“Cassia and I took turns keeping an eye on you whenever you left the castle,” Matthias says. “Ino got a job in the castle kitchens, which is how he was able to sneak into your room that night. The castle is one of the few places still hiring elves, and did you know nearly all the elves who work there aren’t slaves at all? They’re free—paid modest salaries in secret. Ghyslain just makes them wear the sashes to keep up appearances for the nobles. It seems our Liselle did change one thing for the better.”
Cassia nods. “There are still quite a few humans who would like to see us dead for Liselle’s little revolution. The fewer people who know we’re here, the better. I didn’t want to approach you until I was sure I could trust you. Unfortunately, you went and got yourself shot before I could decide, so I had to make do with the time we had. I was in the crowd the day you nearly died—that’s how I was able to find the guard who shot you so quickly. Do you know his name?”
“Drayce Hamell.”
“Drayce Hamell,” she repeats, her lip curling. “Even with him dead, you’re not safe here.”
“I know. Tamriel suggested sending me away so the nobles wouldn’t be able to hurt me.”
“Did you accept?”
“Of course not.”
Matthias nudges Ino with an elbow, grinning. “Hear that? ‘Tamriel.’ Not ‘His Highness.’”
“You should have heard him screaming after she’d been struck by that arrow,” Cassia tells them. “As if someone had reached in and ripped his heart out of his chest.”
Mercy’s stomach clenches as she remembers the look in his eyes earlier that afternoon—not fear, but pure, unadulterated terror.
“We need to get you away from the capital and the Guild,” Cassia announces. “The Daughters must be looking for you, are they not?” Before Mercy has a chance to answer, she barrels on: “It doesn’t matter. We’ll head to the Islands, find our parents—”
“There’s a war brewing,” Ino interrupts. “I overheard the councilmembers discussing it. The Islands aren’t safe for anyone right now.”
“Then we’ll go to Rivosa or Feyndara. Hell, we could make a home in the swamps of Gyr’malr for all I care. It doesn’t matter as long as we’re safe.”
“Yes, it damn well does matter,” Mercy snaps, jumping to her feet. “I’ve told Tamriel and I’ll tell you the same: I’m not tucking tail and running. I’m not a coward, and I’m not leaving him here to face a council of snakes and a war on his own.”
Cassia rises, and Ino and Matthias do the same a second later. It strikes her then how much larger they are than she: Ino and Matthias are each a head and a half taller, their muscles pronounced from their work as bodyguards and hired swords, and, although Cassia is built like an acrobat—all long limbs and sharp angles—there’s something dangerous about her.
Cassia narrows her eyes, her voice hard as granite. “This is not about what you want, Bareea. This is about our family. Those damned nobles murdered our sister and would have killed the rest of us if we hadn’t run. We have spent every day of the last seventeen years constantly looking over our shoulders, praying that the slavers and the men who wish us dead won’t find us. We haven’t felt safe for seventeen years,” she says. “I was thirteen when we were ripped away from our parents. Ino was sixteen and Matthias was only six. None of us remembers what they look like. The nobles stole that from us—it’s one of a long list of things they’ve stolen from us. Now that we’ve found you, I’m not going to let them take you, too.”
“Come with us,” Matthias implores her. “We’ll sail somewhere far away and make a fresh start. When the war is over, we’ll send for Mother and Father. We could start a farm or find work in a village somewhere. No more death. No more cutthroat nobles. We’d all be together for the first time in decades. We’d be a family again.”
She shakes her head, hating herself for the way Matthias’s face falls. When she had chosen Tamriel, she’d made him a vow, and she will not break it. They’ll cure the plague. They’ll bring the nobles to heel. If Firesse’s troops reach the capital, they’ll stand against her together.
She turns to her eldest brother. Ino has been silently examining her the whole time, a faint frown on his lips. Of her three siblings, he seems the least likely to let go of his grudge against the nobles. She can still see that barely-restrained rage simmering below the surface. “Did you agree to this? Running away and letting Liselle’s murderers run free?”
