Ch. 5: The Princess Assassin

After leaving the Allaris' cell, Rosy found herself replaying her plans in her head. After she destroyed the entrapment spell on the cell, the key would be noticeable in the keyhole. If they didn't notice it before the guard came back, then things would get interesting. She would likely have to resort to plan B. She hated the idea of plan B. She silently willed for him to notice the key in the cell door before the guard comes back.

She could probably help them more, but she was finding it hard to overcome her natural instincts enough to care.

She made her way to her private bath and started getting ready for a dip, but there was a knock on the door as soon as her foot touched the blood.

"Leave!" She tried to ignore it. She wasn't the type that was comfortable being waited on all day every day. Even when she was in a good mood, servants that intruded on her privacy tended to get scared and go into hiding, never to show their face in public for fear of death or worse.

In all honesty, she had only ever killed one person in her own chambers, and it had been an accident. Her reputation was what terrified most into running the moment she expressed displeasure of any form. Unfortunately, this servant had more than Rosy to fear. The door flew open and three servants came in, a maid accompanied by a female brute and a male brute, both of whom completely seemed to forget their duties when they saw the large pool of blood that she was about to bathe in.

Rosy scrambled for a towel, trying to hide her embarrassment. Luckily, her angry cover face was enough to scare the brutes back to their senses. She found it interesting that the maid didn't seem fazed in the least by the idea of making her angry. That didn't sit well with Rosy, because it likely meant that she was on an errand from the one person who made her seem like a girl scout.

"Princess Rosemary, I have been looking everywhere for you." She said with a respectful curtsy that felt mocking given the circumstances.

"And you have found me. Taking a blood bath. And you decided that your reasons for the notable intrusion upon my privacy, as well as the crime of bringing brutes into my chambers outweighs my anger and desire to punish?" She hated having her privacy invaded, true, but the latter crime was much worse. Vampires needed blood. The result of that need was a loss of inhibitions that was called bloodlust. The worse it got, the less you cared what you did to fulfill it. Proximity to fresh blood or open wounds tended to seriously aggravate it. Bloodlust was essentially what defined a vampire, and was heavily affected by strength. There were three types of vampires: Common, Brutes, and royals. Commoners were numerous, and had only slightly better physical strength, speed, and reflexes than humans, in correlation, they had low bloodlust. Rosy had even heard of a common monk who had conditioned himself so harshly that he was celebrating 25 years without drinking blood. In contrast, Brutes were nearly unequaled in physical strength, but their bloodlust was a constant, brain addling force. The two brutes before Rosy could likely drain her entire fifty square foot blood bath and still thirst for blood. The bloodlust pushed most everything else out, meaning that their intellect was generally low, which combined with the high bloodlust and strength made them her father's ideal soldiers. Their aggression more than made up for their low numbers.

But when it came to vampires, Royals were by far the best at combat. While almost all races and classes of non-humans produced a type of magic that repelled magic energy like two similar magnets repelling each other (Void magic), Royals did not. This made them the strongest type, despite the fact that their physical attributes and correlating bloodlust was directly in between commoners and brutes. Unfortunately, there were only three Royals left in existence, including Rosy and her mother, and there wouldn't be many more, since it was only the firstborns, or occasionally otherwise worthy Royal vampires who were able to give birth to other Royals similar to the mantles of king or queen, This guaranteed that Royals never grew a very large population.

Back to the matter at hand, though, bloodlust was the main reason that Rosy was angry. Due to the sheer amount of blood in her bath, Rosy didn't even allow commoners in the corridor outside, much less actually inside the bath. She always used human guards for her chambers.

Being reminded that it was stupid to allow brutes near this place seemed to jog the stupid maid's mind. She went down on one knee, finally showing some respect, instead of reckless abandon.

"My deepest apologies. I was in such a rush to find you that I did not pay heed to my many mistakes."

"Are you a messenger?" Rosy voiced what she had been wondering.

"Yes, Princess. From your father."

"What is your message?"

"He wishes for an audience with you. At once." The messenger relayed.

"Did he say why?" Rosy wondered aloud.

"Not precisely, but he did express displeasure about your work with the Urian royalty."

Rosy bit her lip, "So that's what he wants." This was an unexpected development. It might even throw a wrench in her plans.

"But I am simply a servant. The messenger reminded her.

"It is unlikely that my assumptions are even in part correct." That was probably meant to be reassuring, but it made Rosy even more anxious. For a fleeting moment, she even thought of blowing her father off, but the consequences would be much too swift. She needed to buy time, and that meant facing her father.

"Allow me to dress, and I will be there shortly." She decided.

