CHAPTER ONE
PINTS

"One pint of mulled mead, please." Enya smiled sweetly at the bartender.

He only narrowed his eyes. "Nice try. You can have one glass."

Enya rolled her eyes and reached over the bar, shaking the bartender's forearm. "Oh come on, Hobi! I did what you asked. You promised a pint of mead."

Hoseok, the man only one year her senior, shook his head and laughed. "I meant in total. As in: one glass this week, one glass next week..." His cheeks lifted as he grinned at her. "Besides, you're such a lightweight."

"Am not," Enya lied. Sighing in defeat, she turned around, leaning her back against the bar and watching the usual bustle of the inn. She was the only girl there, unless you counted a group of travelers dancing in a dim lit corner. The usual leering crowd sat nearby, watching the women with lustful eyes.

Enya rolled her own eyes and turned back towards Hoseok. "May I have a bowl of dates as well?" She offered him a cheeky smile.

"Are you going to pay for them?" Hoseok returned her smile, batting his eyelashes in a teasing gesture.

"Fine, just the bowl of dates as payment for my job. No mead."

"How about a nice glass of water to go with your dates?" Hoseok jested, passing a bowl of dried fruit her way.

Enya grabbed a date and popped it into her mouth. "Anyway, what did you do with the money?"

Hoseok's eyes widened. "Keep your voice down you fool."

"A fool who got you an entire sack of gold." Enya smirked. "Which means I deserve to know how you used my loan."

"The inn isn't making ends meet," Hoseok admitted. His eyes scanned the near-empty tables. "I couldn't pay the landlord without your help. Dirty thing to do though," he recalled, glancing at Enya.

"Feeling guilty, Hoseok?" Enya chuckled before taking a sip of her water. "A few more sacks of gold and the sound of change will overpower the feeling of guilt."

"Will it also cover remorse and regret?" Hoseok moaned. He ran a large hand down his face. "Tell me the speech again."

Enya rolled her eyes and recited, "I only steal from people that I know one hundred percent don't need the money. No peasants or poor people are stolen from. I don't steal from the church, either. And lastly, I stole so it's on my account, not yours."

Hoseok nodded, "Your speech always gets me through."

Enya laughed and handed him a date. "I'm your best friend. I'll be the one to get you through."

Hoseok snorted. "If you're not rotting in the dungeons by then."

Enya pouted. "You'll come visit me before I rot, won't you?"

The inn was quieter now, save for the two friends bantering back and forth. It was a cold night in the kingdom of Eden. Every villager had on a cloak, or some mittens, or at most a thick shirt to keep them warm. Luckily it wasn't snowing yet, so people weren't dying.

Eden was like that. The kingdom seemed to be separated into two classes: the rich and the poor. The rich lived close to the castle and the sea. They got the first of everything. They received the best jobs. Most of them worked under the king as nobles.

The poor side of Eden was where Hoseok's inn resided. They called it Krull, and the housing there was shabby at best, cramped together and nearly useless against the bitter wind of a harsh winter. This provoked crime amongst the people. Selfishness and Homelessness went hand in hand as the villagers were pitted against each other in the poverty-stricken fight for clothes, food, and shelter.

Enya herself had been in a fair share of fights. Her parents died in their own brawl with winter the year Enya turned sixteen. Since then it was up to her to find the means to survive.

That was when she found Hoseok. He was the son of an elderly innkeeper. Offering a place to stay was the best thing he could do for Enya, and he also provided her with a job at the inn.

Enya's parents weren't the only ones who lost their lives. The population split in half. People lost their jobs, including Enya.

Hoseok was so sad to let her go, but he didn't even get paid, so how could they afford to pay someone else?

Enya stayed around as much as she could. She was a great friend to Hoseok and comforted him the year his father died and he had to take the inn as his own.

So Hoseok was one of the fortunate ones.

Enya found other means to survive. She was a common Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Only most of the time, she made the poor do something in trade for her "earnings". If they could offer her something good she would bring them the money they needed. Only the shadiest people knew her work. They met with her in the darkest places close to the witching hour.

Save for Hoseok. Hoseok's inn was a place one could talk about crime as loudly and freely as the pleased. Enya never worried about anyone overhearing her nightly escapades. No one who came into Hoseok's inn cared anyway. Most of them were Enya's clients, just waiting for the night they could have something she wanted, so she could get them a sack of gold.

