"What do you want to be when you grow up?" the boy asks. His spiky black hair glistens in the light from the full moon. 

"I want to live in the city where the big people live." The girl is younger, hardly ten. A mass of tiny silver ringlets frame her little face and he has a distinctive dimple when she smiles.

"No, silly. You have to do something to live in the big city. You need to be like the big people." The boy giggles, shifting on the stack of hay.

"What do you want to do?" the girl asks.

"I want to join the army," he replies proudly. "Once I declare my magic, I will apply to be recruited."

"But mommy says our magic is different from theirs and so they don't like us—"

An explosion sounds in the distance, so loud that the earth shakes beneath the hay. 

"What is happening?" the girl wails. Another explosion follows this time nearer to them.

"Watch out—" but before the boy can scream, a blinding light shines above them with earth splitting sound. The sky cleaves in half and the splinters shower on them like meteors—exquisitely beautiful and deadly. The pieces land on the hay, making a splitting sound, almost like a barbecue on a grill, slowly consuming the dry fodder and creating an inferno of death. Just inches away from it, the girl lies face down on the grass, her hands over her ears, and the boy on top of her, guarding her tiny body with his entire frame—half-delirious, his face contorted in pain. 

But nobody comes to rescue them, because not far off, hundreds of homes are burning with sleeping people trapped inside. Soldiers in black uniforms file out silently like an army of ants and escape under the cover of the night.

"The Mishap of Shimmervale." Mrs Fairwitter announces, tapping the chalk on the blackboard in the most annoying way. The other teachers have moulded themselves with the times and most prefer PowerPoint presentations to the blackboard, but dear old Mrs Grumpy Oldie loves making chalk dust flying everywhere. I can bet the hair of the guy sitting on the first bench was a shade darker the last time I saw him.

"What do you know about Shimmervale?" she continues. "Anyone?" she pauses to let the class answer. One hand rises in the entire class.

Mr Exotic.

Why am I surprised? Isn't it like always? The clever best friend of the dumb prince—if he is a prince—which I will find out soon—protecting the prince from all the perils of the real world.

I glance around at the handful of students in the class, staring at the duo who always seem to sit on the middle-most bench of the entire class. Foreign students or ordinary Lumeirians aren't offered the option of studying the 'History of the Land'. It's only for people from in and around the magical communities and nobles, to make them ready to navigate the delicate politics of the realm. It's definitely a miracle that the people hiring me got me into the elite class, just so I could keep a watch on the Prince. And the way these two carried themselves, I was beginning to get surer and surer that they were royals, if not my target.

"Yes Ergun," she nods. So that's his name. Ergun—the soldiers of the sun. 

"The residents of Shimmervale were fairies who had mastered the ancient craft of moulding the dark magic from the depths of oblivion. They practised mind magic, and alchemy and were expert apothecaries. But as we know, the darkness can be dangerous. So one night two fairies got into a duel. They weren't aware of the side effects of using too much of the ancient magic. The snowball effect of uncontrolled power razed the village to the ground overnight." He pauses. I ball my hands into a fist so tight that my nails draw blood on my palm. Otherwise, I might have stood up and hurled some profanities at the lies. 

"Liar!" my mind screams at him. Flashes of fire and the dull thudding of soldiers' footsteps ring in my ears, followed by the sound of bursting shells. "Liar!" I want to scream at him. I close my eyes and attempt to even my breath. When I open them, I hope the murder is gone from my eyes. His gaze sweeps the room, rests for a bit on me and turns back to the teacher. "When the soldiers reached, they didn't find a single body or remains. They had either vanished forever or were gutted by the flames." He takes a deep breath, his face appearing smug at the knowledge. Such a well-crafted story the king has spun for so long.

They killed two birds with one stone—let the world know that dark magic is dangerous and uncontrollable and that the 'mishap' was an accident by unhinged fairies rather than a planned massacre by the State to wipe out an entire clan of fairies who were possibly more powerful than they ever will be.

"Very good, Ergun." Mrs Fairwitter gives him an indulgent smile and he flashes one in return. So he is a top student and a teacher's pet—perfect.

The rest of what Mrs Fairwitter says about Shimmervale is drowned out by the buzzing in my head. I'm disgusted by the lie they are propagating, maybe unknowingly, but it doesn't make them any less guilty than the king of Lumieria. For them, Shimmervale is just numbers, statistics and a curious case but for me, it was my home, my only home and they made me homeless.

"You okay?"

"Mhmm," I mumbled without looking at Hemlock.

"I saw what happened back there. You need to keep your murderous glares under control, Lark." He sighed, picking up a small pebble.

"Was it that obvious?" I sigh, fidgeting with my nails. 

"Yup!" He sends the stone skipping on the dark surface of the lake. I click my fingers. A purple flame bursts from the tip of my index finger and rolls along the finger like a serpent coiling. I throw my magic towards the water and it goes hopping behind the pebble—a purple ball of light in the pitch darkness. He sends a white ball after me. Our magic keeps frolicking on the water, like two gazelles at play.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" I breathe.

"It is." His voice sounds distant. I look at his face in the slight light. The hot white flame dancing in his eyes isn't scary—not to me—it almost looks sexy. "Dark magic can be this beautiful too!" 

"Unlike many assassins out there, we aren't assassins by choice, Hem. We are assassins by circumstances but does that really change who we are?" I fidget with my fingers. I wouldn't show vulnerability to anyone, but to my best friend, Hemlock, I am just an open book. 

"No, it doesn't. At the end of the day, we are assassins." The finality in his tone scares me. That is my reality, forever. I will never be someone else or something else. I am destined to be a killer.

"Skullcrest called for us, you know." He said after a while of silence.

"What does she want now?"

"Let's find out." He gets up, offering me his hand. I slap it off and hoist myself up on my own.

"Always pretending to be strong." He smirks, falling into steps beside me.