Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Assassin (5 page)

Clearly it
hadn’t.

Natalia looked at the
door. Was she willing to take the risk in order to see the festival
and Ixion? As a Lyran princess, she would be a prime target for the
purist factions. Her death would trigger the war that they wanted.
That war would be a massacre. Her father wouldn’t
hesitate.

She swallowed the dry
sticky lump in her throat and clenched her fists. She would be safe
in the city. Nothing would happen to her.

“
Is the
military on alert?” Natalia said, her voice trembling the tiniest
amount.

Her mother nodded. “They
are posted in town and the palace is also on alert.”

Was that why her mother
had been speaking to Ixion? The royal assassins would be used if
there was an attack on the palace.

“
Would you stop
me if I tried to go?” She needed to know. Her mother hadn’t
disapproved of her desire to go to the festival. If she was against
it, she would have said as much rather than just pointing out the
potential danger.

Her mother shook her head,
the beautiful black ringlets that tumbled from the back of her head
swaying in time with her movements. Natalia’s own black hair was
down today, falling loose around her shoulders in black waves. She
never wore it down in public. It was always tied back, centre
parted with each half plaited from the parting directly above her
nose to the nape of her neck where it met and joined into one long
plait or held in a bun. Today, she had been careful to wear it in a
way that would help disguise her identity. She wore it in the way
that she did sometimes when she sung at the club.

“
No one will
recognise me as royalty,” she said and stood. “I want to see the
festival just once in my lifetime.”

“
You are of
mating age and able to be responsible for your own actions. I will
not stand in your way if you want to do this. I have often wanted
to see the festival myself.” Her mother stood and placed her hand
on Natalia’s shoulder. Her expression turned pleading. “Just be
careful and be alert.”

Natalia nodded.

“
Ixion!” The
loudness of her mother’s voice startled Natalia and she turned the
moment the doors opened, her eyes immediately fixing on Ixion where
he stood between them. It was exactly as she had hoped. Her mother
would ask Ixion to guard her, trusting his skills above those of
the guard. Guards would draw too much attention. No one would see
an assassin.

Ixion placed his right
hand against his chest and lowered his head. “Your
highness?”

Natalia had expected him
to call her mother ‘my lady’ as he had called her. His deliberate
use of ‘your highness’ for her mother made her feel as though his
use of ‘my lady’ for herself was more intimate, as though she
commanded him more than her mother.

“
Princess
Natalia has expressed a desire to see the festival,” her mother
said and Ixion’s gaze shot to Natalia, as though he couldn’t
believe that she would do such a thing. It made her nervous. Did he
really think the threat of conflict was that real? Did he fear for
her safety? “Take two of your men and shadow her and her
attendants. At the slightest sign of trouble, you will get them out
of there and bring them back to the palace.”

“
Yes, your
highness,” he said and bowed lower before backing out of the
room.

The doors
closed.

Natalia’s heart
thumped.

Was she really going to
risk her life in order to have Ixion notice her?

Perhaps her father was
right.

A male had already
captured her heart.

***

Ixion leapt over the
narrow divide between the buildings on the main street of the city.
His gaze never left Natalia where she walked below him on the
street even though his attention was spread wide, monitoring
everything for a sign of danger. He signalled his two men where
they ran over the rooftops on the opposite side of the street to
him. They nodded and disappeared, reappearing in the crowd
below.

The people were still
spread out at this end of the street, but the market square ahead
of them was packed. It would be difficult to keep an eye on the
princess and her attendants from the rooftops.

She reached the start of
the festival, passing under the large colourful banner that marked
the boundary and the first of the stalls.

Ixion watched her closely
as she moved through the gathered people. She was beautiful. Her
gown pushed her breasts up and the tight short pale blue jacket she
wore only emphasised them all the more. The glossy waves of her
long black hair spilled over her shoulders, free for once rather
than drawn back. At the palace, she had looked at him long enough
for him to notice the black kohl that lined her rich green eyes,
emphasising the shape of them and her long lashes. She was
beautiful enough to take his breath away, but it was difficult to
see her like this, knowing what her father had planned and that she
may already love another.

It was torture and he
longed for her to end his misery and silence his heart
forever.

She had a very sensual way
of moving, her hips swaying enough that it would be noticed, more
so than usual today. It was as though she knew she was being
watched, or she wanted to be watched.

The males in the crowd
were certainly out to satisfy her desire to be seen. The way they
looked at her made Ixion’s blood burn. His fingers twitched against
the two blades strapped to his legs.

Two young males at a stall
called her over, showing the fine pottery they were selling.
Another male at a stall opposite called to her too, holding up a
bolt of pure blue silk and smiling.

Ixion stroked the blades,
picturing their quick deaths at his hands. He hated the lustful and
unabashed way they raked their eyes over Natalia, lingering on her
cleavage and daring to look into her eyes.

Natalia shook her head and
moved on, her hips swaying enticingly with each step, drawing his
attention to only her, so much so that he started to forget to
focus on the crowd and look for danger.

He was no better than
those males. Her sensual air and beauty had him lusting after her
too.

No. It was more than
lust.

But whatever it was, it
was pointless, just as the males attentions to her were. They could
compete for her attention all they wanted but in the end, she would
belong to none of them.

