“That’s because you’re not a fool. Most of the men I knew in Ospia couldn’t wait to join the military and protect their homes, their families, their pretty wives. They didn’t realize they’re nothing but pawns to the crown.”
“Tamriel’s not like that,” Mercy says. “He doesn’t think of them as pawns.”
Nynev snorts. “Perhaps he is different. He is the first of the Myrellis line to ever set foot on the Islands. Did you know that?”
“He cares for his people—he’d do anything for them. At least he’s not chasing ghosts through Myrellis Castle like his father.”
“He was still raised by that sorry excuse of a king.”
“So he knows what not to do when his turn to wear the crown comes. Believe me, he is nothing like his father. He just agreed to pull his father’s troops off your land—”
“He agreed to save his people, not mine. Besides, how long do you really think that agreement will last? A month? A year? Even if Ghyslain withdraws his troops, how long before the noblemen raise banners of their own? I know how strong the rivalry between Beltharos and Feyndara is and I know how much the people of those countries hate us. They haven’t hesitated to use our lands as slaughtering grounds before and there will be nothing standing in their way when they do it again.” She takes a deep breath, her hands curling into fists. “I knew how dangerous this place was before I came here. I’m not the same as Firesse—I wasn’t born here, I don’t protect this land out of loyalty to my ancestors. Ten years ago, I chose to flee to the Islands because I didn’t want to watch the rest of my family work themselves to death in the mines.
“Do what you must,” she says as she stands, “but know that if the day ever comes when you wish to stop running from those who hunt you, we will welcome you with open arms. It won’t be an easy life, but it will belong to you. No one else.”
Nynev shifts the string from which the dead goose hangs as she nocks another arrow. She waves Mercy forward, and together they start back toward the thick of the forest, leaving the clearing behind them. “And I hope that one day,” Nynev murmurs, so quietly Mercy almost doesn’t hear her over the sounds of the waterfall, “you will trust me enough to tell me the rest of your story.”
“Do the wraiths appear on the mainland?” Mercy asks as they make their way toward the Cirisian camp. She’s almost certain that the real Liselle had been the one to call her to the beach, but frankly, she isn’t sure what to believe anymore.
“I haven’t heard of them existing outside the Islands, but I’m hardly an expert.” Nynev gestures for Mercy to be silent when she spots a pheasant picking at some seeds on the ground. Her arrow pierces its eye before it can so much as look up, and Nynev quickly strings it up beside the goose. As they continue toward the camp, she shoots Mercy a sidelong glance. “This is about the girl you saw earlier, isn’t it? Your sister, you said?”
Mercy nods. “When I arrived in the capital, she tried to help me. She spoke to me sometimes and could . . . manipulate things and people, but I didn’t see her until the night before we left.”
“Speak to Vaion or some of the other elders when we return—I’m certain they know more about this than I do—but that doesn’t sound like a wraith to me. If it is, it’s more powerful than any I’ve experienced.”
With that, Mercy wholeheartedly agrees. Whatever Liselle is—ghost or wraith or something else entirely—she’s here from the Beyond and has proven her usefulness time and time again. As loathe as Mercy is to accept this talk of spirits and protective charms, how can she deny what strange experiences she has witnessed these past few weeks? She had even been skeptical of the Sight, but Pilar’s and Cassius’s visions have proven to be true thus far . . .
“Does the word ‘Niamh’ mean anything to you?” she asks.
Nynev fumbles the shot she had been aiming. Her arrow glances harmlessly off a tree’s trunk and sends her would-be prey scampering into the underbrush. She curses under her breath as she retrieves it. “What did you say?”
“Niamh.”
“It’s pronounced ‘Neev’ and how the hell do you know that name?”
“The man who had a vision of Cedikra drew it on a piece of paper and wrote the word ‘Niamh’ beside it. We figured the cure and this Niamh person were related somehow.”
Nynev’s expression turns cold as ice. “You’re wrong. She has nothing to do with this—”
“You know her?”
