Two-Faced (Assassin at Court Series Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter 5

            
 
“
H
old still, Miss Skyler,” Abda scolded me. She lined my eyes with coal using an instrument that was as sharp as a needle to do so.

Did she seriously expect me to be still when one tiny shake of her hand could mean my eye being gouged out
?

“Sorry, Abda,” I told her apologetically. She still tensed when I said her name. After spending the last four hours bathing me, and plucking at me, and combing knots out of my hair I did not even know were there, you would think she would be used to me calling her by her name. The first couple of times, she respectfully reminded me that ladies of noble houses did not address servants by their names. I respectfully informed her I thought the idea absurd. I had been calling her by her name ever since, and four hours later she still flinched as if I physically slapped her in the face every time.

              “All done Miss Skyler.” Abda looked so pleased with the final product of her work that curiosity made me check it out for myself. I turned to look in the mirror and what I saw stole my breath away. The girl looking back at me was
not
Skyler. My golden brown locks hung in long ringlets around my shoulders. My eyebrows were arched to perfection and my lips were painted a delicious cherry red. A whispered “thank you” was all I could manage to get out.

Abda looked scandalized at my gratitude. She ushered me over to the dressing room and helped me into my gown, an emerald green fishtail design I paid a small fortune for. Just as she finished lacing the back of it up, Emily peeked her head in from our shared bedchamber.

              “Oh my Gods,” she squealed. “You look gorgeous Skyler! Everyone is going to be so jealous of you. I swear if the Prince saw you tonight, there would be no competition.”

              My cheeks heated at the compliment and I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Are you ready to go downstairs? We can walk together?” I asked my roommate, changing the subject.

              “I am, but I’m not so sure I want to be seen beside you.”

              “Don’t be ridiculous. You look every bit as gorgeous.” I did not say it to be nice. Emily was an olive-skinned beauty in a class all her. I linked arms with my roommate and newfound friend and we headed toward the first of our “trials.”

Chapter 6

            
 
T
he High Palace was massive. It was full of twists and turns and one endless hallway after another. We left our rooms in more than enough time to arrive in the formal dining hall by six o’clock. However, at the rate we were going we would be lucky if we found our way out of the hallway of mazes by midnight.

              “Oh no Skyler. We are going to be eliminated on the very first night all because we couldn’t make our way down a few flights of stairs.” Wetness shone in Emily’s eyes. I squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“It will be alright. We have plenty of time still to make our way downstairs.” I was not nearly as confident as I sounded for her sake.
How hard could it be to find a damn staircase?
 
I was a professional assassin for Gods sake. I should have remembered the route I took to get to my rooms
.

We turned yet another corner to find two men in the red and gold robes of the palace guards sparring with broad swords.

“Excuse me, can you point us in the direction of the grand dining hall?” I asked them. I was taken aback by how young they were.  But I guess I should not have been too surprised. If I could be an assassin at seventeen and a hundred girls could compete to marry a Prince at seventeen, it was perfectly logical for one to be a palace guard at seventeen as well.

The shorter of the two, an overly cocky jackass jeered at us. “What’s the matter ladies? Is it too hard for your pretty little heads to remember which staircase you came up?”

He did not just say that
. My hands curled into fists at my side. I could literally make him eat his words.

The second guard punched him in his shoulder. “Shut up, Jacob. Don’t be rude. Forgive my friend, My Ladies,” he said turning to face us. “I keep telling him his manners are deplorable.” He grabbed Emily’s freehand and kissed the back of it. He did the same to mine, only his lips lingered on my flesh a bit longer than was appropriate. He smirked up at me, expecting me to be scandalized. I schooled my features into indifference. Shock colored his face at the unexpected reaction, but he quickly recovered his cool. “My name is Zander, and yours is?”

“About to be late and get kicked out of this Godsforsaken palace before I even have the chance to spend one night in it,” I snapped at him. I so did not have time for this shit.

His amber brown eyes glittered in amusement. “So you don’t like the palace?”

“I mean it is certainly massive. But it is also a little over the top. One family, royal or not, cannot possibly need this much space.” The words were was out of my mouth before I could stop them. I inwardly groaned. I did not just insult the royal family in front of palace guards. Surely they would run and tell the King, or Queen or Prince himself and I would be dismissed from their lofty presence. Not that I would mind, but a job was a job and I had a contract to complete.

The guard smiled. It was bright and charming and would set a normal girl’s heartbeat aflutter. My own heart mildly skipped a beat and I was far from a normal girl. I did not swoon over random boys. Ever. No matter how incredibly hot they were, and this particular guard was scorching. Perspiration from the sparring match made his cotton top cling to his torso, revealing the outline of a nice set of abs underneath.  And if that did not increase his hotness by a factor of ten, the way I witnessed him skillfully handle a blade certainly did. I may not be much of a sucker for charming smiles but I was for abs and a guy who could hold his own in a fight. He leaned into my personal space, startling me out of semi-inappropriate thoughts.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell the royal family,” he conspiratorially whispered into my ear.

His warm breath tickled my neck and I blushed at his closeness. “Um, the stairs?” I cleared my throat.

He flashed the charming grin at me again. “Take two right turns when you get to the end of the hallway and you will run right into them. I wouldn’t want you ladies to be late. Rumor has it the Prince might make an appearance at dinner.”

“But the Queen said only the final Elite would have the privilege of meeting him,” Emily nervously spoke up beside me.

The guard spoke to her, but kept his eyes on me. “I’m privy to the Prince’s inner circle and I am told he just may have found an intriguing reason to make an appearance.”

