Nynev lets out a ragged, humorless laugh as they all look down at Niamh. Indeed, the corners of her pretty rosebud mouth are curled up in faint grin. With her eyes closed, her dark lashes fanned across her high, delicate cheekbones, she looks like she has finally found the peaceful sleep which had eluded her since that fateful night in Firesse’s tent. She looks . . . serene. “She finally got the death she sought for so long,” Nynev whispers. She brushes her sister’s hair back from her face, presses a soft kiss to her cheek, and gently sets her back down on the floor.
“I’ll have the undertaker prepare her for burial,” Tamriel says gently.
Nynev takes a shuddering breath and pushes to her feet, ignoring the blood soaking the front of her pants. She shakes her head. “Have him prepare her for the ride back to Cirisor. She’d have wanted a pyre among what remains of our clan.”
Ino and Matthias trail after Tamriel as he strides down the dim, underground corridor. They’d lingered for an hour in the throne room, helping to drag out bodies and gather precious arms and armor, and then Cassia and Nynev had retreated to the huntress’s room to give the latter time and space to grieve. One of the servants, slack-jawed and a bit green from the sight of all the blood, had arrived five minutes later bearing the news that the king is still in critical condition. The surgeon was doing all he could, he’d said. The bleeding was slowing, but Mercy’s terrifying curved daggers had cut deep.
Tamriel shoves aside the pang of sorrow as he turns the corner and the door of the infirmary appears at the end of the hall before him. Ghyslain had been the monster of his childhood, a creature of nightmares, but the king had tried—in his broken, twisted way—to take care of him. He had sat beside his bed the entire night after Calum had attacked him, had warned him about the death awaiting him on the journey to Cirisor, had tried to shelter him from the serpents in his court. And now . . . he’s dying.
Tamriel grabs the handle of the infirmary door and twists. He’d waited as long as he could stand to see Mercy—telling himself she needed time to rest and recuperate—but now that the battle is over and the weight of everything which has happened has settled upon his shoulders . . . he needs to see her. He needs the reminder that Firesse did not destroy everything good in his world.
The door swings open with a whisper of well-oiled hinges.
“By the Creator,” Matthias hisses.
The infirmary is a mess—the shelves have been knocked over, the vials of medicine and jars of ingredients lying shattered and broken on the floor; the papers and books cluttering the desk are scattered among the ashes in the hearth; and the bodies . . .
The guards who had been watching the infirmary are dead. Every single one of them. They’re lying in a heap in the middle of the room, their throats cut from ear to ear, each clutching a bloodied sword or dagger. Mercy’s precious armor is scattered among the mess; Ino and Niamh must have ripped it off when they’d treated her.
Tamriel climbs over the broken shelves, his heart pounding. This is the work of the Daughters—and if they’d butchered the guards so easily, so ruthlessly, he doesn’t want to imagine what they have done to Mercy, their Sister who has drifted so far from the fold. His breath whooshes out of him when he spots the cots lining the other end of the room.
They’re all empty.
Ino lets out a string of foul curses and kicks at a box at his feet. “Where have they taken her?” he snarls, his eyes bright with fierce protectiveness.
They all whirl as a low groan sounds from the little alcove in the far wall—the closet where Alyss had slept. Tamriel hurdles over pieces of wood and shards of broken glass, Mercy’s brothers right on his heels as he shoves the blood-splattered curtain aside.
Adriel blinks up at him groggily. “You— Is it over?”
“Where is Mercy? The Daughters took her, didn’t they?” Tamriel can hardly force the words out, raw terror forming a lump in his throat.
He frowns, the glazed look in his eyes fading a bit at the sound of his daughter’s name. His nose is broken, dark blood crusted around his mouth and dried on the front of his shirt, and a large bump protrudes from the side of his head. “I—I think so.” He shakes his head. “I can’t remember much. Mercy was still unconscious. The Mother—she came down here. The guards tried to hold her off—tried to protect us. She slaughtered them without even batting an eye.”
“Why did she let you live?” Ino asks.
