Her eyes went blank at the sight of Monsieur Penn with a dagger. He thought she was stupid and innocent, he should be frightened, Neva thought.
"Monsieur! Wha-what's going on? I-I mean, I don't understand!" Even as she spoke she drew the knife from her back pocket, "What are you doing?" The man let out a cackle, and as he drew back his arm to strike, she herself moved, much more swiftly than the aging man. He was dead within seconds. Neva sighed, no use in stretching it out, she thought.
Penn, the hunter, had been a lover of Rianna for years, and any friend of Rianna's was an enemy of hers. Rianna hated her. The multiple attempts at Neva's life had taught Neva a hard lesson, trust no one. No person could ever understand another's pain, no one person could forgive and eliminate a lifetime of hate. Since their mother had died nothing had stopped the hatred between the sisters. Rianna's father had been King, and she had never forgotten it. Rianna detested Neva's beauty and talents. There were rumors that Neva was immaculately concepted, making her holy and wonderful, which only made Rianna's temper flare. Rianna was conceited, truly vain and she thought herself more beautiful and spectacular than anyone. Neva thought that Rianna let herself get the way she had. When the girls both turned 18, Rianna tried to poison her food, three months later Neva found an assassin stalking her. Neva taught herself to kill, to hunt, and to love revenge.
The incident with Penn would be inexcusable in Rianna's eyes. At this Rianna would finally announce Neva a criminal, banished from France. As Queen you could do that. Neva would never be welcome in court or public again.
"Now you've done it," she said aloud. A bird glided down through a break in the trees to rest on her shoulder. She looked around and took stock of her situation.
enough for two days, her bow, her hunting knife, one extra set of clothing, a sleeping roll, her falcon, Mead, and an almost full water flask. "Mead, what shall we do?" She wondered to the bird. South, she decided, south towards Spain. And so she set out, not too confidently.