Yes, there was another guard here—and, worse, it was the gigantic man they had seen at the front door that morning.
Ben watched as the man whipped his arm around, drew a knife, and flipped it to hold it by the blade and he threw himself onto the floor. The weapon whistled over his head and embedded itself in the open door. He looked at it and had a moment of paralysis. It was too late to think of the might-have-been. If he had given into paralysis a moment before, he would be dead now.
Still, he couldn’t afford to be paralyzed now either. The guard lunged across the room with a roar and he pushed to his feet and dove sideways into the hallway. His momentum carried him down the half-flight of stairs that led to the study. He grasped the banister and curled into a ball while the guard followed him out.
There wasn’t time for anything except an attack. Ben had never been in a one-on-one fight with an assassin before, but he knew that turning his back and running would doom him, and every instinct fell in line to help. He uncoiled as his adversary came down the stairs. His head was averted, which left a gap at his shoulder for a tackle. When his shoulder met the area above the guard’s knees, he drove up with all his might.
It didn’t take as much force as he expected. He was, after all, only slightly modifying the guard’s trajectory. He looked up in surprise as the legs flipped over his head and the man thudded heavily on his back.
He could hear Orien and Elantria and hoped they would help him because right now was the best opening he would get. As he sprinted up the stairs, he ignored the sound of someone hissing his name and ran after Jorys.
Ben caught the man on the other side of the room. The merchant was trying to escape, oblivious to the sacrifice his guard was making. That was, of course, the point of a bodyguard, but he was so contemptuous of his target that he would hold it against him anyway.
When he grasped his quarry’s arm and dragged him around, he took a punch full in the face. He staggered back and stars burst across his vision. Determined to not lose the opportunity, he thrust his knife forward as hard as he could and he struck something. The blade encountered resistance and a scream followed.
When his vision cleared, he saw his knife plunged into Jorys’ left shoulder. He yanked it out and felt a wave of instant revulsion. Despite his abhorrence of violence, he was killing someone. The resistance against his knife was bone and flesh and he would have to stab again.
He shoved the revulsion away. Two weeks before, he had made a mistake. He hadn’t been willing to use violence when it might have prevented who knew how many deaths. Every day the merchant was alive, he would sell slaves and hurt the people of his district.
He had to die.
Ben thrust the knife again, this time into Jorys’ chest. The man wheezed. He was dying and he knew it—the sheer amount of blood from the first stab wound had already doomed him, and this merely hastened the end.
A commotion erupted behind him, but he didn’t care.
“Who…are you?” Jorys rasped.
“Someone who won’t let you get away with this anymore,” he told him, his voice low. “Today, you sent ten people to a life of slavery. Who knows how many you have doomed? You should feel lucky you only have one life to lose in return.”
The merchant collapsed and died at his feet, and he fought the urge to throw up everywhere. He heard footsteps behind him and he was so disoriented that he almost didn’t care if it was Elantria or the guard.
Then he realized that if it was the guard, his companions might be in trouble, and he spun toward the sound.
He had never seen her looking this angry. Of course, he hadn’t known her very long, but he had seen her fight for her life and speak to enemies, and the look on her face now was chilling. She looked at him like she wanted to kill him.
“Come on,” she said, her voice clipped. She caught him by the arm and yanked him out of the room.
Without protest, he stumbled past the body of the guard and out into the night. Orien was huddled in the carriage and held a hand over a shallow but bloody wound on his arm. He watched as Elantria pushed the other man into the cab. Ben met his gaze and felt a sudden wave of guilt but there was no expression at all in the elf’s eyes.
The carriage lurched into motion. The wheels were wrapped in cloth, as were the horse’s hooves, and a heavy fog all around them felt somehow magical. He had no doubt that she had chosen both magic and technology to make her getaway.
They were a few streets away before she spoke.
“What the hell was that?” She did not look at him and that, for some reason, showed him how angry she was.
“I told you I made mistakes,” he said passionately. “I told you I didn’t stop someone who wanted to commit murder and because of that, she brought an army to attack the fae. Their wells of magic were destroyed, their king was almost killed, and hundreds died, if not more, defending the castle that day. I told you I wouldn’t make the same mistake again—”
“And Orien told you that you might make it worse for people if you charged in and tried to bring justice!” Elantria snapped. “He warned you that you didn’t know what you were doing. I warned you, and you didn’t listen!”
“You were simply going to let him keep selling slaves!” he roared.
“I know that I am one person who cannot possibly stand in the way of the entire slave trade!” she retorted. “And keep your voice down. This carriage is magicked, but it’s not infallible.”
“All you fucking care about is your tiny jobs,” he whispered angrily. “You keep telling yourself you can’t make any big changes so you pull off little heists like this to salve your conscience.”
He honestly thought she would hit him. Her fingers twitched and curled into a fist and her face was a picture. She stared at him with such hatred in her eyes that he felt cold all the way through.
“Do you think you stopped the slave trade with this?” she asked finally. “Do you think because one slave trader was killed in his house that you’ve fixed everything?”
