King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three

by Jenna Rhodes

  “They’ll be ready,” he repeated firmly.

  “I think we should join them shortly.”

  He inclined his head, a gesture so like his father that when he lifted his face back into full view, Lara found herself shocked that the scar cleaving his skull in two was missing. To hide her momentary lapse, she turned away from him, who was not Osten though her heart and mind thought he should be.

  “What word on Rivergrace, if any?”

  “She’s not returned to Calcort. No involvement where Sevryn slipped our hold, but I can’t confirm that. They may still be separated, but I can’t imagine he’d stay away from her long. If we could find her, we would no doubt find him sooner or later. Master Trader Bregan has gone to ground. It’s said he’s dismissed all his servants—those who hadn’t already quit—and doesn’t come out of his manor. It’s said he’s gone out of his mind.”

  “Bregan,” Lara repeated. “His caravans are still running?”

  “His is a well-oiled empire. It would take more than a few weeks in seclusion to undermine it.”

  “Let us hope so. Half our supply contracts are with his House. Keep an eye on him, if you can. I’d like to know what’s unhinged him if it’s something other than his propensity for strong drink. Put eyes on elder Bregan, too. I know the two of them hit heads often enough. If we can’t find out directly, the father might be more talkative. Nothing obvious, though. I need subtlety.”

  “I’ll see to it. We have good contacts in Hawthorne.”

  “We should. I spend enough money there.” Lara eased back in her chair. “Thank you for the briefing.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not for a while. I’ll call.”

  Farlen bowed sharply and left her. Lara stood up, changed her clothes and then donned her chainmail. Then she took a sword and shield off the wall, shoved her table and chairs aside, and began to drill as her grandfather had drummed into her very being oh so long ago. She did not intend to stop until she could no longer hold her weapons at all. She aimed at shadows with and without substance.

  Rivergrace knelt upon the ground, fussing over her shoes. Horses stamped tiredly behind her and blew hot breaths. Her father’s shadow fell over her and she wondered for a moment that he could even throw a shadow. Its silhouette looked more whole than he did and she put a finger out to touch it, thinking of the legacy he insisted on passing on to her. She did not want to tangle and untangle the very threads of mortality. Worse, it tired her, leeched the strength out of her very bones, and she might never have the strength she needed to escape. She approached that point at which she no longer knew herself, and feared that when she did finally reunite with Sevryn, he would despise her. He dealt with death, but cleanly. None of this enslaving of souls or feeding of Demons. He would hate her as she’d begun to hate herself. A long breath sighed out of her.

  “What is it, Grace?” His voice. As dry as he was. As quiet. As flat and unnatural toned. Perpetually tired, perpetually existing despite it. Would he have her end up as he did?

  Her fingers twitched and she answered softly, “I can’t do it.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  She looked to Narskap. “Both. It is death and I don’t want to deal with it.”

  “It’s worse than that, it’s Undeath and unnatural, but this is what we need to sow, for the moment. You must trust me, Grace. Trust me as if I have always been the father you loved once.”

  His breath heated her ears as he spoke, bending close to her, seeming as if he did not speak at all, but she heard him. She concentrated on braiding the brittle laces of her old shoes carefully. The shoulder of the ancient apron she wore shrugged off her shoulder, and Grace tugged it back into place irritably, brushing off dried flakes as she did.

  “Where on earth did you find those clothes?”

  “On a dead woman in a cavern. I had need of them and she no longer did.”

  “I’ll get you something more suitable as soon as we reach the ranch. I doubt if he burned Tiiva’s clothes.”

  Rivergrace twisted about to look up at Narskap. “Tiiva was there?”

  “After Lariel turned her out of Larandaril. She held an uneasy alliance with Quendius, but he soon found her guilty of disloyalty. Did you think she had run to Abayan Diort?”

  “We weren’t certain where she had sought refuge, what alliances she might have made before she turned up in bits when Quendius used her to breach the border.”

