CHAPTER ASHBORN 421: BEST SERVED COLD (TWO) (MAIYA)

Sneaking down hallways, avoiding patrols… This was what made Maiya’s heart pump. How long had it been since she’d been alone, unsupported, in the thick of things? These days, she was the Blessed Chosen. She was Ira’s right hand. Both positions came with a stifling amount of restrictions on her actions. Worse, they came with bodyguards and an entourage. People who followed her everywhere.

While Maiya didn’t mind Yamal, Bheem, Hema, or her handmaidens, she missed the thrill of diving into danger alone, with no safety net. And if she was honest, giving orders to elite subordinates got boring rather quickly. What was her purpose when her operatives never made mistakes, executing every instruction down to the letter?

Infiltrating the castle was both easier and more difficult than Maiya had anticipated. On the one hand, the castle was crawling with guards. On the other, entire hallways went unpatrolled. As though the guards were protecting something.

Maiya immediately assumed the ‘something’ was the royal family, but she’d been proven wrong. It was a strange, faint sound that gave her the first clue.

Entirely out of place in the silent stone hallways, Maiya traced the sound as it grew louder and louder, until she located its source.

“A banquet?” Maiya breathed, utterly unable to comprehend the sight beyond the small slit she peeked through. The ball gowns, the platters of food, the music…

And at the center of it all, King Rayid, toasting merrily to the cadre of Sawai suck ups that surrounded him.

He’s having a banquet… at a time like this? Maiya thought incredulously. Her mind refused to accept the facts. That someone—anyone—could do something so unbelievably deranged as host a banquet in the midst of a civil war. While his own son’s army breathed down the gates that protected him.

Was King Rayid this confident in his victory? Or was he truly so unhinged as to believe he was in no danger?

It was only when Maiya saw the swarm of guards that protected the entrance to the ballroom that she guessed at the third, more likely reason.

Be it Rayid, his bodyguards, or advisors, it seemed at least someone had a decent head on their shoulders.

“It’s all a farce,” Maiya muttered.

Of course, the attendees wouldn’t feel that way. King Rayid would’ve undoubtedly stressed the importance of the banquet, and of the ‘grave matters’ that needed to be discussed. Maiya could picture him now, convincing them of the critical and secretive nature of the words he’d utter.

In reality, a banquet was an excellent way to get the city’s Sawai in one place without causing panic. Maiya suspected the Sawai who had sided with Rayid were questioning that decision right about now. Perhaps they hoped the king had some grand plan for saving his city.

Well, he does, even if it means groveling to his ally,

Maiya thought. The Altani would wipe Sanobar’s rebellion off the face of the realm if nothing was done to deplete the prana enough. A nigh-impossible feat.

While Maiya had directed her handmaidens to reduce the local prana levels in key strategic locations, extinguishing all available prana in the city was a feat on S-rank spells could accomplish. Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a city left afterwards, either.

For Maiya, this situation was, at the same time, ideal and terrible. Terrible, because she now had to somehow sneak into that heavily defended ballroom and assassinate Rayid in a room jam-packed with people before fleeing without losing her life.

Ideal, because was there any more poetic way to end the man at the root cause of her parents’ deaths?

Maiya thought not.

Her opportunity came in the form of patience and an inebriated couple who’d excused themselves from the party for some reason or another. Given the flirtatious looks between them, Maiya didn’t have to imagine too hard.

The woman blew a kiss to one of the half-dozen guards as they exited, causing the guard to blush, while his friends chuckled and jabbed his ribs.

Maiya watched them round a bend, then moved in. The lighting was quite terrible in most castles, and Hiranya’s was no exception. The guards never noticed.

The couple never knew what hit them. Maiya bashed the back of the man’s slender neck with the pommel of her talwar before reaching around and gagging the woman’s mouth just before she screamed. She then received the same treatment as her husband, and in the span of ten seconds, both were unconscious on the ground.

Maiya swiftly dragged their bodies into a nearby utility closet before stripping and donning the woman’s clothes. Though not quite her size, she was close enough that no one would notice. Not unless they knew her… Which was a distinct possibility, but not one Maiya could do anything about.

Retrieving the makeup kit Maiya had carried on her ever since her days with Riyan, she quickly, yet efficiently, mirrored the woman’s own makeup, making heavy use of Riyan’s training to mimic her features as closely as possible. Though not identical, they were both Hiranyan, which helped considerably.

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Maiya could do little about her hair, so she tied it up in a bun and donned the woman’s hat. With luck, no one would notice Maiya’s crimson head until it was too late. She wasn’t there to regale Sawai all night, after all. The deed done, Maiya bound and gagged the two lovebirds. They’d awaken soon, but they’d be unable to open the closet door, which Maiya jammed on her way out. With luck, it would be hours before anyone noticed.

All in all, Maiya was quite happy with her handiwork. A feeling that grew even stronger when she breezed by the guards moments later, blowing them a scandalous kiss to send them swooning.

Once inside, Maiya understood her time was limited. For one, whoever the Sawai she’d impersonated was, she was undoubtedly known by the other attendees. Allowing anyone to get too good of a look at her, and Maiya’s disguise would vanish into thin air.

Second, Maiya had returned alone. A fact that was already beginning to draw eyes and attract attention.

Maiya instantly assumed the air of a refined aristocrat, walking with grace and elegance, doing her best to mimic the mannerisms of the woman that she’d observed in those few seconds.

