That was how the least spectacular of the stories went. Even now, most stories involved the Royal Assassins being part ghost, able to appear the moment a royal official contemplated something disloyal, and setting them straight, usually by killing them. With Royal Governors appointed over each city, a mere whisper that the queen had sent a Royal Assassin to visit would induce the prospective victim to at once protest their innocence and confess to any and every crime they could think of.
The walk to the Ir-Ime palace was long, made even longer by the absolute silence of Drazan. Kaislyn had to jog to keep up with his long stride and her neck ached from his tight grip. He took her through one of the smaller gates of the palace and the guards were careful not to look at either of them.
The Royal Assassin cut across a practice yard and Kaislyn’s attention was instantly drawn to the far wall. It was empty of swords, but in her mind’s eye she could still see the long blade clattering against the wall when she threw it in a rage after one of her lessons. Swords were her parents’ thing. It wasn’t her.
She was marched up a flight of stairs only servants ever used, and into a suite of rooms. Drazan dropped her into a chair. Freed at last from his grasp, Kaislyn drew her legs up beneath her. She met her father’s stare, green eyes perfectly matched in color, stubbornness, and anger.
“So,” said Drazan. He paused to breathe through his mouth a few times. “So. You’re gone for a year, no word, no communication or greeting. Then this afternoon I get a message from Silas informing me that Falan has arrested my daughter who was merrily running around with the Thief-king.” He looked at her in acute disappointment. “Really? Falan?”
A smile began to form on Kaislyn’s face, blossoming fully in response to her father’s grin. “Falan has to get lucky sometimes.”
“It didn’t hurt that Nisken spotted you first,” said Drazan, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “He hasn’t had such a shock in... hmm... a long time now.”
“Where is he?” Kaislyn straightened in her chair.
“Around,” said Drazan, waving a hand. “I don’t keep track of him anymore. You keep me busy enough. So, have you learned all there is to know about knife fighting?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Jaden’s reputation was known to more than just a temperamental sixteen year old.”
Kaislyn leapt from her chair. “You knew where I was this whole time, didn’t you!”
Drazan grinned. “I’d be lying if I said yes. It took us a while to realize you were still in the Third City.”
Old habits died painfully. Even after fifteen years of the Phoenix Queen’s rule, her parents still referred to the cities by their rebellious numbers.
“Using Black Sand was a dead giveaway. You didn’t think Raina would allow even a rumor of Black Sand to go unquestioned did you?” Drazan’s smile disappeared into a frown. “I thought we’d destroyed it all years ago.”
Kaislyn tried her best to look innocent.
He eyed her for a moment and then shrugged. “Guess there’ll always be an odd packet of the stuff turning up here and there. Anyway, we thought we’d leave you alone, let you work out whatever was bothering you.”
Kaislyn sank back into her chair. It was nearly impossible to fool her parents and she’d really thought she’d done it this time. “So… I’m not in trouble?”
Drazan’s eyes gleamed a brighter green. “Darling, you are in so much trouble I don’t know where to begin.”
“She can begin by going to her room and packing,” said a hard voice behind Kaislyn.
Kaislyn tensed as a tall woman with long blonde hair and a stern, weathered face entered the room. Then she shrank beneath one of the hardest stares she had ever seen her mother give. The worst of it was how she didn’t need to blink. It just went on and on. Kaislyn squirmed. Sveka blinked at last and, released, Kaislyn slid off her chair and retreated from the room. She stopped as soon as she was out of sight, and crept back to listen.
“Packing?” said Drazan in surprise. “We only just got here.”
“I agreed to let her go off on her own and look what happened. She went and turned into a petty thief.”
“Ah, it’s not that bad,” Drazan said in what Kaislyn suspected he thought was a soothing tone.
“Not. That. Bad.” Kaislyn winced at Sveka’s voice.
“At least she was good at it.”
“Good at what? Taking over every illicit gang in the city because she felt like it? I’ve just had an earful from Falan. He knew about Jaden before we did. He knew how good Jaden was with knives.”
