Free Web NovelChapter 62: A Twisted Favor
Two days prior...
A bowl of ice-cold water was splashed violently into the face of the assassin, the shock of it jolting him awake from his forced unconsciousness. He spluttered, gasping for air as the water dripped from his matted hair and pooled in the collar of his tunic.
When his vision finally cleared, he found himself bound securely to a heavy wooden chair in the center of a damp, torchlight cellar. Standing directly before him in the shadows were the two people who had brought him into this purgatory.
Elias and Penelope.
"What is your name?" Penelope asked, her voice dangerously calm as she maintained her composure in the face of the enemy.
She stood rigid, her spine perfectly straight, refusing to show a single tremor of the horror that had gripped her in the carriage.
"It takes a lot of guts to poison the Marquis of Aelgard," she continued. "If you know what is best for you, then you better hand me the antidote before I shove you to court."
The assassin blinked away the water from his eyes, looking up at her. Beneath her noble poise, he saw the restrained, trembling fury burning in her brown eyes.
It was a look he had seen in many desperate nobles, and it only made him laugh out loud. It was a wet mocking sound that echoed off the stone walls as he tilted his head to the side.
"Really? You’re gonna shove me to court?" He sneered, his voice dripping with arrogance. "I know for certain you cannot kill me, lest your precious Marquis joins me in the grave. And if you wish to torture the answer out of me—"
"Hey," Elias’s cold voice interjected, the sharp scrape of his leather boots on the stone floor cutting through the rogue’s taunt. "Get to the point, you piece of scoundrel. What is it you want?" freёwebnovel.com
The assassin’s gaze slithered down Penelope’s silhouette, his eyes narrowing with a slow, lecherous appreciation that made the skin on her arms crawl. Even bound to a chair and freezing water, the rogue managed a repulsive, crooked grin.
"What do I want?" the assassin purred, his eyes snapping back up to Penelope’s face. "For starters, I certainly wouldn’t mind a taste of what the Marquis gets to enjoy every night. You know, My Lady, when I had you in my sights at the clearing, my fingers hesitated on the bowstring. It felt like an absolute sin to put an arrow through a face as exquisite as yours. I considered it a waste of value."
He leaned forward as much as the ropes allowed, his voice dropping to a low, mocking drawl. "A woman like you? If I had chosen to capture you and sell you to the high-end auctions instead,you would have cost a fortune. A King’s ransom for a beauty like that. It almost broke my heart to use you as a mere bait, but then again, the contract simply wanted you gone."
"Watch your tongue," Elias snarled, stepping into the rogue’s line of sight to shield Penelope from his filthy stare. "Or I will rip it out of your mouth myself, cure be damned."
The assassin only chuckled, though the sound turned bitter, the amusement fading from his eyes to reveal a dark, simmering hatred.
"You think I’m just some common mercenary hunting for a pouch of gold?" The rogue spat, his jaw clenching. "Just because he is the Marquis he believes he can slaughter whoever he pleases in the name of the Crown and walk away clean. It’s all absolute madness!"
"He killed the only man who ever gave me a damn chance in this world, executing him with the same cold indifference he uses to claim the lives of the innocent. No one wants a monster like him around here. A contract to end the Marquis’s life? Hah! I would have taken that offer for a single copper coin. He has enemies lurking in every shadow. We, the people of Vandalian, are far better off without him. Even if you get rid of me, there’s more of me who won’t stop coming until he ceases to exist from this world."
He shifted his weight, the ropes creaking against the wood of the chair as he looked back at Penelope, his grin returning like a jagged scar.
"So, you want the recipe for the antidote, Marchioness? Fine. But it’s going to cost you. I want my freedom, a safe escort out of the territory, and ten thousand gold pieces. If I don’t get it, your husband’s mind will be completely rotted by nightfall."
Elias let out a sharp breath, stunned beyond words by the man’s brazen admission. "You scum—"
"No," Penelope raised a hand, her voice a calm, freezing command that instantly stopped Elias from taking any violent measures.
"He has said his piece, so it is my turn to speak," she said smoothly. She turned her head slightly toward the dark corridor and clapped her hands twice.
The heavy oak door creaked louder this time as two towering estate guards made their way into the cellar. One of them carried a crude iron bowl filled with a murky, dark liquid.
