Traitor Princess, Assassin Saint

by T. R. Sherwood

  “Thank you for your concern, but I believe it isn’t necessary,” he said, even though that warning had been meant as a threat and they all knew it. “If you’ll excuse us.”

  The nun stepped silently aside, and Heron opened the door. The room was lit, not by candles, but by small fluorescent crystals embedded in the stone ceiling. They bathed the room in a ghostly sea-colored light that shone steadily on the polished surface of a casket.

  Heron shut the door behind him. The strange light made his skin look unnaturally pale above his half-mask, and the crystals reflected in his dark eyes, shifting like fireflies. He lit a candle, and the blue-green light faded in favor of a healthier golden glow.

  When he opened the casket, a strange smell rose into the air. Decaying silk sachets had been nestled around the saint’s body, giving off the sweet smell of stale, floral perfume in an unsuccessful attempt to mask something else. Senne had expected the smell of rot, but the smell was more like iron. Even under the light smell of lavender and jasmine, the sharp metallic smell congealed in the back of her throat like a tangible thing.

  The saint’s body was remarkably preserved. Her skin was smooth and slightly flushed. She smiled peacefully. Her hair was auburn and glossy, combed and parted neatly, and arranged to partially cover the acne scars on her cheeks. She was smaller than Senne had expected; if living, she would only come up to Senne’s shoulder. The flickering candlelight made it look almost as if she were still breathing.

  When she looked up to Heron, his face flickered too, briefly turning younger and softer. A bandage appeared over his left eye, and his hair framed his face in ragged tendrils like it had when he was seventeen. Senne blinked, and the hallucination vanished. She looked down to see dark scales streaking up her wrists. As soon as she looked at them, they disappeared.

  “Heron, what is this?” she said. “The body isn’t wax, is it?”

  Heron took off his gloves and touched the saint’s well-manicured hand. “No, this is flesh.”

  “There’s memory ore here, isn’t there?”

  “Yes. You don’t have to worry. It won’t affect you so strongly now that you’ve refined your heart shard.”

  “She’s not… still alive, is she?”

  “I don’t think so. It has been six hundred years.” Heron brought one of the polished silver buttons on his sleeve to the saint’s mouth. “She’s not breathing, at any rate. How much do you know about Saint Fasalle?”

  “Almost nothing.”

  “Well, like I said, she was a saint who died in the reign of Empress Lusxie. She was a moon nun. They say demons cursed her to transform into a monster when she was very young. Descriptions of the monster vary. Some sources say it was a massive serpent, others describe something shelled like a crustacean. Ultimately, they say, she threw herself into the ocean to avoid killing more of her sisters in her monstrous form, thus martyring herself and becoming a saint.”

  “How much of that story is true?”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out,” Heron said. “Modern religious scholars usually dismiss the story, because the descriptions of the monster are so inconsistent. But what if the descriptions were inconsistent because the monster didn’t have a fixed form?”

  “You think she was like us,” Senne said.

  “I think the Wraith Initiative began because Tin heard the story of Saint Fasalle and decided to recreate it deliberately, to use an old story to create exploitable monsters. But there’s only one way to find out.” He flicked something out of his sleeve. It was a scalpel with a gleaming memory-steel blade. “Hold her clothes back for me.”

  Senne reached into the coffin and peeled Saint Fasalle’s pale gray habit away from her chest. “This seems blasphemous. And possibly illegal.”

  “Even if it is, someone else got here first.”

  There was a long incision already cut into the saint’s skin. It looked like a cut in paper. There was no blood, just darkness below. Heron peeled the skin back. Someone else had already sawed three of the saint’s ribs away, revealing blackened, withered organs and a heart crusted over with faintly glowing memory ore.

  “I thought so,” Heron said, smoothing the saint’s skin back down. “She was like us.”

  “And someone already knew. Is this how Tin knew how to create the Wraith Initiative?”

  “It seems likely.”

  “But what is he planning now? Why does he need all that memory ore? Is he planning to make more Lord Wraiths?”

