It had been night for all eighteen years of Ailith's life, and she was damn sick of it. She still remembered when she was small, how her father had told her stories of sunlight and open land that stretched for miles on end, how the air smelled clean, so cold it hurt your nose to breathe it in.

At least that part's still true, Ailith thought, pulling her dark hood lower to protect against the biting wind. She winced at the thought of shedding her cloak later. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

She supposed she should be at least a bit grateful for the darkness, seeing as how she made her living. The darkness was always easy to melt into after a kill, and there was never the nuisance of sunlight glinting off her blades and alerting kingdom guards. 

Really, Ailith thought as she weaved effortlessly through the endless mass of civilians that was the capitol, I should actually be thanking the king for this. 

When King Ralof had come into power a little over eighteen years ago, his first act was to send a group of soldiers into the moors to fetch the most powerful magicdoer in the realm, a small woman by the name Rosaline. The soldiers captured her without a fight 'although Rosaline could have slaughtered them with a sideways glance' as the elder citizens often liked to mutter under their breath at this point of the tale. 

Upon meeting with the king, the witch was ordered to cast a powerful spell on the kingdom, ensuring eternal night. She did so, and was then commanded to conjure walls around the kingdom that stretched into eternity. As soon as she did, she was murdered by the king's own blade, because...

Because the king is a sick bastard with a predisposition for pointless murder, Ailith finished with a smirk.

No one knew why the king did either thing, just that anyone who asked too many questions about it or poked around too much would go missing, and anyone who asked after him would go missing as well. And so, people stopped asking questions, until they had become this.

A stinking, overpopulated cesspool of a city where mothers killed off any child after their third, purely because there was no more space, and once noble practitioners of magic were reduced to performing petty street shows and dealing narcotics rather than healing draughts, or solutions of invisibility due to a lack of supplies and necessity.

Ailith stopped in front of a towering construct, the house of a royal governor. In less then a second's breadth, she checked for the twin blades tucked into her coat, the knives in her boots, the trick blade strapped to her forearm, and the dagger between her breasts. 

She climbed the gate with ease and perched on top of a stone gargoyle mounted to it, smiling slightly, cloak snapping in the wind, into the night, eyes focused on the house.

Show time.

**Hi guys! I'm Kelsey, and this is my first fantasy story. I usually write adventure, so I thought that might be a nice change. Please don't be a silent reader. Comment, giving me feedback or pointing out grammar errors or plot holes, vote, whatever! Thanks for reading.**