“Pierce is only a seren, but he’s a talkative one. He knows how to persuade people to see his side and—like I said—the nobles will always choose one of their own over us.”
“You’re mad,” Tamriel hisses. “Liselle’s death has made you paranoid.”
“And it has kept us alive for the past eighteen years.”
Father and son glare at each other, neither looking at all inclined to back down.
“Why didn’t you show the court the letters Tamriel found?” Mercy interrupts.
“It wouldn’t have made a difference. Anyone can forge letters.”
“But Cassius said . . . You said you would speak to . . .” Tamriel trails off, his expression morphing from anger to sudden realization. “You lied to me, didn’t you? You were always planning to release her.”
“Not at first. We tried to come up with a plan to convince them, but the chances of them siding against the LeClairs were too slim. After what they did to Liselle, I couldn’t bear to—”
Tamriel rolls his eyes. “It always comes back to Liselle. Did her death really traumatize you so much that you find yourself paralyzed in the face of court opposition? Do you not realize kings must sometimes make unpopular decisions?”
Ghyslain’s eyes flash. “When you are king, you will have the power to make those decisions yourself. Until then, you will obey my commands and never question me in front of the court again.” He yanks open one of the drawers and shuffles through the papers. After a moment, he stands, a bundle of papers—the letters from Calum—crumpled in his fist.
Niamh and Nynev back out of the king’s way as he crosses the room and braces his hands on the fireplace’s mantle. He hangs his head, letting out a long-suffering sigh. “I let the girl go to protect you, Tam. If they’re not going to support us,” he mumbles, “we must never give them an excuse to turn against us.” He looks over his shoulder at his son, takes a deep, shaky breath, and says, “That’s what I learned from Liselle.”
He tosses the letters into the fire.
The dry parchment ignites immediately, the edges curling in and turning black as the flames consume them.
“No!” Mercy and Tamriel shout in unison. Before any of them can realize the folly of what he’s about to do, the prince lunges forward and plunges his hands into the fire. He gasps and yanks the papers out, shaking them frantically. Mercy snatches them out of his hands and throws them to the ground as he gasps in pain. Heart pounding, she stomps on the papers until the flames finally die.
Niamh rushes forward and takes the prince’s hands in hers. “We must get you to the infirmary. Come.”
“Tamriel—” Ghyslain begins in a choked voice. “I didn’t mean—”
“Can they be salvaged?” Tamriel interrupts, nodding to the papers. His hands are shaking, streaked with red burns and black soot.
Mercy bends down to pick them up, but the papers crumble to ash at her touch. She shakes her head.
The prince’s shoulders slump. “Are you happy now, you insufferable coward?” he snarls at his father. “Is that what Liselle would have done? Would she have told you to bow to the nobles’ will? If that’s all being a king is, I wish you a very long rule, because I don’t want any of it.” He yanks his hands away from Niamh and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Come,” Nynev whispers, nudging her sister toward the door. “Those burns need to be treated. Mercy?”
She glares at the king, her hatred pouring out of her so intensely she’s certain Ghyslain can feel it. He stares down at the burned, ruined letters, agony and regret plain on his face. She turns her back on the king. “Let’s go.”
Tamriel hisses in pain when Niamh applies a salve to his hands, gently massaging it into his tender skin in small, even circles. She wraps each of them in bandages, biting her lip in concentration. Beside the shelves, Nynev watches her sister work. “There,” Niamh says softly. “You’ll still be able to use your hands, just be careful. I’ll make more of the salve so you can reapply it each morning and night.”
“Thank you.” He turns his attention to Mercy as Niamh moves to the desk and takes up the mortar and pestle. “Will you please stop pacing? And perhaps move away from those surgical tools? They’re awfully sharp, and I don’t want the Assassin in you to get any ideas.”
“Not sharp enough.” She tosses the scalpel she’d been examining onto a shelf. “We must do something about Elise. She cannot get off that easily.”
“Unless we find new evidence, there’s nothing we can do. She’s had her trial.”
“There is something I can do.”
