Cynthia's POV
"What is it that you want, Abel...?" I spoke in a blunt tone of voice as the guard and I approached my fiancé, resisting the urge to be rude but instead refusing to refer to him as any term of endearment. Said dark haired fiancé turned around to face me, obviously sensing my presence and hearing my voice, just as I stopped walking. The guard that had escorted me bowed low before slowly walking off, returning to his previous duties. Smiling warmly, he slowly started walking up to me, happy to see that I had arrived. My eyes narrowed with disgust at that smile.
For as long as I could remember, I had always hated that kind, gentle smile of his. Even from afar, I knew it was nothing but a white lie. Unfortunately, no else was able to see it as well as I had in these passing months. He looked as if he were an innocent young man laying eyes on his dear fiancé, but I knew he only pretending to be the loving soon-to-be husband my father wanted. Hell, he was pretending to act like the leader everyone wanted, needed, and praised. People believed he would be a much suited King for the land, but whenever I told them about what he was really like, selfish and self-centered, they did not believe me. Well, only a few people believed my words, as they were very skeptical of Abel’s much too nice personality toward everyone he came into contact with. Others, on the other hand, simply refused the idea or thought I was just wrong or nervous for the wedding. It was difficult to comprehend why they did not want to believe me, but I did not think about it very much.
"Cynthia, my lovely soon-to-be wife!" Abel’s tone was filled exuberance and love while that smile danced across his face. It caused my chain of thought to be broken before I continued to glare at him. When he approached me, he immediately pulled me into a small embrace. "It is good to see you again, my dear."
I did not return the embrace, and simply continued to stare him down like a warrior ready to strike down the enemy. Sensing my anger and annoyance, he pulled away, keeping his hands on my shoulders, and looked me in the eyes with his ocean blue eyes.
"Why do you not look excited, my love?" He questioned, his eyebrows furrowing. "It is your wedding! You should be very happy."
I looked away from him, shrugging my shoulders harshly in the process in order to remove his hands.
"I thought I was going to be happy," I said, glaring into a different direction that was not him, "but instead, I am marrying you. A man who only cares about himself and his money."
He blinked once at my words, once again playing innocent.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, Cynthia," he said, his eyebrows furrowing into a somewhat saddened and hurtful expression.
"Do not play dumb with me, Abel," I growled, sensing his little trick coming into play. "You are just acting like this, so kind and gentle, because there are people around us. You are only doing this just to keep my father and everyone else happy. They all think I am going to be happy if I marry you. But I am not happy! At all!"
Abel stared at me for a long moment, dumbfounded by my words, before saying, "But Cynthia, I am doing my best to keep you happy, but with the arrangements and whatnot, I have been very busy." He placed a hand on my cheek in a loving manner, yet it made me shrink back. "I greatly apologize if I am not around to keep you company like you want, my love, but I want tomorrow to be perfect just for you."
I rolled my eyes in disgust as I slapped his hand away.
"You are so stupid," I hissed. "I do not even know why my father is forcing me to marry someone like you."
"Because he thinks I am a great man and will make you happy and keep you that way while he is gone.” I sensed a small smile growing on his face, one that was filled with all the lies that I had been told over the months. "I truly do love you, Cynthia, and I would not do anything to hurt or displease you. I only wish to make you happy like your father wishes."
Enraged, I turned around and marched right up to him, moving fairly close to his face.
“You are a liar!" I snapped at him, the frustration that had been building up over time finally boiling over the edge. "The only reason why you wish to marry me is so you could use me to get what you want out of my family, my Kingdom: money, power, recognition!" He moved his head back a bit, trying to keep a small distance away from me. "You want to become the next king so you can rule this peaceful land! You want all the attention you never got when you were in England! You want all the money you can get your grubby little hands on so you can buy everything you want, since you are nothing but a spoiled little ungrateful child living in royalty!" I moved closer to him, and he took a small step back as he stared at me in fake shock. "And what do I get out of this, Abel? NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! You are just going to throw me to the side like a rag doll and leave me to die just so you can have all the power to yourself, and so I will not oppose you or go against your wishes!"
"But...but Cynthia, I would never - "
"This idea of marrying you is ridiculous! This pathetic wedding is unwanted! EVERYTHING ABOUT OUR SO CALLED RELATIONSHIP DISGUSTS ME TO NO END! I hate everything about you, and I regret the day I ever said yes to your damned proposal!" People around us started staring in shock. "I just wish I had never met you in the first place! I wish I found someone else who actually cares about a woman and her feelings towards a man and does not plan on using her just to get what he wants!"
With those words having left my lips, I abruptly turned on my heel and stormed away from him, fists clenched tightly with anger. My rage was to a point when I just wanted to hit something, anything, as hard as I could and break it to pieces. However, I chose to keep myself from doing such an insane thing. To keep myself in check and not scare anyone around me, I prevented myself from turning right back around, walking straight up to him, and just throwing a fist right into his face. Instead, I decided that I wanted to be alone for the rest of the day, get my mind off him for a little while. That, or be around someone who would keep me a little sane for a little while. People around me took notice to my angered state and aura before quickly dispersing out of the way, watching me as I marched past them like an angered bull and away from the pathetic excuse of a man named Abel. My fists clenched to a point where they would puncture skin and make them bleed. However, I took deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself.