“Our family and our safety are more important to me than revenge,” he says evenly. No, not evenly—merely without inflection, as if he’s repeating something he has told himself a thousand times.
Mercy throws her uninjured arm up in frustration. “Does no one in this Creator-forsaken city possess a spine? Liselle is little more than a stranger to me, but I won’t allow her murderers to go unpunished.” She jabs Ino’s chest with a finger. “You say you care about our safety, but you’d rather scurry about in the shadows like rats than avenge your own sister’s death. You could help me find the people who want me dead! Instead, you’d have me leave everything behind to run away with you and pretend everything’s perfect.”
“‘Leave everything behind?’” Ino echoes, batting her hand away. “What about your life is so great that you would turn your back on your own blood? You’re an Assassin who’s on the run from the Guild and you have no place in the court. If you stay here, you’ll die at the hand of a noble or one of your Sisters. What could you possibly cherish so much that you’d risk your own life to keep it?”
“Tamriel,” she says, hating the way it makes her sound like a naïve, lovesick girl. All her life, she’d been taught that her own survival was more important than anything. She’d fought tooth and nail to earn her spot among the best apprentices in the Guild, and then she had become the best apprentice in the Guild—a fact everyone in the Keep had known but never acknowledged. She’d become hard, cold, violent, and she’d sworn that she’d make them regret all the pain and teasing to which they had subjected her. Falling in love had never been part of the plan. “I told you, I’m not leaving him.”
“And what will you do when he leaves you? Tamriel is a prince. Princes marry princesses. Tamriel is eighteen and unmarried—he’s not even betrothed. He belongs to some Rivosi or Feyndaran bride, not to you.”
“Who said anything about me being his bride? I’ve known him all of a month and a half.”
Ino shoots her a look. “Don’t insult my intelligence by playing dumb. Even if it were possible without your head ending up on a spike outside the castle gate, you’re not a queen.”
Mercy lifts her chin, willing them not to see how much her eldest brother’s words hurt. “I fared well enough playing Marieve. If it came to that, I could learn to rule.”
“An actor can play a doctor well enough, but I wouldn’t trust him with my health. You’d be of more use in the guard than anywhere else in the castle. You don’t belong anywhere else.”
“I certainly couldn’t do worse than Ghyslain. He’s done more harm to the country than good.”
“Ghyslain has managed to rule for twenty years without anyone sticking him with an arrow. You didn’t even last a week.”
“I’ll buy the best armor I can find.”
“Won’t stop the poison in your dinner.”
“I’ll hire a taster.”
They glare at each other, neither willing to back down.
“There’s no doubt we’re related. You have our father’s stubbornness.” Cassia elbows Ino out of the way. “He’s being pushy because we’ve been part of this conversation before. Our parents tried every day to convince Liselle to break it off with the king, but she always refused. She loved him, and he felt the same about her—anyone could see it—but he wasn’t enough to protect her from the nobles.
“Every day for nearly eighteen years, I’ve wondered if this all could have ended differently, if we could have saved her somehow. Now that we’ve found you, we can’t let you start down the same path she wal
ked. We can’t watch you be slaughtered the same way our other sister was.”
Mercy looks at Ino, Cassia, and Matthias in turn, then starts for the stairs. Her body feels heavy with fatigue—after a week of bedrest, simply sparring and riding halfway across the city is enough to exhaust her—and Nynev and the guards have waited long enough. “If you don’t want the nobles to kill me, stay and help me find those who wish me harm. Help me bring Liselle’s murderers—and my would-be murderers—to justice.” As she passes the kitchen, she pulls out the coin purse Mistress Sorin had left for her at Blackbriar, which she’d retrieved upon their return from the Islands. She tosses the purse onto the counter, the coins jangling when they hit the wood. “If not, I wish you luck on your journey to Rivosa or Feyndara or the swamps of Gyr’malr. Use this to buy your passage. If there’s any left over, write me once you’ve arrived. Maybe I’ll visit you someday.”