  Heron frowned thoughtfully, watching candlelight flicker over the dead saint’s marble skin. Then he abruptly flicked his fingers, and the corpse sat upright in her casket. Senne jumped violently.

  “If you have a certain amount of memory ore in your body, you can control any memory steel, even if you’re not bonded to it,” he said.

  The saint’s eyes slid open slightly. Underneath, her irises were blue, glassy, and perfectly preserved. Heron moved his fingers, and she closed her eyes and collapsed back into the coffin.

  “The ability to transform one’s body is unpredictable and difficult to control,” he said. “I think the ability to control memory steel is the ore’s most valuable property. That’s what Tin’s after.”

  “But what is he going to do with it?”

  Heron’s frown deepened. His form flickered, and suddenly he was younger and smaller. Senne had to make a deliberate effort to will the hallucination away.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but I think we’ll find out, one way or another.”

  ✽✽✽

  As they left, the nun who had greeted them stared balefully at them through half-lowered eyelids, radiating hostility through her flimsy mask of deference. They saw no other nuns. Senne wondered if the abbey was a real abbey, or just a front for the Wraith Initiative.

  Heron seemed to sense her curiosity, because he said, “Let’s go. I don’t want Tin to catch us here.”

  So they went back out to the carriage, where the coachman was waiting anxiously for their return. He drove Heron back to Heron’s country estate, where he dropped down from the carriage and sent Senne one final, complicated look.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  “You know you don’t need to worry about me,” Senne said, oddly warmed.

  “I still care about you, though. See you soon.”

  She bid him goodbye, then sat back as the carriage rattled on towards the Royal City. Heron was an unusual person. All these years, she had thought he was everything she would never be— a cold, elegant assassin, unburdened by pain or affection. Looking back, though, despite everything, he had somehow developed the greatest capacity for caring she had ever seen in a person. She didn’t know how he did it. She wished she could be like that.

  And yet, when she returned to Wraith Manor to find a black envelope with the gilded Royal Seal holding it closed, she didn’t flinch. She sat at the kitchen table in a kitchen which still held the ghosts of a hundred common conversations in the air, at the table that still had ring-shaped stains from Annara’s glass. She cut the envelope open. She already knew what it was going to say.

  Senne didn’t want to hurt Annara. But when, in the entire history of Senne’s life, had it ever mattered what she wanted? She had to do her duty. Otherwise, what was the point of her? If she wasn’t useful to the Crown, then why was she alive?

  She read the order from the king, twice. Then she placed it in the chest pocket of her coat and waited for her fate to pull her ruthlessly onwards towards an uncertain future.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It was fiercely sunny in Archon. Light saturated the palace, searing through the skylights and flashing blindingly off the white marble. It didn’t warm anything. The marble floors were still cold even through the soles of Annara’s shoes, but the hall outside the throne room was painfully bright.

  A messenger pushed the doors open, letting a square of light spill in behind him. His uniform looked pale and washed-out against the light, like a painting bleached by the
sun.

  “Lord Wraith is coming, Lady Archon,” he said, dropping to one knee.

  “Good. It’s about time,” Annara said. “She’s late. I expected her days ago. Evacuate this wing.”

  The messenger hesitated. “What about you? Are you planning to flee to Rheon Se?”

  “Pointless. She would simply follow me, and then I’d lose whatever meager advantage I have. Hurry up, messenger. Archon needs to be ready for our honored guest.”

  The messenger stood and rushed off. Annara reclined on Archon’s swan throne, perfectly still and apparently relaxed. The snow-colored ermine on her collar fluttered as doors opened and closed. A slight smell of gunpowder rose from her coat. She stroked the silver embroidery, frowning pensively at the spotless marble floor.

  “Are you sure about this?” Haol said, from her right side.

  “Evacuating the wing means you, too. There’s no further need for you to be here.”

  “She’ll kill you, Annara.”

