The sight of the half-elf flinching and grabbing her needle-point was almost enough to set Corvus laughing again"Are you scared of me, girl? No need to be. There isn't any sense in killing you... yet. Besides, most people who I level my sword at turn into quivering wrecks. It's refreshing to see someone with some courage. Reminds me of the good ol' days"
"You didn't say it wasn't here. You said you didn't have it" Corvus shrugged, referring to the absent sword. "And when a sword needs overnight repairs, it's because either the sword is weak or the owner unskilled - you should only ever need to maintain the blade."
Of course, she was suspicious of him. No-one really trusts the man who bursts into their room, threatens their lives and then proceeds to laugh at them. Hell, had the situation been reversed, he'd have ran off minutes ago.
But the girl was almost too naïve to be mad at. Like a novice, she had failed to secure her position. From the looks of things, this was her only room. She hadn't killed her victim in private and she had failed to set up appropriate defences in case of emergency. Instead, she had relied on her wits and a small dagger. She'd even disrobed and went to bed, instead of disrobing and then looking for somewhere new to hole up. Error after error, each one powerful evidence of either the girl's newness or plain incompetence. He was wrong - she wasn't some hardened assassin. She was a murderer, plain and simple, not much better at the subtle art of quiet execution than a mewling child. Her agility, granted, pointed to a presumably successful career as a housebreaker or acrobat, or even an agent of some sort. But she had failed to kill of an aggressive drunken, presumably racist, man in a dingy old pub, wearing skintight leather, a mask and owning a room upstairs, without being noticed. Even the old soldier himself could have done a better job, and he spent most of his life in straight-up duels and brawls - he knew of assassination only from the stories fellow Khans would tell, or from spies whilst serving. Corvus himself would simply have beat the man in a brawl, probably disfigured him and left him with severe breathing difficulties - the girl could have taken the man to her room, bumped him off and escaped without being noticed. She could easily have smothered him with a pillow, thrown him out the window or, if creativity wasn't her thing, shanked him until there was more blood outside him than inside. Each could have made a different story and, though eyebrows would have been raised, no-one could say anything and prove she killed him. She was impatient and amateurish, which was probably the only thing stopping Corvus from knocking her out and reporting her crime.
"Believe me, miss, if I wanted you dead, you'd know. If you can't trust me, I could easily hand you in to the guards for murder" he paused, then grinned "and assault on my good person. So think less about 'can I trust this guy' and more about 'what do I need to do to get this guy off my case?'"