He frowns. “No killing her. The nobles believe she’s innocent. Killing her would only give them a martyr and paint an even larger target on your back.”
“I wasn’t going to kill her,” she snaps. Her lips part into a cruel ghost of a smile. “Just pay her a visit.”
“As long as you promise not to let your inner Assassin get the better of you.”
“I’ll play nice.” Mercy slumps into the chair at the desk, eyeing the teetering stack of medical books they have yet to read. “Have you learned anything new about the plague from the healers? Any possible treatments?” she asks Niamh.
“Nothing more than we already knew. We’re stuck doing trial and error, but we’re afraid of using too much of the Cedikra. We’ve already wasted four and haven’t learned anything conclusive.”
“We’ll find something soon.” She plucks a bottle off the desk and slips it into her pocket, the glass cool against her fingers. “First, though, I need to have a word with Elise. Nynev, would you accompany me?”
The huntress matches her wicked grin and grabs her bow from the shelf where she’d left it the night before. “It would be my pleasure.”
Elise glides past the archway of the gallery in a whisper of ivory silk. She pauses, turns back, and jumps when she sees Mercy standing in the middle of the room, wrapped in a hooded cloak the same color as the nighttime sky visible in the window behind her. Only Mercy’s face and her hand, holding a lit oil lantern, are exposed.
“What are you doing here?” Elise asks. “How did you get in?”
“I have my ways.”
“Out! Get out now!” She starts forward, but someone reaches out from behind her and grabs a fistful of her hair, yanking her back.
“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Nynev warns as she presses the blade of her hunting knife to Elise’s neck, “or my hand might just slip.”
“I’ll scream. I’ll scream as loudly as I can. My father will call the guards.”
“Go ahead and scream.” Nynev reaches into her pocket and pulls out the bottle Mercy had swiped from the infirmary. She shakes it in front of Elise’s face. A few drops of shimmering Ienna Oil glint in the light of the lantern. “Someone drugged your parents’ drinks. I hope they don’t blame your cook. She’ll have such a headache when she wakes up, as it is.”
“The neighbors—”
“You think you could get away in the time it takes them to call the guards? Are you willing to gamble your life on that?”
Elise swallows, her voice wavering when she says, “You’re going to kill me, then? Give me the execution I deserve?” She lets out a shaky laugh. “That’s exactly what I’d expect from an Assassin and a heathen.”
“Confess your crimes,” Mercy growls, her voice cool and sharp—the voice of an avenging Assassin. A voice promising death. The serenna’s eyes widen a fraction in fear, then harden.
“And give myself up to the hangman’s noose? Not a chance.”
Nynev pricks Elise. A small trail of blood wends its way down her slender, pale neck. “Listen to the Assassin’s offer before you refuse her, girl. You might find her conditions quite agreeable.”
Elise doesn’t say a word. She merely dips her chin, as much of a nod as she’s willing to dare with a knife at her throat.
“My offer is this, Serenna: confess your crimes before the court and accept the execution to which the
king sentences you, or meet your end at my hand. It won’t be the quick, painless death the executioner will give you,” Mercy promises, a cruel gleam in her eyes. “I’ll take my time doing it—maybe a month. Maybe a year. I’ll carve you up in little pieces, working in from your toes, then your fingers, all the way to your pretty, pretty face. I’ll keep you in so much pain you’ll forget your own name. You’ll forget your beloved Calum. When I’m through with you, the Creator’s punishment awaiting you in hell will seem a blessed paradise.”
The serenna’s throat bobs. “You can’t do that. The nobles—”
“You’re not stupid, Elise. You’ve heard the stories about the Guild. You know what I’ll do to anyone who tries to keep me from giving you the reckoning you deserve.”
“Calum—”
“Calum is dead,” she snarls, the lie falling easily from her lips. “He’s not coming to save you, you lovesick fool. He died of an arrow to the heart in Xilor days ago. The guards found his body outside the city, left to rot.”
