Kings and Assassins

by Lane Robins

  An overwhelming surge of gratitude shook him as he watched Psyke standing calm in the face of what must be an echo of all her fears—Ani, taking flesh again.

  The boy shook his head, his hands flailing about his face, as if her words had unleashed an unexpected storm of wasps. Psyke took a step closer to the boy, held her hand out. “Come back to the palace, Adiran.”

  “Where you'll pin me in the earth? Cage me in stone? There are bars on my windows. Wings want to fly.”

  Janus shivered. Hadn't he heard that before? Maledicte, half crazed from being locked away in Stones, leaning up against him, Ani murmuring through his voice, wistful paeans to the sky.

  Psyke's serenity shifted, a quick overlay of Mirabile's petulance and impatience on her face; she snatched at Adiran and he disappeared in a rush of feather swirl, as swift as flight, and hissed at her from a safer distance. Feathers snagged in the air, caught by the roiling, cold fogs surrounding Psyke, the shape of fingers surfacing and fading. Psyke wrapped her arms tight about herself; her lips moved, her brow furrowed. Containing her ghosts.

  “I'll not be caged again,” Adiran declared.

  “No reason you should be,” Ivor said. He shifted the blade in his hand to reflect moonlight, to catch both the boy's attention and the crow god's. Janus made an attempt to silence Ivor, lunging forward, blade in hand, and found himself blocked by the assassin.

  “You won't win this time,” she breathed.

  Janus pushed back, using his weight against her. She wasn't Maledicte, wasn't god touched; though she was quick and his shielding arm hampered, she was hampered herself.

  The mad determination in her eye reminded him of Miranda in the Relicts. She loved Ivor beyond sense, and would die for him. Janus meant to give her the opportunity to do so. He took a step back; she danced forward, trying to keep him too close to use his saber, but he gained enough distance to knee her in the hip, sending her reeling backward. He followed her retreat with a sideways slash; she swept her skirt into his face, and retreated behind it.

  “… you've been misled,” Ivor continued, his voice as calm as lake water, as smooth as cream. “Fed deliberate misinformation by the guards. I didn't kill your father. You need look closer to home for your vengeance.”

  Adiran cocked his head, either listening or confused. Janus doubted many of Black-Winged Ani's targets stopped to argue with Her.

  The assassin's blade ground against his own, and he lost track of Ivor's storytelling; his nape prickled, waiting for Adiran's attention to veer to him. It was, after all, where Ivor was heading, whether Adiran understood it or not. Janus gritted his teeth and hoped there was more of Adiran than Ani, more of that sweet faith and incomprehension of the world, than Ani's fury.

  “Your prince is a fool,” Janus said. He elbowed the assassin in the throat, not a hard enough blow, curse it, but enough to buy him a moment's reprieve. She brought her saber around, kissed his shoulder with it, a shallow caress that added the tang of metal to the sea air already overburdened by scent.

  He shook it off, ignored the shiver than ran through his bones. “Ani might listen to him, but it would only broaden Her list of enemies, not spare him. Once She has chosen Her target, She will not be swayed.”

  Janus had expected to instill a tiny seed of doubt. Instead, her eye filled with the complete certainty that he spoke truth. Her free hand rose to touch her eye patch, and he moved in, blade arcing for her heart.

  He would have killed her while she was lost in whatever memory he had woken, save Adiran screeched like a tortured soul; and, in her haste to ensure Ivor's safety, she ensured her own, turning as the blade chased air.

  She flung herself between Adiran and Ivor, her blade wavering.

  Ivor spoke more quickly, more plainly, the better to make a child understand. “Janus killed your father, not I. Turn Ani's gaze to him. She can tell you, if you choose to hear. Ani knows he's a kin killer.”

  Adiran shook his head, instinctive denial, and Janus let out a slow breath, his heart rocketing in his chest.

  “He killed his own father,” Ivor said, but his voice grew ragged. Even Ivor's iron nerve had its limits.

  “He reads to me and brings me sweets.”

  Janus laughed. It bubbled out of him like hysteria. All Ivor's cleverness meant nothing when faced with a child's innocence and Black-Winged Ani's obsessive focus.

  Ivor closed his eyes for a bare moment, something he wouldn't have dared to do, were it not for his bodyguard. When he opened his eyes again, for the first time since Janus had met him, Ivor looked… broken. He pulled the assassin to him, kissed her brow, and then flung her into Adiran's arms.

  “You want the killer? She is within your grasp. My words might have set her on, but it was her blade that carved out your father's heart.”

  Adiran pushed her aside and she skidded away and fell, her skirts tangling about her legs, her hands clawing at the rough stone and wood of the dock as she fought to get back to Ivor. Psyke took a quick step forward, knelt, and spoke quietly in the girl's ear, restraining her with a single hand.

  Adiran scooped up the assassin's fallen blade; the silver edge tarnished, then went black, feathery wisps coiling, flaring and fading.

  Ivor watched Adiran approach—a rictus stretching his cheeks like some demented doll—then bolted into Janus's shadow.

  Adiran paused, cocking his head, and staring sideways like a raven deciding where best to begin scavenging.