She plucked a glass of wine from a passing server’s tray and idly drifted about the room… Or at least, that was how she made it look.

And while she didn’t dare make a beeline for Rayid, her steps invariably took her closer and closer, until she blended into a group of men and women chatting just beside the King.

“Ah, Lady Firaki! So good of you to join us,” a woman called out. She wore an opulent purple gown and was dark-haired and bronze-skinned like most Hiranyans, though fairer than most of the popular, as was common among the Sawai.

Maiya restrained the urge to click her tongue. She’d tried to stay on the periphery of the group to avoid this exact situation. Now that she’d been called out, she had no choice but to respond. Unfortunately, she was at an enormous disadvantage, not having familiarized herself with the names and faces of the Hiranyan Sawai nobility.

“Please,” Maiya said smoothly, “the pleasure is mine.”

The woman frowned, and Maiya knew she’d messed up. She hadn’t had any chance to hear this woman, Firaki’s, voice. Something must have tipped this lady off, because she now regarded Maiya with, if not suspicion, something that looked like worry.

Huh, maybe I can use that, Maiya thought.

“What happened to Gaurav? Is he not well?” the woman asked.

“Oh, he’s fine,” Maiya said in a way that very much implied he was not fine. “Just tired, is all.”

Maiya looked away at the entrance before focusing on the woman. She was banking on the hope that this lady wasn’t testing her. If she’d used the wrong name, or if that man wasn’t Firaki’s husband...

Maiya didn’t like it one bit, but this was what she had to work with. The opportunity was far too tempting to pass up.

“I see,” the woman said, showing no hint of suspicion. “Poor thing. You ought to go tend to him. It’s only proper.”

“I intended to,” Maiya said, looking distraught. “But, he insisted.”

While Maiya didn’t know for certain that this meeting was organized by the King himself, this was a gamble she felt rather certain about.

“Yes, well, that is certainly—”

“Ah, I heard my name!” King Rayid—clearly somewhat inebriated—said from the group just beside them.

Like shadows receding before the light, Maiya’s group shirked back, and Maiya copied them, bowing her head.

“My King!”

King Rayid looked as healthy as ever, as though the plight of his kingdom weighed nothing at all upon his shoulders. His burgeoning belly told Maiya all she needed to know about how he kept himself, and while this was the first time they had met, Maiya was quite content knowing it would be the last.

“Come now, Lady Firaki,” King Rayid said. “There is no need for such formality between us. What ails you?”

“Nothing at all, my liege! Just…”

“Yes?” Rayid said, leaning closer.

Just a little more…

“I’ve just been thinking of a story I once heard. Of a little girl in some far-flung Hiranyan village. The daughter of a priest.”

Maiya kept her voice meek, soft, forcing her audience to lean in to hear her.

“Oho?” Rayid said, stepping towards her. “I admit I have not heard this story.”

“It’s not well known,” Maiya said with a wry smile. “Her parents were killed, you see. Slaughtered. Tragic, really. Her childhood friend’s adoptive father also perished under their thumb. She was forced to flee with her friend, pursued by those who killed her family. She was forced to endure countless hardships… In the end, her life was upturned on that fateful day. Never to remain the same again.”

Her audience shook their heads. Some scoffed in derision. “The bandits are a blight upon our nation,” a man with a finely combed mustache said. “Praise to the King for his knights, that these tragedies may be avoided in the future.”

“Praise to the King!” the group echoed, raising their glasses in toast.

Maiya raised her glass as well, smiling as she did. “Oh, I’m afraid you’ve mistaken one thing. They weren’t bandits,” Maiya said, her voice and gaze turning to seric steel. “No, my dear friends, they were knights. Hiranyan Knights. Ordered to kill them. Ordered by you, my king. By those you put into power. And now, that girl has returned to balance her karma.”

Rayid frowned. “What do you—!?”

“For Aliscia. For Apramor. For Rudvik. And for Vir and me, please die.”

The Wind Blade manifested so quickly and with such little warning that not a soul reacted until it was too late.

Not a single person present noticed that King Rayid Hiranya was dead. That was, not until his body split vertically into two.

Then the screams began. Then the panic set in. It was only after the stampede of desperate Sawai ended that the guards were able to move in. King Rayid bodyguards milled about his corpse, searching for the perpetrator.

They would never find her. Maiya was long gone.

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Maiya returned to Prince Sanobar’s camp exhausted, yet strangely fulfilled. It was strange to her to feel this way upon taking a life… All of her prior kills had been of beasts, not men.

Perhaps it was because this wasn’t about revenge, per se, but rather justice. Of ensuring those who committed the gravest crimes faced the consequences—something that rarely happened when coin could be used in lieu.

“Where’ve you been?” Prince Sanobar said, looking irate.

“Killing Rayid,” Maiya replied, too tired to play word games.

The prince paused midstride, but quickly resumed his pacing, looking no less stressed.

“I admit this was not the reaction I had been expecting,” Maiya said, frowning. “What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter!?” Sanobar barked. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” Maiya asked, feeling a sudden sense of dread.

“The rebellion! Our victory. It matters not! Imperator Andros marches on Sai and Hiranya as we speak! What chance do we have against him?”

“This is all part of the plan,” Maiya said. Had the prince gone delirious from the stress? “Princess Ira will—”

“Don’t you understand?” Sanobar shrieked, on the verge of a breakdown. “Princess Ira is dead! Her rebellion has failed! Andros… He knew everything!”