Young Writers Society

Ky sent a pleading gaze towards Makata. Surely, he would be curious to know what she had to say – would at the very least give her the opportunity to say what she needed to. Instead, she found him smirking at Aleth. “Owned him all of five minutes and already teaching him the respect he apparently neglected to learn here.”

Makata gestured lazily at the soldier standing nearby. He stepped forward and grabbed her arm, pushing her roughly towards the carriage. She tried to yank free of his grasp. “Let go!

The soldier dug his fingernails even deeper into her arm, reaching out with his other hand to grab her right arm. A moment later he’d wrestled her into the carriage, giving her a shove so that she fell into the far wall. He stood in the doorway, glaring at her threateningly.

She took a deep breath, considering arguing, then sighed deeply instead. Nothing she said would matter to a single man standing in that courtyard. She huffed and picked herself up off the floor, throwing herself back into the cushions of the seat angrily. The soldier stayed in the doorway, glowering at her, as Aleth said his goodbyes. Ky sat returning the glare.

A few moments later the soldier stepped back, and Aleth climbed into the carriage. Her glare never wavered. He considered her for a moment, then sat on the bench seat opposite her. The door closed ominously, sealing them inside, together. Ky went for the door.

“You open that door,” Aleth hissed, grabbing her wrist. “And I swear on your life I’ll pick up where we left off earlier. And I guarantee you no one will stop me.”

Ky hesitated for a long moment, swaying slightly as the carriage lurched into motion and started down the rough cobblestone. His eyes were as harsh and intense as they’d been in the bedroom – removing all doubt in her mind about whether his threat was true or not. It was clear he would do as he said, and she fully believed that no one would step in to help her, even if it happened right at their feet.

“Sit back.”

Ky hesitated for another moment, then resentfully did as she was told.

“You’re lucky that Makata doesn’t give his servants the time of day,” Aleth spat, looking at her critically. “I don’t know what was going on in that little, empty brain of yours, but I get the distinct feeling you were planning on tattling on yourself, and the time is far past for you to do that, Ky. Makata already knows I’ve seen you naked. If you then come around and spill your own secret, then you spill the fact that I knew about it and chose not to tell him. That would be embarrassing. And trust me when I say this, Ky, the very last thing you ever want to do is embarrass me.”

Ky swallowed hard, glaring at him.

“Now I need to look at these documents,” Aleth said, holding up an envelope that Makata gave him just before he got into the carriage. “So, you just sit there and be good.”

Ky slowly sank into the cushions behind her. She watched him suspiciously for a long moment, but his attention was fully focused on the letters he sorted through. The carriage still jostled her as it bumped along the increasingly rough path winding down the hill away from the palace.

Ky wrapped her arms around herself protectively, trying to make herself as small as possible, as she wondered what she did wrong. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go. She should be in the stables, grooming the horses or mucking the stalls, not sitting across from Aleth wondering what abuse he had planned for her next.

She racked her brain for what she could have done differently. Maybe if she’d focused a bit more at the task of tending the horses, rather than looking around at the courtyard, she never would have attracted Aleth’s attention in the first place. Or maybe if she’d been a bit stronger and able to carry the chest faster, he wouldn’t have had the time to question her so much on the walk to his room. There were so many things that maybe, if she’d only been able to do better, she could have avoided this outcome.

Ky looked out the window as Tadaaki guided the carriage through the heart of the city that stretched out below the castle on the hill. She’d been shocked when she was dragged through the City on her first ascent to the palace – and it was still as unnerving to her now as it was way back then.

She’d never been allowed to leave the castle grounds since she’d been brought in, and she’d slowly forgotten all of the excitement that laid between her and the mountains. There were flashes of colors: magnificent pieces of fabric – already sewn clothes – a vendor with brightly painted vases – a street artist with his canvas stretched out. People were bartering, shouting the praises of their goods, and talking to each other.

Soon they exited the huge wooden gates that controlled the traffic in and out of the city and were on their way down a wide path filled with people. Ky watched as gradually the traffic on the road got thinner and thinner, until it was nothing more than a few people walking here, a single man on a horse there, and eventually leveled off until there was no one else on the road besides them.

Finally, Aleth looked up from his documents.

He set the letters off to the right of his legs on the bench next to him and took his glasses off. They locked eyes for several long moments as he wiped the lenses of his glasses with the hem of his tunic to clean them. Then he nodded. “Well, at least you know how to be quiet. That’s a good thing anyway.”

