Blue Chick

While sitting under the shade of a tall oak and eating a sugar-coated candy, Corwal could almost forget who he was. Kyla was a few meters away from him, offering a duck some bread. The bird wanted the food, but was afraid of the child, which left them in a curious stalemate.

"Why don't you throw it at it?" Corwal offered.

The girl turned to him with a grin. "But then I wouldn't get to touch it! I wanna know how it's feathers feel! They look so glossy and colorful!"

It were only the various shades of brown, but Corwal didn't bother to damped her mood. He stood up and came over to Kyla's side. Bending down, he broke off some of the bread he had bought for her lunch.

With the girl's gaze on him, he threw a few crumbs toward the duck. It quickly gathered them up and looked up at him with expectation. Next time, he threw the crumbs a little closer to the girl. The duck quickly waddled over to them until it was barely more than a hand's reach away.

It didn't dare to come any closer no matter how Corwal taunted it with food. A little disappointed, he was about to tell Kyla to give up, when he saw her lunge forward. Like a clumsy kitten, she went for the duck with hands outstretched.

Startled, the bird spread its wings and half-flew, half-jumped away, but not before it struck the attacker with its beak. Kyla squealed in pain and fell back holding her left hand. Tears welled in her eyes.

Corwal crouched down beside her and took hold of her small hand. There was an ugly red mark where the duck had struck back. "Patience is a virtue," he said quietly.

"I don't care! Leave me be!" the girl cried out and tried to pull her hand away, but Corwal didn't let her.

He called to the ether at the wound and ordered it to return the flesh to its former state. His ability to heal was mediocre, but removing a scratch was not yet above him. Swiftly, the blood returned back inside, and the skin closed up.

"Better?" he asked, and Kyla nodded reluctantly. There was still a dejected expression on her face, so Corwal led her back to the market and bought her another sugary treat.

When it wasn't enough to lift her mood up, he spotted an animal vendor. The man had cages with anything one's heart might desire: from common pets like wolves, foxes, and falcons to exoting species like the phoenix, gryffin, and cacti snake.

The noisy stand attracted many people's attention, and Corwal couldn't help recalling another time he had passed by an animal merchant. A smile played at his lips when he remembered how fast Arawn had tried to run away from his inadvertent destruction of a man's living, but his good mood didn't last long.

How was Arawn doing now? Was he safe and well, or was he hiding in some swamp, avoiding any contact with humans to not hurt them? His soft heart was going to be the unmaking of him. With his power, anyone else would have already tried to take over the world, and probably have succeeded, while he suffered under other people without saying a complaint.

And the king was out to make his life even worse. No assassin could kill Arawn, but the king still sent them. If that wasn't a show of pettiness, then what was?

"What's this?" Kyla asked with interest while standing before one of the cages.

It held a shivering blue chick. Its eyes were big and black while it was covered in whitish blue fluff. Its feathers hadn't started growing yet, and it looked just like a small ball with its puffed up chest.

"Do you know the phoenix, little girl?" the vendor asked with a bright salesman's smile. He pointed at a cage farther back and higher up that held a fiery red bird with a long tail sleeping on a perch with its beak hidden beneath its left wing. "The little chick is his cousin."

Kyla looked at the shivering blue chick, then at the majestic scarlet bird above and frowned. "I don't see the resemblance," she stated clearly, making the vendor take another look at her. He clearly hadn't expected the girl to pay attention to such things instead of just being amazed at the shiny red bird above.

"Well… It's…"

While the man floundered, Corwal decided to save him. "It's not really a phoenix, nor does it have anything to do with it. Full grown birds look somewhat similar, but that's all. The two of them are from vastly different lands: phoenixes live in a desert, and this guy prefers the plains. Its name, translated from the languages of the tribes living there, simply means rainbird."

"Rainbird?" Kyla asked, her gaze once more returning to the little fluff ball. "Can it call upon rain?"

"No, but it's good at predicting it. By its flying pattern, the tribes know when to expect a heavy downpour, so it's a sacred animal there."

