___

  Wooden paneling lined the walls, and I saw the same figure just beside me on my left. He motions to the guards once I’m taken—pulled, really—off of the sheet and are standing back on solid ground, and they release me.

  “Welcome.” His voice echoes in the room.

  ___

  The guards dismiss me, and the figure I had followed in here, still cloaked, stood off to the side. He spoke confidently now, to one of the guards, at a regular volume, and I hadn’t noticed how deep his voice was. Or maybe he had been changing it before, to keep his identity. He walked in front of me and I followed, unsure of what to do. I smirked at the way he braced his hand against his injured side. It served him right for almost knocking me off the roof earlier.

  He led me through a hallway and into what looked like it was, at one time, part of the church. The pews were gone or pushed to the sides, and the middle floor held mostly work stations, or small forges where several people were working on making weapons or gear. There were windows up above, and it was a large room, so the smell from the workstations wasn’t too strong.

  Far above me, the rafters and small niches seemed handmade and installed by the guild, unless they had been put there originally for a purpose I couldn’t imagine. There were shadows above me, and I soon realized it was people jumping from one beam to another. It looked like fun.

  “I believe you’re grinning.” He almost sneered at me, and then went off to speak to some others that were near us, and it finally hit me that I didn’t belong here. I had ignored a few stares when I entered the room at first, but now many eyes were on me, as an outsider. He had stopped talking to one of the men, and jumped on top of one of the work desks, barely seeing him tighten the grip on his side as he did it.

  “Okay, everyone.” He shouted over the noise of the people working, and almost everyone paid attention immediately. “This girl here is a visitor and I want it understood that she is under my watch. That means you lay a hand on her, or talk to her wrong, you answer to me.” And with that brief speech, he jumped off the table, quickly speaking to a different man this time, and then walked over to me.

  “This is Gunther,” Gesturing to the man who now stood beside him. “He’ll show you around and make sure you are well compensated for helping me.” He paused, and lifted the hand that held his side to gesture to his injury. “Meanwhile, I’m going to get real sutures put in this because I’m sure the ones you gave me would be infected before the day is over.”

  He didn’t give me time to respond as he turned away. I looked over at Gunther. I was expecting a menacing-looking man, but he smiled warmly at me. He wore a dirty white shirt under brown coveralls with black hair slicked back into a ponytail. Judging by the grime on his clothes and his muscles, I would guess he worked with the forges making something. Weapons maybe? I couldn’t be sure. He redirected his smile to me and motioned over towards one side of the room.

  “Up we go. Follow me.” One pew had been turned and placed so that it leaned against the wall. Gunther ran agilely up it, grabbing onto a beam jutting out of the wall above us. The least I could do was stick around for whatever “compensation” had been mentioned. Everyone here looked like they hadn’t been hungry lately. Or needing to ration one slice of bread over two days, I thought bitterly.

  Climbing easily, I enjoyed the feeling of my muscles working as we moved higher and higher up the sides of the building. Ledges and hooks were embedded to the walls, serving as handholds. In a short time, we had made it up to a small alcove closer to the ceiling than the floor. I probably would have overlooked it if Gunther hadn’t pointed it out.

  It was a small platform with a curtain fashioned across to cover it, and remarkably, the coloring worked well to hide it against the rest of the wall. Brushing back the fabric, I stepped into what I assumed was his room. Through massive piles of papers, the bed was barely visible. Gunther shuffled past more papers and books to get to his desk, which was also completely covered with more paper.

  They looked like drawings and sketches, some of them even looked like new designs for concealed weapons. Gunther pulled something out of one drawer and for a faint moment I glimpsed the symbol branded on his arm; a matching one to leather band of the assassin I came in with. He turned back to me and handed me a bag of coins and, judging by the weight, it was a lot of money. I turned and walked towards the doorway.

  “If you give me your clothes, there’s someone here who can clean them for you.” Gunther said. I looked down. My jacket and light leather shirt and pants were marked with red stains from giving the other guy stitches. “I’m guessing Adrian bled all over you, right?” He chuckled deeply.

