. When he started to move, I quickly rolled to the opposite side of the car and jumped on the gap by the door, he didn't have a chance to see me.

I finally left the mansion and once again behaved in an alley on the opposite side of the street.

Later, the first drunken nobles gradually start to emerge from the house and get into their carriages with their entourage.

Emili and her family are among the last to leave the house. They board the carriage, unaware of its damage. He discovers this only after the carriage is hitched and the wheel is completely free.

Her parents' anger gets to me before they decide to walk home after some time. After all, their house is not too far.

Emili is a little behind, behind her parents and younger sisters, the twins. I follow them and prepare to attack. They have two guards around them, but they are in front of the family. They have no chance to react to my attack even if they wanted to.

I finally decide to take a step, but pause for a second. I've done this kind of work a few times before, but I'm still not used to it. Also, all my previous targets were adults. I grip the dagger tighter and quickly get something in front of them.

I make my move right after her family turns and is out of sight for a second. I immediately turn, bump into the girl and stab with the dagger.

The blade passes her side instead of cutting into her torso. At my impact, her leg went so clumsily that she avoided the fatal blow and knocked us both down. I react in an instant and stab her neck with a dagger, I push her torso to the ground with my knee and she is still shocked.

Time seemed to stand still. My eyes meet hers and I see a myriad of emotions in them. A fleeting sad smile appears under my scarf as I read her eyes like a book. Shock, fear, pain, sadness, frustration, the unacceptability of what is about to happen, as if the words appeared in her: This is how it will end, I refuse to accept it, but it is too late to do anything, she knows she has no hope. I am so mesmerized by her that I don't notice the loosening of the scarf, falling beside her.

The dagger lands and stabs into the ground next to her neck. I curse silently. I couldn't kill her, not after what I saw in her eyes. Letting go of the dagger, I rise to my feet, cursing my sentimentality as I do so, and quickly run into the alleys. I weave through them without stopping before finally stopping.

I look around. No one is following me. I guess they decided to keep an eye on Miss Emily. I need to breathe, I'm exhausted.

Pain strikes out of nowhere. My whole body seemed to freeze. There are sounds in my head, like drum beats. A thin trickle of blood flows from my nose, down my chin until the drop is released and falls to the ground. There is a clunk as it hits the ground.

I lose all my strength in my body and fall to the ground. My head hits the pavement and I feel the liquid of my life spilling over it. I'm fainting.

…

I regain consciousness and the first thing that greets me is a terrible headache. For some unknown reason, I am no longer on the pavement. Am I at straws? Probably yes. I don't try to open my eyes, but I rest for a while and gather strength.

I open my eyes. At first it's stiff and the sunlight comes through the half-open cracks, but I slowly get used to it and look around.

I'm home? Yes, it is our house and in one corner I see two shadows having fun. But how did I get here? Hadn't I been lying on the pavement bleeding before?

After recalling these events, the wound on my head starts to hurt a lot and I have to close my eyes and calm down again, eventually I fall asleep.

I wake up and open my eyes. Darkness fell, but the stars had not yet come out. I hear a familiar voice: “Luke, you're finally awake. You've been gone for almost two whole days, since Ezra found you!” That reproachful voice could belong to none other than Sara. If I could make a smirk, it would definitely appear on my face.

I lift myself up a bit and look around. All five rush to me and I am bombarded with questions that are thankfully silenced by Eon. He looks at me and you can see the question in his eyes if he should tell them about my illness.