The guard politely bowed to us and gestured for us to continue on our way. I thought I might have heard a low chuckle and some comment about
an intriguing reason to attend my ass
from guard Jackass
.
But we were already too far down the hallway to be sure.

Chapter 7

            
 
F
or the life of me I could not understand why they bothered to go through the trouble of getting all us girls seated in the dining hall just to have us stand again to receive the Queen and her entourage. Seriously, was she that much of a narcissist? Five minutes into the procession my stomach was growling and we were still standing. Finally, five minutes after that the Queen waved her lofty hand, signaling to all of us lowly beings to be seated. This time, I did roll my eyes. I had the presence of mind to glance around after the act and make sure no one from the royal entourage saw me. Not that they would have noticed anyway. None of us had yet proven ourselves worthy enough to garner their attention.

That is when I spotted him, the guard, Zander, from the hallway. He sat on the royal dais to the left of the Queen. I chocked on the sip of water I had just taken when I spied the crown sitting atop his head.

“Careful, not to choke, Lesser Noble,” the pretentious bitch from earlier in the day laughed across the table at me.

Whoever was in charge of the seating arrangements was playing a cosmic joke on me. If they kept putting me next to her, she would not make it home in one piece. For now, I ignored her and turned to Emily instead. I nudged her with my foot under the table. “Look who is sitting next to the Queen,” I whispered to her.

Her eyes bulged out of her skull when she noticed. “Oh my Gods,” she did a terrible job of whispering back. “That is the guard from the hallway.”

“Only he’s not a guard.” I did a better job of whispering back. “He is the
Crowned Prince.”
I was so dismissed at the end of the night. Not only did I insult his family’s taste in residences to his face, when he introduced himself and asked me my name I practically told him to shove it.
Shit.
If I was getting sent packing, I needed to start thinking about an alternative route to assassinate the Prince. That would definitely throw a wrench in my completing my assignment in a timely manner, which would make neither Samael nor my benefactor happy.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I had never fumbled on a contract before. Emily kicked me, hard, in my shin under the table. The sudden pain caused me to jump a little. Little Miss Bitchface smirked at us across the table. My roommate and I were so going to have a lesson in the art of subtlety when we returned to our rooms. Even if I left tonight, it would serve her well in the future.

“What,” I hissed at her through clenched teeth.

“Look back at the dais,” she said much quieter this time. “Sorry I did not mean to kick you so hard. I guess I got too excited again,” she blushed.

“It’s okay. It didn’t really hurt.” I played my bruised shin off to make her feel better.

On the dais, the Prince stood up, but the Queen placed a delicate hand on his arm as if to quietly, but firmly deter him from his next action. They exchanged a few hushed words, then the Prince walked down off the dais. He stood in front of me before I actually realized he walked toward me.

“I see you found the stairs alright,” he flashed twin dimples at me that admittedly made me inwardly swoon a little. I tried to ignore them and their effect earlier in the hallway.

“You lied to me!” Once again words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. I was so flabbergasted by the realization that the polite yet flirtatious guard from the hallway was the Prince that I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.

The Prince looked taken aback momentarily, but just as in the hallway he quickly recovered. “It was more of a minor deception.”

His amber eyes twinkled with mischief, and I wondered how I could have missed that the eyes I looked into in the hallway were identical the Queen’s. I sipped from my water glass in an effort to appear nonchalant. In truth, my nerves were shot to hell and it was a fruitless attempt to calm them. “You know it is immoral to deceive people, right?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “That depends on which god’s religion you follow. Loki was a trickster god.”

“That’s funny. I didn’t peg you for a Loki follower.” I did not believe for one minute he paid homage to the trickster god. He just wanted to argue a point.

“I don’t. I just like to be well versed on the teachings of all the gods. It makes it easier to argue a point or play devil’s advocate when people start conversing about religion or morality.”

Ha!
I thought to myself, interrupting him midsentence in my head

“What’s funnier is you assuming you have me all figured without knowing me,” I caught the end of his sentence.  

I gave him my best
I’m immune to your Princely charms look
and sweetly smiled up at him. “I know all I need to know about you,
Your Highness
.” I was trying to annoy him as much as his deception annoyed me. It wasn’t working out too well. That damn dimpled grin never left his face.

“Really? I’d love to hear what you
think
you know. Unfortunately, I will have to wait. My mother is about to have an aneurism up on her dais. If I do not excuse myself from talking to you soon she’ll be sending guards my way to do it for me, and that will not end well for them. I suppose I’ll play the good son today and do as she wishes to avoid making a scene and scandalizing you. Though, something tells me, My Lady, you’re not the type to be easily scandalized.” He winked at me.

I folded my arms across my chest in a display of false attitude. “Apparently, you think you have me figured out as well.”

“I’ve learned enough. Perhaps we can swap
observations
at some point. I hope to see you again, soon,
Skyler
. Try not to get lost on your way back,” he threw the last bit over his shoulders and chuckled as he walked away.

I envisioned myself throwing a dinner roll at the back of his head. If I were not concerned about blowing my cover, I would have. His mother’s guards couldn’t take me either.

“I can find my way back just fine,” I muttered to myself.

The realization that the two of us had not been alone in the dining room while during our rather awkward exchange hit me as awareness of my surroundings flooded my consciousness. I looked around at the ninety-nine other girls then at the Queen and her entourage on the dais. The silence was deafening. Every set of eyes in the room zeroed in on me. I sat on the receiving end of the gamut of stares from envious, to outraged, to flabbergasted, to outright jealous. I looked down at my water and took a sip of it from my glass. All at once the formal dining hall broke out in chatter.