"My orders are to bring you to him immediately. By force if necessary." Now, the brutes behind the messenger made sense, The only weapon other than the ones held by the brutes was the one she had 'borrowed' from the prince, which she had hidden inside her discarded dress, and them though it was high quality, she didn't want to use the man's sword without his permission. Even piggybacking off of his void magic to cut the entrapment made her feel dirty, even though it had been necessary. She found herself wishing that she had grabbed her own sword, Darkreina, before she had gone to the cells. Even without a sword, Rosy's fighting skills were prodigal at worst, even by the high standards of Royal vampires. The threat of two brutes was an idle one at best if she decided to fight.

She didn't want her father to think that she was rebelling in the slightest, though, so she did something else. She pretended to accidentally fall into the pool of blood.

"Seems that I have accidentally ended up covered in blood. I cannot be presented to my father in such a state. I will quickly rinse myself off and report to him as soon as I am presentable." The messenger bit her lip, obviously perturbed by the idea of what punishment she would get for this delay. In the end, she made the decision Rosy had hoped, and fell for the ploy to leave Rosy to rinse off the blood and change, promising to wait outside until she was ready.

As soon as they left, Rosy raced to the faucet to rinse off all the blood and grime that would show outside of her clothes, but she didn't change into the clothes she had planned to wear.

She took the boy's sword and placed it in the hidden compartment where two sets of leather armor were already waiting, under her dresser in her connected bedchamber.

She chose a black and red lacy sleeveless number, feeling that the somber design and colors gave her an unnerving vibe, almost like she was mourning deaths that hadn't quite happened yet. It seemed perfect for an audience with her father,

Rosy went back through the bathroom and emerged as if this was the outfit that she had laid out. The messenger audibly sighed when she saw her, as if looking good would make up for the delay in Rosy's father's eyes.

They rushed Rosy through the castle, moving at a pace that made her repeatedly almost trip over her dress, even with her unusually amazing agility.

Finally, they arrived at the throne room. The brutes didn't dare enter, and the messenger lady sank into a low bow after announcing Rosy's presence.

"You are late." His voice was deep and arrogant, reeking of cruelty. The throne room itself followed suit, with gold and black metal nearly everywhere. Two literal skeletons guarded the door, a rare and special species of nearly unkillable monsters that did the bidding of dark sorcerers. Those skeleton soldiers understandable creeped even Rosy out.

"My apologies, my liege. When I found her, she was bathing." The messenger woman explained quickly, not daring to move a muscle.

"Did I request an excuse? And Rosemary, if you are to make me wait on a bath, then at least make it count. You smell like an outhouse." He could smell her from across the rather large room, over the smell of rot and death that gently pervaded the air, which masked every other smell from even Rosy's nose. His other senses were just as otherworldly, but nobody really knew what race he was. Even Rosy only knew that he was no more vampire than he was human.

"I did not have time to finish." She told him.

"You are dismissed." He told the messenger. She must have been a foggard, because she instantly poofed into a cloud and disappeared almost immediately, "Why did you refuse to finish part one of the plan?" He asked. He didn't really care why.

"Charles did it well. I was not needed." He would never accept the truth, that her human side would never have gone along with the plan.

"Charles' job was the Stone. The royalty was your job. I don't like the idea of you being too weak to kidnap two people." If he really believed that she was getting weak, she would be dead, so she rolled her eyes, pretending to be unconcerned.

"Father, he volunteered, and I was unnecessary, not weak. Do not forget my successes on the battlefield." She reminded her father.

"Success on the battlefield means nothing for one of your skill." 

"So, you accept my skill?" She wondered. This surprised her, as he never outwardly expressed respect for her power.

"You have countless kills on the battlefield, I would be daft to not recognize your skills, but that is not what I am questioning." He snapped at her.

"You question my resolve." he would always be questioning her resolve, which was set fast, as was her loyalty. He should be questioning them, though, since they were set in the exact opposite direction from what he had drilled into her.

"You seem to have an underlying weakness that needs to be killed. The number 73 is all I care about when it comes to your achievements." She tried to seem clueless and uninterested in what the number represented, but it made her skin crawl all the same. 73 was the number of assassinations that she had personally carried out over the multitude of her father's orders that she had received over the four-and-a-half years since she had managed to graduate from the front lines of her father's many pointless wars against his neighboring countries. She wasn't able to accurately count the number of assassinations that she had actually carried out as his daughter in the almost eight years since she had officially undertaken her role as a Royal, but she had only taken roughly 73 of them completely by herself since she was officially allowed to do solo missions on her twelfth birthday. Her targets usually ranged between high profile people, or magi users that had caught her father's eyes for the wrong reasons, though this wasn't always the case.

"Seventy-three?" She asked, pretending not to know.

"The number of my targets that you have snuffed out without help. You are here because I am adding a target to that list. You may recognize her."