That bastard of a man, without even lifting a finger, made me feel so frustrated and enraged. Sometimes, I hated the decisions my father made for me. He still, to this day, only saw the child he had seen every day in the past, and he believed I could not make my own decisions for myself or for the land without a king by my side to help me. I could tell he saw me as only a child, a little girl, and assumed he would have to make all of my decisions for me until the day I stood at the altar and said "I do" to a man who later be dubbed King. Although I loved my father dearly despite the distant relationship between us, why did it have to be someone like Abel? Why did it have to be a pompous, self-centered brute who only believed his wants and desires were more important than anything else? That the money and power that belonged to my father and myself should belong to him? Why was he chosen to be my husband? His parents raised him to be better than that, since I had met with them once before. They agreed he was just no good, but it was only to me, which seemed very odd to both of them. They were not sure as to why he suddenly acted the way he did, and they were not sure what to do about it.
“If we had some sort of idea,” Abel's father said, sounding a little saddened and worried at the same time, “we would have used it on Abel by now. But even we, people whom he had gone to all his life, do not know what to do.”
A heavy, defeated sigh escaped my lips as I slowly attempted to unclench my tightly clenched hands, knowing that punching someone or something would only result in an injury, whether it be big or small. I was sure my father would not want me to become injured a day before the wedding, especially if it resulted in injuring the groom as well. Instead, I decided to calm my anger and riled state of mind by going to visit my good friends who would be able to help a little. With their assistance, I would be able to keep myself in check even if it was for only a little while during the day.
At the thought of my dear friends, a small smile graced my lips, knowing they could help me with any problem I had come across or had to deal with, most of the time involving Abel. Without them, Abel would be injured a lot more than usual, and my father would not be one happy king.
"It is good to have friends like them," I muttered to myself as I turned a corner and headed towards the estate that was rented out until our wedding.
Altaïr's POV
"I just wish I had never met you in the first place! I wish I found someone else who actually cares about a woman and her feelings towards a man and does not plan on using her just to get what he wants!"
With those words spoke, I quietly watched as Cynthia turned and marched away from the man she had spoken to, most likely her supposed lover as mentioned by the informer. I could not see her face very well due to the elevated distance, but despite that, I could still sense she was extremely upset from her argument moments ago. From what I heard, it sounded as if the informer was right all along; Cynthia truly hated the man she was forced to call her fiancé. Also, even though he did not speak about himself all that much, Abel sounded very condescending and self-centered based off the way he spoke to and acted around his soon-to-wife. He sounded very confident, which no one seemed to notice at all with the exception being Cynthia herself. I would not know for sure until I investigated him further, but he was not my target to kill. Returning to my feet, I watched Cynthia for another few seconds before slowly glancing back at the man, who I presumed was Abel from the argument before. For a moment, he just stood there, shocked as he watched his beloved fiancé storm off into the opposite direction. Then, after another few seconds, he lowered his head and stared at the ground for a moment before looking in Cynthia's direction and smiled. That smile of his did not appear to be one that I had expected. Instead, it appeared menacing, almost...evil.
Eyes narrowed, I watched as he turned to the few guards standing nearby, bodyguards possibly, and began walking in the opposite direction from Cynthia, snapping his fingers to signal his guards to follow him. What are you up to, Abel? I inquired as he began to disappear from my view. What are you trying to hide?
Pushing the thought to the side for safe keeping, I quickly turned my head back to Cynthia, eyeing her closely, before silently trailing the rooftops behind her, leaping over a few short gaps between them in the process. She continued to storm away from the spot in which her fiancé once was, and she still appeared to be fumed a bit from the argument. However, as time continued to pass by, her once angered and frustrated state seemed to slowly deteriorate, as if something else was on her mind distracting her her. Whatever she was thinking about made her forget about what had happened moments ago. From what I had seen so far, she seemed to calm down fairly easily if the topic changed into something different. She did not seem like a threat nor did she look like one. She seemed very innocent. In fact, she appeared to be a little too innocent. Not the kind of innocent that would make one suspicious about her, much like Abel moments ago, but the innocent that made a person look completely harmless both on the outside and the inside. If she was truly that kind of innocent, I thought, then why would Master Al Mualim want her dead in the first bait? Using her as bait, as Al Mualim had told me before sending me here, could not be the only reason behind his desire for her demise.
With that thought sewn into my mind, I slowly came to a halt as she turned a corner, her form disappearing from my vision completely. I had all the information I needed about what to do in order for the assassination to be completed, so there was no need to follow her any longer at this point. Now, all I needed to do was wait for the right time to make my move and strike. With a small nod, I quickly made my way back to the Assassin's Bureau, most likely walking right into a lecture from Malik about how he was nothing like Cynthia or something along those lines for a good several hours. I rolled my eyes as I leapt onto the opposite roof. This was going to be a long day.