“Maybe other people will think twice before—”
“Do you know who will take over for Jorys in that district?” Elantria demanded.
Dread settled in and he swallowed. “No. Who?”
“It’s one of three people,” she said, her voice clipped. “If he had passed naturally, he would have designated an heir and there would have been a chance of someone else taking power without a fight. Now, you’ve all but assured a war of succession. His son will fight his two top lieutenants and every one of them is worse than Jorys was.” She all but hissed the last words at him in utter fury.
Ben stared silently at her.
“You haven’t taken that district out of the control of a warlord,” she told him in utter contempt, “and you haven’t stopped the slave trade. If nothing else, you’ve taken one of the sellers out of the market, which only makes slave-trading more profitable for the rest of them. You’ve doomed the people of Jorys’ district to a violent crackdown and an unwinnable game of trying to play loyal to whoever they think will win his position.” Quietly, she added, “And you’ve almost certainly doomed any chance we had of helping there again.”
He looked away. Now that the assassination was over and the adrenaline began to fade, there was only the sick, nauseated certainty that he had done something terribly wrong. He had made things worse by trying to do the right thing.
No. He straightened in his seat. Maybe there was a larger change that needed to happen, but he wouldn’t be the kind of person who slunk around in the shadows and said that justice couldn’t be delivered because there might be fallout.
Jorys had brought this on himself, and he would kill anyone who tried to take his place. He would free that district and then he would turn and ask Elantria why she had aimed so low.
Because she was part of this city. She had wanted him for this.
“You wanted someone to do the things you wouldn’t dare do,” he told her. “You wanted the new perspective. You were
raised by the elites of this city.”
“Which means I know far, far better than you the constraints and ramifications of acting against them,” she told him furiously. “I know how many ways they use to prop themselves up and I know what we’re up against if we try to dislodge them.”
“You wanted me to think differently than you,” he retorted. “You are a revolutionary and you know you’ve been pulling your punches too much and let people get away with murder and slavery and God knows what else. You’re ashamed of your cowardice and—”
“You know nothing about me,” Elantria snapped. “Nothing.” She pounded on the top of the carriage and it lurched to a stop and almost threw him into Orien’s lap. Before either of them could say anything, she pushed the door open. “Get out,” she told Ben.
He stared at her.
“Get out,” she repeated. She met his gaze with one of cold fury and leaned back. He gathered his composure and climbed out of the carriage.
Once outside, he began to strip his armor and weapons off. He wouldn’t keep anything of hers if she threw him out into the city.
She shook her head, though, reached into a hidden coin purse, and withdrew three copper coins, which she tossed at him. Her face was blank. “I’ll not have your death on my conscience,” she said quietly. “But if you’re willing to kill and sow chaos that will spill over onto my people, neither will I protect you. Get out of my sight. Zaara and Kural’s trust in you was misplaced.”
Ben met Orien’s eyes for one instant before the carriage door slammed shut again. The elf still looked completely expressionless, his fingers clutching the bloody wound on his arm.
The carriage rumbled away and he was left standing in the fading mist, alone in the dark of the night.
Chapter Sixteen
The twins had fallen asleep in cozy tents with beds that were the softest they had ever slept in, fluffy blankets that were somehow not too hot, and pajamas that felt like silk. With the chirps of the birds and the insects and the comfort of being close to one another again, both of them had drifted to sleep in record time.
And, Prima reflected, she probably should not be surprised that it was ten AM and they were both still asleep. They were teenagers and she had gone out of her way to make sure they were as comfortable as possible.
Eventually, she gave up on trying to be subtle and gradually changed the fabric of the tents to allow progressively more light in. It took the better part of an hour, but she did finally stir the two of them to stumble around and make vague noises of complaint.
They both tried to go back to sleep, of course, but that was handily taken care of when she winked the beds out of existence and Taigan was so sleepy that she forgot she could summon things.
Once they were up and eating breakfast, the AI bided her time for a while. After all, she had enough to check in on. Half a world away, Ben tried to find somewhere to hide out after he’d assassinated someone.
Prima had genuinely not seen that coming. It worried her a little how quickly he had shifted from refusing to kill anyone to viewing assassination as a tool that was not only allowed but morally essential.
She watched him for a while—he displayed far more judgment when it came to selecting a hiding place than he had when it came to perpetrating a con—but kept an eye on the twins so she could see when they had finished breakfast.
Both had the kind of metabolisms that mimicked a squirrel on a high dose of cocaine. She watched as Taigan ate an entire plate of scrambled eggs, Jamie downed three plate-sized pancakes smothered in syrup, each of them ate easily an entire pig’s worth of bacon, and together, polished off over two loaves’ worth of toast.
When they leaned back with their hands over their stomachs, she decided it was time to get them moving.
“Good morning.”
The young people jumped.
“Your journey begins this morning,” Prima told them. “Normally, one seeks something that is far away, but on your journey, you will be side by side. You will, together, seek each other out. Are you ready?”