“Then why didn’t he bring him in sooner?”
“Because the boy was a lazy thief and never killed anyone before now!”
Before now... Kaislyn licked dry lips as she remembered Jaden’s shirt.
“Falan didn’t think Jaden was worth wasting time over. Your daughter went and ruined everything by making him ambitious. What is a boy supposed to do when a pretty girl tells him he can do better and then shows him how? The entire thieving population of the city is in turmoil.”
“Well, Falan caught up with her eventually,” said Drazan.
“No,” Sveka retorted. “It took Nisken recognizing her and sending his own guards to fence her in. Come here, Kaislyn.”
Kaislyn blanched. She waited a moment and then stepped back into the room. “Did you call?” She met Sveka’s glare as calmly as she could.
“Not only are you a petty thief, you’re a snooping eavesdropper. Sit,” Sveka ordered.
“I’d rather stand,” Kaislyn said. “I need every advantage I can get.”
Both parents looked her up and down. “You are very short,” Drazan said, sounding surprised. “How’d that happen?”
Neither Sveka nor Kaislyn replied. Kaislyn positioned herself near the wall, steeling herself for what was going to come. What new plan did her parents have? Last time, they’d taken her to Zalco for a year. Well, it was supposed to be a year. The rigid society of the southern country drove Kaislyn crazy and within three months she’d run off to the mountains. Of course, that hadn’t gone exactly to plan either. It never did when she was in the mountains. She thought of her tiny stockpile of Black Sand. At least she got something out of it.
Their continued silence made her fidget. “I’m sixteen. You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to.”
Drazan threw his head back and roared with laughter. Even Sveka’s lips twitched.
“You do remember what we were doing long before you were born, right?” Drazan wiped some tears from his eyes.
Conscious that her face was bright pink, Kaislyn folded her arms, meeting Drazan’s gaze. “All right. Do what you want. I’ll just run back to the mountains.” Her parents hated when she went to the mountains. She assumed it was due to her mother’s past. But if they weren’t going to treat her like an adult, than she was going to act like the very worst she’d ever been as a child.
“Then we’re agreed,” said Sveka.
Kaislyn blinked. “What?”
“We let you go and you betrayed that freedom by becoming a criminal.”
“That’s way better than you!” Kaislyn burst out. “You’re assassins. You murder people! I’m far better than you are!”
Her words rang in the sudden silence.
“I don’t recall Raina ever ordering you to rob her merchants, blow up perfectly respectable fish markets, or blackmail and intimidate the miscreants of the underworld,” Drazan commented with forced cheerfulness.
She felt like she’d swallowed a big rock. “Is that what this is about? Using some Black Sand? You were always using it! Blazes, Nisken practically blew up the Fourth City! Why shouldn’t I use it when I... when I stumble across some?” She thought of something else. “Besides, I was born in the mountains! I’m not one of the queen’s subjects.” Thank the gods.
“Which makes your destination so much more appropriate,” said Sveka.
Kaislyn glared at them. “You
’re impossible!” She stormed from the room.
“You’re sure about this?” said Drazan in a low voice behind her. “Maybe Hezere would be a better choice for her.”
“Assuming we could find him? No. She’d run circles around Aamir. This will be much better. And maybe she’ll learn how to eavesdrop better too,” Sveka added in a louder voice.
Cursing, Kaislyn hurried down the hall and away from her parents. Her room had remained the same since she left it, tiny and simple with the bare minimum of furniture. She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her reflection in the mirror on the wall. To her dismay she saw her eyes filling with tears.
Stupid! Why should she be upset? She’d runaway countless times. This last had been her most successful, lasting an entire year. If she didn’t count the Fourth City. They didn’t know about that one. She watched her lips curl upwards in a sneer. Fourth City. Oh, how she ached to blow the entire city to bits. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough Black Sand for that. Besides, the Fourth City needed something more... thorough than mere explosions.