  Adrian, I thought, pausing with the bag in my hand. That must be the guy’s name from the rooftops. The one who led me here.

  Gunther must have noticed my hesitation, as he continued.

  “Oh, I uh, guess he didn’t tell you his name then?” He looked worried for a moment, then it passed as a smile creased his face again. “So, your clothes.”

  I was startled and backed up quickly, but I hadn’t remembered how close I was to the edge of the doorway. A hand quickly grabbed my wrist, saving me from possibly stumbling out of the room. He let go the moment I was steady on my feet again.

  “I didn’t mean to worry you, dear. Of course, we have extra clothes you can borrow in the meantime. And a place to change.” He gestured back out to the rafters and directed me back down to the main floor, and then through a different corridor and into an open room on the right. My face warmed on its own as I realized he called me ‘dear’. I didn’t think anyone had said that to me before, even in passing. It seemed too personal a term from someone I had just met.

  “Karol!” Gunther called, and a young girl came out from the back. At first glance, I guessed she was probably only a little older than me. I was eighteen, or at least that was my best guess.

  “What is it?” Her gaze immediately settled on me. She was short and stood with her hands on her hips. Confidence seemed to radiate out of the people here. Not that I didn’t have confidence in myself, I thought. I just preferred shadows and staying hidden. Speaking of which...

  “Actually, I was just leaving I-” Quickly rattling off an excuse, I didn’t even know how I had gotten myself into this. I couldn’t be a guild member again, and with what they did here — I shook the thought away as Gunther spoke.

  “No, of course not. You are a guest,” Gunther interrupted me. “You stay for a while, and you look like you could use a nice meal, so we’ll do that next. But for now, her clothes, Karol, look at ‘em. Ai’d really made a mess of ‘em.” With him gesturing to my clothes, she rolled her eyes, but I could see a small smile as she spoke.

  “He really should be more careful during his jobs. He’s been getting too arrogant lately.” Waving her hand, she took me into the back, where there was a make-shift stall with a curtain around it, and ordered me to undress. Karol had demanded to take my face covering, too. And while I didn’t like it, I guessed it didn’t matter too much if they knew who I was. I was a solo who didn’t even have enough food, much less anything else they’d be interested in stealing.

  After I was undressed, Karol passed me a change of clothes through one of the drapes. I kept my gloves on until I realized that there was a spare set of gloves in the new clothing, too. Karol must have noticed that I had been reluctant to remove them.

  The clothes fit well, although they were larger than what I would normally choose. Loose clothes meant more sound when you moved. Not to mention you were more likely to get them caught on window sills or objects.

  Although, I thought to myself, maybe I should start taking more jobs to get money for food; I was pretty thin these days. I came out and Karol looked at me, nodding in approval. “Not bad, but of course, we’ll have your things cleaned up soon.”

  I left the room and, seeing no sign of Gunther, I walked around to get a feeling for the place. Who knows, it might come in handy one day. Plus, I reminded myself, this was why I had followed Adrian to begin with. But even as I thought it, I wondered if that was true.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Pushing those thoughts away, I walked down several hallways. Noting that on almost every door there were large engravings of the symbol representing the guild. And the same on the arm of almost everyone I had seen. Of course, the town was also littered with the guild mark. Everyone knew the Terra Edem assassin's guild. It was whispered in both reverence and fear equally.

  Terra, the guild leader, held a lot of power over the town, and as many quarters became poor, Terra Edem’s guild could either help or crush you. And it wasn’t always clear how she made that choice.

  There was no way of knowing which way the scale would fall for you — so many people lived in fear these days. Especially those who couldn’t pay all the new wages that the guild had implemented.

  The people here apparently respected Adrian’s words earlier, because I only received slight smiles from everyone I passed. It had been years since I had been inside the walls of a guild, much less a part of one. Setting out on my own, and breaking away from a guild at ten years old, I had still been recovering from my initiation that had gone horribly wrong. But I knew I couldn’t go back to this line of work. Still though, part of me had to admit that the atmosphere seemed nice, like everyone had formed this bond between them.

