Shattered Truth

I burst through the manor doors with Bruce right behind me. I run up the stairs taking them two at a time. We turn onto the west wing startling Isaac’s personal maid. She stumbles to the ground, but I ignore her and keep running to Giselle’s room. I push open her doors and look around.

“Giselle!” I shout heading to the bathroom. I open the door to an empty room.

“Bandit, she’s not here.” I turned to see Bruce sniffing the air. I copy his actions and smell seawater and salt, Giselle; the scent smells pretty recent she can’t be far. I look at Bruce and he nods his head. He understands that I must find her and he will help.

We run out of the room heading towards our own rooms. If we were going up against other assassins we were going in prepared. Bruce broke off from me to go to his own room. I run over to the dresser, pushing aside my clothes to reveal a bundle of weapons. I pull off my cloak and put on my weapons belt, sash, and shoulder hostler. I wasn’t taking any chances. I fill my sash with my blow darts and blow gun, and I put my daggers in my hostler and belt.

“Bandit, you ready?” I turn to see Bruce sliding his sword behind his back. I nod my head then grab my cloak. I head for the door and stop. Standing in the doorway is a flustered looking Isaac followed by Edgar, Sebastian, and Kingsley.

“What’s going on? My maid came to me panicking when she saw you two running.” Isaac glances down at my belt and starts shaking his head.

“Giselle has been taken by hired assassins. Assassins your wife hired.” Bruce said with a smile. They all gasped. I tie the cloak on, ignoring their reaction and go to step by the men, but Isaac grabs my wrist.

“I can’t let you go, I can’t risk it. One daughter has already been taken from me I won’t let another. Send Bruce but don’t go.” I look around to see shocked faces, except Bruce. I have a sneaking suspicion he already knew. I glare up at Isaac.

“This is my job, she is my only sister, half-sister, and I won’t let her died at the hands of her insane mother,” I said ripping my hand from his grasp and heading down the hall with Bruce right behind me. I could hear Sebastian and Kingsley about to say something but they was cut off. Even though Giselle slapped me I had to help her, she was my half-sister and I wasn’t going to let her die.

“She’s not your half-sister!” Isaac shouts. I turn to see him walking towards me.

“What?” I am confused as to why he is bringing this up now.

“You two are true blood siblings. You two share the same mother.” I wrinkle my brow.

“That’s not possible she is a full elemental. If we were full sisters, she shouldn’t be able to have such control over water.”

“Her Driat genes are completely recessive. She will never have Driat abilities, so her DNA compensated by giving her an unlimited range of water control.”

“I don’t understand this, why are you telling me this now?” Isaac steps forward and tries to reach for me but I move from his reach. He sighs.

“I know I can’t stop you, you and your sister are so much alike, but I have to warn you. If Giselle is set off she can cause mass destruction. She did it once when she was younger. She has learned how to control it, but if she snaps you need be prepared.”

“Exactly, what can she do?” Bruce asks.

“I can’t speak of it; hopefully you will never have to see it.” I stare at him. That is lame he should just tell us. I glance at Bruce and see his agitation. He must be thinking the same thing.

“Okay thanks, I guess.” I turn and start walking away following her scent.

“Wait!” I hear Kingsley and Sebastian say at the same time. I glance over my shoulder but keep walking. They exchange looks and nod.

“We’re coming,” Kingsley says. What a knight in shining armor. “All of us.” He gestures to all the men.

“No!” Bruce and I shout at the same time. Unfortunately they don’t take no for an answer and start running towards us.

“Throw it,” Bruce says with a sadistic smile. I dig into my belt and retrieve a hollow ball and throw it at them. It shatters as it hits the ground releasing a white sleeping gas. I don’t look back as I hear four bodies drop. If they came they would have gotten in the way.

***

We finally track Giselle’s scent to a stone building out in the country hidden by trees and vegetation. It took us all day to get here, because we kept having to back track to the cemetery, because her scent kept disappearing. The assassins must have done something to her to throw off her natural scent.

We scope out the place to find out there are multiple entrances with heavy security at each one. We decide to use the entrance on the north side of the building. I pull out my blow dart and load it with death darts, instant death. There are ten guards just at this one door. Bruce pulls out his dagger called Mary and slips into the shadows. He slowly picks off the five guards furthest from the entrance, the ones that weren’t noticeable. I pick off the other five guards in rapid succession with my blow gun. I wait for Bruce to motion that it is safe.

I cross the clearing passing the guards. Each one has a fire tattoo, and at each one there eyes stare up at the night sky looking like lifeless doll eyes. I stop at the door and watch Bruce wipe the blood off of Mary and onto the nearest guard. He slips Mary into his cloak and comes to the door. He checks it for alarms and nods his approval. Unfortunately, as he opens the door a loud bang goes off, and then we hear shouting.

“Over here! Over here!” As we run down the hallway I pull out my dagger, Tooth, and start sniffing for Giselle. We come to a “T”. To the left I smell Giselle to the right approaches three guards with balls of fire in their hands.

“You find Giselle. I will catch up to you later,” Bruce says taking off towards the guards. I hear one man scream in pain as Mary plows into his forehead.
I put my noise up and catch Giselle’s scent and run down the left hall. For five right turns and three lefts, then I come to a stone door. The whole time that I ran here I didn’t run into one guard. I feel like I’m walking into a trap, which I probably am, but for some reason I feel the need to help Giselle. I think it is the sense of family loyalty, which is weird since I just found out I have family.

I push open the door with Tooth in hand. Suddenly the dark room is alight with a bright white light. I catch a glimpse of Giselle sitting in a chair in the middle of the room with Philippa standing next to her with a shit eating grin on her face. Giselle has blood running down her face and bruises cover her bare arms. Her eyes widen when she see me.

“Watch out!” She shouts as three guards come at me with. They throw fire balls at me but I dodge them, barely. The red haired guard grabs me by my cloak and tugs me towards him. I use his momentum to shove Tooth into his side then yank downwards and twist. He screams in pain, as I feel his blood gush out onto my hand. He pushes me away trying to put pressure on his wound as he bleeds to death.

Then next one comes at me with flaming hands. He tries to hit me, but he is so big that I duck making him spin in a circle. As he comes to face me I bring Tooth up, shoving it through his chin and into his brains. As he slumps to the floor I pull out Tooth.

The last one has flaming has too. Do they not learn by example? I rush towards him thinking he will be just like the other. He is until he swings his arm. I go to duck but he sees it coming and punches my in the gut. I stumble back stunned as I hold my stomach. I look at him to see him smiling, he lifts his hand and the flame disappears to reveal a blade with blood on it. I look down and move my cloak aside to see blood running over my hands.

I swallow back the coppery taste of blood in my mouth, and fall to my knees. The pain echoes through my body making me slump to the side. All through my life I have been hurt, stabbed, and constantly knocking on death’s door, but I never thought I would die this way. It’s so lame.