Taigan nodded at once. Jamie downed an entire mug of coffee before he did the same.
“We will set out whenever you are ready,” she told them.
To her surprise and amusement, both immediately set about packing up the camp. Being all-powerful, she had simply created everything in it from nothing and had been prepared to do the reverse as well. It was pleasant, however, to see them make their beds and tidy everything.
While they did that, she rigged floating whiteboards that would automatically write the things they said if they spoke to one another. Then, dressed in loose clothing and huge camping boots, they set off in the direction she indicated with a breeze and a cluster of sparkles.
“So, where are we going?” Taigan asked her.
“Today, you will climb Aryoka Mountain,” she told them. Ahead of the twins, the mists cleared and the mountain came into view. It wasn’t massive but it would certainly take at least half a day to reach the summit.
“Did you see that before?” Jamie asked his sister. The whiteboards she’d prepared worked extremely well as his words appeared seconds later. “Because I think it simply…appeared.”
“That does sound like Prima.”
“What? She moves mountains around?”
“Ask her yourself,” Taigan said with a shrug. “I know I would if I had all that magic.”
“Prima? Did you make that mountain from nothing, or did I, uh…you know, miss a massive mountain?”
“You can be quite oblivious,” Prima said wickedly. “But relax. It’s not covered in jackalopes.”
Jamie, who’d had a bad run-in with jackalopes during his first visit to the game, grumbled something under his breath.
They started up the slope together. Prima had made a path…barely. There was a route—nothing as cruel as a path that wound into a cliff and required backtracking—but it was far from easy to traverse.
“Prima,” Taigan panted as she struggled up a series of too-high steps, “what exactly are we looking for at the top of the mountain?”
“There is a temple,” she replied. “Inside is a pool of water that legend says will show you your deepest desire.”
Both twins stopped in their tracks.
“Wait, seriously?” the girl asked.
“That’s so lame,” Jamie blurted. They each nodded at what was on the other’s whiteboard.
Prima, who had structured this exercise with particular pitfalls in mind, bristled nonetheless.
“I, uh…” He scratched his head. “I’m not sure I want to see my deepest desire while sitting next to one of my sisters. She won’t see it, will she?”
“Ew,” Taigan said. She hadn’t thought along the same lines and this was an unwelcome revelation to her. “Wait, seriously? Your deepest desire isn’t something like going to Mars, it’s—I mean, your deepest desire, out of all your desires…just ew.”
“Don’t judge,” Jamie said defensively. “And I worked statistically. Like, the thing I think about most often.”
“Ew!” She flailed her arms. “No! Wrong! Stop!”
“Would you like a spray bottle?”
“Yes! Please!”
Prima snickered. To them, she said, “You can see very few things the other does in the world so I would be very surprised if you could see each other’s dreams in the pool. However, as you hike, you might want to think about what you expect to see.”
“Why?” Taigan asked. “If it will show us what our heart’s desire is, why spend time thinking about it now?”
If the AI had hair, she would tear it out right now. She began to understand why humans ran off to become hermits. It was because the rest of them were so completely ridiculous.
“Climb the damned mountain.”
Two sets of eyebrows shot up. They looked instinctively at each other—a few feet apart and unable to see one another—but it was one of those little moments that both gave her hope. And filled her with fear.
These two had known each other since before they were born and looked to each other when they processed the world. They bickered good-naturedly about anything and everything—more things than most people ever could bicker about because they understood so much more about each other than others did.
She regretted snapping at them, but they set about climbing the mountain with goodwill.
“I genuinely,” Taigan all but growled as she hauled herself up an embankment, “have zero idea what I’ll see in there.”
“Me, neither.” Jamie studied a gap, considered it for a moment, and leapt. He made the distance but banged his shin on landing. “Ow! Hell. I’m okay.”
“Are you bleeding?” she asked.
“Nah.” He was and bright red blood trickled down his shin, but it wasn’t much. When he looked at Prima and put a finger to his lips, she responded with a sigh only he could hear.
“Wait,” his sister said. She had found something rather like stairs and she now climbed them with determination. “You don’t know what you’ll see?”
“Now that you’ve pointed out that it could be anything, that broadens the…category…thingy.”
“Good Lord.” Taigan rolled her eyes. “Okay, Prima, tell me it’s close.”
“It’s a mountain.”
Both twins made a whimpering noise.
“Don’t make me get the jackalopes.”
“Oh, fuck,” Jamie said. “Climb, climb, climb!”
“Jackalopes aren’t real, are they?” his sister asked. She hadn’t shaken the habit yet of looking for him when she spoke, and Prima hoped she could get the two of them to see each other before it became natural for them to talk this way.
He was more task-focused and Prima had only seen Taigan like that when she was running. Currently, he took a side route around a boulder. It was by far the more difficult way to go but he hadn’t checked to see if the other way would be easier. She watched in amusement as he jumped and pushed himself up. “They’re real,” he said. “And they’re mean, and they’re not the size of normal bunnies!”
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