“Where are you taking me and why?” Ky demanded, using the break in silence as an excuse to get her questions answered.

“Ah, you have questions,” Aleth said, smirking, as he slid his glasses back on. “I figured you would. Very well. I am taking you back to my home, which lies just over the border into Lutalya. It’s about a day and a half ride, at the moderate pace that we’re going now. As for ‘why’ I am taking you, it is because I need a new assistant.”

“Why?” Ky pressed.

“Why? Because my last assistant decided he wanted to be straight,” Aleth answered. “Found himself a nice girl, wanted to get married. I decided to let him.”

Ky frowned at him.

“Of course, that’s probably not the ‘why’ you were referring to. How about being more specific with the questions you actually want answered?”

“What do you need an assistant for?”

“Much better!” Aleth answered brightly, his condescending smirk never faltering. “I guess to answer that question properly, I would need to tell you what I do.”

Ky waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. She waited a moment past when the silence became awkward. “What is it that you do?”

“It’s a rather unique position,” Aleth answered. “Think of it as halfway between a diplomat and a mercenary. I found both careers attractive and decided to mix them.”

Ky looked at him suspiciously. Aleth was certainly merciless, but seemed too pedigreed to be a cold-blooded killer. She couldn’t fathom a halfway between those two careers. You either tried to negotiate, or you killed your opposition – it didn’t seem to make sense to do both at the same time.

“Not the assassin sort of mercenary,” Aleth said, waving his hand flippantly to clear the air of her confusion. “Mercenaries can do a wide variety of things – after all, the title more or less means that they can be bought for a price, to do just about anything for anybody. I’m a diplomat for hire, so to speak. I help arrange peace treaties, contracts, and facilitate meetings between people who need things done and the people who can make it happen.”

Ky was silent for a long moment. She’d never heard of anyone doing such a thing before, but it almost made sense. Typically, kingdoms had assigned diplomats to do their negotiations – but, then, why shouldn’t that work be hired out?

“Is that why you met with the king?”

“Yes,” Aleth answered. “Not that that’s any of your business. But as my assistant you’ll learn many of the intimate parts of my operations, so I suppose I’ll let you in on this one. Makata suspected that Lord Guilin was plotting to overthrow him, and contacted me to investigate these claims. I planted spies, intercepted some correspondence, and determined that that is in fact what his lord was planning. I met with Makata to show him the evidence I’ve collected over the past several weeks. He’s going to send a squadron of soldiers out to the lord’s estate this afternoon to behead him.”

Ky felt sick. Aleth spoke as casually of Lord Guilin’s imminent demise as he’d spoken of their time together – as if none of the atrocities in his life phased him in the least.

“As you might imagine,” Aleth continued, undeterred by her lack of response. “All of this involves a lot of correspondence. Letters, meetings, translational work if the letters come to me in a tribal language instead of a trade language. There’s a massive volume to sort through and I need an assistant to help me manage the letters, and especially to labor through the translations. My time is better spend dealing with the content of the letters, rather than agonizing through grammatical issues.”

Ky slowly began to understand. All of the questions – the inquiries about her past, the age she was when she left the sector, and wondering whether she could read. It all made perfect sense. She’d been forced into a job interview, and didn’t have the slightest idea.

“Yes, I think you’re getting it,” Aleth said, nodding. “I struggle with traditional Lytiasian, and you’re from one of the last areas I know that openly defies Makata’s edict to use the Trade Language and continues to use the ancient language. I often get letters in tribal languages as a sort of safe-guard against the wrong people being able to understand their meanings easily.”

Ky sighed.

“Your ability to speak Lytiasian alone is an invaluable asset to me in an assistant, and you’re even more the ideal candidate since you can read. I’d hoped that would be the case,” Aleth said. “That’s why I left the letters out on the desk, to see if you’d take the bait.”

Ky closed her eyes, frustrated with herself. She’d played right into his trap. Every question he asked, and every slip up she made, brought her that much closer to where she sat now. He’d strategically planned each encounter, to massage information out of her that she didn’t want him to have.

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Aleth cooed. “You did well, trying to be evasive, giving as little information about yourself as you could. However, I’m better at asking questions than you are, which leaves very little room for you to squirm your way out of answering what I asked.”

Ky opened her eyes again and looked at him irritably. She certainly wanted to beat someone up, but it wasn’t herself. She wished she could slap the smug smirk right off his face.