  Narskap nodded. “He took her soul with one of the arrows corrupted by Cerat. It was not a mortal wound though deadly. She lived long enough to ride to Larandaril, and there he killed her to cross the border, which still knew her essence and opened for her. Lariel had exiled her but not removed her signature to access the border. Even in death she managed to betray you.”

  “He killed her?”

  Narskap moved away and nodded. “Or perhaps he had me kill her. Some moments are hazy in my memory.”

  Her mouth tasted coppery. Rivergrace brushed the back of her hand across dry lips. Tiiva of House Pantoreth, the last of that bloodline, with her brilliant hair and skin, and elaborate gowns, running Lara’s household as if it were a mighty empire. Perhaps, for her, it had been, though ultimately unsatisfying. Rivergrace had never felt accepted by the woman, never Vaelinar enough. She did not think she could stand wearing whatever wardrobe the beautiful but arrogant woman had left behind. She stood, slipping her hand in one of the many herbalist pockets of the apron. Ground-up bits of leaf and stem met her touch. Narskap had turned away, so she lifted her fingers to sniff them and almost sneezed in surprise.

  Deadly hawk’s cap, unless she was mistaken. She brushed her fingers off carefully and made note to wash them as soon as she could, lest she poison herself. She watched the back of Narskap’s head. It wouldn’t work on him, but it would probably take down Quendius if she could dose his food. It might be her only chance.

  Narskap turned back and crooked a finger.

  “Rest is done.”

  Rivergrace straightened her apron and approached, wiping her thoughts from her mind. She would have to consider her actions and what Narskap had said earlier. Was Death only a threshold that Quendius might enter and return even more formidable than he already was? Was Cerat his latest alliance? How far dared she go along the pathway Narskap had drawn before she had gone too far to ever go back?

  Before she would lose all she loved and who loved her? Her thoughts reached out to Sevryn but could not find him.

  THIS WAS HIS THIRD DAY in the gardens. Sevryn had tired of it the first day, but the late afternoon on the second day he’d been taken from the dirt to the sand of the arena, and no doubt this day would be no different.

  “And this is hawk’s cap.” The herbalist’s crooked fingers caressed the plant gently. Shadows striped him as if he might be a beast crouched to pounce from the garden depths. He ached from bruises taken in his beatings but not from the exercise. The Kobrir were not tasking him any harder than he’d trained himself in the days when Cerat had raged inside of him and he’d feared to let Rivergrace know him. The garden held a kind of peace to it that tried to lull him, and he could not allow that. He cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts.

  “I know of it,” Sevryn told him. He squatted by the bent man. “Not deadly until dried. The sun seems to anchor a potency within it, for whatever reason, otherwise it actually has a medicinal use as a purge.”

  “Unless great quantities are eaten, yes. But once dried, it becomes a hundred times deadlier.” His teacher smiled. “What would you do with it dried?”

  “I could use it like kedant, make a dip out of it to treat my blades, but it doesn’t work as well in the bloodstream. It needs to be eaten. It’s far too bitter to put in a drink. You could treat a pickled dish with it and it might not be too discernible that way.”

  The Kobrir nodded. “Excellent. We make a
dry capsule of it. There are those who will consume it regardless of taste.”

  “For what reason?”

  “It will abort the unwanted. A child or even a tumor. It takes but a pinch for that, and if the host body is strong enough, it can withstand the effects.”

  This usage came as news to him. “It physically aborts a tumor?”

  “No, no.” The elder dropped his jaw in a soundless laugh. “How could you even ask such a stupid question? But no. It stops the growth and, if dosed a few more times, makes it shrink upon itself until there is nothing left of it.”

  “If the host is strong enough to survive the hawk’s cap.”

  Another nod. “If would be the question, would it not? But if death is a certainty, perhaps an almost death would seem to be a respite? The dose is given over weeks, perhaps even months, to give the host time to work at keeping its strength. Sometimes we must kill to live, eh?” The herbalist got to his feet with bones that creaked and knees that popped audibly as he straightened.

  “You seem the master here.”