“She was my sister.” Nynev’s fingers tighten around the grip of her bow, her knuckles turning white. “Like I said, she’s gone now. I can’t help you.”
“Then why did Cassius have the vision of her? You must know a way—”
“No!” Nynev shouts, her eyes suddenly ablaze with anger and pain. “Leave it alone, Mercy,” she growls through clenched teeth. She turns to stomps away, but Mercy lunges forward and seizes her arm before she can go more than a few paces. The string of dead birds slips off her shoulder and the carcasses land in a heap on the ground. “Let me go,” she snarls.
“Not until you tell me what you know about the plague.”
“I don’t know anything!”
Mercy tightens her grip on Nynev’s arm. “Stop lying. Thousands of people will die if we don’t figure out the cure.”
“Thousands of humans,” she spits.
“Yes, humans. People in Beltharos are dying as we speak and there is a prince here who will stop at nothing to save his people. So you either tell me what you know, or the prince will leave empty-handed and return with troops to search these islands top to bottom. I bet they could be back here in, what, two weeks?” Mercy snaps. “Right now, he’s sympathetic to you and your people, but his guards—the ones whose fathers and brothers fought and died here? How kind do you think they’ll be to their families’ killers?”
“However they try to hurt us, we will fight back fiercer and stronger.”
“How many fighters does your tribe have? Forty? Fifty? How long do you think they’ll stand against hundreds of trained soldiers in metal armor?”
Nynev’s face contorts in rage and she jerks back, but Mercy doesn’t let her go. Under Mercy’s fingers, Nynev’s arm has begun to bruise. “Bitch.”
“No. I’m a fighter, remember? A warrior. I’ll do whatever it takes to survive.”
Nynev drops the bow in her other hand and cocks her arm, swinging at Mercy’s face, but Mercy catches the huntress’s fist so easily it’s comical. She ducks under Nynev’s arm and plucks an arrow out of her quiver. In one smooth movement, she picks up the bow and nocks the arrow, aiming it at Nynev’s chest. The huntress stills.
“What were you saying?”
“I can’t tell you anything. My sister’s been dead for two years, slaughtered in a skirmish between my people and the soldiers. Whatever you think I know about that vision, I don’t, I swear.” Her eyes flit between the arrow and Mercy’s face.
“Take me to where she’s buried.”
“We don’t bury our dead. We build them funeral pyres.”
“No body, then? Convenient.”
Nynev’s face hardens. “Only to those who do not know what it is like to lose everything they love.” She takes a shuddering breath. Then she straightens, a challenge coming into her eyes. “Anyone in the camp will tell you the same story. If you don’t believe me, let that arrow fly.”
Mercy hesitates. In her hands, the bow groans under the pressure, the string digging into the calluses between the joints of her fingers. Then she tosses the bow and arrow at Nynev’s feet. “I’d begin praying to your gods now, if I were you,” she says, “because your clan won’t be enough to protect you if I find out you’re lying.”
Nynev sulks for the next hour, stalking up and down the center of the island as they hunt. Several more pheasants hang from the string slung over her shoulder, but they’ve yet to bring down anything larger, which Nynev is determined to do before they return to camp. Trailing a few paces behind, Mercy divides her time between watching the huntress a
nd scanning the area for Cedikra. It appears Firesse was right about it not growing well on this island—Mercy hasn’t seen a hint of it. She only hopes Calum, Tamriel, and the guards have fared better in their search.
Between bouts of sullen silence, Nynev snaps orders at Mercy to watch where she steps, catch up, or stay downwind—all of which Mercy knows before she speaks. The Daughters hadn’t often had to hunt, but the tutors had taught them nonetheless, and there had been a few lean winters when the extra deer or two had been welcome additions to the cook’s stew. The huntress’s hands shake so violently from residual anger that she misses her next two shots.
They’re almost to camp when Nynev suddenly freezes.
“Quiet,” she whispers. “Look ahead, a little to the right.”