  “If I die, Ixion,” Ivor warned.

  “I'll give my condolences to your country,” Janus said. It was pure bravado. His throat dried, and it wasn't all for the god-touched boy watching them, as if deciding whether a blade through Janus would be the simplest way to strike Ivor dead.

  Janus thought that while Adiran's blade might be long enough, his strength was unlikely to push it through two sets of rib cages. Janus would die just the same, though.

  “See to your lord,” Psyke's voice rang out. “Rise and protect him!”

  Janus felt a sudden sting of betrayal, that Psyke encouraged the assassin…. Then his blood chilled as if winter had come early. Psyke hadn't been speaking to the assassin. Fog streamed across the dock, given some terrible purpose, and Janus jerked as a cold tendril of fog touched him briefly, carrying a whisper, a familiar voice thinned to nearly nothing. Trust Psyke, Chryses murmured, and then the fog had moved on, leaving Janus shaking.

  It was not fog, nothing so natural as that, Janus realized, but Antyre's dead, clustering so closely that the intangible had become physical. The fog swept over the docks, cradled the corpses left from the skirmish between the Antyrrian soldiers and the Itarusine saboteurs, and sank inward, giving Janus quick and disturbing glances of ghostly limbs struggling like those of sailors from a scuppered ship.

  The dead Antyrrian soldiers jerked to their feet, skin gleaming like wet fish scales, their weapons held in tightening grips. One of them saluted Janus, his hand held up, a ghostly eye surfacing in the dead man's palm for a moment.

  Trust Psyke, Janus thought. How, when he didn't even know what she was anymore? Ani's motives were ugly and violent but comprehensible, built out of the depths of men's souls. Haith, on the other hand, was as enigmatic as the face He hid beneath His hood.

  Adiran swung round, shrieking words that burned through the air, ate away at the ghost fog that Psyke hastily drew about her. Janus and Ivor dropped as one, shielded their ears at the sound of the language of the gods.

  “I am immune to death,” Psyke said. “Can your avatar say the same? The boy is fragile, mortal, and unblooded.” Despite her brave words, Janus noticed the fog about her thinning, as if the dead were being destroyed or dispersed.

  “Not for long,” Adiran said. He tore into the dead soldiers with skill born only of savagery and borrowed hate.

  The assassin inserted herself into the fray, still attempting to save Ivor, when it became evident that the corpse soldiers could not hold Adiran back. Indeed, Adiran's hesitance faded, as if the
y granted him the practice he had sorely needed, that Black-Winged Ani needed to learn what the boy prince was capable of.

  Dodging a strike, the assassin danced away, turning Adiran from his path toward Ivor. The boy checked himself almost immediately, and the assassin shouted. “Boy! Ivor spoke nothing less than the truth. If you wish to strike down your father's murderer, you must strike me.”

  Adiran darted toward Ivor. Janus intercepted the boy, Ivor still sheltering behind him, cursing himself even as he did. His own death was no part of the plan, but Ivor—

  Janus shuddered. If Ivor died, Antyre would war. If Janus died… if Psyke could stop Adiran … bitter as it was, Antyre might survive without him. But would it want to? Was Haith any better as a ruling god than Ani?

  Janus ducked Adiran's first angry slash—a boyish flailing, instead of the more focused destruction he had turned on the guards. Ivor pushed Janus forward, nearly doing the work for Adiran. Janus abruptly found himself besieged on two sides.

  “Bastard,” Janus hissed.

  Ivor said, “Survival first.” He grinned a wide, wild thing, seized Janus by the shoulders, and hurled him into Adiran's blade.

  Janus groaned; the blade tip bit in, just above his hip, shallow but painful. Adiran yanked the sword back, let Janus stumble out of the way.

  The assassin pushed herself back into the fight. Janus fell to his knees, clutched the wound, the blood warm between his fingers. He took a few ragged breaths, trying to gain the energy to stand, to pick up his blade again.

  Psyke knelt beside him, her fingers cold on his hands. “Rest a moment,” she said.

  “Rest too long and I'll be dead,” he grated. “If Adiran doesn't kill me, Ivor will.”

  “No,” she said. “I won't allow it.”

  “If you have the ability to prevent it, I wish you would, or are you waiting for a more threatening wound—”

  “Hush,” she said. She laid a cold hand over his lips; in the fog behind her, Janus thought he saw Aris looming toward him and flinched.

  “I shot him and he didn't fall,” the assassin said. “I gutted him, and watched his blood spread over the floor.”

  Adiran's face crumpled, a small, bloody fist came up and knuckled at one eye, smearing tears across his skin, but his other eye stayed fixed on Ivor.

  The assassin said, “So you won't look at me, boy? Will Ani?” Her voice cracked; her hands shook. She cast a quick look over her shoulder at Ivor, and her resolve firmed. “I am more an enemy to you than you know. I killed your father, yes, but first—Have you truly forgotten me, Ani? When you sought me so assiduously? Killed my parents, my village, everyone around me, until I gave up my name. Surely you remember me…. Maledicte put out my eye on your behest.”

