Assassin's End

by D. K. Holmberg

  She swallowed. “Others had it. I used that to make them think I did so that I could get Karyn to safety. You gave me the opportunity when Josun was taken from the city.”

  “A dangerous game,” I said.

  Rebecca looked at her sister. “One that I would play again if needed.”

  “You intend to return her to Elaeavn?”

  She hesitated. “We… We can’t return. We’ve been exiled. I will honor the will of the council.”

  “Why? What did you do?” I asked.

  Cael shot me a look. “Galen!”

  “I’d like to know what would exile one of the Elvraeth.”

  Rebecca looked away without answering, and I decided not to push.

  “Fine. I can offer a different kind of safety. For both of you.”

  Rebecca watched me, and I prayed Carth would help.

  “Does Talia know?” Carth asked.

  We stood in the shadows where she had appeared. I suspected that she’d been watching and was grateful that she’d come. “She’ll live.”

  “I know that she’ll live. You would have told me that first.”

  I smiled. “Who was he?”

  “Was?”

  I looked at Carth. In the shadows, I could see the slight swelling along her jaw, the early purpling of the bruising that would be worse over the next few days. “You wouldn’t be here if he still lived.”

  Carth laughed. “I am pleased you escaped Eban, Galen.”

  “You don’t want to share?”

  “He was one head of the Hjan. He’s one I’ve tried to find for the last few months.”

  “The reason you pretended to die?”

  She tipped her head. “Partly.”

  “But you’re not dead.”

  Carth smiled tightly. “I am not.”

  “You protected the children so the Hjan wouldn’t claim them?”

  “Protect. They are safe.”

  “And Rebecca? Karyn?”

  Carth frowned. “I have not protected your city’s exiles before.”

  “If the Hjan seek to claim them—”

  “I did not say I wouldn’t. I will bring them along slowly, but they will be safe.” Carth flashed a hard smile. “Perhaps it is best that I begin bringing them in if it will weaken the Hjan.”

  I laughed softly and let silence sit between us. “Will you tell Talia now?”

  “I think that Talia will know soon. For now, it’s enough that she has discovered she is capable on her own, don’t you?”

  “This was part of your plan? You wanted her to discover what she was capable of doing?”

  “Not the plan, but a beneficial effect, I think. When she learns that I live, she’ll be better able to help me.”

  “And what is it that you intend to do, Carth?”

  She looked at me, holding me with her intense gaze. “I still intend to stop the war, Galen of Eban. For that, I must claim one more thing. And I will need your help.”

  25

  I made my way along the shores of Asador. From here, the city almost looked peaceful and had I not experienced what I had over the last few days, I might have believed that it was. But too much had happened for me to think Asador remained the peaceful city I had once believed it to be.

  Not only the memories of what I’d seen made me feel that way. There was the hint of smoke in the air, the bitter bit of the ash that lingered in spite of the fires having long been put out. Parts of the city lost, burned because the Hjan wanted something.

  So far, they did not have it. Were it up to me, they would not ever get it.

  Cael trailed a finger through the water, her beautiful round face catching the early morning sunlight. When she noticed me looking—likely Read that I looked—she smiled.

  “You still act like you don’t know what you’re supposed to do.”

  “It’s no act. I don’t know. Every time I think I know, I get pulled back to the man I had been.”

  Cael wiped her finger on her dress. With her blond hair and full figure, Cael was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And for some reason, she’d decided that she would be with me.

  “You know the reason, Galen.”

  I chuckled. “Sometimes it helps when you Read me, and sometimes I think it makes it harder.”

  “Isn’t it like that with any gift?”

  I didn’t need to answer. There were things I wish I would never have had to see, things where my Sight made it difficult for me to unsee. In the time that I’d been with Cael, those events were less and less common, but they still occurred. I couldn’t change the person I had been overnight, as much as I might no longer want to be that person.

  “They sent me here for Josun Elvraeth, and we’ve done that. He’s captured. And now Carth will protect the rest of the exiles.” At least, that was what I took away from our conversation. I hoped it would be true.

  Cael’s face darkened a moment. If I didn’t know her as well as I did, I might have missed it. Something about that still troubled her. “You’re not ready to return.”

  “Can I return without the crystal? I know what it is now, and if I leave it, and if these others manage to claim it, I don’t know what they might do with it. And Carth wants me to find it.”

  The problem was I suspected what might happen with it. I’d faced the Hjan before, and I don’t know how well Lorst—or Rsiran, or whatever he wanted to call himself—knew the Hjan, but I understood how dangerous they were, even if he did not. Letting them have the crystal… I might not know everything the crystals meant, but I knew enough to understand that they needed to remain in the possession of the Elvraeth.

  “He doesn’t think the Elvraeth should possess them,” Cael reminded me. She followed my thoughts as she so often did, Read me so that we didn’t fully have to speak. I wondered if I would be able to hear her were she to attempt to communicate wordlessly with me. I suspected that it was possible, but we’d never fully tested it.

  “He doesn’t,” I agreed, “but I’m not sure that he’s the right person to be making that decision.”

