A Moment of Weakness

I breathe evenly through my nose, taking care not to make a sound. The crimson velvet curtain before me has been my hiding place for the last hour, and as the night advances, I burrow deeper into the shadows. I live in the shadows. I become the shadows.

Outside, the rain wets the streets, turning them into flowing streams of glinting gray and dirt. Lightning strikes nearby, illuminating the room from its only tall window. It is richly ornamented with paintings from the most prestigious artists, expensive furniture and numerous gold artifices. A crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling. A wealthy room, befitting a wealthy nobleman. Like him, the room smells of corruption.

Said nobleman sits before his desk in the center of the room, writing a letter anxiously. From my hiding place, I watch as he dips his silver laden quill into the inkwell, writes a few words, and repeats the motion hurriedly. The sparse light coming from the few candles around him illuminates the sweat accumulating in his forehead.

This man is my target tonight, and I wait for him to finish his letter. According to Lord Greyback, it has valuable information for the Rebellion that can be used against the Crown. “You’ll be killing two birds with one stone,” he’d told me as he’d handed me the red card that contained my target’s name.

It won’t be long now. I ready myself, once again controlling my breathing, and gently touch the hilt of my sword strapped to my hip to reassure myself—of what? I don’t know. I have been playing this game for years, but now I can feel the panic bloom as my heart beats rapidly in my chest and sweat starts to pool underneath my black leather gloves.

You will hear his screams in your dreams, just like the rest of them. The thought comes unbidden to my mind, and I try to ignore it. He deserves to die, I tell myself, he has caused suffering to the realm because of his greed and corrupted ways. Whatever I thought about the man did not matter, anyways; it is my duty to assassinate him tonight. You are a weapon.

The nobleman signs the letter with a flicker of his wrist and reaches his hand forward to grab an envelope. I quietly leave my hiding place and tread along the shadows, making them a part of my skin. My near-soundless footsteps are confused with the platter of the rain. He doesn’t notice me as I stand a meter away from his desk; they never do. I speak the words I have spoken a thousand times before.

“Lord Baylen, I am here to deliver justice for your crimes committed against the people of this realm.”

He screams, shocked at my arrival. I unsheathe my sword faster than the blink of an eye, but instead of cutting right through his body I am met with resistance. The man holds a dagger of his own, parrying my strike. I grunt in frustration; I wasn’t expecting him to be armed.

“Who are you?” His pupils are dilated by the fear that belongs to a cornered animal. My nose wrinkles in distaste at the rancid odor of fresh piss. You will hear his screams in your dreams.

“Death,” I say and disarm him, then strike in a downward arc. Blood sprays my face and chest and slides down my sword in fat rivulets. His head rolls to the floor and makes a puddle of its own. Baylen’s eyes are wide and frozen, his mouth contorted open in the scream he didn’t have time to make. Nausea washes over me as I look at his distorted face severed from his body, trying not to feel any remorse. You are a weapon, I chant, gaging against the coppery smell of blood. This is your duty. You are a weapon. This is your duty.

Turning away from the corpse, I search his desk for the letters Lord Greyback wanted and am hiding them between the folds of my vest when the doors to the room open.

“My Lord? Is something wrong? I heard a commotion. It is late, you should come to bed.” A woman says. She is dressed in a light blue silk gown and a topaz gem glints around her throat.

It takes a second for her to assess the situation. Her eyes widen in horror and before she can open her mouth to scream I am behind her, clamping her mouth shut with my hand, my sword at her neck. The ends of her curly, chestnut hair tickle my blood-spotted cheeks. The woman trembles between my arms and whimpers, her tears joining the bloodstains in my clothes.

“Please.” She begs, her voice muffled and barely audible. “Please.”

She might be Lord Baylen’s wife. She might be his mistress. She might be anyone, but this woman is innocent.

I hesitate.

I hesitate because for the last year every time I kill somebody, I feel myself dying, too.

I hesitate because she is just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she doesn’t deserve to die.

I hesitate because no matter what command I give them, my hands are stuck in place, unmoving. But…”You cannot leave any witnesses. It is too risky; I don’t want anyone to be able to recognize you or to trace the attacks back to us. This is an order.”

Time is ticking.

You are a weapon. This is your duty.

I whisper the words I never say to any victim. “I’m sorry.”