With those words, Corwal locked his gaze on the vendor. The man's complexion paled, and he put on a fake smile. "My lord, you misunderstood. This is not the rainbird! I would never dare to sell something—"

"Keep it." Corwal was in no mood to start a scene right then.

The man was an illegal animal trafficker, but it was nothing new nor surprising. There were always people who wanted to buy exotic pets and so there were other people who went to bring them over, even if the law prohibited it.

Kyla, not having learned her lesson, pushed her hand through the bars and poked the ball of fluff. It squeaked in protest, but didn't move. The girl smiled and poked it again before turning to Corwal with shining eyes.

"Can I keep it? Pretty please?"

A memory of the pup he had grown for half a year flashed through Corwal's mind, but he suppressed it right away. Kyla wasn't a hound. No one would kill her pet to teach her a lesson about learning to not get attached.

"If you want," he said with a shrug.

The girl's expression grew ecstatic, and she instantly opened the cage to pull out the squeaking blue ball. "It's so cute!" she exclaimed while lowering her head to kiss the fluffy back and laughing.

"Customer, this is… It's expensive," the vendor murmured. He wanted to grab the blue chick from Kyla's hands, but a single look from Corwal stopped him in his tracks.

While Kyla was distracted, Corwal took a step closer and whispered to the vendor, "You're lucky she likes it, or I would be calling the guards right now. Next time, don't treat your customers as fools. Rainbirds are pretty, but they're only good to get a ten-year prison sentence."

"Milord—"

Corwal threw the man a couple gold coins, which was way more than he deserved, and grabbed the cage where the chick had resided. "Let's go," he told Kyla, and she happily followed along while grinning at the ball of fluff in her hands.

Nothing else in the market attracted her attention, so Corwal led her back into the castle. The secret passages had way more people walking them than any 'secret' path should ever have, but they didn't meet anyone, and he lost the people following him before leaving again.

The sun was about to set, which was the perfect time for Corwal. He went to one of his safehouses and changed his appearance. For his upcoming adventure, it was better for him to not be recognized. Life had become so much harder when his face became public.

He dyed his hair black. The dye stank, but it was the price he had to pay for anonymity. Once the hair dried, he attached a couple black locks to the back of his head to make his hair look longer.

Then, he wrapped a dark blue mask over the lower half of his face and dressed up in tight-fitting dark clothes. Daggers went into secret pockets on his arms and legs. He also pocketed a couple vials with poison, just in case they became necessary.

His bag with tools required for climbing and stealing into buildings landed on his back, and he was ready. Without any delay, he left his safehouse and went to where he knew the base of Bloody Hatchet was.

The streets around it were quiet. Uncannily so.

Corwal scaled a nearby building's wall and looked around. The night was quiet, without a living soul in sight. A dozen possibilities flashed through his mind, but there was no way to tell which held even a grain of truth.

Slowly, he advanced over the rooftops.

When he got close to the large building that served as the base of the assassin guild, a bloody stench reached him. It hung heavily in the air, overpowering any other smells. A bloody massacre had to have happened for it to be so strong.

'Someone got to them before me? But why now? Why today?'

As he lay on a nearby rooftop, pondering what he should do next, a dark silhouette left the building. It didn't make a single sound, and its face was hidden just like Corwal's, but he instantly recognized the person.

All hounds had a certain way they walked and moved, seemingly slow but ceaseless like the clouds in the sky. It was due to the training they all went through, and it was a dead giveaway among their own kin.

Corwal didn't know which one it was, but it didn't matter. The fact was that a hound, and probably a few more who left through other exists, had been sent to exterminate Bloody Hatchet. It wouldn't have been much of a news on a normal day, but when an assassin guild was contracted to kill Corwal's children?

He followed with his eyes the figure till it disappeared into the shadows, then rose up to return as well. His plans had been foiled, but he didn't leave empty-handed.

Whatever the king was playing, Corwal now knew that it hadn't been Bloody Hatchet that was contracted. That left only two other possibilities—Moon Slayers and Cloaked Dagger. One of them was after the kids he had saved, and he was going to make sure they never lived down taking up such a contract.