by Will Wight
“Relaxed supervision,” Shera mused, chewing on a chunk of carrot. “Good thing you’re not planning an escape.”
“If I did plan to escape, which I don’t, they’d be able to Read that in my Intent as soon as I made the decision. It’s not as simple as you make it sound.”
“Great! Let’s improvise right now. I’ll take out the bars.”
He ignored that, as she’d known he would, but every move advanced her goal. The most persistent streams could wear down mountains.
They spoke for another hour before Lucan finally got to business.
“So what brought you here?” he asked at last.
She explained everything—about her life in the Capital chapter house, about the Blackwatch hunting for the Heart of Nakothi, about Naberius Clayborn and his hired Navigator crew.
“That explains why they were asking me about the Heart,” he mused. “They implied that it was for the Miners’ historical record, so I told them to talk to you. But it was a little too abrupt for a historical inquiry.” He shook himself. “Sorry, focus on the situation at hand. Okay. You say Kerian wanted you to kill Clayborn, but Yala didn’t. Why not?”
“She said it was too much of a risk. That she needed me to lead the expedition against the Blackwatch, and that we didn’t have the time or the resources to try and pursue two goals at the same time.”
“What resources?” Lucan asked. “It’s killing one man. If you couldn’t handle that, you’d have died ten years ago.”
“Long before that,” Shera said.
“But she eventually let you decide?”
“She finally realized that they had nothing to lose by me going. Meia can lead the expedition against the Blackwatch, even if I die attacking this Navigator’s ship.”
“And that worries you, I can tell,” he said drily. “Here, leap into my arms and I will wipe away your tears.”
Shera shrugged. “Maybe they’ll get lucky and kill me. Nothing I can do by worrying about it.”
She felt the bars vibrate as he shook his head. “There’s no helping you. Well, setting aside you callously throwing away your own life—”
“I’m not throwing anything away!”
“—something still doesn’t make sense to me. Yala is one of the most combat-experienced Masons in the history of the Guild. There’s no way she suddenly realized that this was a one-person assignment. She thought it would take more resources than that, and she thought so for a reason.”
Shera hesitated. Should she tell him that Kerian had considered it too dangerous? Or should she hope he didn’t figure that out on his own?
“What do you know about his Silent One?”
“You don’t remember her? They used to work in the Imperial Palace. She was completely covered in bandages.”
He snapped his gloved fingers. “That’s right, I checked up on her once. Something about Kameira burns.”
Shera pulled the file out of her jacket pocket—she’d specifically worn a jacket today so that she could carry the files with her. She handed it to him, but spoke as he flipped through. “Tristania, no family name. She’s roughly the same age as Naberius, but he adopted her nonetheless when he found her abandoned inside a building full of rampaging Kameira. She defended herself with a Stormwing’s stinger, which he later made into her Soulbound Vessel.”
Lucan clicked his tongue. “A Soulbound Silent One. That could explain why Yala wanted a team.”
“I’m not going to fight Clayborn, I’m going to stab him in his sleep. If I can’t do that, I’ll wait until she’s asleep, and kill him then. Not the first Witnesses I’ve killed.”
“I can recall you killing witnesses many times,” Lucan said drily. She pulled out her right-hand shear and, without looking, stabbed him in the back.
Gently.
“Ow, ow, ow. You have been spending too much time with Ayana.” He handed the file back. “What about the Navigator and his crew?”
She took Clayborn’s file and exchanged it for Calder Marten’s. “There’s a Soulbound on his crew. Former Izyrian gladiator. And I’ll be murdering a passenger onboard a Navigator’s ship.”
Lucan sighed again. “You know, when I asked why Yala thought she’d need a full team, you could have told me. This is anything but a solo assignment.” The sound of flipping pages froze. “His gunner is the Dalton Foster?”
“Allegedly.”