She watches with cruel satisfaction as the last bit of resolve drains from Elise. Nynev releases her as the serenna’s knees go weak, and she crumples to the floor. “Fine,” Elise spits through the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“What was that?” Mercy purrs.
“I said I’ll confess. Don’t make me say it again.”
“Bring her over here.”
Nynev grabs Elise’s arm and hauls her to her feet. The serenna’s face pales as she is brought before Mercy. “I’m going to leave you with one more thing—one more reminder of what I’ll do to you if you go back on your promise.” She pauses, baring her teeth. “I learned a lot from the girls who tormented me in the Guild. Do you know the best way to crush someone’s spirit? Destroy whatever she holds dearest in her heart.” She steps aside, revealing what she had been hiding behind the thick folds of her cloak.
Elise gasps, her eyes widening as she notices the bare patches of wall scattered about the room for the first time. A pile of canvases sits on the floor beside Mercy—every one of them a painting of Calum.
“Please don’t—” she blurts when Mercy holds the lantern over the pile. She flinches as the oil sloshes against the glass. Her lower lip begins to quiver. “P-Please don’t ruin them. They’re—They’re all I have left of him. Please.”
“You’ll convince your father to stop working against the king?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’ll confess?”
She nods.
“I knew we could come to an agreement.” Mercy smiles and pulls the lantern back to her side. Elise breathes a sigh of relief. “But unfortunately, I’m still angry that you had me framed for Calum’s attack on Tamriel, and I can’t just let you go unpunished.”
She steps back and hurls the lantern at the stack of paintings. Elise screams, “NO!” as the glass shatters and splatters burning oil everywhere. The paintings catch fire immediately, paint bubbling and cracking in the heat. Nynev sheathes her knife and shoves the trembling serenna onto the settee in the middle of the room.
Mercy tips the girl’s head back on her way out, forcing Elise to meet her eyes. “I look forward to hearing your confession.”
12
Calum
The morning after the attack in Fishers’ Cross, an elven boy no older than thirteen—his face still pockmarked with breakouts under the twining thorns-and-roses tattoos of Lysander’s clan—arrives with news of the Cirisians’ victory. Firesse immediately orders the remaining elves to pull camp; they’re to cross the channel to Beltharos later that day. Last Calum had heard, their numbers had swelled to approximately twelve hundred—not enough to outnumber the Beltharan army, but much larger than Ghyslain and the others in the capital will be expecting.
Drake finds the Strykers sitting around a large campfire, mending the elves’ worn leather armor. “Pack your things—it’s time to move.”
Nerran frowns up at him. “They really took Fishers’ Cross that easily?”
He shrugs. “It’s a small town.”
None of them says a word as they begin gathering what few supplies they’d brought. Drake works with Amir and Oren to disassemble the tent Firesse had given them. After a few minutes, he notices Hewlin watching him. “What?”
The eldest Stryker scratches his scraggly beard, studying Drake with something like suspicion in his eyes—or perhaps it’s only Calum’s wishful thinking. “Nothing.”
Firesse meets them in the center of camp. “Ivris will accompany you to Fishers’ Cross in your ship,” she announces. “I would like you to begin crafting as soon as you arrive.”
After a few hours of trekking across the Islands, they emerge beside the bay where the Strykers had anchored their boat. They load their belongings, adjust the sails and rigging, and cast off.
The Strykers seem to breathe a little easier when the Cirisor Islands disappear in the distance. Despite their destination, it’s oddly peaceful, Calum thinks, to be off the Islands and sailing the open ocean. If he hadn’t left the Strykers, he would have crossed these waters months ago on the way to Feyndara. The country has always intrigued him. Because of the animosity between Beltharos and Feyndara after the ceaseless Cirisian Wars, few people from either country are allowed inside the other’s borders. Calum would have been one of a handful of Beltharans to set foot on the forest-covered, elven-ruled land in generations.
Now, he’ll likely never see it. He doubts Firesse will allow him to live past his usefulness—but if she does, where will he go? Tamriel is dead, struck down by one of Lylia’s arrows in Xilor. Mercy had likely died beside him. His mind drifts briefly to Elise, but he pushes the thoughts of her away with a pang of sorrow and guilt.
