A/N I'm skipping ahead in time a few months. Four to be exact. Nothing much has happened during the lapse. But here's a quick summery on what has happened. Novellee continued to work for the King, killing various people, gradually building trust until they have a friendly relation. Novellee doesn't trust them yet though. Novellee has given in and shared some spells with Numair, and he is helping her strengthen her Gift, even though he doesn't know it. Daine is a good friend when they can hook up. Novellee and Alanna aren't exactly friends, but they get along.

A friendship has grown between Burdock and Novellee and she trusts him as much as she trusts Jaymie, even shares some things with him. He does not know that she is royalty or that she has a brother or anything about the night that changed her life. He is her handler and briefs her on all her contracts. Occasionally he goes with her on a kill to retrieve papers. Novellee thinks of Burdock as her new best friend, since Bennie got married and spends most of his time with Ellie. But the two are still close.

And remember, Burdock knows nothing about Morrison or the plans to rule the world. Novellee is the only one who knows. The only one.

Chapter sixteen: Morrison

"Burdock, how many times to I have to tell you this. If you come on a mission with me and we sneak into the second floor, I'm not going to lift you up with my magic," her voice was filled with agitation, but she was smiling. It was fun having someone with her when she went in for a kill. Even if the other person thought it was morally wrong to kill someone.

"Please, just this once?" he asked, putting on a pouting look, yet managing to look masculine at the same time. She gave a titling laugh at his expression. They were riding horses to a lake house a few miles outside of Corus.

Their mission, well hers to be exact, was to pick of an insignificant fly that was making a nuisance of himself. He had begun threatening to spill out a horrible secret if his demands weren't meet.

She guessed that the king had gotten some proof because he had asked her to find the documents and kill the man who was doing the threatening. The only problem was that the documents were in a foreign language. So she had asked Burdock along to find the documents while she did the dirty deed.

"You want the papers, you have to work for it," she said. She couldn't have pulled him up if she wanted to. Working with Numair had a lot of perks, one being that she was becoming a lot stronger. But the downside was, it left her with little to no Gift energy left to pass through the restricting spells.

Simply stated, it meant that she couldn't do anything major. Only the things that she had been taught before she had left Serinda. Novellee knew it was very dangerous to go on a mission with low Gift energy, but she couldn't do this any other night.

She motioned for quiet. "We're going to leaving the horses here and walk the quarter of a mile to the house. Make sure to grab the waterproof skin bag to put the papers in. Wouldn't want them getting wet on accident."

Burdock nodded and grabbed the bag before sliding to the ground. He liked going on missions with Novellee, even if it meant being around when she killed. But he loved spending time with her, and she was a great friend.

Even if she insisted that he scale up the wall.

They walked in silence, Novellee deep in thought, running over everything that she knew about the man she was going to kill. Burdock had briefed her on him tons of times, drilling the information into her until she felt like she knew him.

His name was Chad Estante and he was a lesser noble. He lived in the city instead of in a fief. He had inherited most of his wealth from his family. The rest he had accumulated by marring into it. His wife, Anneleise, had died of a questionable origin. Some suspected that Chad had killed his wife. Others believed it to be an accident. Novellee didn't really care.

He was a man at the age a forty-four, childless, and pets less. She knew that he liked to frequent the whorehouses and had been a questionable suspect in several rape reports. He had never been found guilty.

He had been raised in Corus, his father a frequent figure in court. His older brother, Norman, had joined the King's Own and had been killed in battle when Chad was seventeen. He had had a sister, when they were young, but the sister hadn't lived to see a full year.

Chad's father was a heavy drinker and it was rumored that he was abusive. In an attempt to prove himself to his father, Chad had gotten into the shipping business. The business failed within its first two years and Chad's father had passed away a few months later in his sleep.

Chad's mother had given birth to all three children. She became estranged after the death of her daughter. She went to live with her family in the country, and hadn't been in contact with her husband or sons since the day she had left.

Chad had bought the property and had the house built for a wedding gift for his new wife. Of course, he had paid for it with his wife's impressive dowry. It was a stone structure three stories high. Chad's study, which was Burdock's goal, was on the second floor. His bedroom was on the third floor, conveniently right above his study. Both rooms face the lake's edge.

As fighting skills went, Chad had none. He was fat, and bulky, and was going bald. His black hair had gone gray when he had reached twenty-five and his smooth face had turned into a mass of wrinkles. Needless to say, his brother had all the looks.

The plan was for them to climb up the outside wall of Chad's home. Novellee would leave Burdock after breaking into the study. She would resume the climb to the third floor, kill Chad, and return back through the window.

If anything was to go wrong and one of them was discovered, neither knew anything about the other. In Novellee's case, she would drink poison rather then be caught. She knew to many things and in the hands of the wrong person, it was deadly.

She hadn't always taken this precaution. But after the things she had learned in the chamber about Morrison and all the papers she had on him, it would be best for her to die then risk the chance of letting anything slip. Of course, no one knew about these suicidal plans but she herself.

When the structure came into sight, Novellee suppressed the urge to snort. This would be a piece of cake.

In an attempt to look old and rugged, they had used uncut rocks and left them unsmoothed. The result was similar to a natural rock wall, complete with natural hand and foot holds.

"Just place your feet and hands where I put mine and everything should be okay," Novellee whispered as she approached the wall. She knew that the chances were very little of anyone over hearing her, but she didn't want to risk it. She had Burdock to worry about now, not just herself.

He nodded to show that he understood and Novellee began up the wall, scaling it easily, but hanging back to allow Burdock to stay close.

