Assassins Crown

Chapter 22

Nicole spun around and headed toward the entrance to the ballroom. Winston followed behind.

            From inside the ballroom, Winston could hear people screaming. His panic rose.

            He looked towards Nicole to see if she noticed.

            He remembered when he was preparing to kill her. She had jerked towards the entrance right as he came away from the pillar to kill her, but then he stopped.

            He had noticed someone following her.

            He kept back and followed.

            As he passed through the entrance, he saw them fighting. Nicole was losing horribly.

            He rushed to help her, but he was stopped by a pair of guards. They had their weapons out threateningly. They seemed to want me not to engage, but that was not going to happen.

He had killed them easily.

He was one of the most experienced fighters and it served him well.

The guards had no chance.

Winston had rushed over and barreled into her attacker from the side.

They both fell to the ground.

It was Jeffrey.

Hatred swelled within Winston's heart.

Then they had started their own fight.

Jeffrey was expert, but Winston had the advantage of being on his feet and Jeffrey on the floor.

Well, until Nicole had unintentionally cut his leg.

Now, the pain of the wound hit him like a train.

He grunted in pain and limped to where Nicole stood frozen.

He looked down at her. She was pasty white; white as the whitest of snow.

"What is it--?" he started to ask. But then he looked into the ballroom.

People were dead everywhere, only about half of the people were still alive. There were archers surrounding the people.

"I killed them all."

Winston turned back to Nicole.

"No, you didn't. They did," he said to her.

She looked sharply up at him and he almost fell over with the look she gave him.

Her eyes were storms. Dark clouds covered the light and happiness. Lightning flashed with pure hatred and deep guilt. But what was even more overwhelming was the terror in her eyes. True terror. This girl knew more about fear than he ever had or would.

Her eyes were like pits that swallowed him up and true fear filled him. All the color of her blue eyes almost disappeared.

"Nicole?"

She turned back to the scene and stepped into the room.

Jeffrey was right. I have killed everyone.

            I step into the room with my bloody sword at my side.

            All my fault.

            I could have ran and been free, but I knew there was no chance for my freedom. They would kill everyone then they would find and kill me.

            Just like I had warned the king. I told him this would happen.

            Now, they were here and they were killing people because of the kings ignorance and me not trying hard enough.