Enya finished her dates before lowering her voice to a whisper. Hoseok, who had been wiping down a nearby table, came closer to her.

"Has that guy been staring at me all night, or am I just vain?" Enya subtly looked at a man who sat in the corner of the inn.

Hoseok looked at him and shrugged. "I haven't noticed him, actually. He didn't order anything."

"He might want me for a job." Enya said.

Hoseok frowned. "Or maybe he's a creep and you shouldn't approach him."

"I'll take my chances," shrugged Enya. She stood up, her long black hair shielding her face in it's rugged and unkept way. Her strides were short, but her posture showed that she was someone who shouldn't be messed with. Someone with pride.

She approached the man, a naughty smile playing on her lips. "I couldn't help but notice your staring."

The man, large in his size, grumbled something under his breath before putting his hand inside his coat. Enya watched in boredom as he lazily pulled out a pipe and began to light it.

He puffed once. Then twice. On the third time, Enya stood to leave. She have time for people who played around.

"Wait," he said, his voice low and gravelly. "I don't want to talk with people around."

Enya looked around the inn, but there was no one but the innkeeper himself.
"Hoseok knows me. He won't tell."

"Fine." The man rolled his eyes before taking something else out of his robe. This time, it was a large sack of gold thrown onto the table. Enya's eyes widened. No one who lived outside of the castle had money like this. He must be a man of the king, sent to catch her in a trap. Enya had never been more thankful that she had been vague to the strange traveller.

"This gold is yours if you can do something for me."

Enya tapped her nail against the table. "No one in Krull has money like this. Where did you get it?" she inquired.

"I'm from Eden, that's why," said the man. "Our good ole king has gotten on my bad side, and everyone in this town says you're the one to go to."

"I'm not an assassin." Enya blurted.

"You're better," the man agreed. "You can steal things right under people's noses. You can make any lie look like the truth."

"So?" Enya inquired, her eyebrows lifting in interest.

"So, we need you to get some information for us. We need you to be our eyes and ears. You find us one little kink in the royal family's armor, and your job is done. Then you never see us again, and whatever happens later has nothing to do with you. You can also steal us a few goodies." He slid a large sheet of parchment across the table, and Enya read the long list of documents and a few crown jewels she was to snatch. "Is this all?"

The man leaned forward and puffed smoke into Enya's face. "Look, we want the people of Krull to have as much fairness as the people of Eden. In order to do that, lives need to be taken. Our job is to make sure that only guilty lives are taken, not innocent. So if we can find the King's weakness, along with his son's, we can succeed without much blood on our hands. Then, once the royal line is dead, the king's nephew goes up. He is the one we want in power. He is the only one who has stood up for the equality of Krull."

Enya scratched a loose splinter from the wooden table as she absorbed all of this information. Sure, she was a thief and a liar. But was she a murderer? How can she steal these documents and spy on the royal family, knowing it will aid in their murder?

"We need you on our side, because we can't have you on theirs."

Enya looked down at the paper and made her decision. She folded the paper and tugged it into the hem of her pants. "Fine. I'll get you the papers. I'll get you a weakness. What's my deadline?"

"You have two months to find a way to catch the king off guard. I'll be here every night till then."

Enya agreed. "How am I going to get into the castle?"

The man chuckled. "About that. We rigged the raffle tomorrow. You'll get picked."

The raffle. Enya's lips curled in disgust. Every time a prince of Eden became of age, he chooses his wife from the raffle. The only catch is that the only names in the raffles were citizens of the south. Poor women from Krull. It was a way to keep "peace" between the two side of the country. Enya had her own feelings about the raffle, but they shouldn't be spoken of aloud.

"I have to marry the prince?"

"Think of it this way, " he winked, "you'll be a wife and a widow within the same year."

Enya felt like gagging. Then she looked at the sack of coins of the table.

She would be able to help Hoseok own the inn with no more debt. As soon as the prince died and his cousin took the throne, Enya could move back with Hoseok and continue her life in the now middle class Krull. Everything would be okay.

After a few more words and more details of the heist explained, the man left and Enya walked back up to the bar.

"What was that about?" Hoseok asked.

Enya leaned her head on the counter, sighing, "Are you sure you don't want to spare me a pint?"

.

a/n
i hope you guys like this idea!