  I stopped walking and silently scolded myself. It had been less than an hour and I was already thinking like this? As soon as my clothes were done, I thought, making a promise to myself, I would be out of here. Tracing my path back, I found my way again into the main area, and looked around for the man who I now knew was Adrian. He was among some other guild members off to the side, and had removed the coverings that had been hiding his face. Slowing my approach and keeping quiet, I walked towards them, but within ten feet they noticed me and turned around. They were better than I had given them credit for. Adrian nodded goodbye to them and came over to me.

  “Karol mentioned your clothes will be clean soon, and I trust Gunther paid you well enough?” His words seemed clipped and oddly formal, but I nodded. “Good. Well then, I guess you can come with me. I have to get some more equipment and also some food.” He motioned for me to follow him and I did, thinking back to the weapons that I had stolen from him. It didn’t matter that he was being nice to me, he had almost gotten me caught and now I was stuck here waiting for my clothing and for nightfall. He didn’t deserve his stuff back.

  Not to mention, the guild probably compensates their recruits with free weapons at their leisure, I thought bitterly. No, I repeated to myself, he’s not getting his stuff back. My mind lingered on the ring in my pocket that I had forgotten about. Perhaps I could give him that, I thought, at least in exchange for the money and clothes.

  I climbed quicker this time, now that I knew where the holds were. We stopped at the first beam like Gunther had done, but then Adrian kept climbing straight up. We kept going until there was only about eight feet between us and the roof. He moved from the middle beam to closer to where the wall was, and I wondered where he was going to go. There weren’t any more beams, just space before the domed ceiling that loomed above us. Adrian looked at me. His eyes were an odd blue-gray, and there was more than enough light through the windows up here for me to make out a grin. His words were now void of his curtness he had shown before. In fact, he seemed almost happy now.

  “This is going to hurt me with my recent injury. Although you should be fine, I will warn you not to fall. We are a long ways up, after all.” And with that he climbed the sloping wall, and I followed him, though it was difficult. The pegs and gaps were set into the wall but were hard to see in the shadows cast from our bodies, and climbing them wasn’t easy as the wall curved slightly the higher we went. After a few movements, however, I figured out where we were headed. There was a room to our right, covered with a cloth like the other room had been, but I knew what to look for now.

  Following Adrian inside and once my feet had rested against the ledge, I looked down. We were still a ways from the actual top of the roof, but it was a cool sight to look down at everything anyway. I wondered why this room was here in the first place, and how it was built. Why would a church have a room that required a lot of climbing to get to? I turned around and brushed back the curtain to walk inside, taking a few moments to let my eyes adjust. The outline of Adrian walked to the far side of the room and pushed back a curtain to let more of the daylight in. Again, I wondered if this room had been built here before or after the guild took over.

  “Sorry, it’s a bit of a climb, but I like it up here.” And as I looked around, I could see why. It was open, with a remarkable amount of space, and a window that let in more than enough light to see everything. Wood paneling lined the walls and the floor, creating a proper house feel to it. Much better than my small crevice I had built for myself in the tower.

  He had a real bed against one wall, the blankets unmade and messy. A desk and a chair sat under the window. There was even a dresser and a couple of chests. I imagined they had constructed some sort of hoist to get these objects up here. There were other things too, things I had only ever dreamed of having as I moved from one small hole to another. Adrian told me to turn around as he changed from his bloody clothes.

  Despite my best attempts to not look, I couldn’t help but notice how muscular he was, and that there were deep scars that covered almost all of his back. I turned around completely and kept my eyes shut after that. Adrian tapped on my shoulder when he was done, and I turned to face him and found him already sitting in the chair in front of his desk.

