Our Past is Our Future

Her blade slipped cleanly out of the back of the guard’s torso as he tumbled off the roof. She looked up from where he fell to take in the city in front of her. Her eyes scanned its many districts before settling on one building. The castle stood in front her off in the distance in the city she had not seen in years.

Rain fell on the city her parents only got to see for a moment before they were tossed into the castle’s cells to wait for their execution. A city of thousands of mercury-vapor lamps lighting the night sky. The underside of the gray clouds glowed. It was a city of a thousand deaths. A city that whispered in her dreams and begged her to save them.

No.

She had only one goal tonight, and the ones that got in her way were complicit. They would not be saved.

Rain dripped through her hair, down her nose, it dripped from her cloak, mixed with the blood on her blade and dripped down, far below. To the street. She moved from rooftop to rooftop swiftly, towards the castle. She was always the most agile in her family, back when she had one. Her brother James was almost as good before he got killed in the war. The war Isabelle started.

She remembered Isabelle’s smile when she heard that her father’s spymaster was interested in her talents. Her smile. Isabelle had been proud of her.  But her smile. Isabelle’s smile turned cruel as her mother’s blood dripped and dripped from her chin. Dripped down below. Down through the gutters and into the sea. Away.

It did not take long for her to get into the castle, even with her black boots slipping on the rain-slicked stones of the castle’s walls. She left slain guards behind her as she slipped into the familiar halls. Old memories play back in front of her in the rooms and hallways she passes through.

She could remember meeting Isabelle at the academy, how she begged her father, the King, to allow her new friend to visit. She remembered looking out over the city, its many districts, the smoke rising from its many factories and the glimmering glass of the financial district.

Now it’s dark as the rain ran down the windows and dripped from the banner in the distance. It proclaimed the fifth anniversary of the coronation of Queen Isabelle. Five years since that day. Inside the red carpet turns a darker red with the blood of slain guards.

They were still candelabras here in the castle, Isabelle had never liked the new lights. She lashed out at one of them with her sword, knocking it onto a drapery that caught fire.

Let it all burn.

She pushed on past the kitchens where they would steal food. Past libraries where they would read fantastical stories to each other. That smile was burned into her mind. Rain dripped from her hair; blood dripped from her blade. She didn’t notice. The city plead. But she did not listen.

She stopped in front of an open double door. The room beyond was dark but she remembered. The training salle. Where the King had them duel with live steel. She still had the scars on her body and on her mind. She can see Isabelle’s vicious smile as she won a bout. Blood dripping. The King told her to lose or else.

The King’s spymaster had said the same thing when he ordered her to kill the King and the King’s eldest son. She had no choice; it was that or her family. Not that it mattered in the end. They were all dead now.

She walked forward, her goal in sight. The apartments of Queen. She had never been in them when they had been the King’s. She might have pulled her way up the meritocracy of the Academy, but she was still low born. Inside a harp played. An instrument that her family never could have afforded, even with a lifetime of wages. An instrument she would never learn to play. She was a killer now. That was all she would be from now on.

The door opened easily and there she was. Isabelle. The Queen. All grown up now. Playing the harp, as she had heard outside. She quickly and silently stepped up behind her and covered Isabelle’s mouth and thrust. Thrust with the sword given to her on her sixteenth birthday. Isabelle’s eyes were filled with shock and fear. She grabbed Isabell as she faltered, keeping her from falling.

“Camille…” Isabelle choked out but there would be no more words as she slumped in her arms.

“You made me, you and that damned smile. This is what you made me.” she said. Recognition flashed dimly in Isabelle’s eyes before life faded away and she let her fall to the ground.

Blood dripped from the killer’s chin. Her face contorted into something foreign, an empty smile. Klaxon’s blared, feet thundered and outside the window the city wept for all the lives lost tonight and all those to be lost in the coming years.

The only thing that was clear was that there would be no forgiveness for her. From the Gods, from the city, from herself. The castle burned and all there was were tears, dripping from her face, as she slipped out the door. She would never forget that smile.