Humming to herself, she found the seam that ran a few inches above her hemline and proceeded to rip along it. She put the dagger back and held up the long stream of cloth, examining the glittering fabric in the light. Then, she began to wrap it around her neck, stemming the ring of seeping blood.
Breathing wouldn’t be an option for a while. Or laughing. Which was good. She’d probably just end up in hysterics.
Kaislyn completed her binding and looked out over the motionless crowd. She didn’t think they were breathing either. The phoenix had halted in its vulture-like circles, hovering motionlessly above her.
She pivoted to Ikaros. “Are you quite finished being stupid now?”
A ripple ran through the crowd.
Ikaros’ face had drained of color and he’d stood as frozen as everyone else while Kaislyn worked. Now he leapt from his chair. “It’s not possible!” he screamed. “I am the heir to the Serpent House! Not you! No, no, no!”
The crowd recoiled.
“No, no, no?” Kaislyn mocked him. She thought of her father. Perhaps she really was most like him. “Darling, your time’s up.”
“No!” Ikaros shouted. “I am king. Not you!”
“Me? Why would I be king? I destroy kings! I am the Immortal Walker.” She jumped off the scaffold and walked toward him. The ends of her gold and black bandage swirled around her in the returning wind.
“Stop her!” Ikaros retreated behind his chair.
The crowd surged away from Kaislyn.
Kaislyn climbed a step up the dais. “I am the Guardian of the Mountains.”
The phoenix screamed above them.
She took another step. “I am the Guardian of the Five Ruling Cities.”
It screamed again.
She climbed the next step. “I am the Immortal Walker.”
A third scream.
Ikaros clutched the back of the chair as she stepped onto the dais itself. “And I am done with you, Ikaros.”
Leaning forward, she plucked the crown from his trembling form. Spinning, she flung the crown into the air.
The phoenix caught it in his claws with a ricocheting scream.
Kaislyn raised her voice again making her throat ache. “You, Ikaros, are unfit to rule. You are a madman who chose the Serpent House and immortality over the Phoenix House and kingship. You are not a king! You are an insane murderer.”
She looked at the phoenix. Would her gamble work? “The gods decide.”
Everyone watched the phoenix now. It flew in a single, mesmerizing circle above the crowd. It didn’t just hold the crown; it was the crown.
The bird spun on a wingtip and flew over Athalia, dropping the crown at her feet. The guards nearest her jerked away as if they’d been burned. Face pale and confused, Athalia looked from Kaislyn to the phoenix. She bent slowly and picked up the crown, holding it between fingertips as if it burned her.
“You can’t kill me! No one can kill me,” Ikaros snarled behind her.
Kaislyn turned back to him. “You should be more concerned that you cannot kill me.”
“You have no real power here! The phoenix belongs to me. You can’t give it to someone else.”
“I think I just did.”
The phoenix screamed above them and Ikaros jerked, staring upwards. His own scream joined the phoenix’s dying scream. He fell to his knees, white-knuckled fingers tearing at his hair. As Kaislyn watched, his black eyes slowly began to lighten. He continued to scream.
The screams proved too much for the paralyzed crowd. There were answering screams and cries as populace and guards rushed for an escape from the square. Priests were attempting to close the gates of their temple.
Kaislyn shoved the throne chair out of her way and squatted in front of Ikaros. His face twisted in agony, gaze fixed on the burning bird above them. His nose began to bleed.
What was it like to lose something linked to your very being? Was it like losing someone you’d loved all your life?
It is like ripping a soul apart, girl.
Ikaros wrapped his arms around his knees and began to rock back and forth on his heels. His screams dropped to a hoarse, wordless moan. His light brown eyes stared sightlessly at her. Blood dripped down Ikaros’ face and onto his robe.
Why was she still here? Did she stay to mock her fallen enemy? Was she no better than Ikaros who waited at the bottom of waterfalls to gloat?