“Then that’s three Soulbound aboard this ship. At least. It’s not common knowledge, but Foster is a Soulbound. The only craftsman I’ve ever heard of to bind himself to his tools. It’s not directly applicable to combat, but I can’t imagine the sorts of weapons he’d be able to create, given the right motivations.”
“Not directly applicable to combat,” Shera repeated. “You see? I’ll be fine.”
“Shera, if we were still working together, I’d want the whole team on this. Me, you, and Meia. And a team of Shepherds with full information, and preferably a Mason already onboard. That wouldn’t even be my first choice—if I could, I’d strap the boat with alchemical munitions and sink it.”
“Can’t,” Shera said. “Read the part about the ship.”
Lucan flipped to the back and made a choking sound. “It’s got a giant Elderspawn tied to the hull? I’m not kidding anymore, you are throwing your life away if you do this. This is insanity. If Yala allows you to do this, it’s only because she hopes you’ll die.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I’ll tell them. As much as I hate taking Yala’s side, I’d rather not end up at the bottom of Candle Bay.” Not unless she had to.
“Naberius Clayborn’s life isn’t worth risking your own,” Lucan said.
No. So I’d better find something that is worth it.
Shera stood up and Lucan followed suit, handing the file back. She stood awkwardly for a few seconds before saying, “You’ve been in there too long.”
“On that, we agree.”
“…I miss you.”
That was as close as she got to expressing her feelings. It felt like prying a diamond out of solid rock.
Lucan turned to her, a grin on his face. “Whoa, that was tender. Did you hurt yourself?”
“A little.”
It would hurt a lot less if you were out here with me.
~~~
Shera met Yala and Kerian an hour later.
“If I succeed in killing Naberius Clayborn, let Lucan out.”
Yala shook her head. “Can’t do it. Same reason we have him in there in the first place: he knows far too much.”
Shera was prepared for this. “That’s a reason to keep him locked away from anyone who matters, not a reason to keep him in a cell. Move him to the Gray District. Put a Shepherd on him, if you need to. Then he’ll be in the Capital, with me, and even farther from any sensitive secrets.”
Yala folded her arms, thinking. Kerian didn’t react at all, she simply pulled items from her satchel and moved them into a slick waterproof pouch.
“Tell me the truth,” Yala said. “Why haven’t you tried to break him out?”
“Because he refuses to leave.”
After a moment, Yala nodded. “Done. Naberius Clayborn dies, and Lucan goes to the Gray District under provisional house arrest. You still have to lead the operation to retrieve Nakothi’s Heart. Assuming you survive.”
“To destroy Nakothi’s Heart,” Shera responded, for the sake of clarity. “And I like to assume that I’ll survive. Hasn’t let me down yet.”
Kerian handed her the waterproof sack she’d finished stuffing. “A few essentials I’d prepared for you, in the event of this development.”
Shera glanced through and saw climbing gear, a folded blanket, an invested breathing reed, a full set of poisoned needles—clearly marked lethal and non-lethal—and a new pouch of spades, among other things.
“Always prepared,” Shera said, by way of thanks.
“I do my best,” Kerian replied.
“You’ll need to leave now if you hope to arrive
in time,” Yala said. “Reports indicate that Naberius is moving ahead of schedule. Your ride is waiting for you down by the dock.”
When Shera saw the Waverider playing around in the surf, happily waiting for her, she had to choke back the urge to scream.
~~~
Back in the Capital, Shera spent the next day gathering information. Teams of Shepherds had been observing both Calder and Naberius, stalking them unseen from the shadows. According to their reports, Calder had recently sold gallons of Stormwing ichor to the local alchemists, and he was spending most of his time on the ship—The Testament.
That eliminated one possible plan: hiding herself aboard the ship. At least one crew member stayed aboard at all times, and if the Captain was also hanging around for repairs, there was no way she could stay there without being spotted.
The Shepherds following Naberius and Tristania were a frustrated bunch. Naberius had evidently taken steps to ensure that he was not observed, and those steps had been maddeningly effective. One team followed a decoy for two days before realizing their mistake, and another lone Shepherd was convinced that he was watching Naberius in a crowd. Then the man vanished into thin air.
