The new Emperor's uncle and cousin lay dead on the floor, pools of blood spreading across the floor and soaking into the expensive rugs on Princess Maria's bedroom floor. There were two other people in the room with them, one admiring his handiwork as he pulled his knife from Maria's throat, smiling at the sight of her glassy blue eyes.
This was not this fox's first kill, but it had been his first assassination. He stared at the shining red blood on his knife, and it seemed almost a shame to wipe it all off. He was about to put it back-blood and all-in its sheath, when he heard someone clear his throat behind him.
A gray jackal stood in the doorway, the front of his coat and shirt soaked in blood, making the scar across his right eye appear even more menacing. The red stone he kept in the breast pocket of the coat was glowing, the red shining through ashen gray. "Are you finished?" he asked coldly.
The fox nodded.
"Then let's go."
The jackal left, heading back towards the dumbwaiter they'd used to sneak onto the upper floors, and the fox followed silently. Whether they were caught now didn't matter as much, but it was good practice as a general rule to make your escape as quick and painless as your kills.
But neither assassin killed painlessly, although the fox could at least agree with the quickness. The jackal, however, liked to see his victims squirm.
The fox was sad he couldn't have seen his work this time. He'd had his hands too full going from room to room, killing noble after noble after prince after princess until finally he'd found the emperor hiding like a coward in his oldest daughter's bedroom.
Princess Maria had tried to fight. Especially after watching her father die, his throat slit, just like hers was a moment later.
The jackal suddenly held up a hand, a silent signal to stop, and he and the fox slipped into the shadows as the guards and their escorted guest walked by, none the wiser to their presence.
That was, until they noticed the open doors, and the bloody heaps inside the rooms.
The one who was not a guard-a black hedgehog with red stripes on the tops of his quills-ran down the hall to Princess Maria's room. His anguished scream sent chills of delight down the fox's back. But before either assassin could move, one of the guards spotted them.
"Seize them!" he ordered, his voice thundering as all the other guards, six in total, ran towards them as they bolted down the hallway. The fox leaped and bounded down the hall, leaving the jackal behind. Even when he got out of the palace, he kept running, not once looking back until he was deep in the forest, the only sounds around him in the clear, moonless night the crickets and the frogs singing their rhythmic songs.
The fox waited for an hour before deciding to move on, guessing the jackal had been captured. He wasn't worried. He'd be out of captivity again before the night was over. Nothing ever stood in Infinite's way. Nothing.
