Mercenary Little Death Bringer (3 page)

“That is not a proper way to speak to a
lady,” Mother said with a weary sigh. “Alright, be on your way
children.”

I picked the sides of the dress up to keep
from tripping on it and ran to her, kissing her cheek before
darting out of the ballroom and down the hallway. Favian was on my
heels as we ran and followed me up the staircase made of
exquisitely carved white elm and into my room, which was the first
door on the left at the top of the stairs. “Why must you always be
in these inconveniently difficult to remove dresses when it’s time
to go?” he complained as I kicked off my heels.

My room oozed with femininity from the pink
lace curtains to the frilly and fluffy down comforter which despite
its ugliness was incredibly warm. I had tried to incorporate my own
tastes into the room, but every time I left for the Academy Mother
raided my room and removed anything masculine.

“Just start unbuttoning the dress quickly or
we will be even later to school,” I said as I pulled off the white
satin gloves and began removing the various jewelry items she
forced me to wear and put them away inside the jewelry box on the
vanity. They were all items I didn’t have interest in, but valued
since they were gifts from Mother and I knew she enjoyed seeing me
wear them and keep them in the jewelry box which Kato had carved
for me.

Favian worked expertly, unbuttoning the fifty
little buttons extremely quickly. I bit my tongue to keep from
asking how he had gained such experience in unbuttoning the dress
so quickly. “Now hurry and change. I’ll go get the horses ready,”
he said irritably.

I nodded my head in understanding and stepped
out of the dress, tossing it onto the large fluffy and incredibly
comfortable bed and then grabbed my pants and long sleeved shirt
that were mandatory wear at school. It was my sixth and last year
at the school and I was determined to be the first girl to have
ever attended or finished the Academy.

Favian and I both attended Macon Academy, a
school for those gifted in fighting. The school was created to
teach boys to become men and to train them to be able to get jobs
as mercenaries, guards, or to become part of the human King’s Army.
My goal was to become a Protector, which was the highest level a
mercenary could achieve. Protectors went around the countryside
aiding towns, villages or people who needed it, or on missions from
the various Kings of the world. It was a highly respected job and I
craved to become one more than anything in the world. It was my
life’s goal.

I was the first girl allowed to join the
school and I worked hard everyday to prove that I had just as much
right to be there as the males of the various species that also
attended the school.

After tying my leather boots on, I grabbed my
bag of clothes from the floor and double checked that I had
everything necessary for the trip to and the last three months of
school.

“Ready?” Father asked from behind me.

I turned with a smile for the King of the
Elves and bowed. “I am.”

He was tall and thin, but looks were very
deceiving when it came to elves. Though he looked weak, I’d seen
Father pick a fifty foot tree up and throw it over two hundred
yards. Their weak appearance and hidden strength was one of the
defenses which had kept the elves and their land safe the past one
thousand years. He had fair skin like Mother, but was one of the
few elves with black hair. He had found me on the side of the road
when I was four years old and taken me in, raising me as if I were
his own child. I had never felt like a step child or felt like I
was a burden to them, which had made growing up much easier than it
might have been if another human had found me.

I secured my belt which held my sword and
sheath and two throwing knives, tied my cloak on and then picked up
my bag.

He held out his hand for my bag and I
obediently gave it to him. One did not disobey the king. “Kato and
I will be at your graduation ceremony in three months. Train hard
and beat the hell out of the boys.”

I smiled at him. “I shall try my
hardest.”

“I expect nothing less,” he said in his fake
serious tone. He gave me the same speeches he gave Favian, but we
both knew that he wouldn’t have cared if I dropped out of the
school and decided to stay and be a lady at the castle. He would
have simply kissed my cheek and told me to do what I loved and that
made me love him even more than I would have to begin with.

