Free Assassin's Shadow (Veiled Dagger Book 2) by Jon Kiln Page B

business.”
    The King roared with laughter and Rothar could not help but chuckle himself. Even Queen Amelia let forth a soft laugh. Rothar was glad to see her show some emotion besides melancholy.
    Before Rothar had even left the throne room, he heard the door shut at the other end. The King and Queen were heading back to bed. He was unsure of where the night might take him, but he knew this darkness was not for sleeping.

Chapter 19
    Rothar entered his home quietly. He needed to gather some supplies for his travels, and he expected Allette to be sleeping soundly. He was surprised to find that she was up, and his home was as clean as he had ever seen it. The floors were scrubbed, the plates washed, and every book had been put on the shelves in perfect order.
    Allette was sitting in the parlor, cleverly repairing a chair that she had broken in a fit of withdrawal. No doubt she did not remember smashing the chair, but she had apparently assumed that anything broken in the house was attributable to her.
    “Why are you not resting?” asked Rothar.
    “Because, though I am weary and drained, I feel as though I have been asleep for a long, long time,” she replied.
    Rothar thought about what she said for a moment. He wondered how far disconnected from their consciousness the Obscura users truly were.
    “Besides,” Allette continued, “I must repay you for your kindness.”
    “There is no need to repay me,” Rothar said. “The best thing you can do for me is to get healthy and go on to live your life.”
    Allette looked at him oddly, in a way that made him remember his reason for coming there in the first place. He hurried about gathering supplies.
    Rothar always traveled light, but in most cases, he knew where he would be going, and stocked himself accordingly. Now, not having any certainty as to where the coming days would take him, he found himself preparing for all possible scenarios. A heavy cloak went into his bag along with warm weather clothing. Extra rope, food rations, a whetstone, medicine, all went into his saddle bags. Stormbringer snorted, as though he was curious about the extra weight.
    When Allette was not looking, Rothar lifted a loose board in the floor of the bedroom. Here, he had hidden the box of Obscura that he had taken from Ariswold. He placed the box in the saddlebags along with everything else. He was not sure if he packed the smoke because he may need to produce it at some point, or because he feared Allette would find it and have a relapse of dependency, and he would eventually return home to a drug addled lunatic - or a burned down house.
    When he was satisfied that he had packed everything he might need, Rothar went back into the house to say farewell to Allette. When he entered the parlor, he found that she had changed into one of the dresses that had been brought for her.
    “That seems to fit you adequately,” he said, in his best version of a compliment.
    “Indeed,” she said. “And thank you.”
    “I must be off now, and I do not know for how long I will be away,” Rothar told Allette. The young woman looked at him with disappointment and worry.
    “You have nothing to worry about,” he continued. “I have arranged for someone to look in on you. All you need to do is stay away from the Obscura.”
    “The ladder,” she interjected.
    Rothar looked at her quizzically.
    “I have heard the smoke called many things,” she said. “But before you, I never heard of anyone calling it ‘ Obscura .’ People will find you odd if you call it that.”
    Allette did not know that a distributor of the drug had called it Obscura, but he took her advice to heart all the same. There was no way of knowing how many informal names the substance had, and he needed to take care to learn them, and to use the appropriate terms in the appropriate circles.
    “All of my friends call it the Ladder,” Allette said.
    “Because it is supposed to be a ladder to heaven,” suggested Rothar.
    “Yes… and