  “Not if I kill her first. And my name is Lady Archon.” Annara examined her fingernails. “Go on. If she catches you here, she’ll kill you too. Leave.”

  Haol stared for a moment, then said, “As you wish.”

  She watched him go, and she waited.

  Time passed. Annara wasn’t sure how much; the throne room had no windows, and was lit mostly by a massive gold chandelier that dripped teardrops of glass towards the polished marble floor. Without servants or courtiers, the throne room was too quiet, and far too cold. Annara pulled her white coat close around her, but the cold that breathed off the intricate throne pierced her spine no matter what she did.

  After a while, footsteps sounded on the marble. Annara tensed on the throne. The bleached doors opened silently on well-polished hinges, and Senne walked in.

  Bizarrely, Annara felt happiness burst in her chest like sunlight. She hadn’t realized how much she had wanted to see Senne again, but based on the relief flooding through her veins, it must have been a subtle, constant ache that grew for days. She smiled, and to her surprise, at least part of it was genuine.

  Senne looked around to make sure they were alone, and then she raised her veil. Underneath it, her expression was somber.

  “Welcome to Archon,” Annara said. “I wish I could introduce you to the city under better circumstances.”

  “I’m sorry,” Senne said.

  “What for?”

  “That things have to be this way.”

  “Don’t be. We were on this path from the very beginning, darling, don’t tell me you weren’t expecting it.” Neither of them had been expecting the term of endearment to come out of Annara’s mouth, she could tell, but it was honest, like everything else she said. “Don’t you think it’s better this way? The curtains came down, the show’s over, all the veils are gone. We can finally show each other what we really are.”

  “Enemies?” Senne said warily.

  “Monsters.”

  “Are you just going to sit there and talk until I take your life?”

  Annara feigned hurt. “I thought you liked it when I talked.”

  Real hurt flashed across Senne’s face, because she did like it. “Why are you doing this? Why did you take Archon?”

  “Why?” Annara stood and slowly walked down from the dais that held the throne. “Because I could, of course. And because I was angry. My father received this throne through no particular merit of his own. The other merchant-lords are the same. They have their power not because they earned for it, not because they deserve it or because they fought for it, but because they happened to be born to the right people. Why shouldn’t I take it for myself?”

  “You killed your father.” It wasn’t an accusation, just a flat statement of fact.

  Annara had a sudden vision of a spreading bloodstain on the marble, little chips of bone scattered across the sticky pool of red. She shook it away.

  “He killed my mother, you see. Not that it matters.” It did matter. “People like that have never once known the cruelty they inflict on other people. I’m not claiming what I did was justice. It just felt good to see defeat in his eyes for once.”

  “You could end this now,” Senne said. “If you abdicated now, Seichre might be satisfied. You could go away somewhere. I could help you.”

  “Sentiment,” Annara said disdainfully. “Sentiment is meant for other people, Lord Wraith.”

  “You used to call me Senne.”

  “Things have changed. Are you just going to stand there, or are we going to get this over with? Give fate a hand.”

  Very slowly, Senne drew a long dagger from her belt. “As you wish.”

  A searing bright light suddenly exploded between them. As Senne recoiled, Annara threw a second flash bomb. Senne staggered.

  Lord Wraith was rumored to be invincible, but Senne was still a person. She could be startled, disoriented, and confused. She squinted when she walked into a bright room.

  And so the piercing flares of light gave Annara enough time to plunge a knife deep into Senne’s chest. It was an old knife. Thin and worn, it was the same one she had taken to Seichre. Annara slid it in between her ribs, feeling blood bubble up from Senne’s flesh, hot and sticky. She didn’t think about it, even with blood between her fingers and staining the white edge of her sleeve. She couldn’t think about it. Her mind roared with blank nothingness, fueled by the thought of kill or be killed.

  She shoved Senne away and retreated back towards the throne. Bright spots still danced in her vision, but she saw Senne’s shadow stagger and lift a hand to her chest. It should have cut straight through her heart. It should have been a fatal wound.

