I begin to awaken to the sounds of feet shuffling and the clanging of a pot. My instinct to stretch becomes instantly quelled by the restraints binding me. The scent of perfume hangs heavy in the air. Finally, my eyes open, vaguely obeying my insisting muscles. I don’t know where I am.

Quickly, I gauge my situation. I am bound by the wrists and ankles, hogtied and gagged. At the moment, I am tossed in the corner of a room laden with metal cookware and baskets of fresh food, seemingly forgotten, in a bed of rotting vegetables. The thick aroma might suggest I’m in a kitchen. Wait… I know that aroma! It’s the smell of my favorite curry from when I was a child.

Suddenly, I spot the source of all the noise. A tall, thin woman donning an apron strolls around the corner of one of the island counters. Her wavy chocolate hair is pulled up into a loose bun and only a few strands escape the bandana pushing her hair back. In her spindly fingers she carries a parrying knife and a plump orange fruit. Her poisonous grin and clever eyes look down at me with malicious satisfaction.

“Welcome home, sweetheart,” she coos. “I had hoped it didn’t have to be this way, but you simply wouldn’t listen to me.” She agilely peels the fruit she held in her hand, casually throwing the peels in my hair, which is the only part of me that isn’t tied up.

I struggle fruitlessly against the ropes and yell angrily, though incoherently, through the gag. This isn’t my home! Our home’s kitchen was never this big, no matter how many times we moved. Also, who’s all that food for? Not my runaway siblings or absentee father, surely.

“Okay, you’re right,” she reads my mind, “This place isn’t like our homes from before. It’s better! This kitchen belongs to a nobleman. He needed some new help. Poor fool just suffered the loss of his wife.” She feigns a sorrowful expression.

I glare at her. Up to her old tricks again. Let me guess. She was poisoned.

“Right again, dearie! You know your mother so well.” She continues to prepare some fruit dish while she talks. “Anyway, I saw you were in town, and knew I HAD to invite you over to visit. Hence the chloroform,” she said in a singsong tone. “Who knows, you might have a new little brother within the year. I’m still young!”

In the meantime, I was feeling around my garments for one of my hidden daggers. The flexing I have to do pains my legs in a strange way. Then I swiftly roll to the side as a one of my own daggers whizzes past my cheek and lodges itself into the wooden wall behind me with a thunk!

“Haha! You think I didn’t search you? Ev’ry crevice!” she sings. “I taught you well.”

I roll my eyes. She knows I’m going to use that, right?

“Feel free, dearie! That’s why I gave it to you.”

In two quick thrusts, my limbs are autonomous again. I groan in frustration, untie the remainder of the ropes, and de-gag myself.

“Mother! I don’t even care that you abducted me, I’m in the middle of a mission! Where is my gear? And where have you taken me?”

She tuts at me. “Dearie, you’re in no rush. There. Go change into your new uniform.” She nods to a similar outfit to the one she’s wearing hanging on the wall next to a door.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “And why should I do that?”

She grins devilishly again. “Because you’re already where you need to be. AND I have already finished half of your job. Thought you could use the help on this one. Really high profile mission, you know.”

My jaw drops open. “You what?!” I brush my hair out of my face and shoot my mother a nasty glare. “Mom, this was my big chance to prove myself to the Order, and you just decide to come out of hiding to hijack it?!”

“Mm-hmm.” Her eyes never leave her culinary handiwork.

I turn around to grab my dagger out of the wall, but when I return my gaze to my mother, she has another one of MY daggers inches from my throat.

“Sweetheart, I will only say this once. You can either abandon your mission, which means death. Or, you can join me and help me achieve my ends, while you complete your mission. Everybody wins. Hm? What do you say?”

My unamused frown trembles slightly. “What do you want?”

Her saccharine smile returns immediately and she answers, “Allow me to woo the king and claim half of his throne for myself before you assassinate him.”