Mercy follows her gaze to a doe standing fifteen yards ahead of them, munching on a thick tuft of grass by its feet. Nynev silently plucks another arrow from her quiver and lines up her shot with the doe’s side, taking a deep breath to steady her hands. Then she relaxes the bowstring and hands Mercy the bow and arrow. “Here,” she murmurs.
“Why?”
The huntress sighs. “Because you’ll be helping the clan. Kaius and Firesse will love you for it, and it might diffuse some of the tension between our people. Also . . . because I want you to remember me doing you this favor when you return to the capital. Make sure the prince honors his agreement. He may not listen to Firesse, but he will listen to you.”
“I give you my word, Nynev.” She accepts the bow, lining up the arrowhead with the spot just behind the deer’s shoulder. Even if she misses its heart, she’ll pierce one of its lungs. She takes a deep breath and steadies her aim exactly how Mistress Trytain had taught her.
She lets the arrow fly.
19
Calum
“Smile. You should be smiling now—we found the Cedikra.”
Calum grins at Tamriel. While they’d been off searching for more of the spiky fruit, Firesse had had some of her tribesmen set up an additional tent next to theirs for Mercy, Maceo, and Clyde to share. She had even gifted them a finely-made—albeit worn—chest to carry the Cedikra they collect to Sandori. Tamriel sits atop it now, running his hands agitatedly through his hair.
“We hardly found enough to fill a bag, and we need enough to cure all the sick in Sandori and the other infected cities,” Tamriel retorts. “We have no idea how much we will need to make the cure, anyway. The quantities could be massive. The people could need multiple doses. They—” He bites off the rest of his sentence, tugging again at his hair.
“Hey,” Calum says softly. He moves to Tamriel’s side, resting a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “We have more than we did this morning, so I’ll count that a victory. And another victory: neither Firesse nor Kaius saw fit to string us up by our feet or scoop our eyeballs out of our heads like Cirisians do in all the stories.”
“It is surprising, considering how much you talk.”
“What can I say? It’s not easy being so naturally charming.” Tamriel rolls his eyes, but as he turns away, Calum catches a hint of a smile tugging at the prince’s lips. His heart swells with affection. Tamriel is always so serious. “You, my friend, need to relax. We found some of that weird fruit, Firesse still has foragers searching the rest of the island, and she sent word to the other clan leaders to bring some to that weird festival-thing. Ialathan. In a matter of days, we’ll have everything we need and then some. Be patient.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one trying to fix all of His Majesty’s mistakes.” Tamriel’s smile slips as he turns back to Calum. “Do you think I’ve made a mistake by bringing us here?”
“What? Tam, no, of course not. Why would you ask that?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out why my father kept the Cedikra secret. He is many things, but he’s not cruel—not intentionally. You know how much he hates to see people in pain. I can’t stop thinking about how he never sent anyone to find the cure. He must have known about it for so long, yet he did nothing. Nothing! He had to have some reason—”
“He probably did, and it was probably selfish—something those voices in his head convinced him was right,” Calum says sharply. He’s never had an ounce of affection for the king and wants less than nothing to do with the man who killed his father. Creator damn him for leaving Tamriel alone for so many years, for giving him stupid, useless responsibilities any of the councilmembers could have handled with ease, for instilling in his son the same grief, guilt, and self-doubt he carries every day. Calum would have bought the Guild’s contract for Ghyslain if he hadn’t known the king would have accepted death—welcomed it, even—instead of running from it.
Surprise flickers across Tamriel’s face at the outburst, but Calum continues, “When you are king, you will have to make difficult decisions. You’re going to have to weigh people’s lives in your hands and make the right choices, make the hard choices. You’ll do so much better than your father has. You’ve already proven it by coming here.”
Rather than looking pleased, Tamriel’s expression turns stricken. “Calum, that woman—Hero. I cut—I had to—” His face flushes and he doesn’t meet Calum’s eyes.
“Tamriel, stop. Master Oliver told me what you did. She made her choice when she broke the law. You had to teach her the consequence of that choice.”
Tamriel chokes on a laugh. “You sound like my father when you say that.”