Lost in his mind, it feels like only a few minutes pass before they spot the rocky cliffs bordering Fishers’ Cross. As they near the docks, Calum watches the elven archers patrol the top of the bluffs, bows in hand. Below them, the town is nothing like Calum remembers:
It isn’t a large village—only eight buildings in all—but it had been bustling with people when he and Kaius had passed through a little over a week ago. A dozen ships had been docked in the harbor. Women and slaves had been hard at work in the fields, harvesting crops, and fishermen had stood casting their lines into the sea or the twining rivers which run south of the town.
Now, though, the single street running through the village is devoid of humans. Firesse’s fighters and hunters slink across the dirt road, rummaging through houses for supplies. A column of black smoke rises from the top of the bluff, and the scent of burning meat—the bodies of the dead—wafts over on the breeze.
“Dear Creator,” Hewlin murmurs, followed by a string of curses from Nerran when something thumps against the side of the ship.
Drake and the others peer over the railing. A man in a sun-bleached tunic and loose-fitting trousers is floating faceup in the water, his face contorted in horror. A yawning gash in his side leaks dark blood into the water.
“Poor soul,” Oren mutters, his grip tightening on the railing. “I bet he didn’t even have a chance to protect himself. I bet none of these people even owned weapons to defend themselves.”
On Drake’s other side, the Cirisian boy keeps his eyes locked on the docks ahead, steadfastly ignoring the body bobbing on the waves beside them. His face is pallid, and Calum wonders how many villagers he had killed in the fighting. It’s a stain on your soul, he thinks sadly, remembering the feeling of Odomyr’s warm blood gushing over his hand, making the handle of Firesse’s dagger slick in his palm. It never leaves you.
“We can’t do anything about it now,” Drake says. The sound of Calum’s voice startles everyone out of their mourning silence. Hewlin looks at him sharply. “Let’s just get to shore and do our jobs.”
They tie up the sails and row into the harbor, where several empty boats bob in their berths, their captains and crews never to return. A few elves waiting nearby help them unload their supplies. Ivris disembarks first and immediately
turns his back on the sea, clearly eager to leave the villager’s body far behind. He leads them down the road with a soft, “This way.” They follow him to a building at the end of the row, a stone chimney rising from its roof.
“Well, it’s got a forge, at least,” Amir says, pointing. “No more working over campfires.”
Ivris ushers them into the workshop. A few tables are clustered around the forge, bits of scrap metal and half-mended sails cluttering the room. Tools of all different shapes and sizes hang from hooks on the back wall, and chests and crates of supplies are stacked in the corner. “Does this fit your needs?”
Hewlin peers into the dark, cold forge. “Well enough, for now. Have your people bring us whatever weapons they need repaired. In the meantime, we’ll get started crafting some new stuff.”
Ivris nods and departs.
Nerran claps. “All right, let’s get to work. Oren and Amir, gather as much scrap metal as you can find and put it on that table over there. Calum, help me light the forge, won’t you?” He searches the nearby crates until he finds kindling, then arranges it in the center of the hearth. He pulls pieces of flint and steel out of his pack and sets about lighting the fire. “How many people do you think died here?” he asks when Drake leans down to work the bellows, softly enough only he can hear.
“A few dozen, I suspect.”
He shakes his head. “Firesse is intense, but I didn’t think she would actually go through with the attack. She—Dammit,” he hisses when the kindling catches, flares, and goes out. He strikes the flint and steel again, sending sparks flying in the dark forge. “She’s got to be . . . what, fourteen?”
“Something like that.” Drake doesn’t bother to mention the Cirisians’ strange aging, or the fact that he has no idea how old she actually is behind that youthful face.
“Fourteen and the leader of her own army,” Nerran muses. Then he glances out one of the workshop’s open windows at the elves prowling the streets, some still in their bloodied armor. “These people were innocent,” he says in a low voice. “They didn’t deserve to die.”
Born Assassin Saga Box Set Page 83