We walked from my room, down the winding
white wood staircase and down the hallways which were lined with
various murals of the previous rulers of the kingdom. I stopped
next to the last mural and smiled at the small painting of a little
human girl directly below the mural of Mother, Father, and Favian.
I’d painted it when I was ten years old, wanting to be part of the
family mural since I was adopted into the family. Father had
ordered the painting to be kept, which had made me happier than the
pony he’d bought me that year for my birthday.

“Marin?” he asked softly, “Are you
alright?”

I turned and smiled at him. “Yes, just
recalling the time I painted this.”

He smiled back at me. “Lorimer was very upset
that you’d done it.”

Lorimer was the one in charge of keeping the
castle in pristine condition. I had been a thorn in his side since
I had arrived. “He had chased me around the castle with a willow
branch, trying to corner me so that he could spank me. Even for an
old elf, he was quick on his feet. He almost got me and then you
stopped him.”

“Yes I remember that day very well,” he said
with a smile. “Come, we must get you off to school.”

I followed him as we walked into the main
entryway and then out through the main doors, which were solid gold
and incredibly heavy. Of course when Father pushed them opened they
appeared to weigh no more than a leaf. Favian stood in the
courtyard holding our two horses, Fire and Ice. Fire and Ice were
twins born to Mother’s mare and of Father’s stallion, the greatest
horses in all of the lands. Fire had a red or sorrel coat while Ice
had a bluish-white coat, which were the indicators of their names.
We had been only ten years old when the horses had been born and
they were the best names that we could come up with at the time.
The horses dozed in boredom beside Favian as he talked to Amile, a
pretty female elf only one year my junior. A strange anger filled
me and the idea of throwing a rock at Amile’s head seemed like a
stunningly good idea. I shook my head to clear the ridiculousness
and walked to Fire who swiveled her ears in my direction when she
noticed me.

These new feelings had started coming over me
only this past year whenever I saw females with Favian. I didn’t
understand it and I didn’t like it, not one bit.

Father tied my bag to Fire’s saddle and then
hugged me tightly. “Be safe, Daughter.”

I hugged him back and then kissed his cheek.
“Rule kindly, Father.”

It was the same goodbye we’d said a hundred
times as I’d left from vacation to return to school, yet today it
felt different for some reason. I mounted Fire and pet her neck.
“Hello beautiful mare. Are you ready for a run?”

Fire nickered and pranced to show me her
enthusiasm.

I looked over at Amile and Favian, still
talking next to Ice and noticed the new necklace on Favian’s neck.
I had given him a twine and shell necklace two years ago on his
birthday that had taken me six days to make. Most girls could have
made the necklace in one day, but my lack of womanly skills had
made the task almost impossible. He had told me he truly liked it
and hadn’t taken it off since then, but apparently he had found a
necklace he liked better now.

“Farewell Prince Favian,” Amile said with a
flirtatious smile.

My anger skyrocketed and I nudged Fire,
making her turn her rump into Amile’s side, which made Amile
stumble. “My apologies!” I yelled as I turned Fire and tightened
the reins, acting as though I were correcting her. “She is full of
energy today.”

Amile smoothed down her dress and smiled at
me. “She seems to take after her owner in so many regards.”

“Let’s go,” Favian said seriously, giving me
his angry stare and telling me silently to leave Amile alone.

I waved to Father and Kato who had come
outside to see us off and then squeezed my legs around Fire’s
sides. She launched forward and cantered quickly to the front gate
which was being held open by the guards. I waved to them as I went
through the gates and then we passed through the magical barrier
that surrounded the kingdom to protect it from unwanted guests. The
barrier felt like a blanket pressed around you that you had to
break through when entering, but when exiting it simply felt like a
warm breeze.

The Elven Kingdom was surrounded by forests,
which had every type of animal known to this part of the world.
Since the elves were herbivores the animals didn’t need to fear
coming near them and we were always blessed with a few of the
animals in their habitats, eating, playing and existing. It was
refreshing since the last mission Favian and I had gone on had sent
us to an area overpopulated by humans who ate meat and ended up
almost killing off the entire animal population in their area. I
ate meat as well, but I knew there were ways to control the animal
populations without killing them off.

