Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Assassin (4 page)

The waterfall cascaded
below her, dropping the hundred feet to the pool at its base. The
sun turned the water golden as it flowed out into the city,
following the intricate network of canals.

In the town square, she
could see them setting up the festival but it was too far away to
get any real image of what it would look like. She longed to go
there once in her lifetime, to wander around the stalls and see the
entertainment with her own eyes. Hearing about it from her
attendants wasn’t enough. Every year it sounded more exciting, and
every year she wanted to go more.

A small sleek blue and
silver fighter vessel lifted off from the royal port and circled
around the palace before heading upwards.

Her father.

She glared at the ship,
glad that he was gone. Suitors? What was he thinking? She didn’t
want him to try to pair her off in the same way her cousin Sophia’s
father had.

Natalia rested her elbows
on the white stone balustrade of the balcony and propped her head
up on her hands. Suitors?

She wanted to be free to
choose her own husband just as her older sister Renie had. Renie
would return soon with her twin Rezic. Natalia couldn’t wait to see
them again, and meet the Vegan prince that Renie was going to
marry, but the excitement was dampened by her father’s proposition
to find her a suitor.

A suitor!

Natalia turned her glare
on the city. She didn’t want males offering her planets and systems
and monies or power. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted to be
free.

She wanted to
sing.

The sun touched the
horizon and she looked down at the entertainment quarter. With the
setting of the sun, the city would be changing. The stores would be
closing and the bars opening. It was a different world down there
after dark.

A deep longing to go down
into the city to the club grew in her heart but she told herself
that she couldn’t. Singing made her forget her worries and made her
happy. It was the one thing that made her feel free.

It was the one thing that
she had promised she would give up.

She couldn’t go down into
the city. She had sworn to Ixion that she wouldn’t go there
anymore, even though she desperately wanted to. It would break her
promise with Ixion and he might tell her parents this time. She
couldn’t outsmart a royal assassin of his standing. No matter which
way she chose to go, he was bound to see her and stop
her.

It was useless.

She couldn’t risk it. If
Ixion told her father, he might keep her locked in the palace until
he found a male to marry her off to.

Soft steps on the white
flagstones made her tense. She imagined it was a handsome male
dressed in black, a dangerous male who made her giddy just from
looking at him. The person came to stand beside her.

Not a male at
all.

Her mother.

Natalia looked at her,
managing a smile. Her father was right. She was the very image of
her mother. Their black hair and bright green eyes matched
perfectly. Her brothers and sister all looked more like their
father. Perhaps that was why her father doted on her so much,
because she looked like her mother. But then that didn’t answer the
question burning in her heart. Why had her father decided to start
accepting proposals for her?

“
Missing your
father?” her mother said.

Natalia took the small
black translator bud from her ear. Sometimes it was nice to speak
to her mother without it.

“
No,” Natalia
said in Terran. Her mother smiled and removed her translator
too.

“
Have you two
been arguing again?” Her mother’s look was gentle, concerned, and
it lifted some of the weight from Natalia’s heart but made her feel
weak at the same time. If she cried like she wanted to her mother
would understand, but what kind of princess cried over something
like this? She had always been the strong one, the responsible one,
and that wasn’t going to change now.

Natalia looked out at the
city again.

“
Are there
really suitors contacting you?” Her voice trembled but she held it
together. She wouldn’t cry over something like this.

“
He told you
then?” her mother said on a sigh and placed her arm around
Natalia’s shoulders. She squeezed them and Natalia closed her eyes,
feeling as though her future had already been determined and her
sentence pronounced. Her father really did intend to take proposals
from suitors. “Don’t worry. He won’t go through with
it.”

“
How do you
know?” Natalia leaned her head against her mother’s shoulder,
needing the comfort.

“
Because he has
mentioned it before and nothing came of it. He won’t give you up so
easily… at the moment he is just overwhelmed. He didn’t expect you
to grow up so quickly and be noticed so soon after you turned
mating age.”

There was a little comfort
in those words but not enough. Her father could be unduly stubborn
when it came to his duty and he would see finding her a good
husband as one of his duties, even when she was willing to beg him
not to. In that respect she was much like her father. She would do
her duty and what was expected from her, even when it broke her
heart.

“
I don’t want a
suitor,” she mumbled, her heart heavy again.

“
And you won’t
have one,” her mother said and held her closer. “Renie and Rezic
will return soon and we will all be together again. The
preparations for Renie’s wedding will keep him distracted. We can
make sure that we reach the letters before him and get rid of any
ones from suitors. If they contact him directly through the
imperial army, we will simply have to bide our time. Renie’s
wedding will satisfy him and it is only a few months
away.”

A few months. In that
time, her father might have given his consent to any number of the
suitors who were bound to contact him via channels that she
couldn’t access. Neither her nor her mother had the clearance
required to enter the imperial army’s computer system.

She considered asking
Rezic for help but thought the better of it. While her eldest
brother could access the system, he was bound to be on her father’s
side. Mentioning it to him would only bring it to her father’s
attention again.

It was better to sit and
wait just as her mother had suggested.

“
Don’t stay out
too long. It will be cold tonight.” Her mother squeezed her
shoulders one last time and then left.