Kaislyn searched the frayed ends of her dress. She ripped a strip off and pinched Ikaros’ nose with it, stemming the blood. He didn’t seem to notice.
Ikaros wasn’t king anymore but he was still very dangerous. She’d taken away the Phoenix House but the Serpent House remained. He was still immortal.
Ikaros stopped rocking. He peered, cross-eyed, at her pinching fingers. Kaislyn quickly let go. He looked back at her. His eyes were a familiar, frothing blue.
No, Kaislyn decided. She didn’t stay to gloat. She stayed to finish what she’d started.
“Run, you fool old man. Run.”
Ikaros blinked once at her. Then he ran. He tripped over his robe and fell down the few steps of the dais, sprawling in a rumpled mess of black robes at the bottom. He clambered to his feet again and ran. There was still a large crowd of people in the square and they scrambled to get out of the way.
Kaislyn rose to her feet and turned in time to see Athalia pick up a tiny, fledgling bird. She flinched and promptly dropped the still burning phoenix onto the stone block. As Kaislyn watched, Athalia’s eyes darkened from brown to black.
“Guess there’s a Phoenix Queen again,” said Kaislyn. She marched down the steps and toward the crowd. “Well, go on! You came to see a princess executed and instead have witnessed the crowning of a new Phoenix Queen! Bow or cheer or something! I will not be happy if I have to do that part too.”
There was an uncertain, ragged cheer and an equally uncertain series of bobbing bows.
Kaislyn rolled her eyes and returned to Athalia who continued to stand motionless on the scaffold. A jab of pain laced through her body as she tilted her head back. She didn’t have much time left.
“‘Bow or cheer or something’, Immortal Walker?” Athalia said bemusedly.
“One of my better speeches, don’t you think?”
“Indeed,” Athalia replied solemnly.
“Allow me, Your Majesty,” said Lord Fen behind them. He bowed low to her and strode down the scaffold toward the crowd. His bellowing cry of “Long live the Phoenix Queen!” was far better than any herald’s. The other three men followed him, echoing his shout.
“My debt to you is paid,” Kaislyn said beneath the more organized noise in the square.
“So it is.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a madman to taunt and some proper bandages to put on my neck.”
With a bow that was, for the first time in Kaislyn’s life, not sarcastic, she exited the square in the same direction as Ikaros’ flight.
Part Four: Immortality
1 | Mending Messes
Kaislyn followed Ikaros back to the mountains, his figure a distant black blur dipping and weaving erratically across the hills. He vanished the moment he hit the mountain border. She dearly wanted to follow him, but her neck was beginning to hurt in earnest and Kaislyn didn’t dare linger where Ikaros could find her.
Shifting to an early summer day, it was in a year after Raina had banished Ikaros from the cities, so she was safe from him. If she remembered properly, it was also a summer that her parents spent in the Fifth City so she didn’t need to worry about them stumbling across her either.
The light was bright and warm on the hills as Kaislyn hurried back down them. She followed the road for a short distance, then cut away from it and around several hills, arriving at a hollow sheltered by trees and underbrush. A campfire was prepped and ready to be lit and a stack of blankets, food, and medicine were stored nearby. No random hut this time. Perhaps more importantly, no possible witnesses.
Kaislyn would have sighed w
ith relief at the sight of her little refuge if she could. She changed out of her black and gold costume. Her usual, worn clothes of pants and a shirt never felt so comfortable as they did now. Next, she got out her sleeping potions and tucked herself into her nest of blankets.
A shiver coursed through her. And another. Someone was watching her. Kaislyn twisted around and let out a croaky scream.
Out of the underbrush glided a brown-spotted snake, its body as thick as Kaislyn’s waist. It looked at her with orange eyes as it passed her. Kaislyn snatched her blankets further away from its endlessly passing scaly body. She thought she might vomit.
The tail appeared at long last and the snake curled itself into the entrance of her hollow, head lifted a few inches from the ground, unblinking gaze on her.