Ixion watched her stop at
a stall with her two attendants. All three of them wore empire-line
dresses but the two attendants’ ones were noticeably different. The
material was poorer quality and made the fineness of Natalia’s
evident to everyone. The colour was also dull, the dark haired maid
in cream and the redhead in a pale green. Natalia wore sky
blue.

It turned his
stomach.

Sky blue would be the
colour she wore at her wedding.

Her father’s conversation
with her came back and Ixion stared at Natalia, wondering who the
man she had blushed about was. Did she already have someone in
mind? Had other males been contacting her, males worthy of her love
and attention? That turned his stomach too. The whole affair made
him want to turn his back right now and walk away. Pride and duty
kept him still, forcing him to continue along a path that would
inevitably break his heart. It was a path that he had to tread. An
assassin had no right to desire or love a princess and it was time
that he realised that. His duty was everything. To turn his back on
it was to disgrace his family.

She had moved on and he
was thankful that his men had followed, blending into the
crowd.

Two older males at stalls
next to each other competed for her attention, offering her sweet
candy and sugary drinks. She took some from both of them. When her
dark haired attendant tried to pay, the men waved them away,
smiling and laughing.

Did they think that giving
her free things would win her heart?

Ixion’s jaw
ticked.

If that were the case, he
would kill every suitor her father sent her way for her. It was the
only thing he knew how to do. He couldn’t offer her fine goods and
fancy delicacies. He could only kill.

That was all that he was
good for.

Natalia stopped at another
stall, this time managed by an older woman and selling jewellery.
The stones didn’t seem particularly expensive, nothing more than
cheap trinkets, but they excited Natalia and her two attendants.
The dark blue hangings on the stall were stitched with silver
stars, providing a beautiful backdrop for Natalia as she turned and
showed one necklace to her companions. A myriad of emotions crossed
her face as the bright sun made the deep purple heart-shaped stone
in the pendant sparkle. They fascinated him. He had rarely seen her
express her emotions and let them show. She looked at the tag on
the pendant and frowned when her attendant checked her purse.
Disappointment flitted across her face. Clearly she hadn’t expected
the festival to be so expensive.

They moved on, heading
deep into the crowd where there was barely any room to walk and
away from the rooftop on which he stood. He couldn’t track her from
above anymore and he was growing tired of seeing the males vying
for her attention. He needed to be closer to her, wanted her to be
his so much, even when he knew that he couldn’t have
her.

Ixion disappeared and
reappeared next to the stall that sold the jewellery. Looking down,
he spotted the necklace that had made Natalia’s eyes shine and
frowned at the price. It was expensive. The price tag was far more
Lynans than it was worth. But she had seemed to like it.

Reaching into his jacket
pocket, he took out all the Lynans that he had. He never bought
anything with his wages. It accumulated in the Central Bank of
Lyra. What he had in his pocket was this week’s pay and wasn’t
enough to buy the pendant. He looked at the old woman and then in
the direction that Natalia had gone. She had stopped two stalls
away.

His hand went straight for
his blade when someone touched his money where it sat on his
upturned palm. He stopped himself from drawing it when he saw it
was the old woman. She smiled at him, as though she knew why he
wanted the pendant, and took some of his money, not nearly enough
to cover the cost of the necklace.

“
Tk’llsoi nkayk
utteaiosolance.”

Ixion stepped back,
glaring at her, shocked by the language that she had
spoken.

She offered the pendant
with a broad warm smile.

“
Akkati nem
utteaiosolance.”

His hands shook when he
went to take it. The clear purple heart was warm against his
fingers and slowly turned black when he touched it. Variance stone?
He stared at the old woman. How had she managed to lay hands on
something from his home world? No traders went there. She nodded
and smiled. Her words rang in his head.

A heart for an
assassin.

How did she know
him?

An assassin deserves love
too.

She didn’t know him at
all. If she did, she wouldn’t say such things to him in his own
language.

Her eyes shifted, the
edges of her irises turning purple. Perseian. Their own language
then. He had never expected to meet another Perseian outside of the
royal assassins, not here on Lyran soil so far from home and
definitely not a female.

He bowed, pocketed the
pendant and followed after Natalia, trying to shake off the
unsettled feeling inside of him. It had been twenty Lyran years
since he had left Perseia. In that time, he had forgotten things
about his home world, things that came back to him now.

He shook them away and
focused on Natalia.

The crowd was closely
packed but he moved through it with ease, never breaking his cover
or being seen and always aware of his surroundings but focused on
Natalia.

She pointed to something a
short distance away and tugged her attendants there. Ixion slipped
through the crowd and stopped when he saw her. She was laughing. It
had been so long since he had seen her laugh. Years. It was a
relief to see her smiling again after her confrontation with her
father.

Ixion moved closer,
wanting to see what had amused her. Her eyes lit up, glittering
like the precious stone from which they had stolen their colour,
and she laughed again.

He looked at her hands as
a portly middle aged Lyran female placed a small bundle of pale
blue fluff into them. A head immediately popped out of the mass of
feathers, wide blue eyes taking in the Natalia as she stared back
at it. It pecked at her with its dark blue beak and then wriggled
as though settling down for a sleep in a nest.

A baby Friskin.

They didn’t have such
things on his planet. It was bleak and lifeless, barely able to
sustain his species let alone any wildlife, and situated beyond the
point where the markets roamed.

There was so much life on
Lyra Five.

He narrowed his eyes on
Natalia, almost smiling along with her as she laughed and stroked
the Friskin now settled and sleeping in her delicate
hand.