Natalia looked up at the
darkening sky. Today had been such a good day too. For the first
time in a long time, she had enjoyed doing her duty and had been
happy without resorting to singing. Why had her father had to spoil
it by talking to her of suitors?

She should have told him
who she had thought of when he had asked her if she had a male. Her
father would have had Snrikiks if she had announced that the male
she wanted wasn’t of royal blood or high status.

It was an
assassin.

Ixion.

He had been on her mind
all day. Every meeting that she had attended had been made a little
easier because she had been thinking of him. She had relived their
walk back to the palace from the city hall, telling her guards that
she wanted a little air. She had retraced their steps and
remembered the way that he had looked at her. It still made her
heart race.

But there was no hope for
a princess and a royal assassin.

Her father would have
laughed at her once the initial shock had passed. He would have
thought that she was joking.

Renie was going to marry a
prince and her father would expect no less from her.

With another long sigh,
Natalia started singing softly, hoping to lift the pain from her
heart.

Only tonight, singing
didn’t make her happy.

For some reason it made
her feel sad.

****

Chapter
4

Natalia’s heart missed a
beat and her pulse quickened when Ixion and two other men in
similar black uniform stepped out of her father’s day chambers. One
of her mother’s attendants had told her that they would find her
there. Whenever her father was away, her mother took care of
household business. Did she have business with the royal assassins?
Ixion was their commander. Natalia didn’t know the other two but
they looked the same age as Ixion, if not a little
younger.

She quickly smoothed her
sky blue empire-line dress down and slowed to a more measured and
demure pace. It had taken her three hours to dress this morning,
two and a half hours longer than usual, and the reason she had
taken such care was now talking to his men right in front of her.
If he had noticed her, it didn’t show on his face as he stood with
his profile to her, discussing something that she couldn’t
hear.

Her steps didn’t falter as
she walked towards him, her hands clasped in front of her. Her two
attendants walked a step behind her, silent support that she badly
needed. They were the closest she had to friends, two women that
she had known since turning ten. They shared everything with each
other and they were always there to support her when she needed
them most. Today was one of those days. It wasn’t just because she
had resolved to find Ixion and see him again, but because she had
decided that she was going to go out. She was going to go to the
festival and her mother wasn’t going to stop her this
time.

Ixion was only steps away
from her now. Natalia willed him to look at her, to see her. She
knew that he wouldn’t but she wanted him to. She had made so much
effort with her appearance today and it was all for him.

Just as she passed, she
heard the shift of his boots on the stone flags and felt his gaze
on her. Her mouth turned dry and she resisted the temptation to
look at him. Playing hard to get was something that her attendants
had always told her about whenever they had talked of males but it
was more difficult than she had imagined. Her strength failed as
the guards standing either side of the double door reached over and
opened it. Her gaze slid to the side and a thrill bolted through
her when she found Ixion’s clear purple eyes fixed on her
face.

“
Natalia.” Her
mother’s voice jolted her out of her reverie and she stepped into
the room with her two attendants.

The doors
closed.

“
Whatever
brings you here?” Her mother sat back down on the royal blue and
silver couch, spreading her long cream satin gown across
it.

Natalia could see past the
smile plastered on her mother’s face. She was always sad when her
father went away. The worry lines between her mother’s fine black
eyebrows made Natalia sigh. She went over to her mother and wrapped
her arms around her shoulders as she sat down beside
her.

Her mother’s smile
faltered.

“
He’ll be back
soon,” Natalia said with a real smile, hoping to brighten up her
mother. “It’s only an escort mission within the Lyra system this
time and if he encounters any trouble, he’ll survive. He’s too
stubborn to die on the battlefield.”

Her mother laughed. “You
are right but it still doesn’t stop me from worrying about him.
Balt’s stubbornness is the reason I worry so much.”

Natalia understood that.
Her father wasn’t likely to turn tail and run if he encountered any
resistance. He would fight to the end for Lyra.

She took hold of her
mother’s hand and squeezed it as she tried to think of a way to
broach the subject that she had come here to raise. It was
difficult now that she knew her mother was worried about her
father. She didn’t want to increase that worry by suggesting that
she was going to go to the festival.

Natalia looked at her two
attendants where they waited by the door. They nodded.

Perhaps they were right.
Her plan might actually go better now that her mother was worried
and she was sure that nothing would happen to them down in the
city. They would only be there a few short hours and if things went
to plan, they wouldn’t be alone. They would have the best
protection in the galaxy.

“
Mother… I am
going to go into the city today.” Her heart fluttered and she could
barely meet her mother’s gaze.

Her mother’s emerald eyes
were wide, fear shining in them. “But the festival is in full swing
and there are reports of potential unrest amongst some of the
purist factions.”

For a moment, Natalia’s
heart faltered and she almost said that she would stay in the
palace. Ixion had spoken of danger in the city but Natalia hadn’t
realised that it was so bad. The purist factions hated Lyra and
wanted revenge for what it had done to the Terran species. Years
ago, the Earth system had been caught in the war between Lyra and
Vega. It had been decimated and the Terran people scattered across
the galaxy, orphans in space. Her father had met her mother, the
last Terran princess, by accident when she was a slave and they had
fallen in love. Her mother had united her people again and it had
been so peaceful on Lyra Five, their new home world, that Natalia
had thought the Terran people’s hatred of Lyra had been healed and
its sin forgiven.