“I hate snakes,” Kaislyn told it.
The snake didn’t move.
“Is my mother nearby or is this an accidental visit?” She hadn’t thought she’d miscalculated that much.
Mael’s head dipped lower to the ground. No.
“Do you know where I’ve been?”
Another negative.
“I just took Ikaros’ cities away from him.” She eyed the enormous snake. “The Serpent House is next. I’m going to take his immortality from him too.”
The snake rested its head on the ground and watched her.
“I really need to sleep. If you eat me, I will kill you. Understand?” Reluctant to look away from Mael, Kaislyn swallowed her first sleeping potion. The last thing she saw as she drifted off were two orange oval eyes watching her.
Kaislyn spent nearly a month in her camp. It took far longer to recover than it did when Fadil chopped her head off. Her neck healed in her usual drugged sleep of a few days, but the actual pain from getting her head cut off began after that.
At first the attacks intrigued her. A sharp, slicing pain that sent her entire body into a ripple of shock followed by the inability to breathe and then paralysis. Each attack lasted about a minute but when she suffered four in a row, Kaislyn retreated behind her sleeping potions until her attacks decreased in frequency to once every few days.
Mael stayed with her. Occasionally he would disappear while she was awake. He always seemed to know when Kaislyn was about to take another sleeping potion for he’d reappear again and resume his place in the entrance of her hollow.
She went an entire week without an attack and when the next one did occur it was the shortest one yet. Kaislyn decided she was as healed as she ever would be. She’d probably continue to have recurring, random attacks of her head getting chopped off for the rest of her life, but it was manageable now.
Mael watched her pack up her campsite.
“This does not make us friends. I still hate snakes,” Kaislyn informed him.
The snake ignored her and slithered into the underbrush. Kaislyn went the other way. It meant climbing up the steep, hole-ridden hill behind her camp. She was positive Mael had chosen his direction on purpose, knowing she’d have to go the other way to avoid him.
Grumbling and cursing to herself, Kaislyn returned to the mountain proper. She took in the long, marching chain of mountains all around her. For the first time since Ti-em, she allowed a warm flicker of triumph fill her. She’d done it. She’d dethroned Ikaros and made Athalia the Phoenix Queen. She’d finally beaten Ikaros and won.
The side effects weren’t nearly as troublesome as she’d worried they’d be either.
So she kept telling herself anyway.
Kaislyn rotated toward the Second City. She couldn’t avoid it forever. It was time to fix the messes she’d created there. Kaislyn scrubbed her face. How long had it been anyway? Why did she bother to keep track? She didn’t even pay any attention to which villages she visited when. Didn’t care if more people than just Grehesh knew she couldn’t die properly. It didn’t seem to matter that much anymore. Not in the mountains anyway.
Girl, if the mountain villages all know, how long before the Royal Assassins hear of it?
She pushed the unsettling thought away. One problem at a time.
Fall was in full force in the Five Cities, meaning it was turning into early winter in the mountains. Kaislyn did not have the proper clothes for winter, and Grehesh’s warning about getting pneumonia too many times was fresh in her mind.
She walked to the Second City and learned after a few idle questions in the streets that Raina was still in the Fourth City. And with winter coming, Kaislyn didn’t think she would leave the warmth of the Fourth City for the miserable cold of the Second.
“You deserve it, girl. You made this worse by stalling.”
With supplies and a horse, she started for the Fourth City early in the morning, stopping at the city guardhouse first to speak to Davol. She was invited to wait in the captain’s study while he was found. The room reflected Davol’s personality, brightly lit from lamps and windows with a mix of practical chairs and comfortable couches filling much of the floor space. Kaislyn paced around the room.
The city captain appeared a few minutes later, his customary smile in place. He gestured for her to sit, issuing a profusion of apologies for making her wait.
“I’m sorry about what happened with the Royal Guard,” Kaislyn interrupted, ignoring the invitation.