Kaislyn scrunched her hands into fists. They knew where she was and what she’d been doing all this time. They were as responsible for her thievery as she was. They were accomplices.
Her wild thoughts were disrupted by Sveka entering the room. Kaislyn refused to look at her. She waited for her mother to say something scathing. As the silence increased between the two of them, she began to twitch. She was used to Drazan shouting and raging at her when he was angry. Shouting was easy to ignore. Her mother’s silence not so much.
“Did you have fun?” Sveka said finally.
“Until I was caught,” Kaislyn admitted, surprised into the truth by the question.
“That was your own fault.” Sveka examined her through narrowed eyes before sighing. “You’re getting much too pretty. Jaden didn’t stand a chance, did he?”
Kaislyn squirmed. Compliments from Sveka were as frequent as... well, they weren’t. They didn’t exist.
“I see you’ve learned the advantages of double braiding your hair. It’d be practical to hide a knife in a braid. You’ll have to dye the sheath so it blends in. No one will search you there.” In two strides she was across the room and yanking on Kaislyn’s hair.
“Ow! What are you—” Raw diamonds began to tumble out. “How did you know about those?” Kaislyn tried in vain to undo the braid herself before Sveka pulled again.
“I’ve hidden things in my hair in the past.” She stepped back, diamonds cradled in her calloused palm. “You’re no longer on the streets, Kaislyn. I will not have a thief for a daughter. Wash your face. We’re leaving as soon as the horses are saddled.”
“I don’t have any clothes!”
“What are you wearing right now?”
Kaislyn ground her teeth together.
“You can always learn to make your own clothes,” Sveka said, rather ominously, and left her.
“You do realize that I spend most of my time running to the mountains?” Kaislyn shouted. “You’re just giving me what I want!”
Sveka’s tight laugh drifted back to her. Her mother never laughed.
“Blazes,” Kaislyn muttered. She really was in a lot of trouble.
The mountains stretched in a jagged, horizontal line to the south of the Five Cities, forming a natural barrier between the cities and Zalco. Only the Third and Second cities resided within a day’s travel of the mountain proper, each at opposite ends of the towering peaks.
The trip was a quiet one. Her parents didn’t even try to keep a close eye on her. But then, they didn’t have to. They’d taken away her best threat. The worst part of all this was that Kaislyn wasn’t even allowed to see Nisken before she left. She’d missed him the most over the past year and to be physically locked in her room when he stopped by was humiliating.
She’d expected her parents to drop her off in the foothills and leave her alone to sulk. Instead, they continued deeper into the mountains, taking increasingly rougher and narrower roads.
“We’re nearly at the dead center of the mountains,” Kaislyn commented a few days later. Just where were they going?
“How do you know that?” said Drazan.
Kaislyn shrugged. “I saw a map of the mountains.” Which was true. What wasn’t true was that she needed a map in the first place. The moment she’d crossed into the high foothills, it was as though there was a little gold marker inside her head, indicating where she was in the mountains. It was as natural to her as breathing.
They turned off another road, their horses laboring up the steepening hills. They passed a lake tucked in by a ring of snowcapped mountains, the surface perfectly calm and reflecting the mountains around it. Alpacas and goats dotted the slopes, watched over by shepherds. Traveling along a narrow track that looked like it wasn’t used for more than an occasional goat, they emerged into a sheltered hollow perched on a protruding hill of a mountain with a view stretching for miles across the range.
“Oh,” Kaislyn exclaimed. “It’s so beautiful!”
“Yes,” said Sveka. She’d hardly spoken the entire trip. She pointed ahead of them at a tiny village of a dozen crooked houses. “Almost home.”
Home? Kaislyn studied Sveka. There was a full smile on her face. “I thought the Third City was home.”
“That’s just where we live.” Drazan was watching Sveka too.
Kaislyn urged her horse back into a walk and followed her parents down a hill and into the village. It was a very poor village. The houses were built of stone and wood and instead of doors each house had a brightly woven cloth hanging for privacy. A heavy, smoky smell lingered in the air from numerous cooking pits. She saw several kilns. Behind the village were huts with crude fences taller than Drazan. Kaislyn saw several goats peering through the slats. She didn’t see any horses. A creek bubbled down the mountainside beyond the goat pen.