He frowns again, his face paling. “She said—she said the trade I made for my daughter’s life seventeen years ago still held true, and that she had come to reclaim the girl who had run away. I-I tried to fight, but . . . she knocked me out.” He grimaces and pushes to his feet, clutching his side. Tamriel reaches out and grabs his arm when he sways dangerously to one side. He reaches into his pocket. “These were lying beside me when I woke up.”
He extends his fist and opens his fingers to reveal two small trinkets sitting in his palm: the infamous gold mark of the Guild, a teardrop stamped into the front of the coin, and—
His mother’s sapphire ring.
A tentative knock comes at the door of his father’s study a few hours later, startling Tamriel out of his tumultuous thoughts. He draws the curtains over the window and turns to find Nynev easing the door open, her face red and splotchy from crying.
“You dismissed your guards,” she says in lieu of a greeting. He slumps down at his father’s massive desk as she gently shuts the door and sinks into one of the high-backed leather chairs across from him.
“They’re needed elsewhere.” They still had not found Calum, or any of the Daughters—no evidence they’d been here at all save the trail of dead bodies and the dozen break-ins they’d committed at various shops and mansions across the city.
“How is the king faring?”
“I don’t know.” He’d gone to visit his father an hour ago, only to be shoved out of the room by the surgeon, guards, and servants who had been enlisted as assistants. He’d learned that his father had fallen unconscious shortly after being carried out of the throne room, and gleaned no more information beyond that.
“Once this mess is cleaned up, you’re going to turn the army on the Guild, are you not? You’re going to get Mercy back.”
“Damn right I am,” he growls. It’s easier said than done. Half of the army is scattered across the fishing sector, trying to repair the damage Firesse and her soldiers had wrought, and the other half are here in the capital and the surrounding lands, scattered, injured, and battle-weary. It’ll be an eternity before they’re ready to march again—it’ll feel like that, at least. He reaches into his pocket and closes his fingers around the sapphire ring. He’d carried it since they returned from the Islands, and he’ll do the same until she’s by his side again. “My only comfort is that Mother Illynor doesn’t want her dead yet. If she did, she wouldn’t have bothered abducting her and taking her all the way to the Keep. She still sees Mercy as a weapon—an unpredictable one, but a useful one—and she’ll keep her there as long as it suits her needs.”
Nynev lifts her chin and studies him. “And if you’re wrong? If she wants to make a spectacle for the apprentices and kills Mercy the second they set foot in the Keep?”
His fingers tighten on the arms of his chair, and there is nothing human in his voice when he snarls, “Then I will burn them to the ground.”
She nods and rises. “If I did not have a duty to my clan, I would be right by your side when you did it. Fortunately, I know some elves who would be more than happy to help you get their sister back.”
He stands, too, and follows her to the door. “I’m grateful for your help, Nynev. Yours and Niamh’s.” Agony flashes in the huntress’s eyes at the mention of her sister, but he continues, “My promise to Niamh didn’t die with her, you know. When my army is ready, when the reconstruction is complete, I will help you take control of the Islands. We’ll stand together against Feyndara and give the Islands independence. We’ll turn it into the safe haven it should have b
een from the start.”
To his surprise, the huntress steps forward and embraces him. “Thank you,” she breathes, “for everything.” She leans back and smiles at him. “You’ll make a great king, Your Highness. I am honored to call you a friend.”
He smiles, the gesture not quite reaching his eyes, as he presses a hand to his heart. “The honor is all mine.”
She strides out the room and, right before the door swings shut behind her, she winks. “Next time I see you, it better be with an elven queen at your side.”
47
Mercy
The jostling of a carriage shakes Mercy awake. She stirs, her body aching, the wound in her chest throbbing, and starts when she sees the green-and-gold scaled woman sitting on the bench opposite her in the carriage—no, the wagon. A covered wagon, one of those owned by the Guild for transporting bodies or supplies. She jerks upright, reflexively reaching for her daggers, but they’re not there. Neither is her armor. Worse, her wrists are shackled together, chained to a link on the bottom of the wagon. A glance at her hand—her unblemished, plague-free hand—reveals that Tamriel’s mother’s ring is gone, too.