The words turn Calum’s blood cold, but he forces himself to remain calm, unaffected. “I know I do. But in this case, it’s the truth. You are not to blame for that.”
“I was her partner.”
“What?”
“I was helping her. Hero. I was the partner who helped her sneak slaves out of the city. Master Oliver helped me . . . shift . . . the guard schedule so there were gaps. Little ones, but my father was able to piece it together before he had her brought into court. He knew the whole time.”
Calum freezes, a stone sinking in his stomach. Tamriel was freeing the slaves? He of all people should know better than to try and help the elves. And Master Oliver had known? “But you stopped after that, right? No one else knows, no one else will find out . . . right?”
“None of the nobles know, and I’ll make sure they don’t find out. But . . . I’m still helping her.”
“Shit, Tamriel.” Calum lets out a long breath. “Shit. How long have you been doing this? Does Firesse know? Does Mercy?”
“One question at a time, Calum,” Tamriel laughs. “It’s only been a few years—”
“A few years?”
“And no, Firesse doesn’t know.”
“And . . . why is that, exactly? If you tell Firesse, perhaps she’ll stop looking at you like you’re about to sprout horns and razor-sharp teeth.”
“The guards are here, and if news of this gets back to Sandori, the nobles will never support my ascension to the throne. I’m not stupid enough to overestimate their loyalty to my family. They’d sooner mount our heads on spikes than see their property freed.”
“And Mercy?”
“She doesn’t know.” He sighs. “We’re . . . It’s complicated.”
Calum snorts. “Can’t imagine why.”
Tamriel punches him in the shoulder.
“Hey! All I’m saying is that it is stupid of you to get involved with her—an Assassin, of all people! What, is court life too boring for you? Need something a little more risky? Someone to keep you on your toes?”
“Watch it, or my next punch won’t be aimed at your arm.” As he speaks, Tamriel’s grin grows to match Calum’s.
“How kind of you to defend her like that. Is that why she likes you, because you’re such a gentleman?”
“She’d probably kick my ass for implying she needs someone to stand up for her.”
“Oh, she’d definitely kick your ass,” Calum agrees, chuckling.
“What’s so funny?”
Their laughter dies suddenly, and they turn to see Mercy and an el
ven woman standing a few feet away, a deer carcass hanging upside down from a thick branch between them. How long has she been standing there? How much did she hear? Calum wonders.
“This is Nynev, one of Kaius’s huntresses,” Mercy says. She turns to Tamriel. “I know what happened to Niamh. You’re not going to be happy.”
20
Mercy
Mercy explains as Nynev leads them across the camp and into a large tent scented with the coppery tang of blood. Calum blanches the second they step inside, taking in the sight of the several wooden tables scarred with nicks, the wall of wicked-looking knives of various lengths and shapes, and the elves butchering the skinned animals in the back of the room. Tamriel and Calum exchange a glance, lingering in the doorway. Mercy rolls her eyes. Doubtless neither of the highborn cousins has ever had to butcher his own meat or cook his own food.
“In or out,” Nynev commands. “Don’t leave the tent open or you’ll let the flies in. Here, help us lift this.”
Calum rushes forward to help Mercy and Nynev lift the doe onto the nearest table, his expression contorting in distaste at the sticky blood coating the floor. Nynev tosses the dead birds onto the neighboring table and jerks her chin to Tamriel, then to the carcasses. “You want to make yourself useful? Pluck the birds.”
“He’s the prince!” Calum objects, while Tamriel’s face flushes with embarrassment.
“Fine. Pluck the birds, if it please Your Highness,” Nynev repeats with a saccharine smile.
Calum crosses his arms. “He’s—”
“More than happy to help,” Tamriel says quickly, dragging his cousin toward the table. Wisely done, Mercy thinks. The Cirisians don’t need any more reasons to dislike him and his guards. She watches as he untwines the string from around the birds’ feet. He shoots Calum a warning glance, and his cousin reluctantly picks up a pheasant and begins plucking its feathers.
Born Assassin Saga Box Set Page 57