"Make sure he drinks it," she commanded, her expression entirely unbothered.
The assassin, unable to make sense of her vague orders, watched with a sudden spike of apprehension as the guards stepped forward. The arrogant smirk finally bled from his face.
"Hey—don’t touch me! Get away from—mmph!"
One of the guards clamped a brutal, leather-gloved hand over the assassin’s jaw, forcing his mouth wide open, while the other tipped the bowl forward and poured the entire contents down his throat, ruthlessly forcing him to swallow. The assassin squirmed in his chair, but he was no match for the two guards who remained unshaken in his pathetic attempts at an escape.
Only after the bowl was completely emptied did the guards step back, releasing their grip. The assassin slumped forward against his restraints, coughing violently and spitting the remaining residue onto the stone floor.
"What... what the hell did you just give me?" he wheezed, his eyes watering as he glared up at her.
Penelope smoothed down the front of her torn, blood-stained gown, looking down at him with a sudden chilling composure.
"That was Sanguine Bane," she said, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly level whisper. "Someone like you should be familiar with the name, afterall, it is the very same poison you laced your arrows with. If my knowledge serves me correctly, it takes exactly eight hours for the venom to bypass the bloodstream and begin liquefying the internal organs. Once that happens, there is no saving you.".
The assassin’s face drained of color, his chest heaving as the stark reality of his situation set in.
"You have exactly five hours," Penelope continued, tilting her chin up. "That is the amount of time you have to brew the antidote for my husband, and subsequently, for yourself. If you want to live to see the dawn, I suggest you start listing the ingredients to Elias right now. Otherwise, you will remain trapped in here while you rot from the inside out."
"You bitch—" the assassin spat, his body straining violently against the ropes as the terrifying truth settled in.
He tried to force himself to vomit, but the fluid had already burned its way down his throat. It was, in fact, the poison.
Penelope only smiled, a cold, elegant curve of her lips that didn’t reach her eyes.
"What exactly do you take me for?" she asked, stepping closer until the hem of her gown brushed the dirt near his boots. "Even if I were to grant everything you just requested—the gold, the escort, the freedom—there is no certainty that the antidote you would have given me was the correct one. How can I trust you to fulfill your end of the deal when you harbor this much resentment for the Marquis? I am merely ensuring we do not fool one another."
The assassin, his breathing growing shallow as panic began to war with his arrogance, realized all too late that he had severely underestimated the Marchioness.
He clicked his tongue in deep annoyance, glaring at her through matted hair.
"What makes you think I wouldn’t prefer to die?" he sneered, trying to mask his terror with bravado. "I’ll gladly go to hell if it means taking the devil of Aelgard with me."
"Well, I am certainly not stopping you from dying," Penelope clarified, her voice entirely conversational, as if they were discussing the weather over tea. "Your threat is always the same—that if you perish, the Marquis will die as well. But that is also perfectly fine. In a way, I am doing you a favor."
The rogue’s eyes narrowed, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "A favor?"
"Think about it," Penelope murmured, leaning in slightly, her brown eyes locking onto his with a predatory intensity. "You want your vengeance for the man the Marquis executed, right? If you sit there and choose to die, Vincent will bleed out in his bed, and you will have your revenge. Sounds like a poetic, noble sacrifice for your fallen comrade."
She paused, letting the silence stretch before she allowed a sharp, mocking pity to bleed into her tone.
"But tell me... what happens to your revenge when you are dead in the ground, and the House of Devereux still stands? The Marquis might die, yes, but we will simply announce he died due to a terrible illness. Once you are gone, who will carry on your fight then? You will be nothing but a nameless, rotting corpse in a shallow grave, forgotten by history within a week."
The assassin’s jaw tightened at that, his chest heaving as her words began to chip away at his resolve. His mind raced as her words lingered.
The house of Devereux will stand? What did she mean by that? Is she carrying his heir?
His eyes narrowed on her.
"On the other hand," Penelope continued, her voice a mesmerizing, dangerous siren song, "if you live... you keep your life. You keep your gold. You can walk out of this territory, cross the border, and live to fight another day. Perhaps you can even try to kill the Marquis again when he is less guarded. But if you die here today, you lose everything, and your little rebellion ends in this damp cellar. Is a dead martyr truly more useful than a living, wealthy enemy?"
