"You can't be serious."

"I'm deadly serious."

"What kind of cold-hearted creature wants to kill her own mother?" he demands.

"My duty is to my kingdom and its people, not my family," she answers solemnly. "Besides...she is nothing like a mother to me."

"Right, because you've only been in Afterlife for a few years; what attachment could you possibly have to the queen?"

"You've done your research."

"It's not hard to know your story; you can ask any old hag in the marketplace and you'll be stuck there for an hour listening to some madwoman ramble on and on." He winces at the memory, but continues, taking on a tone of grandeur. "The long-lost princess of Afterlife, thought to be dead and gone after a vicious attack on the castle by the kingdom of Hydra, but it's all up in the air as to where she disappeared to for twenty seven years. Some say Hydra took you in, tried to mold you into a soldier, others say you were raised by wolves, and then there's the one about you being kidnapped by dragons-"

"The truth is nowhere near as fantastical," she says quietly.

"Well, they all agree on the same thing: you were found and rescued from a group of mercenaries, identified by the markings the king and queen placed on you at birth-" Where he comes from, the thought of branding members of the royal family seems like the worst idea ever brought to life, and yet it continues in Afterlife.

"I wasn't rescued." She spits the last word with a venom he'd yet to hear from her. "I was taken against my will."

"From the woods to palace grounds, what a tragedy," he says, not bothering to conceal his sarcasm.

"I don't expect you to understand where I'm coming from," she snaps. "This palace is as dangerous as a battlefield; the only difference is that your enemies wear your colors, wave your flags and pretend to fight alongside you until your back is turned. It's cowardly, the way people fight here, all pretty clothes and silken lies."

"Someone doesn't like court politics. And for the record, I used to be a part of that, still am, in fact. I know exactly what it's like, and I can't imagine the mercenaries were any better-"

"They were my family," she says tersely, "And there's more honor among thieves than you might think."

"I'm an assassin, darling, I've never met an honorable thief in my life."

"You aren't looking in the right places then."

He snorts. "This is ridiculous. I'm here to kill you, and you want me to-"

"I'm the one who hired you through Hunter," she says. "Consider it your first payment, not a contract you need to fulfill."

"Damn. You know, there's plenty of towers to throw yourself from, no need to call in an assassin."

"I couldn't meet you myself, and if you'd been caught, I couldn't risk you telling anybody who you were really working for," she explains, a bit exasperatedly. "I don't have a death wish."

Could've fooled him.

"I wouldn't have been caught," he says.

"The fact that I've got you locked in my closet begs to differ," she counters coolly, and grates on his already wounded pride.

"What can I say? I was expecting a moronic, prattling brat. I was a bit wrong about the moronic part, though I admit I wasn't expecting the part about you planning matricide."

He can practically hear her scowl as she says, "I'm none of those things. I'm just someone who wants to do what's best for the people of this kingdom."

He rolls his eyes. "You sound so insufferably self-righteous."

"This coming from the man who murders people for a living, I'll take that with a grain of salt."

"I try to only kill people who deserve it."

She scoffs. "What about the sheriff you killed a few months ago?"

He laughs at that. "He had innocent blood on his hands."

"The schoolteacher from the closest village?"

"A sinner who preyed on his students."

"What about me?"

He hesitates, and he regrets it because it shows that he actually doesn't have a respectable answer, though really, there's nothing respectable about what he does. "I said 'try,' Your Highness. My morals come with a price."

She falls silent for a moment, and he takes the opportunity to ask a few questions of his own.

"What of your father, the king?" he asks.

"He's weakened rapidly over the years, fallen ill by some unnatural means," the princess answers.

"Unnatural means?"

"You're an assassin. Surely you know what I mean by that."

"Poison, of course, but by who?"

"Who else but the queen?" she replies, a bit bitterly. "With my father physically unfit to rule, it leaves a clear path for her to take up the mantle of Afterlife's monarch."

"You don't call the queen your mother, but the king is your father?" he notes.

Silence answers him before she speaks, softly, "He's a good man, blinded by love and easily manipulated. His emotions run hot at times, but he's never lifted a finger against me or the queen, despite all the ways she's misled him."

"You are an odd woman," he comments. "So you don't want him dead?"

"I'm not sure how much time he has left on this world," she answers grimly. "His health has declined too much over the past few months. Once he dies, Jiaying is free to reign with all the power she pleases." She speaks the queen's name like it's poison on her tongue. "So you see my problem. If I am unable to get rid of the queen before she takes full power, then we are all as good as dead."

"And you want me to teach you how to kill."

"I know how to kill. I've lived and fought countless mercenaries, trained under the guards here at the castle...what I need is an assassin's stealth, a way to slip in and out without arousing too much attention."

"Why me?"

"I've heard the stories about you, too," she says. "They call you the Ghost Rider, correct?"

"It's a moniker I've grown to like."

"You can get in and out of a place and make it look like no one was there. I need to learn how to do that."

He goes quiet, pretending to consider. "No."

"I'll pay you in full once Jiaying is dead and buried," she says, a pleading note to her voice. "I can even grant you a full pardon for the crimes you've committed here in Afterlife-"

"How stupid do you think I am?" he asks. "For all I know, you're going to turn me in."

"If that was the case, the guards would've had you in the dungeons the moment I shot you with the sleeping dart."

She has a semblance of a point there, though he decides not to mention all the stairs they'd have to climb first. "What's the queen done to warrant murdering her in her sleep?"

"Can I hope that you asked Hunter a similar question when he sent you after me?"

"Said he had a life-long blood feud against you. Those bore me and I didn't care to hear the details, nor did he offer any."

She gives a short, humorless laugh. "And you call me odd."

"I'm not trying to persuade an assassin to help me murder my mother," he counters.

She grows silent again before saying, "If I let you out, can I have your word that you won't try and kill me? So we can have this conversation in a more...conventional way?"

"I don't know, princess, I have a contract to see through," he says, and he's only half-joking.

She sighs in frustration, and he can feel the retort ready to fly when he says, "I'm joking. I won't kill you; you have my word on that."

"Try anything and there's another sleeping dart in it for you," she says, and he can hear her voice coming closer.

His mind starts racing, trying to decide whether to stay or shove her down the stairs and run once she opens the door, but it doesn't matter because that's when a curt knock comes from farther in the room, and he lets out an irritated groan at the sound.

The princess has a visitor.