It said a lot for Naberius that he was able to shake a team of Consultants with such apparent ease. Shepherds were highly trained in stealth and observation, and their information was usually flawless. For them to be so irritated at a target was rare.
It also meant that Shera had no choice but to wait for Naberius to approach the ship. If she acted on faulty information and ambushed a decoy, she would have both wasted time and alerted the target to her intentions.
The Masons had come up with slightly more useful information. Each Mason was trained as a professional in an actual field, and they simply relayed anything they learned to the Consultant’s Guild. One of them was a worker on the docks helping deliver materials to Calder for The Testament’s repairs.
He delivered a new illustration of The Testament’s layout, more detailed than the one already in Calder Marten’s file. According to him, the Captain and his wife would give up the main cabin to their passengers.
Since her options were rapidly disappearing, that would be Shera’s best chance. She would attack as soon as the passengers slept.
But she couldn’t take secondhand reports as evidence. To see for herself, she personally snuck aboard The Testament.
The Captain was obviously preparing for a long voyage, as he had so many strangers loading and unloading cargo. It took no effort for Shera to change out of her blacks, into the clothes of an ordinary worker, and slip aboard the ship carrying a box under one arm.
While no one was looking, she snuck a peek into the main cabin. Calder Marten was within, packing his clothes into a chest and wiping the floor down with a rag.
Judging by the state of the room, such a thorough cleaning was rare. So it looked like the report was true—he was cleaning the cabin for a guest.
That was all the confirmation she needed. When the Shepherds told her they expected Naberius that very night, she got ready for the mission.
As the sun passed its zenith, she slipped back into her blacks, strapping a sealed box of needles to her calf—non-lethal, in Lucan’s honor. If she did succeed on this mission, and set him free, he would feel better knowing that she hadn’t killed any more people than necessary. If everything went according to plan, she wouldn’t have to use anything but her shears...but plans were always fragile.
To her left thigh, she tied a package of ‘spades’: tiny triangular throwing knives carried by Gardeners for generations. If she couldn’t draw her left-handed shear, in the case of a fight, she could at least rely on her skill with the spades.
So far, these were typical preparations for combat. She carried these weapons into every battle.
Now it was time for the unconventional tools.
~~~
An hour later, Shera dangled from the bottom of The Testament’s hull, fully underwater.
Her rope was affixed to the hull by means of a waterproof alchemical adhesive. She breathed through a clear reed that stretched from her mouth to the air—the tip treated with a Kameira-derived alchemist’s formula that repelled water, so not a drop of liquid made it down the tube. Her eyes were covered by a set of tight-sealed glass goggles, invested to allow her to see flawlessly in the cloudy water.
At the moment, Shera wished her vision wasn’t quite so flawless.
She stared directly at a titanic Elderspawn.
Its scaled head bore a mouthful of shark’s teeth, and it had three jet-black eyes in a row on either side of its face. Gills flapped on its neck, and its arms—its huge, muscular, humanoid arms—were bound up in chains tied to the underside of the ship. Most of its body was concealed in the shadows at the bottom of the harbor, but Shera couldn’t help the feeling that it was coiled and ready to strike.
The six eyes of the monster seemed fixed on her, its sharklike mouth opened slightly as though it meant to taste her. Whenever it shifted even slightly, Shera tensed, ready to pull herself up and climb up the side of The Testament at the closest hint of an attack. It could lean its head forward and snap her in half with no trouble.
There weren’t many things that could get Shera to jeopardize a mission, but the threat of being eaten by a giant Elderspawn was one of them.
It didn’t seem to move, simply keeping its eyes fixed on Shera, but she remained on high alert. She couldn’t relax. If she missed a single movement of the monster’s, it could have her in a second.
In that manner, she passed the next eleven hours.
When the moon emerged from the ship overhead, glowing down on the water, Shera judged that the time was finally right.
