Free Death Comes To All (Book 1) by Travis Kerr

Tara ,
Drom reminded himself sternly, silently got to work. Drom had never
felt so nervous in his life. Knowing what this woman did for a living
only made it that much worse for him, though in reality he was
probably safer with someone so skilled with a blade than he would
have been with any barber.
    She
spent nearly ten minutes carefully removing the hair from his face.
Malik took notice shortly after he started, and watched her with a
look of amusement etched across his face.
    It’s
the one thing that stays the same, Drom thought as she worked. He
could change his clothing, or even his face, but he always looked
like he was amused.
    It
had struck Drom as strange since the moment they had first met. His
companion had his moments, mere seconds of extreme intensity, and
then that smile would once more push its way to the surface, as if he
couldn't hold it back. He wouldn't have expected an assassin to enjoy
life the way that this man seemed to.
    I
wonder which is truly the facade, the man's apparent merriment or the
intense, serious person he can become.
    Finally,
after what seemed like an eternity to Drom, Tara pulled away from him
and stepped back to admire her work. He had felt the sharp edge of
her blade while she had been working, but she had not nicked him, not
even once. He didn't have any sort of a mirror, so he couldn't see
for himself, but he could feel with his fingers the smooth skin of
his now hairless face.
    Everything
was gone, every hair that had covered his face. Even the hair on the
back of his eyelids had been removed. She had left him eyebrows,
carefully trimmed, and a small flicker of sideburns that went down
almost to the edge of his jawline, but no more.
    I
doubt that anyone would recognize me now, he thought, not even
my own parents.
    He
tried to imagine how he must look now, but found he couldn't. He had
always wanted to look more like a human, had even imagined what it
would be like, but his imagination just couldn't put the pieces
together. He knew that many of his features, the shape of his face
and his lack of horns, had always been human-like, but those who had
always told him that had been sorvinians.
    Without
the fur on my face, will I look that way to a human?
    "So,
how do I look?" he asked his two companions, who continued to
stare at him. "How bad is it, really?"
    "Well,
you’re not going to win any beauty contests. You almost look
human," Malik said at last. "A bit too pale though. Your
skin has been covered with hair all your life. Honestly, it's not as
pale as I had expected. The skin color will darken in time, but as it
is right now the skin color doesn't match the hair. There are people
in the north that have pale skin like that, but their hair is
generally a dark red color, closer to the color I have now. Were I
doing this for myself I would just dye it the color I wanted, like I
did for my hair. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t do anything to
hide those ears of yours. I can't do anything to make those look
human, at least not anything that I can prepare quickly. Instead
you’ll have to use a wig that we can hide your ears under. I
have a shaggy red one that would be long enough.
    "Once
we're finished with this, I'll let you borrow what I was wearing
earlier to complete the look. When we're done, no one will ever
recognize you."
    "I
thought that those clothes were from a uniform?" Drom asked,
confused. "Like an assassins guild or something. You were both
wearing them in the bar."
    Malik
laughed. "Assassins don't wear uniforms, or at least not one
made for assassins. However, you’re not completely wrong. What we were wearing was a uniform of sorts, that of the
Thane. They are a group of mercenaries. They usually work as guards
for merchants, but unlike the city guards they aren't under the
control of the mages. You'll find dozens of them in any port city.
Seeing one of them escorting a merchant is nothing out of the
ordinary." He pulled the familiar black cloth out of the bag