As much as she doesn’t want to let her fear show, Mercy can’t help but ask, “Is Tamriel alive?”
Illynor regards her for a long time. Then she nods, and Mercy lets out a sharp sigh of relief.
“The contract is void. Calum Zendais and Serenna Elise LeClair forged it with the king’s signature. Tamriel’s life is not yours to take.”
“Do you have any proof?”
She hesitates, knowing Illynor isn’t inclined to believe anything she’s about to say. “The smudging on the contract. Elise was left-handed; if Ghyslain had signed it, his words wouldn’t have smudged. And—the execution. Elise confessed to the crime and was beheaded. There are official records in the capital.”
The Guildmother leans forward, bracing her elbows on her knees. “Well, we aren’t in the capital now, are we? And seeing as you’ve risked your life for this prince you claim to love, you’re not exactly the most reliable of sources.” Her lips part into a smile, unsettling in how strange it looks on her sharp, reptilian face. “But I shall keep what you’ve said in mind. Perhaps we can come to an arrangement when we’re back at the Keep.”
“Why not just kill me?” she hisses, her anger sparking. “Why bother taking me back?”
“You still belong to me.” Illynor’s cold, slitted eyes narrow, hard and black as flecks of shining eudorite. “What, did you think killing a couple of my Assassins would free you from my possession? You’re mine, Mercy. My weapon to wield as I see fit.”
“Why? I’ll never be as great an Assassin as you. We both know it. So why not kill me back in the capital?”
“Because you fascinate me.”
“I—” She frowns, faltering. “I what?”
“Llorin brought you to my Keep seventeen years ago out of the goodness of her heart. She saw a helpless babe in that rundown shack your parents called a home and could not bear to leave you to die. That same weakness is not what compelled me to let you live. I beat Llorin within an inch of her life for that weakness.” Illynor reaches forward and grabs Mercy’s arm, trailing a rough, scaled finger over the bumps and ridges of her old, faded scars. The skin there is pink and raw from the Pryyam salt Niamh had ground into her flesh. Every brush of her sleeve is excruciating.
Illynor’s voice betrays no emotion as she continues, “I let you live because I wanted to see what sort of creature would emerge from a lifetime spent only at the Guild, what sort of weapon my tutors and I could craft. We’d never raised a child before. We’d always been a home for runaways and strays. You were the first—an orphan elf, sister to the king’s infamous mistress—and it was fascinating to watch you grow, to monitor your interactions with the other girls. Sometimes you would lash out with violence. Other times, you would shut yourself up in your room for days and refuse to eat, refuse to speak, refuse to leave.” Her fingers curl around Mercy’s wrist, her sharp nails digging so deeply into the tender skin that Mercy has to bite back a cry of pain. “Do you want to know why I named you Mercy?”
She swallows her anger and nods. She’d learned long ago that it is best to go along with whatever Illynor says. Her mind is already reeling with everything the headmistress has revealed, everything she’d witnessed before she’d blacked out. Firesse must be dead, the plague along with her. They wouldn’t be leaving the city so soon if it were under the First’s control. Whether Tamriel, his father, and her family survived remains to be seen. By the Creator, she hopes they’re alive. And Calum—Calum can rot at the bottom of the Abraxas Sea for all she cares.
“I named you Mercy because I knew it was the one final way I could alienate you from the others. Personify the one thing an Assassin should never be, the one weakness she could never indulge, and the others were sure to despise you for more than just your elven blood. We forced you to rely on yourself, and yourself only, and merely sat back to see what came of it.” She releases Mercy’s arm and leans back in her seat. “If you rose up against them, fought to survive, to be worthy of the Guild, you’d be inducted and allowed to serve as a full-fledged Daughter. If not . . .” she shrugs. “Then we’d bury you and forget you ever existed.”
“So my entire life has been a sick little experiment?” Mercy demands, rage flushing her cheeks. “You let the apprentices torture and maim me for entertainment?”
