(Jack's POV)

Watching Alice tear away and shoot off like an arrow left me slightly unnerved. A feat in itself considering the fact that thousands of bodies still littered the cobblestones around my feet. I bent down to the nearest one and looked him over. He looked to be no older than 18, and his armor was still relatively new. Each soldier was given a tunic emblazoned with the crest of the empire on the day the enlist (or were drafted as the emperor needed new troops to invade peaceful land) and it was a mark of their experience how deteriorated their tunic was.

This nameless corpse at my feet still had a brand new tunic. He couldn't have been in the army for more than a few months, and yet here he was as dead as any other.

Shifting my gaze, I began to search for the wound that killed him. I don't know why, perhaps it was just morbid curiosity. From the way his head rested on the ground, it appeared as if he died from a broken neck: completely painless.

I moved onto the next. A grayed veteran with less of a tunic and rather a tattered mess of stitches and old blood. In his endless sleep, he appeared rather peaceful. There was no evidence that he had ever seen violence, or had done anything but live a good life and die quietly. His death was the same as the boy's, quick and apparently painless.

The third and final body I looked over was that of a young woman. Her tunic was the same as the boy's, and she appeared slightly younger. I scoffed a little at the sight. I had trained by enough women in the Assassin's keep to know that they were a force to be reckoned with, as strong or stronger than any male, but the emperor was not of the same opinion. He must be running really low on farmers to yank from their lives to drop into the ferocity of battle, if he resorted to enlisting women.

Focusing again on the woman I found no sign of external wounds, or any that proved she was in any pain when she died. Somehow the thought comforted me, and I thought back to the villain that slaughtered all of these people. I tried to imagine her as a cold heartless beast that kills for pleasure and washes her hands in blood. (funnily enough that was how parents described me to their children) With each passing second I realized that despite all of the caused here, she tried to minimize it as much as possible.

Aside from the captain of the guard, it looked like she caused no unnecessary pain at all. With that realization my perspective of her shifted even further. She was a girl with too much power, and a heart that she didn't know how to use.

I looked down at the bodies, at the people she killed, and wondered. Would she see their faces when she slept as I did. Would they walk up to her one by one and call her what she was, a murderer. I shook the thought from my head.

An urge to bury them arrived in my mind. Ha bury them. Me the greatest assassin in all of the Empire bury a few people that I don't even know: laughable. Even as I shoved the thought away, a remnant of that feeling remained.

A scream cut through the night. High pitched and girlish, I knew that whoever it belonged to was currently being tortured. Without thought, I threw myself towards the sound and started running.

It only took a minute for me to find her, Alice, laying on a grassy bed coating it in blood, her face upturned in a pained grimace. I looked around quickly for the threat, staring down the shadows daring them to move. She looked as if somebody had stabbed her, I was going to kill whoever did this.

Suddenly she stirred and I threw myself to her side. She opened an eye and looked at me. I suddenly felt rather protective as she lay there completely defenseless. Well as defenseless as a ruthless with with unlimited power could be.

"Who did this to you? I will tear them to pieces!" I muttered filling each word with venom. She gave a sheepish grin and from her hand fell a jagged stone coated in blood, her blood. Realization dawned on me, and I expanded my view of her. A girl with too much power, a heart that she didn't know how to use, and an affinity for hurting herself.

She pulled herself into a sitting position and grasped her wounded arm. She looked at me as if waiting for something. "Well?" She demanded. "Where is the whole tearing me to pieces thing? I was kind of excited, I wanted to see you try." Even half asleep and in pain, she was still as arrogant and cocky as ever.

"Why?" I asked softly. "Why would you do that to yourself?"

"Why do you care?" She countered.

Suddenly trapped, "I… I don't, it's just I don't like seeing people get hurt, by anything."

She grinned, she had won "Funny thing for an assassin to hate, causing injury."

"I never said I wanted to be an assassin!" I shouted.

"Well then what did you want to be?" She asked.

"Don't go changing the topic. I wanted to know why you felt the need to cut yourself." I demanded.

"And I wanted to know why you became an assassin if you hate pain." She countered.

"Stalemate then."

"Stalemate." We sat in silence for a few minutes. Despite whom I was sitting with, I felt oddly comfortable. I looked at her and she met my gaze. I searched her eyes for some trace of the darkness that must dwell within, the evil that allows her to kill so mercilessly but I found nothing. By all accounts, she looked just like a normal girl.

"You're staring." She pointed out. I quickly averted my gaze, color filling my cheeks. We sat in silence for another few moments before I blurted out "I wanted to be the king. Before I became an assassin I thought that I could be king." She started to smile and looked as if she was biting back laughter "Don't laugh at me. I thought I could do some good if I had some power."

"I'm not laughing." She said fighting back so hard that tears were threatening to fall out of her eyes.

"I don't even know how I could have become king, or emperor as we should call it since the kings have no real power anymore. Anyway I've answered your question, now answer mine Why were you cutting yourself?"

"I felt bad about killing those men." She said quickly. I knew she was lying. but I didn't press further.

"There is something else that you can do." I said

"What?"

"Rarely in life do we ever kill for the right reasons. Promise me that the next time you kill, that do ask yourself if you are killing for the right reason. If there is any doubt in your mind, then leave them alive. Promise me that."

She sat silently and still for a few moments before responding "okay." She said quietly "I promise,"

Satisfied I turned away. "Good, because I haven't slept in days and I am tired. It was through this that I the Jack Santan the assassin, slept through the morning sun with the second greatest killing force in the country watching over me. I felt completely safe.

Several hours later a dark gloved hand found its way in front of my mouth, and I was roughly thrown into a cart. The force of the impact knocked me unconscious, and the darkness swallowed me whole.

Author's note-I am really excited for the next chapter in this series. I'm not going to say anything more, but I cannot wait to write it. Thank you as always for taking the time to read my humble story, I appreciate it greater than most things. Thank you.