  “Because he’s not Elvraeth?”

  “You don’t have a problem with that?”

  “Not as I once did.”

  “Why? What has he said that convinced you otherwise?”

  “It wasn’t him who convinced me.”

  I took her hand, and we wandered across the rocks on the shore. This was something I suspected Lorst missed. With his ability to Slide, he probably never slowed down to enjoy the moment, the feeling of his woman’s hand, the beauty of the sunrise, or the warm breeze blowing in off the sea.

  Cael squeezed my hand. “I wonder how you were ever the man you claimed to be.”

  “I was dark enough.”

  “I’ve never doubted that. You wouldn’t have saved me were that not the case, but you have softness within you as well.”

  “Don’t ever let Orly know that.”

  She smiled. “I think he has more softness in him than he wants others to know as well.”

  I couldn’t imagine anyone ever calling Orly soft. He was ruthless and had consolidated all of Eban under his control. There weren’t many men who had that kind of mindset and were able to do what I’d seen him do—what I’d been a part of, however unwittingly.

  “When you were brought before the council,” Cael started, her voice soft as she spoke, “I begged my father to let you free. You had done everything you could to return the crystal. You had shown service to Elaeavn that few others had ever shown. You had seen me back to the city safely, as you had promised.” Cael smiled when I laughed. “You did see me back to the city safely. He might not have agreed, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less the truth.”

  “That’s not why I was laughing. Your father—and the council—had no reason to allow me back in the city. To them, I was Forgotten. The fact that I’d bothered returning so openly risked worse than exile. It was their compassion that kept me alive and had them only sentence me to the Ilphaesn mines.” For th
at, I was thankful for Lorst’s ability to Slide, and his ability to bring me out of the mines. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be forced to serve there indefinitely, stuck until the end of my days, simply because I had returned Cael to her home.

  Even that would have been worth it. To have the chance to meet her, to experience the compassion she had shown me, that was worth it.

  She smiled and patted me on the hand. “You were never in any danger in the mines,” she said.

  I didn’t know how true that was. Had it not been for Lorst, and for the fact that Della had him bring me back out, I would have been trapped.

  “If not for the Elvraeth, then why do you want to get the crystal back to him?”

  “If he’s held it,” she started, a crease in her brow telling me that she worried about her answer, “all that we’ve been taught about the Elvraeth and our right to rule in Elaeavn will be wrong. I thought… I was taught that the Elvraeth were gifted with our full complement of abilities by the great watcher as a way to help guide the city, but Lorst isn’t Elvraeth. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t have many of the Elvraeth gifts. For him to have reached the crystals means that there’s another answer to what we’ve been taught.”

  “He says he’s reached them twice,” I said.

  She sighed. “If I didn’t believe that he’d reached the crystals once, I wouldn’t believe that he had twice. None have ever held one of the great crystals more than once, not in any meaningful way. For him to have reached them as he claims…”

  I hadn’t really given it much thought, but the issue with the crystals gave Cael a crisis of identity of a sort. When I’d found her in the Durven, she had been a confident woman. She knew the stakes, and she knew what she would have to do to keep herself safe. It wasn’t the leaving from Elaeavn that had changed her, it was the return, and seeing how everything that she’d believed might not be as she thought.

  I pulled her toward me in a tight embrace, and we stood, letting the sun rise behind us and the sound of the sea splash against us.

  “Have you had enough time?”

  I turned to see Carth standing on the shore near us. As I did each time I saw her, I felt a moment of surprise at how easily she managed to approach. She came silently, and hidden, as if suddenly appearing. Not Sliding—Carth had made it clear that she had nothing of that sort of ability—but she was sneaky enough that I couldn’t always tell when she would appear.

  “Carth,” I said, shielding Cael with my body.

  Carth watched, almost as if she knew what I did, a hint of a smile playing across her lips. “Have you considered my request?”

  “I have.”

  “You will find the crystal?”

  “You knew that I would.”

  “We must do so before the Hjan reach it. They have already become too powerful, learning many new tricks in the last year. If they acquire this, I worry they will be unstoppable.”

  “Even for you?”

  “I am powerful, Galen of Elaeavn, but even I have limits.”

  I had not learned what Carth’s powers were, just as I had not learned her limits. As far as I had been able to determine, she had no limits. When facing something like the Hjan, I wanted that kind of power on my side.

  “Do you know where to find the crystal?” I asked.

  “I know where to start. And I have you to thank for it.”

  Cael watched Carth, and I wished I could Read her so that I could understand the reason for her pinched expression. It almost appeared angry.

  “What reason is that?”

  “Ah, Galen of Elaeavn, once again it comes down to exiles, only this time, they have chosen their fate.”

  26

  The inside of the small building glowed with light from the small hearth. Of the three of us within the building, only Talia needed it, and even I wasn’t completely certain that was true. Much like with Carth, I hadn’t discovered the extent of Talia’s abilities. She had some of the skills Carth possessed, and she had some of the same confidence—certainly more than when I had last known her—but she was not Carth.