It took its time, she thought. If she had to stare at that monster for another hour, she would have turned around and headed straight back for the Gray Island. She could break Lucan out on her own, if it came to that; she hadn’t signed up to fight Elders.
Silently, she edged her head out of the bay. Then she waited.
Water streamed down, out of her hair, over her head. She remained still, with absolute patience, waiting for the water to trickle back down in the bay. Then she lifted herself up a little more, baring her shoulders.
‘Stealthy,’ in this case, meant ‘slow.’ She would take all night to climb out, if she had to.
But that didn’t stop her eyelids from growing heavy as she waited.
It took almost a full hour for her to pull her body fully out of the water, but as soon as she did so, she moved quickly. Shera clipped her goggles and breathing-reed to her belt, pulling a pair of hooks out and digging them into the wood of the hull. Once she was securely dangling from the hook, she unlatched her rope from the ship, wrapping it around her waist above the belt.
Out of habit, she moved her hand over all her equipment, reassuring herself that everything was in place and accounted for. The seal on the needles was still intact, so the poison hadn’t washed off. That was a relief—as a girl, she’d almost gotten Meia killed when she hadn’t protected her needles from the water.
Using her hooks, Shera hauled herself bodily up the side of the ship. It didn’t take her long for her shoulders and elbows to start aching, but she didn’t let herself slow. Now was when she was most vulnerable; a casual glance over the side would see her in full view. She had to be up, over the railing, and on deck as soon as possible.
When she finally reached the top, she hung on for a long moment, listening.
Most of the night was taken up by the gentle slap of water against the hull, or the creak of wood settling. The music of the city drifted out on the wind, sounding oddly like screams at this distance.
She remained still, focusing. At least one person should have remained awake, and if she simply paid attention...
There. Boots, thumping on the deck. A heavy stride. Likely the Soulbound cook, then: Urzaia Woodsman. He was the largest member of the crew. Naberius Clayborn was a tall man, so he could potentially match the
sound of the boots, but leaving her target unguarded on the deck would be the height of foolishness. She would simply stab him in the heart and leave.
But she couldn’t believe her luck was that good.
Having determined that her target was on the other side of the deck, Shera pulled herself up another few inches and peeked over the rail.
It was indeed Urzaia Woodsman, looking every inch the Izyrian gladiator. His skin was tanned and covered in a matrix of scars, his face bluff and handsome but battered, his nose having been broken and re-set a number of times. There was a single notch in his left ear, and as he muttered quietly to himself, Shera saw that he was missing at least one tooth. His blond hair was pulled back into a tail, and he wore a pair of black hatchets on his waist.
She lowered back down, processing what she’d seen. His torso was mostly covered by what looked like a breastplate of hardened leather, his left arm wrapped in a snake’s hide—possibly Kameira skin—and his right arm in leather straps. It was an odd hodgepodge of armor, leaving several obvious gaps, but it was armor nonetheless. She would have to make sure her first strike took him down, or he would tear her apart.
She was an assassin, not a warrior. Certainly not a Soulbound. Though the Emperor had trained her to fight, while most Gardeners were trained to avoid armed conflict, she wasn’t arrogant enough to believe she could fight a man who had survived the arenas of Izyria. If the rumors in his file were true, he was even a former member of the Champion’s Guild, which meant she might as well slit her own wrists as fight him one-on-one.
In the Gardeners, Ayana had been clear: you avoided fighting Soulbound at all costs. If you found yourself facing a Champion, you abandoned your mission and ran.
Maxwell had his own piece of advice for such scenarios. “If you’re in a fight with a Soulbound, lie down and beg for mercy. It’ll have the same result either way.”
The fight would be hopeless...so she had to avoid a fight in the first place.
When her target’s footsteps carried him to the far side of the ship, Shera sprang into action. She vaulted the railing, rushing over the deck with more speed than silence in mind. Her luck was holding so far—Urzaia had his back to her. He turned slightly at the sound of her footsteps, but it was too late.