I slash my sword across her throat, and warm blood once again sprays my chest and clothes. They were black, in the beginning, but after so many assassinations have become something darker and grotesque. The robes of an executioner, the angel of death, and Death itself. As the woman falls to the ground, lungs gasping for one last breath, her eyes meet mine. I feel like I cannot breathe, like there is no air around for me to inhale, for me to continue living. Those eyes. Those eyes—they—

“Are you really joining the Rebellion, Takeshi?”

Those blue eyes.

“When are you going to stop? Hasn’t it been enough, Taki?”

Meena’s blue eyes.

“I hate you, Takeshi. For as long as you remember me, my spirit will hate you.”

The woman slumps dead to the ground, and I clutch my chest desperately, gagging when my hands come out stained red with blood. The room disappears and I am fifteen once again, practicing my swordsmanship outside the remains of the family estate. The Rebellion has been fighting the Crown for two years, and our mother was killed six months ago by tax collectors. Meena sits against a tree, mending an old shirt of mine that has been patched up too many times already. I stop to get a drink of water and she looks at me with her deep blue eyes, worry written across her face. “Are you really joining the Rebellion, Takeshi?”

I gasp for air, suffocating in this vast, decorated room. I need to get away from here, away from her, from her accusing blue eyes so similar to those of someone I once called a sister. Someone I vowed to protect and ended up—run, run away from here. My feet are carrying me out the window in a single leap before I even register moving, and when I hit the ground I am running, past the mansion’s guards, past the gates, and into the town’s streets. I don’t know where I am going, but I keep running without thinking, letting instinct guide me.

“Please don’t leave me, Taki. Don’t go. We will find a way together. Please don’t leave me alone.”

The rain soaks my clothes and my face. I search urgently for some place to escape, to hide for just a moment, but am met with the facades of wealthy houses and stalls of closed marketplaces. The blood flows down my clothes along with the rain and then dissipates, disappearing into nothingness as it touches the street.

“Someday I’m going to marry a very rich man, and I won’t be poor anymore. I will restore the family name to its former glory. You just wait and see, Taki. I can even invite you to live with us, if you’re nice.”

Everywhere I run, Meena haunts my mind. She is smiling at me, her blue eyes wide with happiness for the necklace I gifted her for her birthday. She is sitting against that tree watching me practice, a pensive look on her face. She is placing wildflowers on our mother’s grave, her blue eyes blotchy and red. She is holding a dagger to my neck with delicate, steady hands, her eyes defiant and filled with hate.

There, just ahead and to the left is an alley. I take a brisk turn and stop in front of a brick wall. Calm down, I think, Get a hold of yourself. But no matter what I do, I can’t conceal the trembling of my hands, nor calm my heavy, erratic breaths. The tangy, sharp smell of blood envelops my senses and I choke. The odor reminds me of each and every victim, of their horror-stricken faces and their screams. Of the wailing their families make when they discover the crime scene. Of Lord Baylen’s severed, contorted head, and his innocent wife. Of Meena.

“You’re a monster, Takeshi.”

It forces me to remember the reason why all I can taste and smell and see for some time now is blood. It is everywhere; it stains my skin, my clothes, my soul permanently, no matter how many hours I spend after an assassination trying to wash it away. For all the victims, all the lives I have taken, I can never be clean again.

Perhaps it all started four years ago, after encountering our mother dead at our doorstep, a note from the tax collectors stating the amount of money our family owed the Crown. Or perhaps it started before that, when my father, an esteemed and loyal swordsman, was tortured and disabled under the King’s orders without any explanation. As we watched him and the family fortune slowly waste away with every bottle of liquor and visit to the opium dens. It was growing up in a stolen life, in an estate that was more a ghost than a home and a family name reduced to nothing, among people who were victimized every day for the selfishness and greed of those higher up. I was a romantic then, wishing for peace and a new era when I was recruited as an assassin into the Rebellion’s ranks. I became an invaluable asset because of my steadfast belief in justice and my unmatched skills with the sword—“A skill from the Gods,” Lord Greyback had called it. I had thought it right to kill under the cover of shadows, to harden my heart and throw away my soul for the sake of the greater good.

“When are you going to stop? Hasn’t it been enough?”

I am sitting beside Meena in the estate’s porch. It is in dire need of repair, slowly crumbling and rotting, just like the rest of the house. It’s been two years since my deployment, and it is the first time I am allowed to come home since then.

“It is my duty, Meena. I must do this, for everyone’s sake. The Rebellion leaders say that if I continue, I might help end the war sooner.”

“But what if you die, Takeshi? What if this kills you?”

“Then I die and will consider it an honorable death.”