Davol’s smile faded and he grew serious. “Should I presume by your words you had a part to play in that confrontation? I didn’t know.”
Had she just made things worse by confessing? “It was... unintended. I was careless and not... fully aware of the rippling effect my actions were having.”
To her surprise, Davol nodded at her words, as if they confirmed something he already knew or suspected. “Truthfully, I think everyone just wanted an excuse to fight. Tensions were running high ever since the river was poisoned.”
Davol was much more forgiving than she thought he’d be. Maybe this would be all right after all. His smile returned as he continued, “I understand your reason for wanting secrecy throughout all this. It allows you to work more effectively. It was clever of the queen not to announce she’d added a fourth assassin.”
Kaislyn stared at Davol. “You think I’m a Royal Assassin?” Her voice sounded too shrill and loud. She cleared her throat, but when she tried to speak again, a string of curses in the Old Language came out.
Davol didn’t seem perturbed at all by her reaction and continued to smile.
Kaislyn regained control of herself. “Blazes! Whatever gave you that idea?”
“You did. Why, within minutes of your arrival, you helped foil an assassination attempt on the queen!”
“How—”
“I’ve had my guards watching for you for... oh, some years now. I knew you’d eventually visit us. I knew you were here before Zarif and everyone else,” Davol added with some pride. “I’ve had my guards keeping track of whenever you come or leave. With your parents’ history, and the accounts they’d give about you, it seemed prudent to give you the same space, and, ah, discretion.”
“They’ve talked about me?” Kaislyn felt like she was under attack from Davol’s relentless smile and cheerful words.
“I’ve known your parents a long time. They make an effort to be friendly with all the city captains but we’ve become good friends over the years. They’d occasionally detail some of your wilder escapades.” He shook his head admiringly. “I never would have guessed that anyone could outwit them the way you did growing up.”
Kaislyn didn’t know whether to be pleased or alarmed that her parents told stories about her. “I’m not what they’ve made me out to be.”
“They’ve never said you were an assassin of course,” Davol assured her. “They’re more subtle than you are yet. But your random patterns of arrival and departure, frequently within a few hours of each other, was another clue. I won’t, ah, touch on your appearance, which was usually very alarming.”
Kaislyn closed her eyes, wishing he would accuse and judge her instead of his friendly acceptance. As if her actions and ch
oices were inevitable. Then Davol made it worse.
“Zarif was the deciding factor of course.”
She opened her eyes as her face turned red. “Zarif?” she asked, voice hollow.
“I don’t think being your parents’ child would have been enough reason for Zarif to tolerate your—forgive me—chaotic presence. He keeps a notoriously tight check on his guards and palace security. You’re the first exception I’ve ever heard of where he lets someone come and go as they please. Since you’re a Royal Assassin that explains his unusual tolerance.” Davol spread his hands and shrugged. “I decided to follow his advice and look the other way where you’re concerned.”
Kaislyn had never felt so stupid in her life. She didn’t know what to say to Davol’s stream of words, didn’t know what to think of her own, supposed cleverness in the way she sauntered past city or palace guards. Did more than Davol and his City Guard think she was a Royal Assassin? Had Nisken or, even worse, Raina heard?
She was spectacularly destructive like a Royal Assassin.
Not the same thing at all!
Before Davol could say something else alarming, she mumbled a goodbye and fled.
Roads had been cleared and widened since Raina became queen and the journey to the Fourth City passed quickly and smoothly despite Kaislyn’s roiling thoughts.
The Fourth City, sheltered by the jungle on three sides, had a decorative wall running between it and the jungle. The gates remained open, if well guarded. Kaislyn couldn’t stop a flinch as she passed through them and into the Fourth City itself. No one paid her any attention as she dismounted and led her horse through the crowded streets.
It was silly to be so scared of coming back here. It was, Kaislyn counted, eighteen years ago since everything happened. Everyone involved was dead or gone. Blazes, even Raina didn’t seem to have any problems living in the Fourth City and her family was murdered here.
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