  The herbalist folded his hands together. His dark eyes gleamed from their depths within his wrinkled face. “Many are masters here.”

  “You’ve set a task on me to find your king. But I’ve work of my own that needs to be done, and I can’t afford the delays.”

  “Can you afford to live?”

  “It’s not my life that worries me. I have other concerns.”

  “Other journeys.”

  Sevryn did not turn away from the unblinking gaze. “Yes. Important journeys.”

  “You must find our king for us. This is a matter that will envelop all of us, whether one wears the black or not. It is a matter of many lives and many deaths.”

  “He would be the most powerful of all of us. I take it he’s gone rogue?”

  The herbalist looked away, breaking the tension between them. “I cannot say.”

  “Or won’t.”

  “No. I cannot tell you what I don’t know. All I can tell you is that what seems important to us only is of real importance to you, as well.”

  He didn’t feel reassured. “Tell me where your king was last seen. How your contracts are made. Give me my weapons and let me go, and I’ll hunt him down for you.”

  “Not yet.” The herbalist flexed, and his back gave an obliging crick-crack. He pointed downslope to where underbrush thickened and shadows grew darker, playing upon the ground. “It’s grown warm. Perhaps you would enjoy a swim? There is a tarn there, in the valley’s corner.” The herbalist shot him a look. “It is said to be bottomless.”

  His shirt clung to his ribs with sweat. Sevryn considered a swim in what would undoubtedly be a snow-fed, cold-water lake as he had not been able to bathe in days. The possibility of touching Rivergrace within the water’s pool beckoned to him. The ache of her loss grew with every passing moment. Days of fight sweat and farming dust felt caked over him. He could use the cleanse.

  “A swim is just what I need.” The old man watched him as he shed his shirt and boots, hiked down to the tarn’s sloping bank, and stood for a moment, watching its waters before putting his hands over his head and diving in.

  Not that he trusted a single invitation from the Kobrir.

  Icy waters parted as he plunged in. The shock felt good, kicking the weariness out of his system, bringing him wide awake and alert. It was, as he’d decided, a snow-fed pool, clean water as his examination of the growth and animal life about its edges indicated. The danger here, if any, came from its sheer iciness and what it might hold within. He ducked under once or twice but found its depths too dark to see clearly. One lap and he readied himself to climb out, knowing the coldness would affect him shortly.

  Something grabbed him from behind, taking hold of his ankle and not letting go.

  He dove downward instead of trying to make the bank, reaching for the long knife tucked into his pants’ waistband at the small of his back. The sudden reversal of his body weight loosened the hold, and he was able to twist free. Muddied waters hid all but a shadow of his attacker as he curled to meet him. He angled to his left in what he hoped would be a feint, and his attacker kicked forward.

  Wrapped in dark cloth, the Kobrir could hardly be seen in the deep blue waters and the mud churned up from the bank. Remembering that the old man had warned him the lake was bottomless, he stayed near the edge of it, for he would gain the only propellant he could get from kicking out from there. His limbs began to numb. He wouldn’t last long, but the other had the same disadvantage. He pushed out away from it and at the trailing bubbles he could see, drifting upward to the surface like pearls. He rammed into his opponent and they locked, hand to hand.

  The assassin had a grip of iron. Sevryn did not try to wiggle out, exertion that would only tire him; instead he played into it. On the streets long ago, he’d learned that strength alone did not win a wrestling match, particularly if that strength could be leveraged against the wielder. He fought back now in the same way, giving when his opponent expected a push, pushing back with his legs, entwining them, holding his opponent fully below water with him. Now they both held their breath, feeling their pulse in their ears, the leaden response of their arms to what they asked of them.

  The cold would kill them nearly as soon as the lack of air. He could feel it penetrating, dulling his effort. It made his whole body heavy, almost too heavy to move, and his mind tried to slow with it. Heavy and dull. His mouth thinned. He could hold his opponent dear and near, hoping that the other would fall into unconsciousness before he did, but that would be a close call. The other felt icy in his embrace.