When Mercy reaches the bottom of the spiral staircase, Nynev jumps up from where she’d been sitting on one of the worktables, tying a series of knots in a scrap of silk. Her expression morphs into sympathy and understanding when she sees the dark look on Mercy’s face. “Didn’t go as you’d hoped?”
“The nobles want me dead. The Assassins want me dead. My family wants me to forget everything I’ve done and everything I’ve risked to be here so I can run off and hide with them in some Creator-forsaken corner of the world.”
Nynev falls into step beside her. Together, they wander through the dusty bolts of fabric toward where the guards are waiting at the front of the shop. “Family isn’t worth shit.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No, but I thought it’d make you feel better to hear it.”
She stops. “Did you just try to spare my feelings?” She opens her eyes wide and presses a hand to her chest, just over her heart. “Nynev, you do care!”
“No, I don’t.” The huntress sniffs and crosses her arms. “I told you Niamh and I are leaving the second this plague is cured. We’re going back to whatever mess Firesse has made of the Islands and we’re going to try and make things right. You and I might never see each other again.”
“You consider me a friend,” Mercy insists, grinning. “Admit it.”
Nynev lets her arms drop to her sides, not bothering to fight a smile of her own. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“So, the violent Cirisian huntress has a heart after all. Your secret is safe with me.”
After one last glance at the staircase to make sure Cassia or her brothers hadn’t come to try and change her mind, Mercy follows the guards out of the tailor’s shop and onto the street. Overhead, the once clear blue sky is blotted with dark storm clouds. Bas hires a carriage from a stop down the street and they all clamber inside just as it begins to pour. Rain drums against the top of the carriage, the wind whipping the curtains hanging over the narrow windows, as the driver starts the horses back toward the castle. Just before they turn the corner, Mercy reaches past Nynev and shoves the curtain back, ignoring the huntress’s protestations as she takes one last look at the building her siblings have made their home.
She may never see them again. Good, whispers the cold-hearted Assassin within her. They’re just like Ghyslain—too weak and afraid to stand up for themselves, for justice.
Or maybe I’m the one who is the fool. Like Ino said, Ghyslain has lived this long without losing his throne or his head. Cassia, Ino, and Matthias had already endured kidnapping and slavery before any of them were her age. If she were still the Assassin the Guild had trained her to be, she’d have said yes to them in a heartbeat. She wouldn’t have cared whether the plague was cured or if Firesse won the war or how her leaving would hurt Tamriel. She’d have boarded a boat to Feyndara or Gyr’malr and watched the shore of her country fade into a speck on the horizon, then into nothing at all, without a second thought. She’d have survived Sandori, and she’d have been free.
Thank the Creator, she is no longer that woman. If the cost of remaining at Tamriel’s side is her chance to know her siblings, she’ll pay that price—but that doesn’t mean she won’t mourn the loss of her family all the same.
They turn onto the street with the college, and Mercy lets the curtain fall back over the window. Write me once you’ve arrived, she’d said to Cassia. Maybe I’ll visit you one day. She’d meant it snidely, one last jab for forcing her to choose between blood and Sandori, but maybe she really will visit them whenever they finally settle down somewhere far away—
That is, if she lives that long.
25
Tamriel
Fat droplets of rain lash the council chamber windows as Tamriel stares out at the city, drumming his fingertips along the sill as his father and the councilmembers argue about something unimportant behind him. Every few seconds, lightning flashes, throwing the rain-slick peaks of the nearby roofs into sharp relief against the blue-black sky. Beyond the city walls, small cottages spill out over the land, and beyond them, dozens upon dozens of white infirmary tents dot the fields. When they’d realized a storm was brewing, Adan had sent guards to move the sick into some of the plague-marked houses outside the city limits for shelter. They had quickly run out of room and time. Over half of the people lying in the fields have nothing more than the wax-coated canvas tents to protect them from the storm.
What will remain of his people when they finally cure the plague? Will the sick return to work, to their families, completely healed but for the memories of the outbreak? Or will the disease have such a devastating effect on their bodies and minds that no amount of medicine will bring back those on the brink of death?