“You were wonderful,” she responds with a sly smile. “You did everything you were supposed to—and some things we never expected, like the Trial. You surprised me. I haven’t been surprised in centuries. You were one of the best apprentices we have ever trained, Mercy.”
The words make Mercy sick to her stomach. She’d been a fool to ever want to serve this despicable woman, this creature who could hold a newborn child in her arms and see her as nothing more than a lab rat. For the first time, she wishes Mistress Trytain had drowned her that night she’d arrived at the Keep. Even though Trytain had done it with hate in her heart . . . it would have been a mercy. She bares her teeth. “Don’t say that.”
“You were. Which is why it was so interesting when you betrayed us weeks ago.” A glimmer passes through Illynor’s dark eyes, and even that minute change is more emotion than Mercy has ever seen the headmistress show. There is enough cruel delight in that look to send a shiver down Mercy’s spine. “My ruthless apprentice went to the capital and found herself a heart. How could I kill you after that? How could I kill you when it is so intriguing to watch you and that little prince together? It seems my experiment, as you called it, has taken quite a drastic turn, and I’m interested in seeing where it goes. That, Mercy, is why I haven’t killed you yet.”
“I’m not your puppet,” she snarls. “I’m not yours to manipulate as you please. You don’t own me.”
Illynor’s hand moves so fast Mercy doesn’t even have time to react as the flat of the headmistress’s palm connects with her cheek. Her head flies back from the blow, cracking against the wooden post supporting the canvas top of the wagon. “You have belonged to me since the day Llorin carried you through the gates of the Keep. I have owned you every day since you were one week old, and I will continue to own you until you draw your last breath,” she hisses. She stands and shoves aside the fabric flap behind her, reaching up to pull herself onto the bench beside whichever Daughter is steering the wagon. “It is up to you whether you spend the rest of your days serving me or rotting inside the Keep’s dungeon.” With that, she climbs onto the bench and lets the fabric flap fall shut behind her.
Mercy lets out a roar of frustration and slams her fist into the post beside her. She tugs at the chains, at the shackles, at the link in the floor between her feet, but the metal does not so much as groan.
She reaches up, chains jangling, and lifts the bottom of the canvas covering the wagon high enough to peer out into the star-flecked night. They’re riding through a plain, but exactly where they are, she has no idea. Perhaps a de
tour along the edge of the fishing sector; Illynor wouldn’t be stupid enough to take the straight route to the Guild. The main roads are probably crawling with guards.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see another half-dozen wagons riding along behind them. A few of them are laden with baskets of fruit and dried meat and bolts of bright, shimmering fabric to hide the false bottoms. They’ve disguised themselves as a caravan of traveling merchants. As long as Illynor hides her scales under her heavy cloak, they won’t draw the eye of any citizens they pass along the journey to the Keep—save for, perhaps, a customer or two—but the guards won’t be so easily tricked. Tamriel will have them searching every wagon and carriage moving south for weeks. Even so, Mercy knows that if it comes to a fight, the Daughters will come out on top every time. Mother Illynor would die before she would let Mercy slip out of her grasp again.
She turns her gaze back toward the horizon, to where she guesses Sandori lies miles and miles away. Her prince is waiting for her. Her family is waiting for her. She’ll be damned if she loses them again.
Someday, she vows, letting the canvas fall back over the side of the wagon, I will return to you. Her thoughts drift back to Tamriel—to the glimmer in his eyes when he’d teased her, the way he’d trailed soft kisses down her skin, the terror on his face when she’d woken up after being struck by that arrow—and she squeezes her eyes shut. I chose you, my love, and you chose me. Whether it is a month or a year from now, I will return to you.
And when I do, we will cleave the world in two to find those who have wronged us.
Dying for more?
Mercy’s, Tamriel’s, and Calum’s adventures continue in Fearless, the fourth installment of the Born Assassin series.
Beltharos may have won the battle against the Cirisians, but the true war is yet to come.
Born Assassin Saga Box Set Page 113