Secrets of the Crown Assassins

44

ARIELLE

The voices started a few minutes ago.

I was running through the halls, determined to find Indigo Fluor and her mother myself. After all, I was the one who never needed a map. I could make my own way. As for the rest, while I was worried for them and had no idea what they were up to, I trusted Xavier and Damien to know what they were doing and Phoenix could handle herself.

My focus was only on Indigo Fluor. And then the speakers crackled to life and the voices began.

They were recordings, clips of when I was younger, when I was older, maybe even recently. Some were far too similar for me to discern, others were ones I didn't even remember. Why would I? They were daily occurrences.

The clips were taken from what must've been footage that we tried to erase long ago from the cameras of the Golden Palace. I heard my father's voice echo through the halls.

"Daria," he shouted. "What's wrong with you? You can't even keep your hands up?"

There was a clash as he slammed a staff across my back. I heard myself collapse to the floor and cry out.

"Father, please stop."

I shook my head and took off down the dark hallways, the voices still following me. I reached a stairwell and dashed up the steps, no destination in mind, just the goal of escaping my father and myself.

"You're supposed to take up your sister's name in a few months. Mere months, Daria! You think you can convince them when you can't even get back up? When you can't even put up a fight?"

I didn't respond.

"You're weak, Daria," he hissed. "Do you want to keep being weak?"

I reached the top of the stairs and pushed through a door, entering a short hallway. At the very end of the hall was a large metal door, a handprint scanner sitting right beside it. Between the door and her were five armed guards. There were no speakers here, but the words followed her.

You're weak, Daria.

I slid to the ground as the guards lifted their guns, flinging her blades. It caught four of them, slitting their throats, making them collapse into the last one, blocking his line of fire.

My father was right. I was weak. All my life I let him chain me, his words confining me, let him tell me I was supposed to be Arielle Fortier. I shaped myself to his liking, to fix his mistakes. I let him determine who I was. All this time, I knew I couldn't continue living the same way, not if I wanted them to tear me apart. But I did nothing to stop it. I did nothing to save myself, to pursue my own dreams, my own goals.

But what even were they? I said I wanted peace. I said I wanted to run away. But why? Because I thought I wasn't Arielle Fortier? That I wasn't a Crown Heir? That I couldn't rule? I spent years training and studying and practicing to claim the crown. I fought tooth and nail, tore myself apart and put myself together again to get where I was. Did I really want to let it all go? Just because someone said I wasn't good enough?

I threw my blade again and sliced the last one's neck and looked up.

No.

No matter what I said, I wanted to try to be a good Crown Fortier, to be able to be better than my sister ever was. It didn't matter what my father said.

"My name is Arielle fucking Fortier!" I shouted at the cameras. "No one will stop me!"

And then I stepped forward, leaned down, and slammed my blade through one of the dead guard's wrists, cutting his hand straight off. The blood splattered all over me—my face, my clothes, my hair—but I didn't care. I pressed the severed hand against the scanner and, after a moment, it buzzed. The large door clicked.