How I Accidentally Built a Kingdom

"Wha... What do you want?" Darvel stammered out his question, he was trying his best to sound angry, but the puddle he was sitting in, along with the paleness of his skin, and actually everything about him at that moment screamed only one thing.

Fear.

At least I knew I still had it.

It had been a while since I could really scare the shit, or in this case piss, out of someone.

I had been an assassin for a long time, but some family obligations, and court politics had led to me having to give up that life.

And unlike most, I wasn’t forced into that life, I had never been some poor little girl who had to do anything she could just to survive.

I had never suffered some sort of traumatic experience that led me down the path of becoming an assassin.

No, I had chosen that life.

And I had been damn good at it.

Okay, I was never your conventional assassin, using stealth and tactics to get rid of my targets, I had tended to be a bit more... upfront about it.

All of my targets had seen me coming.

They just couldn’t do anything about the outcome anyway.

And honestly, I had missed that life.

And right at that moment, I had felt that long lost rush, the one of seeing a man who knew he was in deep shit, and knowing he still couldn’t do anything about it.

Knowing that this man’s life or death lied in a single decision from me.

It was electrifying.

I almost had to physically pull myself back into the present, back into the room, where I just wanted to have a nice conversation with a bastard elf who dared insult the man I loved.

"Don’t worry Darvel, I’m not planning to hurt you... well unless you piss me off even more, then you might feel some slight pain." I said as I sat down across from him, in the same seat I was in mere hours earlier.

"But the pain won’t last very long in that case."

I didn’t think the elf’s face could become paler than it had already become, but apparently I was mistaken.

"Before we start, I should probably make it clear to you that it would do you no good to try and call for help." I said as I pointed at the shadows now covering the doorway completely. "Those shadows mean that no sound can escape this room."

"And even if it could," I said as I leaned forward slightly in the chair. "I can guarantee you that there is no one in this puny little village of yours that could defeat me."

"Hell, there probably isn’t even anyone in the entire elven lands that could stand against me." I finished as I sat back in the chair.

I could see small sporadic shivers start to run through Darvel’s body after those words.

Which only made my smile even broader.

I had him right where I wanted him.

"What do you want?"

I leaned back into the chair, but didn’t rush my response, I wanted him to sit in his fear for a bit longer.

I even made the moment a bit more dramatic by giving my fingernails an in depth study, even using the hidden blade I pulled from my shoe with a flurry, to clean them a bit.

"It’s simple really," I started after a few more moments of cleaning my nails. "You were quite rude to me and Daniel when we came to see you."

When I was done cleaning my nails, I decided that the moment would become even better if I slammed the knife into his desk.

With a bang, the knife pegged into the hard wood, and after a few moments of rattling it became still.

Standing like a soldier at attention between me and Darvel.

"I expect you to apologise profusely to him, and then you will listen to the proposal he wanted to make, you will concede to giving him his share of the profits his idea makes, and you will treat him with nothing but respect while you do it." I said, listing off the conditions for his life one-by-one.

"If you decide that you would prefer not to do that... well let’s just say that you might just mysteriously disappear, and leave a will stating he inherits all of your assets."

The fear on his face just kept getting better and better, so I decided that I would give him one last scare, just for good measure.

"And if I ever hear you talk to him like that again, I will make you wish for death," I said as I stood from the chair again, slowly walking around the desk. "But I won’t give it to you, for days I will make you suffer, until I get bored, but you should know... I don’t get bored easily."

I finished the last words in a whisper next to his ear.

"Do we have an understanding?" I asked.

The best he could do at that moment was a small nod of acknowledgment, which was good enough for me.

"Good," I said, making my way to the door again. "Oh... and don’t tell anyone about this little conversation of ours."

Those were the last words I spoke before disappearing from his view through the shadows again.

Once I was a distance down the hall, I called them back to cover only me again, and silently made my way back to Daniel’s room.

Or I guess it had become our room now, because I had no intention of ever sleeping in a different bed than him again.

Just before entering the room I let my concealment slip again.

Inside I saw Daniel lying in the bed again, his eyebrows scrunched up in thought.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked, startling him out of those thoughts immediately.

He turned his gaze toward me, his natural broad smile replacing his previous expression of concern.

"About you of course," he said, as he reached out and pulled me into his embrace.

The man was clearly telling only half truths, but he had a way of knowing just the truths to choose, to make me ignore the other half.

***

And that was how Daniel’s plans were actually set into motion.

He, of course, thinks that it all happened because of him, but I had a rather large hand in getting him the capital he needed to be able to build his bar.

Yes, yes, I only did that because I was in love with you, which means that, indirectly, it was your natural charms that led to all of your success.

He really does have a way to rationalize how everything happened because of him.

And yet, I love him for it.