“No, Taki, I’m not talking about your body. How long until this kills your spirit?

I say nothing, at a loss for words as I stare the truth in the face. For what is my life worth against the suffering of thousands of others? It is simply an insignificant sacrifice in the grand scheme of things, but a necessary one. She holds my hand and looks into my eyes. “I’m getting married,” she says.

I am a weapon. This is my duty. I am a weapon. This is my duty. I chant the words in my mind in order to recover some semblance of balance, of strength. To remind myself that I am supposed to be a blade; lithe, deadly, and unfeeling, just like I have been for the past four years. But my bloodied hands can’t stop shaking, and my chest aches, and I feel weak, so weak. It was easy, in the beginning; ending a life like extinguishing a candle’s flame with a single breath. But ever since that night I can’t shake the guilt away, and it has become progressively worse and worse. Their screams and their hollow gazes haunt me, and every time I feel my sanity crumbling. The guilt I carry inside pulls me like a dead weight, and I slump against the wall, clutching the uneven bricks to hold on to whatever conviction and sanity I have left. And for the first time since my first assassination, I let the weakness overcome me like a tidal wave.

The rain washes my back in a constant platter as I lean my forehead into the cold stone wall. “You are doing this for the greater good,” I choke, whispering against the raindrops that rush past my lips. “Your insanity and forsaking of your soul are not for nothing. Your sacrifice is a necessity.” I repeat the words Lord Greyback has told me so many times before. “The Rebellion needs you. The people need you. The realm needs you.” I say these words again and again so that they engrave themselves into my heart, my head. But all I see is Meena on a night a year ago, a dagger to my neck, blue eyes furious, alit with vengeance.

“You can’t kill him, Takeshi!” She stands before me with her arms spread out, impeding me from reaching the fallen man I fatally wounded just seconds ago. On the street behind me are three of his bodyguards slumped on the ground and covered in blood. Dead.

“He works for the Crown, Meena. He is an enemy and these are my orders.”

“He’s my husband! He’s a good man, and I love him. You can’t kill him!”

Perhaps it was fate, or simply bad luck that the man I was sent to kill was Meena’s husband, and a young, newly appointed commander of the Crown’s troops. That I was sent to ambush them when they were returning home from dinner, and that she was there. That I had not known this man had anything to do with my sister. But I had orders to follow.

“Step aside.” A tear trails down her cheek and she takes out a dagger from her belt and points it at me.

“You are a monster, Takeshi. You are no brother of mine.”

Her husband stands up unsteadily and charges at me with a war cry. I raise my sword to counterstrike, disarming him with the flicker of my wrist. Meena begs and screams, rushing to me. I stab my sword forward. Everything occurs in a blur, and the next thing I know, there are two people embedded in my sword. Meena holds the dagger to my neck, her eyes filled with hate. Then, she looks down in disbelief at the sword trespassing her torso, and the blood beginning to pool in her cream-colored dress. I am stunned. This can’t be right, this can’t be happening, this—

“No!” I scream. Behind her, her husband falls to the ground and never moves again. “Stay still. I might be able to get you to a doctor. You’re not dying on me, I won’t allow it.” Blood drips down my neck from the dagger’s cut.

She’s fading already, holding on to my coat with her debilitating fingers as her legs give out. Her blue eyes are seared into my soul as she whispers her last words into my ear.

“I hate you, Takeshi. For as long as you remember me, my spirit will hate you.”

The pain, the guilt is too much to bear, and I clutch my chest, sobbing. My tears mix with the rain dripping down my face and go unnoticed. “I’m sorry,” I gasp, “I’m so sorry.” I keep saying the words over and over to Meena, to the hundreds of lives I have destroyed for a brighter future, to the innocence I left behind a long time ago and the soul that went with it. I beg for forgiveness to whomever might hear me, even if there is no one.

A carriage passes by outside the alley, and I am nudged out of my stupor and into the reality of my situation. It is already past midnight, and Lord Greyback and the others are waiting for me, probably worried about my tardiness. You are a weapon. This is your duty. I straighten my back and harden my heart. I am a soldier, an assassin, and will continue to be doing whatever it takes to bring peace to this realm. Gone are the tears, the guilt, the regret. In a split second I am gone from the alley, once again blending into the shadows and the darkness of the night. And no one will ever know that in that alley stood a man grappling with himself for his own sanity, questioning his actions and reasons, drowning in his own anguish. That there was ever a moment of weakness. All that is left is the rain, and its cries as it hits the empty asphalt, going plat-plat-plat.