Cynthia's POV
"Alexandra, Diana! Cynthia's back from patrolling!" Ada Haksson, a friend whom I had known since she arrived from Sweden many years ago, called out happily once she opened the door to my bedroom and spotted me.
With a small smile, I simply followed close behind her, drooping slightly from walking around Jerusalem so much and from the small argument with Abel about twenty minutes before. Once I entered my room, I dragged myself over to my bed, flopping down onto it, feeling the cool, soft material beneath me. After another few moments, I sighed contently and looked back at Ada, who shook her head at the position that I was in, her curly light brown hair following suit.
"It must have been a long day if your that worn out," she commented, blinking her dark brown eyes once while brushing out her light brown hair.
I slowly got up in a sitting position.
"No, not really. It was not that bad...er, sort of."
"Why add the 'sort of', Cynthia?" I glanced over at Alexandra Benedek, a young Hungarian woman whom I had also known since I was a child. She sat at the chair closest to my dresser, straddling it and placing her chin atop her bare forearms. Her brown eyes held a bit of curiosity while she wore a smirk on her lightly tanned face. She fiddled with a strand of her dark colored hair, as well.
I smiled innocently in her direction, shrugging slightly, "I...may have snapped at Abel in public.”
Her smirk widened slightly as well as her eyes, leaning forward in her seat a bit.
"You must be joking," she stated, only to earn a shake of the head from me.
"I am not," I responded back. "It actually felt...pretty good to finally let him have it for once since all of this started. He deserved it, anyway."
"Letting off a little steam is good every once in awhile," entered Diana Rousseau, a French-born woman who had known Ada since they were children before meeting Alexandra and I years later. She came into the room through the double doorway that lead to my balcony. Running a hand through her auburn colored hair, she blinked her blue eyes once before saying with a smile, "We would not want you ranting about how Abel is a horrible man whenever you see one of us."
"Oh, thank you, Diana." I responded with playful sarcasm, "I did not want my problems to bore you all to death."
We all started to laugh, almost as if we were children once again. It had been so long since our childhood days. Things had changed dramatically as we became older and older with every passing year, every passing hour, every passing minute, many of which we were unprepared for all together. I lived on to start taking on my responsibilities as the daughter of King Richard, while Ada, Alexandra, and Diana moved on to become Templar Knights just like they said they would. We still were able to see one another from time to time, though, which kept us together as friends. Sometimes, though one of us would be too busy with some important job and would not be able to come see the others by the time she was finished with her duties for the day. Nevertheless, we still remained close friends and saw each other whenever we had the time. Even if I had an arranged marriage to worry about, which was not really that much of a deal on my part, it could never keep me from seeing my friends. That was another reason why I cherished my friendship so much; not only did they do my best to help not only myself but other people as well, they would do their best just to try and see their childhood friends again after a long hard day at work.
"So what did Abel do now?" Alexandra questioned, leaning back in her chair in a lazy manner. I huffed at the mere thought of my so-called fiancé.
"Well, he did not do anything to me, but the way he acted was usual,” I explained. “He wanted to see me for something, though I never did find out what it was. From the way he acted, all innocent and whatnot, it gave me the impression that he was just messing with my head.” I looked up at the ceiling. “He told me how much he wanted to spend time with me, but I knew from the look in his eyes that it was all a lie. So,” I looked back at them, “I let him have it!”
Ada groaned with frustration.
"I cannot STAND that man!" She, then, took a pillow and slammed her face into it, muffling an annoyed scream. "Why can the people not see him for who he really is? This is ridiculous!"
I giggled at her dull expression after the pillow lowered to reveal her eyes.
"Do not worry so much, Ada. He thinks he can act nice and innocent while in public, but I have seen him for what he really is. He cannot hide it from me or anybody else forever."
"I do not see why he has to be so...'innocently handsome,' so to speak, to all the people in the cities," Alexandra spoke, rolling her eyes. "It is sad to know people can be so blinded from the truth simply because of good looks and charisma."
"Do not worry," Diana said, sitting down next to me on my bed and placing a hand on my shoulder in reassurance. "Eventually, he will be caught red-handed like a thief, and then,” She looked at me, “people will start to believe you."
"Yes, but the question is...when?" Alexandra pointed out. "Once again, innocent charm equals wooed civilians, which outweighs evil, conceited brute. It may be awful to know, but it is true."
I looked at the hardwood floor with a saddened expression.
"True..." I muttered. "When will that day come?"
Ada returned to her feet and placed the pillow back onto her bed.
"Hopefully soon, Cynthia.” I looked over at my window, feeling a light breeze brush over my skin. "With your determination and smarts along with our skills put together, that day will come sooner than we all think."
"Yes..." I muttered to myself, putting on a small, yet fake smile. "Hopefully soon..."