  Somehow, it wasn’t. Senne’s palm came away red; she wiped it on her coat and straightened. While she was distracted, Annara struck a match behind her back. She had practiced the motion over and over in her room, and now she did it smoothly, without hesitation. She touched the head of the match to the soft frayed edge of a rope that peeked out from a gap behind the throne.

  “Clever,” Senne said, taking a step forward. Annara started counting the seconds. “New technology from Alrhen-Xiun, I take it?”

  “That’s right,” Annara said grandly. She had to keep talking, to cover the hiss of the fuse. She shook the tremors out of her hands and spread them triumphantly. Put on a performance, like you always do. “No country on Earth can match Seichre’s memory steel technology. But there’s a reason the Xiunian empire has been so successful, and that reason can be described in one word: explosives.”

  One minute and thirty-two seconds. Thirty of those seconds had already passed. Annara counted down from ninety-two: sixty-one, sixty, fifty-nine. Senne watched her carefully, motionless.

  “Commendable,” she said succinctly.

  You should be angry. I just hurt you, you should be trying harder to hurt me back. But then Senne never looked angry, only tired, like she didn’t have the energy or the confidence for resentment. Annara swallowed hard against the dryness in her mouth. She had to keep talking.

  “Does it hurt?” she said, then stopped, thrown. She had almost asked Senne if she was alright, involuntarily, purely on instinct.

  Senne didn’t respond. The white wings of the throne reflected in her eyes, and Annara could tell that she was standing in the middle of them, looking like a parody of an angel, a bizarre farce that would have been funny in any other situation. She had to keep talking.

  “It should,” she said. “Poor Lord Wraith, always in control. I’ve always admired you, you know. All that composure.”

  Thirty-eight, thirty-seven, thirty-six.

  “You never react, no matter what people do to you. Even when I betrayed you.” Who had betrayed whom, again? Annara couldn’t remember. “You never cared. I wish I could be like that.”

  Senne’s expression changed. “Annara, that’s not—”

  “Shut up,” Annara said. “Shut up, shut up. My name is Lady Archon. I am Lady Archon, and I have done too much for people to call me the name o
f a beggar and a traitor. I will make you call me by the correct name if you do it on your last breath. If killing you is what it takes to kill Annara, then by the goddess, I will rip your throat out where you st—”

  The background hiss of the fuse stopped. Everything stopped. Then the shaped charge hidden underneath the floor blasted upward in a plume of light and smoke. There was a sound like the world was tearing in two. Annara felt a violent wave of heat knock her backwards into the throne and blister the skin on her face. There was no sound, only white marble dust in billowing clouds. Pieces of the chandelier, broken glass and twisted metal, showered silently down into the room, bouncing off the rubble.

  She had stopped counting by the time the bomb went off, so she had forgotten to hold her breath. The smoke burned the back of her throat and gathered in her chest, searing her lungs. Annara choked and retched.

  The dust hanging in the air was angelically bright in places. The bomb had blasted a circular hole in the ceiling. Annara had expected the smell of blood, of burnt flesh, but the smell of gunpowder covered it all, sharp and acrid.

  Someone grabbed her arm. She swung her pistol up to point at their neck until she realized it was Haol. His red hair was white with powder. He was saying something, but Annara couldn’t tell what it was.

  He had to repeat it several times until she could read his lips well enough to understand that he was asking if she was alright.

  “I’m fine,” she said indistinctly. Her own voice sounded faint and distant. “I told you to get somewhere safe.”

  “I heard the blast and I thought...” He shook his head. “Where’s Lord Wraith?”

  Annara raised her head. A pillar of white smoke still rose from the center of the room. There were long smears of blood mixed in with the rubble and the dust, but no body.

  “She must be dead,” Haol said, following her gaze. “No one can lose that much blood and live.”

  Annara tried to pick her way over to the crater, but she immediately stumbled. Haol caught her and kept her from collapsing completely.

  “No body,” she rasped. “I won’t be satisfied until I see a corpse.”