Master Adan has lost count of the death toll. It’s well into the thousands; likely tens of thousands across the country. When they’d first discovered the plague, the deaths had been sporadic—two in one day, none the next, three the day after. Now, corpses are very nearly piling up in the streets. The guards have done their best to move anyone suffering from Fieldings’ Plague to the infirmary tents, but every day they find a handful of bodies huddled in an alley or curled up on the steps of the Church. Wary of burning any more bodies and contaminating the lake, they’ve begun burying the dead in mass graves.
In addition to dealing with the plague, Niamh and the healers are still tending Atlas and the other sick guards with the newly developed cure. The problems now are their limited quantity of Cedikra and the difficulties of sending thousands of doses across the country in time to save all of the sick. In addition, Niamh and Lethandris have begun meeting late in the evenings, trying to translate whatever ancient Cirisian texts the priestess manages to smuggle out of the Church so they can better predict Firesse’s war strategy. They can only guess where and when she’ll strike.
“The damn savages killed a dozen men in the middle of one of the oldest fortress cities in the country!” Porter Anders shouts, drawing Tamriel’s attention back to the conversation. He turns to find the courtier standing at the opposite end of the table from his father, his fists braced against the smooth wooden surface as he stares down the king. This has become a familiar sight over the past few days—the nobles blatantly ignoring court etiquette and speaking to Ghyslain as an equal, not as a subject to his monarch. Elise’s confession and execution had scared them into obedience for only a short time; the day the news of the elves’ massacre in Sapphira had reached them, the tension between the council and the king had nearly reached a breaking point. No one had said it explicitly, but Tamriel knows they blame his father for allowing Firesse’s rebellion to go on for so long. “How the hell did Firesse and her forces survive the six hundred men you sent to Fishers’ Cross?”
“The girl is resourceful,” Cassius Bacha says. As the king’s most trusted advisor, he’s seated to Ghyslain’s left, directly across from Tamriel’s empty chair. “She’s doing what she thinks is right for the people she’s lost.”
“Are you excusing her crimes, Bacha?”
“Quite the opposite,” he retorts, stung by the accusation. “I fe
ar that you are vastly underestimating to what lengths she’ll go to avenge her people. Let’s not forget that she orchestrated the murder of one of her own—a First of a clan, for the Creator’s sake—to incite war.”
Ghyslain stands and points to the map of Beltharos spread across the table, tracing the line of the king’s road from Sandori to the Islands. “Fifteen hundred men are marching for Fishers’ Cross as we speak. They’ll arrive tomorrow night at the latest, and they’ll stamp out any hopes of war among the Cirisians. If Firesse and her commanders do not fall in battle, they will be brought here to face trial and execution. They will answer for the deaths of our people.” His finger stops on the squiggly line representing the bluff which protects Fishers’ Cross. The village is so small, so insignificant compared to Sandori, Cyrna, Xilor, and the dozen other cities across the country, the cartographer had not even bothered to mark it on the map. “By the Creator, I swear they will be punished.”
Lightning crackles outside the window, so close to the castle that the glass panes rattle in their frames. A second later, a clap of thunder fills the air, the sound reverberating through the stone tiles beneath Tamriel’s feet.
Every pair of eyes swing his way when he moves to his father’s side. “Last we heard, Firesse has twelve hundred soldiers at her disposal. We assume she lost a good portion of her troops in the battle, but we cannot be sure how many. She also has the help of the Daughters of the Guild, the Strykers, and Calum.” And her otherworldly powers, he does not say. They have yet to allow any word of her blood magic to slip past their inner circle. They’d had no rational explanation to offer the council when they’d told them of the deaths of the six hundred soldiers Ghyslain had sent to Fishers’ Cross a week ago; how would the nobles react upon hearing the news besides thinking their royal family has finally lost its last shred of sanity? Tamriel wouldn’t have believed in Firesse’s magic if he hadn’t witnessed it, and he is certain the nobles do not have enough faith in him or his father to take them at their word. “We cannot underestimate the value of their aid.”
Born Assassin Saga Box Set Page 93