When she got to the second floor, it was to find that it was occupied. And the person who was seated at the desk was not Chad.

This man was tall and muscular, his body long used to the battlefield. He had a full mane of gray hair and a beard of gray, also. His eyes were so brown that they looked black in the dim light. He had a jagged scar separating his right eyebrow.

Morrison.

She dropped down and motioned for quiet from Burdock. How had Morrison gotten here? She had thought he was still in Serinda. And how did she even recognize him? She had never seen him before.

She had a fleeting image of him on a battle horse, dressed in full armor. The image was foggy, like she had seen it in a dream. But that was absurd. She hadn't dreamed in months. Not since the dream that had taken her to Burdock.

She had thought she was going crazy when all that had been going on. She had thought she had talked to her brother, for the Gods' sakes. And now she simply saw it as an after affect of the chamber. Her brother hadn't led her to Burdock. It had simply been her subconscious.

Even so, she was glad that it had come about. Burdock was a wonderful friend, and the people at the palace weren't as bad as she would have thought they would be.

They were even kind of fun to be around. But not all the time. Deep inside, where it mattered most, a hatred for the Tortallan's still raged. She would never be able to rid herself of this hatred until the one's responsible were gone. But it was nice to escape the hate once in a while and just be a regular person.

If being an assassin was considered being a regular person.

But were had she seen Morrison?

Movement in the room inches above her indicated that he was leaving the room. She couldn't hang out here much longer. Well, she could, but Burdock was going to fall in a matter of moments. She took a chance and looked up. The room was empty and the candle was out. He had no reason to return to the room.

She opened the window, undoing the lock, which was pathetically easy, then crawled into the room. She turned around and helped Burdock by grabbing his arm and hauling him through the window. She brought her mouth close to his ear and spoke in a voice that even the gods couldn't hear. "Be very careful. I'll be back in five minutes tops, through the window. Get the papers and wait for me here. Got it?" she felt him nod and headed back through the window, up to the third story.

It went completely against her instincts to leave Burdock in the room to wait for her, but she didn't think he would be able to get down with out her showing him the way. He was a great scholar, but he had no talent when it came to her kind of job.

Her thoughts returned to where she had seen Morrison. It was giving her a bad feeling to recognize him. She knew that she had never seen him before. How was any of this possible?

So wrapped up in her own thoughts, was she, that she forgot to check the signs of her prey. She slithered up the wall to his chamber, not even taking notice to the fact that the window was left open and it was a chilly night.

Sneaking through the window, she drew her knife, still preoccupied by her thoughts. She failed to see the knife slashing at her through the dark until it was to late. She ducked to avoid a fatal blow, but still the knife caught in her right side and slit it open from the chest to the hip.

She gave a soft cry before biting off the pain and knocking the knife out of the assailant's hand. But it wasn't enough. He was a dual wielder and he used his left hand to slash at her. Novellee put up her hand to block the blow and he cut open her right arm from elbow to wrist, making her drop her weapon.

In a move of self-defense, she brought her knee up into his groin, knocking the breath out of him and causing him great pain. He dropped the knife as he fell to his knees and covered the wounded area.

Without a thought, Novellee grabbed the fallen weapon and plunged it into his heart, swiftly killing him.

She too dropped to her knees. Both wounds were bleeding heavily. There was no way she was going to be able to scale back down the wall. She would have to go through the house. It was a good thing that Burdock insisted she study a layout of the house. She knew where she had to go to get to Burdock.

Cradling her right side and arm, she slunk down the halls like a shadow, passing open doors with like a summer breeze. Climbing down the stairs was tricky because who knew what steps would creak?

She kept her feet to the inside of the stairs, avoiding stepping on the very edges where it was most likely to make noise. On the second floor, she knew that this was just the business area, not likely to hold people, so she allowed herself to move faster then on the other floor.

She opened the study door, going in without a thought as she had the other room. She had forgotten that she had told Burdock she would be coming in through the window.

He must have heard her coming because he jumped out behind the door swinging his fist at her head. His fist hit her below her right eye, but she had enough sense left to turn her head with the punch and deplete some of the blow.

"Novellee?" he whispered when he saw her. She nodded, but that was a bad idea. She was dizzy with blood lose and her head was still wringing from his blow.

Instinctively she raised her right hand to steady her spinning head, but cried out in pain when the wound blazed with fire.

"What happened?" Burdock demanded as he caught her when she stumbled towards the window.

"No way to get down but one," she mumbled drowsily. She was sleepy now, and the pain had almost faded from her mind. "Hold on tight, Doc."

She wrapped her arms around his trim waist, stifled a cry of pain that the actions brought, and used her Gift to sprout wings as Burdock had seen her do before. She jumped out the window and her wings grabbed the air.

She guided them to a wind current and let them glide for a while. She was to out of it to know that they were going farther and farther from the horses and safety.

She soon began to lag and they fell lower and lower until they were brushing the tops of the trees. One hit her in the shoulder, knocking them around. She lost all balance in the air and plummeted to the ground. Her wings made her heavier then Burdock, and she ultimately landed on the bottom, blacking out on impact.

Burdock, however, was still conscious. He sat up and looked around him. It seemed that she had cleared the forest and landed on a road. Further down the path he saw a house.

He looked to Novellee and saw that she was bleeding heavily from both wounds, so he hitched her up into his arms and started for the house, knowing it was the only place to take her that would give her a chance to survive the night.

A/N Okay, I didn't really like this chapter much, which is why I delayed a while before posting. So, I hope you like it more then I do. Review and tell me what you think.

Nubia