  We had asked her to join us so I could share with her the news of Carth’s life. It was an odd thing to consider. Most of the time I spoke of death and killing, and when I had thought Carth dead, it had shaken me in ways that surprised me, mostly because she had always seemed so powerfully competent, handling even the most difficult of tasks with grace and skill. She was a master of strategy, and I always had the feeling that she was a step or two ahead of everyone else. For her to have died… I was thankful that it wasn’t true.

  Now I got to tell Talia.

  I didn’t know how she would react, and wished I could pull Cael to the side to find out what she could Read, but didn’t want to push Cael to Read Talia any more than was necessary. With the history we shared, I didn’t think that was the kind of thing Cael would want to know.

  She glanced at me, her brow furrowed.

  It didn’t matter. It seemed Cael knew everything already.

  Could she Read Carth?

  The possibility would be valuable, especially as we tried to understand what Carth might plan.

  Cael shook her head slightly.

  No. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to reach Carth. It was much like how Sliding didn’t work against her. She always seemed aware of it, though I had yet to discover how.

  “What is it? I thought that with you capturing the Elvraeth as you were asked to do, and now with the Forgotten you’ve discovered, you would have left Asador.”

  “You would prefer me gone?”

  Talia glanced at Cael and sighed. “It is difficult seeing you again, Galen. I thought that I had adjusted to what happened, and the fact that I had to leave Eban, but seeing you… having you save me once more…” She looked at Cael. “You are a lucky woman, Cael Elvraeth. Do you know that?”

  Cael nodded.

  “Had things been different for me,” she said. It was strange that Talia spoke to Cael rather than to me, but maybe she chose to admit her feelings aloud so that Cael didn’t have to Read them and think she hid something from her.

  “I think he feels the same.”

  Talia blinked and glanced from Cael to me. “It would be easier on me if you left,” she said. “Let me rebuild the Binders and continue the work that Carth began. That is how I would honor her memory.”

  “Talia,” I started, looking over at Cael as I tried to think of what to say. Did I tell her that it would never have worked between the two of us? Did I tell her that we had been too similar, that by staying with her, I would have remained the assassin, and that with Cael, I could discover what else I could be? Would any of that matter?

  Cael offered me a smile that said she knew what I was thinking. For that, I was thankful.

  Maybe I didn’t need to tell her any of that. All I needed was to give her something else, a different kind of hope, one that she might not have known that she needed returned.

  “There’s a different reason I asked you to meet here,” I said.

  She studied Cael before turning her attention back to me.

  “When I searched for the Forgotten, when I tried to understand what I could about the crystal and where it might have gone, I discovered something. More specifically, I discovered someone.”

  Talia’s eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms over her chest, watching me with something that seemed a mix of annoyance and sadness. Cael might know which predominated, but I didn’t.

  “Who did you find?” Talia asked.

  “Me.”

  I hadn’t known Carth was here, much as I hadn’t been able to detect her when she appeared behind me on the shore.

  Talia stood with a lurch, her eyes wide. “You… you were dead.”

  Carth stepped toward her. I could feel a sort of tension between them, and it surprised me that I should be aware of it.

  “I had to have them believe that.”

  “Who? You left the Binders thinking you were
dead!”

  “Not only the Binders,” Carth said. “All of C’than believed that I had died. Once the Accords were broken, I had to move more silently than ever before. There is only one way to do so.”

  “By dying?”

  Carth nodded. “Dying, or appearing to have died. That was the only way this would have worked. I couldn’t have any know I survived.”

  Talia’s gaze flicked to me. “You told Galen. He is not of the Binders or C’than!”

  Carth took another step forward. I don’t know how I expected this to go, but then, I hadn’t expected Carth to appear, either. Now that she was no longer dead, she appeared more often than she had before she’d died.

  “I think you of all people understand how I hold Galen of Elaeavn with a certain fondness.”

  “Why now? Why reveal yourself to me now?” Talia sounded not only hurt but angry.

  But hadn’t I felt much the same? When I had been expelled from Elaeavn, I had been angry then as well. Perhaps not for the same reasons as Talia, but how would I have reacted had I seen Della around that time? Even now, there was still hurt when I thought about what could have been.

  And Della would have known that. As much as it had hurt her as well, she had done what she needed to do, much like Carth had done what she had needed to do.

  “Because we might finally be able to end the Hjan threat.”

  Talia took a step back. As much as I understood the Hjan—or thought that I understood the Hjan—I had not faced them nearly as often or with the same intensity as Carth and Talia.

  “We could end it?” she asked.

  “That’s what I intend.”

  “How could your dying help?”

  “They move,” Carth said. “They risk exposing themselves when they would not before. The Accords held them in check, but something changed. I think I’m beginning to understand that as well. And once we have a handle on that, we will be able to make our next move, but I can’t do it alone.”

  This time, Carth turned her attention to me, and to Talia.

  My stomach fell when her eyes lingered on me. Whatever Carth intended involved me.

  “What do you plan?” I asked.