  “Now I believe I owe you a story about that house so I can get my ring back, right? Well,” He gestured to the bed. “Sit.” As I crossed the room, I removed the ring from the pouch around my waist and tossed it to him. He caught it easily, giving me a confused look. I shrugged.

  “It isn’t necessary. You’ve done me enough favors and I don’t need to know. Take the ring, and I won’t be staying. As soon as my clothes are clean, I’ll be gone and you won’t see me again.” I paused, wondering if I should continue. “It was a mistake to come here, and it was a mistake to follow you.” I sat down on the bed, but kept some distance between us. I couldn’t trust him, or any of the guild. They were assassins, after all. I knew all too well that there wasn’t anyone I could afford to trust except myself.

  “I was curious about that.” He looked down as he spoke, fiddling with the ring in his hands. His elbows resting on his knees. “I can’t understand why you would follow me, or let me go. Much less why you trusted me with a knife. I mean, you’re definitely a thief, but your clothes didn’t look like that of a guild uniform, so why would a solo take the risk? Or better yet, why didn’t you just kill me after I had been knocked out from hitting my head against the wall?”

  I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a bruise and some swelling near the left side of his head where his short hair started. He must have fallen after running into me. I looked at Adrian’s face and realized he was staring at me, waiting for my answer. Gritting my teeth, the words came out louder than I had meant them to.

  “I. Don’t. Kill. People.” Anymore. My brain unhelpfully reminded me, but I kept that part quiet. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at Adrian, but he only smirked.

  “Ah, so that’s it. You’re one of those. The kind who think they’re better than we are because they have some sort of moral code. Well, I hate to tell you, princess, but we’ll both be 6 feet under when all is said and done.” He pocketed the ring and stood up. “That being said, I was going to ask you if you wanted to join the guild. Of course, there are trials to go through and I’d have to ask Terra first, but you could fit in here if you wanted. By the looks of you,” He paused and walked farther away heading to the door.

  I felt my heartbeat hammer against my chest. Thinking back to my first initiation, and the night that everything had gone wrong. I shut my eyes and willed the memories to disappear.

  I opened my eyes and stared at his back as he faced away from me, briefly remembering the scars I had seen there. I wondered how he had gotten them. “By the looks of you,” He repeated after turning back around to face me again. “You barely get enough food out there on the streets. Which reminds me, I’ll be right back.”

  Before I could say anything, he had already walked through the doorway and was gone. I looked around his room, still astonished that a thief could have something that looked and felt like a home. I couldn’t sit still anymore, so I paced the length of the room, thinking. Maybe I could belong here. I killed people once... I shook off the thoughts and ignored the memories that tried to resurface. Even just being here was bringing back things I really would rather forget.

  No, I had promised myself I would never do this again. Still, I wondered, looking around at all the objects and trinkets strewn about the room, odds and ends. They made the room feel more personable, welcoming, and comforting. Could I make it here? Was I willing to stoop to their level for a chance at all this?

  A few minutes later, I jumped as Adrian made a noise on the ledge. I got up and warily moved the curtain. He nodded to me in thanks and set the containers of food he had brought on his desk. It was then that I could smell it. He took a container and when he opened it and started pouring it into two bowls, I almost collapsed. It was soup, real soup, with meat even.

  I hadn’t had anything like this for a long, long time. He offered a bowl to me and I graciously took it, feeling my stomach growl in response. Perching myself on the edge of his bed again, I was trying to remember any of my manners. But as soon as I had the first spoonful, I couldn’t stop, and I didn’t put the bowl down until I had drained it completely. Looking up finally, I saw an astonished Adrian staring at me.

  “I guess you were hungry.” I expected his tone to be mocking, but it wasn’t and it took me a moment to place the emotion behind his words; concern. I frowned at him, and sat up straighter, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “I don’t need your food, or your clothes, or your nice gestures. I do just fine on my own.” Getting up, I was suddenly angry for reasons I couldn’t quite name, and I set my bowl on the table beside him. “And I think it’s time I left.” But Adrian grabbed my arm, stopping me.