  Sevryn arched his back suddenly, breaking free of the other’s hold by sheer, now unexpected force. He kicked free, hit the lake’s bank with both feet and drove himself upward, knife in hand, stabbing as he went.

  He hit. Solidly. The blade wrenched against his hold. He could see a cloud as dark as ink spurt out even as he twisted upon himself, reversing his upward climb. No air for him yet. Not until he had his opponent and weapons in hand.

  Not with his arms but his legs; he reached out to grasp the other. They clashed again, twisting and churning in the water. The Kobrir hit him, hard and solidly, in the rib cage, exploding what little air he had left in a spew. Sevryn bit his lips, hard, as he clamped his legs and thighs. Then with all the quickly draining strength left in him, he pulled toward the shore and climbed the lake’s banks hand over hand. Rock edges sliced at him, moss denied him purchase, and mud sloughed up everywhere as he fought for a hold.

  Dark water churned furiously about him. Deeper than he’d thought, weighed down by the other’s body fighting him every handhold of the way, he climbed the stony bank like he would a wall. His lungs ached. He tasted blood through the teeth that sealed his lips from gulping for air. Rocks pulled loose as he clawed at them and then grasped for the next, desperation giving him new strength. Get out now or die.

  He pulled himself upward and into the air, its acrid dryness hitting him full-force and he thought to just collapse there, half-in and half-out of the water, but he still held his attacker imprisoned in his legs. Sevryn reached down to grab the Kobrir by whatever he could best get hold of—turned out to be an upper arm—and hauled him out as well. His legs unlocked stiffly, and he rolled over and then got up, staggering out of weapon’s reach before going to his knees on the hot soil and feeling the sun blaze down upon his shoulders.

  The Kobrir still bled. He writhed and curled into himself, too spent to even pull his feet from the lake. On the hill above, the herbalist gave a sharp whistle. Kobrir sprang up from everywhere, grabbed their kin, and bore him away.

  The old one tottered down the hill. Sevryn looked up at him warily, his hands on his knees, as he filled his lungs and felt the pin and needle feelings coming back into his limbs.

  “You did well. But then you suspected.”

  “Why wouldn
’t I? No Kobrir gives a gift without expecting a price.”

  The herbalist held up his index finger, crooked by age and wear. “No being gives a gift without expectations. You would do well to remember, no matter who you deal with.”

  Sevryn felt the corner of his mouth stretch and moving faster than he thought he could, he pivoted and threw his weapon at a shadow behind him. The knife hit deep, and the Kobrir collapsed with a surprised sigh. Sevryn moved to him and took the dagger out.

  He looked back over his shoulder. “Even advice has its price, eh?” The water settled into its deep blue and calm seeming and Sevryn realized he had not felt or heard a single echo of Rivergrace within its depths. He hadn’t searched for it and, truth be told, it would have distracted him. Yet he yearned to have heard the echo of her essence in the cold, clear water, her silken touch on his very being. He craved it. He lived to receive and return it in kind. He prayed that what the Kobrir planned for him did not change him into a being from whom she would turn away. He cleaned his knife on his wet pants and went to retrieve his shirt with a quick look at the fallen bodies behind him. Never turn your back on the Kobrir.

  COULD ROADS BE HAUNTED? Even with five hundred soldiers and cavalrymen at your heels, stomping and marching and bellyaching? Bistane stood in his stirrups for a moment, easing his thigh muscles and knees, and fought the impulse to look over his shoulder even as uneasiness danced along the back of his neck and tingled up his spine. He’d ridden this trail before, with his father and the rest of their troops, down to where the Rivers Ashenbrook and Revela crossed to meet the enemy. Inevitably memories would plague him, but he felt more than that, a familiar touch, a remnant of a well-known tone upon the air. He thought he’d left his father’s shade at home, but it seemed not.

  Lengthening shadows told him the day was nearly done, and he put up a hand in signal that a suitable place for camping should be found along the river. He watched as his captains deployed scouts on his order.