Nothing Left to Live For

     He had always thought his soulmate would be an impatient woman. Maybe a little cranky because she hadn't slept as much as she would have liked. Maybe harried because she was yet again late to her job, whatever that may be. Jaxon spent a lot of time staring at the words tattooed on the underside of his wrist: Get on with it, then.

     He wasn't impatient at all. He was quick and efficient, and when that efficiency wasn't an option, he did things slow. Methodical. His soulmate, he often pondered, would most likely be the exact opposite.

     The entirety of his long walk to the place he worked--an assassins' guild, of all places--he thought about those words. Jaxon hoped she would take him for who he was, job and all. He hoped that he could hear those words soon.

...

     And maybe it was just her luck that the first words of her soulmate were so ominous. She'd spent most of her life running. The way she saw it, whoever it was that spoke those words was just another person to run from.

     Soulmates didn't always work out. If fate was cruel and pushed two people together who didn't match, they could reject each other. It wasn't an easy process. It involved pain that most people would never know, pining and remorse and an ache so deep that it could never be healed. Raylen had seen it happen, only a few days before she had ended up on the streets at the age of fifteen.

     It had been almost exactly ten years since that day. She would never forget it. Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could still feel the chill bite into her even more than normal--it had been a particularly cold winter that year--and hear the bustle of the people around her. No one ever stopped to help or ask if she was okay. They had all walked so quickly, aching to reach a certain destination, ignoring the shivering girl they passed. 

     Raylen's destination? She wasn't sure what it was. Running had become her main profession. She didn't have a job, if you didn't count stealing as a job. She didn't want to find her soulmate, because she was sure she'd be rejected.

     I've been sent to kill you. 

     And so she waited.

...

     He should've been used to it by now, but he wasn't.

     Blood. Jaxon used to be squeamish; how ironic it was that he'd see more blood (and dead bodies) than a doctor ever would.

     An emerald ring, to take back to his mentor and master. Another task off the list. He had one more assignment to go before he was allowed to call it a day, and Jaxon was eager to get it over with so he could go home and wash the feeling of those empty eyes off his skin. It never got easier. There were some days when his skin was rubbed raw from his scrubbing, when he would close his eyes and remember their faces, imagining accusing fingers pointed at him. He would cry then, when no-one could hear him.

     It didn't take him long to find the woman: a twenty-five-year-old named Raylen who had been living on the streets for some time. Cristol had dozens of street rats scattered around the city, reporting to him at all hours of the day. It didn't surprise Jaxon that he had been sent to kill one. It could be something as little as relaying too much information to a rival assassin lord, or as much as spying on Cristol himself. Whatever it was, it wasn't important to him. Just another task.

...

     "Somebody's coming."

     Raylen's friend Inna--if you could call her that--talked a lot. Oftentimes, it didn't make sense. But for once, the look in her eyes had been lucid, a rare clarity taking over for just a second. Raylen was tempted to forget the warning, but she felt eyes on her as she leaned against the wall of an alleyway. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

     She'd only managed to nab a tomato and a piece of bread today, but it was better than nothing. She bit into the bread, moaning softly as she chewed. It was warm, fresh, and so delicious she could have inhaled it on the spot.

     A pebble skittered down from above. Before Raylen could even look up, she saw a shadow drop down from the roof and land in front of her. Not a shadow, but a person, she realized. Someone who had been so silent and skillful that, even after years of looking out for pickpockets eager for an extra morsel, she hadn't heard a single sound.

     An assassin from Cristol's guild, then. Perfect.

     The world around her grew sharper. Pigeons cawed loudly on the tin roofs of the scrubby apartments she was hiding against, and the shouts and footsteps on the street seemed to be amplified as she stood, frozen. The scraping of a blade being drawn grated against Raylen's ears.

     The assassin spoke, his voice a smooth, dark tone. "I've been sent to kill you."

...

     He didn't know what he was expecting. Screams. Tears. Certainly an attempt to escape. But the woman just dropped the bread and fruit she was holding, her green eyes growing impossibly large.

     Well, shock wasn't rare either.

     Jaxon felt himself slipping into the mask he so often wore during a job. He liked to call it a killing calm. The world seemed to revolve around him in that instant, the whoosh of his cool blade as he twirled it around. It almost made his job seem normal. Sometimes he couldn't even hear their pleading and crying.

     The woman--Raylen--slowly closed her mouth. She was resigned. He could tell that she gave up living a long time ago. He'd seen the same empty look on many of the street rats' faces who were content to only survive. Surviving and living, Jaxon knew, were two very different things.

     She leveled her gaze at him. Pursed her lips. Sighed.

     "Get on with it, then."

     The world stopped. Stopped, then started, then stopped again.

     Her? Raylen? A scrawny, slip of a thing that he had been sent to kill?

     He barely registered the clang of his sword against the cobblestone road, barely felt his gloved fingers throw back his hood as he stared at this woman who stood before him, who was his soulmate. How could he ever kill her? Surely Cristol wouldn't overlook such an occurrence. His mind raced a thousand miles a minute, but through it all, he could only feel her eyes on him, see only her gaunt face staring back at him.

     Jaxon sank to his knees.

...

     The words had slipped out before she had a chance to think about them, pure panic taking over her mind for the briefest of seconds. She'd only had time to notice his sword, lying on the street. It would have been so easy to take it up and run. Try to use it against her soulmate--gods, it was him--and inevitably get killed, as he was an assassin and she was his victim.

     Instead, she rejected him.

     The pain was enough for her to wonder whether she should've just gone with the first option, but it was gone within a minute and she was left facing him, both of them panting, the echoes of their screams dying away.

     She could see the brokenness in his eyes. He was an assassin. There was invisible blood on his hands.

     Raylen ran like the coward she was. Her breaths were hot and escaped in clouds. He sprinted after her and finally caught up to her, pulling her towards him until they were a few inches apart. She was crying, salty tears sliding down her cheeks and stinging in the cold air, him mirroring her as his own tears dropped out of his eyes like tiny pearls. They looked at each other. 

     Gods, why did he have to be so beautiful? It wasn't fair.

    She thought about that day ten years ago. When her parents were found with glassy eyes and too much blood to be an accident. They had whispered Cristol's name for months after. She had never forgiven him and his assassins.

     Even now.

     Raylen turned and ran away, and this time, he didn't follow.