The trees around us were tall and glorious,
some as old as the Elven Kingdom itself. I loved running through
the forest and listening to the sound of the wind blowing through
the leaves. Some of the elves believed that the plants could speak
to you and would come talk to the trees. I had never heard the
plants or trees talk, but I did enjoy being around them.

I let Fire run for a few miles and then
pulled her back to conserve her energy. Favian caught up to me,
having started out slowly and asked, “Are you in a foul mood
today?”

I wanted to snap at him, but I held in my
anger since he had done nothing wrong. “You’re wearing a new
necklace,” I noted quietly.

He looked down at the new necklace and
frowned a moment. “It was a gift.”

“From Amile,” I finished.

He looked at me and shrugged. “Yes. Does it
bother you that I accepted her gift?”

“Of course not,” I said quickly, “I just…” I
trailed off, not wanting to tell him the real reason I was upset. I
couldn’t explain that I was upset that he’d taken off the necklace
I’d given him to wear hers. Did he like her more than me?

A deer and her fawn stood in the center of
the road and our horses moved around them so as not to startle the
fawn and make it run off and possibly injure itself. The doe
watched us with calm eyes and held her ground as we passed by.

“Marin,” he said kindly, drawing my attention
back to him, “I am sorry if I’ve upset you somehow. We’re partners,
right?” I nodded my head. “And in order for our partnership to work
you must tell me what I’ve done to upset you.”

“It’s nothing. Forget I mentioned it,” I said
as I tied and untied a knot in my reins to avoid looking at
him.

Favian trotted up closer to me until our
knees were rubbing as the horses walked and stared into my eyes.
“Tell me.”

He had beautiful grey eyes that swirled like
fog when he was mad and glittered like gemstones when happy. He’d
been my best friend since I was four and my partner in crime since
I was six. Together we’d completed every task the Academy had
thrown at us and together we’d fought over a hundred enemies. We
were partners and worked as one flawless unit, but recently things
had been changing and I did not like it or understand it.

“I do not care that you receive gifts from
females. I do not care that you flirt with them. I do not care
because you and I are partners in battle, not physically. I do care
when you remove gifts I have given you and replaced them with a
gift from a different female though. It’s dumb and that’s why I
tried to get you to drop it, but I am female after all and I have
stupid emotions I cannot control sometimes. Now that I’ve told you
why I was upset at first please forget I said it and let us return
to normal,” I said quickly, stumbling over some of my words just to
get it all out and be done with it.

“Is that what you truly want? You want me to
leave this necklace on instead of taking it off and throwing it
away like I had planned to do?” he asked me.

I looked at him in shock. “What?”

He smiled. “You think I like this ugly
necklace that that girl made? The only reason I took it was because
that is what a polite prince is expected to do. My mother would
have been furious if she had heard that I refused a gift from a
female. I was going to simply accept it and throw it away later,
but then she insisted I put it on.”

“You could have told her you didn’t want to
take the necklace off since it was a gift,” I muttered.

“Then she would have been insulted because
she knows it was a gift from you and it would have been a big
ordeal. It was simpler to give in until we were gone.”

Despite its ridiculousness I felt much better
and happier now that he had explained it all to me.

“So, do you still want me to forget it or can
I throw this ugly thing away and put the one I like back on?” he
asked me with a teasing smile.

“Don’t be rude,” I told him, “It is
unbecoming of a prince.” I turned my face and hid the blush that
was creeping into my cheeks.

He laughed. “Now you sound like Mother. I
think you spent too much time with her this past month.”

“I spent all my time with her,” I said
irritably, “she insisted that I had to finish learning the womanly
skills necessary for when I became a lady at eighteen.”

“Have you figured out how to hide your sword
under your dress yet?” he asked me.

I laughed and turned back to face him. “No. I
think I might have to settle for several daggers and needles
instead.”