Young children played around the houses and a few elderly people sat on the stoops of their houses, their hands occupied with small tasks. Several of them nodded at Sveka and Drazan as they passed. Sveka led them to a house better built than the rest near the end of the village that had an uninterrupted view of the mountains and valleys.
An old man rose to his feet from a chair beside the house. A thin, grizzled grey beard covered his face, matching his hair and eyes. His skin was dark and leathery from long exposure to the elements and his hands were crooked with arthritis. He moved with an audible creak of bones.
Sveka swung down from her horse and embraced the old man. Kaislyn stared. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her hug Drazan and now she enveloped the old man in a tight hug. And she was smiling again.
Grinning, Drazan dismounted and hugged the man also. Kaislyn stayed on her horse.
“Get down, Kaislyn,” ordered Sveka. “Don’t be rude.”
She obeyed.
“Kaislyn, this is Grehesh. Grehesh, my daughter,” said Sveka. Her smile disappeared during the introduction, face returning to its usual hardness. The rock weight in Kaislyn’s stomach grew a little heavier.
“Well, well,” Grehesh said. He searched her face intently and shook his head to himself, as if disappointed. “Too early or too late?” he muttered to himself. Then, louder, “Hasn’t she grown up? Come here, child. I haven’t formally met you since you were a baby.”
Kaislyn took another step forward and returned his examining stare. “I don’t remember.” She had no idea what her parents’ plans were. Surely they didn’t think an old man could contain her? There must be something else. A catch.
“Sveka came to visit me before you were born, child. You had other plans and arrived unexpectedly. I believe you’ve specialized in the unexpected ever since.” He chuckled, as if at a private joke. “Did you never wonder who took care of your mother for the first six months of your life while you were snowed in?”
“We were what?” Kaislyn turned to Sveka. “You never told me that. You said I came early in the mountains an
d then you kept going to the Third City.”
“With a six month delay from the snows.” Grehesh’s face crinkled into a smile.
“I don’t see how it makes a difference. You were a baby in the Third City as much as you were here,” Sveka said.
“It’s my life!” Kaislyn sputtered.
“Well, now you know,” said Sveka turning away from her.
“How long are you staying?” Grehesh asked as Kaislyn choked on half sentences of outrage.
“Just tonight. We’re headed to the Fourth City after settling Kaislyn here.”
“Give the queen my regards.”
Sveka raised an eyebrow.
“We can be polite to foreign royalty, Svetlana dear,” said Grehesh.
“You sure your mountain god won’t get annoyed?” Drazan joked.
“Certainly not,” said Grehesh. His gaze returned to Kaislyn, thoughtful, speculative. “The mountain god has protected us from both Zalco, who hates our god, and the Five Cities who have enough gods as it is. Come inside. I have dinner cooking and Nadia brought me a fresh loaf of bread this morning. Drazan, you remember where the horses go?”
“’Course,” said Drazan. “Kaislyn, want to come? You might as well find out where the goats are now.”
Kaislyn followed numbly after Drazan.
“Go ahead and spit it out,” said Drazan after they had walked in silence for a minute.
“Um... Svetlana?” Kaislyn began.
“I couldn’t pronounce her name when I first met her,” Drazan said. “It’s a little long and soft for her anyway, don’t you think? Sveka is much easier to say.”
“So, what’s her real name?”
“Svetlana Hoyansk. Hoyansk indicating which part of the Serpent House her family is descended from.”
Serpent House. One of the two royal houses in the Five Cities. Kaislyn’s throat tightened. Her windpipe felt as if it were being crushed. Shift attack?
“And you?” Kaislyn struggled to get the words out. “Are you really called something else too?”
“Nah, sweetheart. I’m just plain old Drazan.”
“And Grehesh? Who’s he?”
The Immortal Walker Page 3