The Assassination Attempt
In which our protagonist learns that legacy code includes hitmen, and Elara has a very good evening.
The arrests happened at dawn. Forty-seven people, taken from their beds, their offices, their carriages. Baron Vex was arrested in his study, mid-sentence, with a quill still in his hand. The two corrupt royal guards were arrested at their posts, before they could warn anyone. The mage, a man named Sorin, was arrested in his tower, before he could cast a single spell.
It was, Kenji thought, the cleanest operation he had ever been part of. The king's men were good. The timing was perfect. The plan held.
Until the assassination attempt.
It happened that evening. Kenji was in his quarters at the palace, reviewing the day's paperwork, with Pip orbiting his head and Elara sitting in the corner, cleaning her sword. Lian was in the next room, asleep. The window was open. The night was quiet.
Three men came through the window.
They were not amateurs. They moved with the fluid coordination of people who had done this many times. They were dressed in black. They had short swords and a small bag of something that glowed faintly green. They were, in the language of Kenji's old world, professionals. Contractors. The kind of people that you hire when you need a problem to disappear.
They were also, Kenji realized immediately, very good.
The first man lunged at him. Kenji stepped back, his hand going for the spell that was always ready now, the defensive flare that he kept cached. The flare burst in the assassin's face, blinding him. The second assassin came from the side, sword low, going for Kenji's legs. Kenji did not have time to cast again.
Elara did.
She was already moving. She had not been cleaning her sword. She had been waiting. She had been waiting, Kenji realized later, because she had seen the shadows in the window and had decided, with the calm professionalism of a person who has defended walls for seven years, to be ready.
Her sword took the second assassin in the side. He went down. The third assassin threw the bag of green powder at the floor, and the room filled with a sickly light. Pip screamed. The dragonfly's pulse was sharp, urgent: "Corruption. They are using cult magic."
Kenji's mind went cold. Cult magic. The assassins were cult-connected. Baron Vex's network was not just a financial network. It was a cult network.
Elara was fighting. She had killed the second assassin and was now facing the third, who had drawn a second sword and was pressing her hard. She was good, but the third assassin was better, and the green light was doing something to her mana, draining it, weakening her.
Kenji cast the firewall. Not a big one. A small one, just around Elara, just enough to block the green light from touching her. The firewall shimmered into existence. The green light stopped. Elara's mana stopped draining.
She took the assassin's head off in a single, clean stroke.
The room was quiet. The green light faded. The two dead assassins lay on the floor. The third was still alive, blinded by the flare, and Pip was orbiting his head, pulsing, "Do not let him go."
Kenji did not let him go. He pinned the man to the floor with a small redirect spell, which turned out to work just as well on people as it did on water, and he said: "Who sent you?"
The assassin said nothing. He tried to bite his tongue. Kenji stopped him with another redirect, which turned out to be very good at redirecting small motions, and the man stopped trying to bite things.
"I will ask you again," Kenji said. "Who sent you?"
"Baron Vex," the man said, finally. "He paid us. He said you were a problem. He said the cult would want you dead anyway, so we might as well get paid for it."
"The cult. Are you cult-connected?"
"We do not wear the robes. We just take their money. They have money. We do work."
"Where is the cult now?"
"I do not know. We do not ask. We just work."
Kenji looked at Elara. She was breathing hard, but her eyes were calm. She said: "The cult has been funding the nobles. The nobles have been funding the assassins. The whole thing is one network."
"The whole thing is one system," Kenji said. "And the system has a name. The name is Malachar."
The assassin looked confused. Kenji did not explain. He handed the man to the king's men, who had arrived in response to the noise, and he sat down on the floor, and Pip landed on his shoulder, and the dragonfly pulsed, softly, and the pulse felt like: "That was close."
Kenji sent back: "Yeah. Too close."
Elara sat down beside him. She was still holding her sword. There was blood on her face. It was not her blood.
"I am going to start sleeping in your room," she said.
"I was hoping you would say that."
"Good. We will discuss the terms in the morning. Right now, I need a drink."
"I do not drink."
"Then I will drink for both of us."
She did. They sat in the room with the two dead assassins, and the night went on, and the kingdom was still in chaos, and the cult was still out there, and the network was bigger than anyone had thought.
But for the moment, they were alive. And that was enough.
# WORLD.md (updated)
## Status
- Assassination attempt: repelled, 3 assassins, 2 dead, 1 captured
- Cult connection: confirmed, cult has been funding the nobles
- Baron Vex: arrested, but his network is bigger than expected
- Elara: officially sleeping in Kenji's quarters, terms TBD
## Lessons
- Legacy code includes hitmen
- A clean operation is only as good as its weakest link
- The cult is funding the nobles. The nobles are funding the assassins. The whole thing is one system.
- "I do not drink" is a great pickup line. Elara did not laugh, but she smiled.