  Adiran froze, the feathers in his hair fluffing outward like a startled raven's. Ivor slipped farther along the dock, his eye on the dinghy that bobbed along the brass gates.

  The assassin shook, the blade held out before her inscribing looping arcs, translating her fear.

  “Your name,” Adiran demanded.

  Janus's breath pained him; he watched the assassin lure Ani closer, goad Her into adding another target, and wondered what this would gain them. The assassin would die, but Adiran's vow had been shaped by the guards he had overheard: He'd sworn vengeance on Ivor Grigorian.

  Hopeless, he thought, found he'd whispered it aloud. He couldn't defend Ivor from a god, even were he willing to die for it.

  “Not hopeless, not yet,” Psyke murmured. Her hands on his shoulder tightened nearly to the point of pain. Her lips moved in what he thought was prayer; whispers of it touched his ear, pulses of warm breath and the soft aspiration of Haith's name. The ghosts swirled about her, brushing over Janus's skin. He felt the effort they were putting forth, and knew, whatever it was they were attempting to do at her command, they were failing….

  “Not enough,” Psyke said. Her eyes were tragic. “How can it not be enough? When the dead line the streets? When I hold the king in my grasp? How many more deaths do I need to command You?”

  The assassin backed away, calculation and terror vying in her face; her lips were bloodless, her eye fever bright.

  Adiran followed in a bird hop, the blade led before him like a beak.

  “Your name,” he demanded.

  “Nadiyeh,” she said. “Nadiyeh—”

  The name meant nothing to Janus, but Adiran's small form went still so quickly it left a tangible vibration in the air. Janus swallowed hard, struck by the taut lines of the boy's body. There were moments when he saw beyond position and rank, looked beyond a young prince and recognized kin. So it was that he recognized what froze Adiran, knew what it felt like when blood turned acid with rage and breath strangled itself in his throat.

  Nadiyeh whimpered low, a sound stifled by an animal desire to be unheard. Soft as it was, the sound carried, amplified by Ani's desire to hear it. Adiran's lips curved in a fashion that had nothing of boy in it and everything of an unexpected satisfaction. Perhaps not a new addition to Her roster of vengeance, but an escaped one, reclaimed.

  Nadiyeh hurled herself toward the water, as if she thought such shallow depths could protect her from Ani's beak and wings. Adiran lunged; his blade pierced her skirt and leg, pinned her in place.

  The assassin screamed, her voice rising high and thin; she grasped at the blade through her thigh, clawed her way up it, hands going bloody, to seize Adiran's tightly straining wrists. “Ivor, flee!”

  Adiran yanked away, the sword slipping from her leg, from her hands. Blood spurted, washed the docks.

  Psyke flew from Janus's side, tried to intercede with Ani, but she was countered by Adiran, moving as quickly and far more violently Psyke's skin striped itself red in places, as if Ani's talons had made themselves felt. Psyke healed, the wounds sealing shut, leaving paler stripes on her fair skin.

  “Countess,” the assassin said. “Countess.” But her voice was weak with pain; her hands pressed tight to the gash in her leg were unequal to the task.

  Janus staggered toward her, urged on by the fogs, all whispering, Trust Psyke. He didn't know what Psyke had planned, but the assassin was part of it. Though it galled him to succor the assassin who might have cost him his throne, she was better left alive until he knew why Psyke had brought her here.

  He took off his belt, rolled the assassin's blood-sodden skirt higher, and turned the belt into a tourniquet. She grasped at his shoulders, leaving her blood staining against his, and said, “The countess must hold to her bargain….”

  “With Haith?” Janus asked. Panic seared him. What could Haith ask of Psyke, but death and more death?

  “With me,” she said.

  Adiran, flustered and frustrated, all his sallies against Psyke stymied, turned back to his original goal: Ivor.

  Janus panted, panicked, wondering where in hell Rue and the rest of the guards were; a glance back gave him an answer. The city burned; streamers of smoke clogged the night sky, billowing gray-black thunderheads that hung heavily overhead.

  Ivor's saboteurs, taking advantage of the chaos Ivor had made at the palace. Janus rose, wanting badly to get to Ivor before Adiran did, to exact his own vengeance on the man who had dared to burn his city. The stab of pain in his side, the assassin's clutch at his leg, held him back.

  Ivor had taken advantage of the lull in Adiran's attention to slip down one of the piers, attempting to get to the dinghy.

  Adiran halved the distance in a single flurry of movement, and the assassin groaned beneath Janus's hands. She forced herself upright, took a labored breath; blood tinged her teeth, her lips, found a final strength.

  Nadiyeh said, “Is a boy's desire for vengeance greater than yours, O great one? And a boy's mistaken desire at that? Or do you forget that I slaughtered the king….”

  Adiran shuddered, two desires manifesting in him at once, two conflicting hungers for blood. Ani's insult, and his vengeance. His shirt tented, a ripple against the darkness, wings straining beneath.<
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  Psyke moved to interfere, and Nadiyeh said, “Countess, your answer is one. One more death. But remember my bargain…. If you cheat me, I'll turn your commands to dust in your mouth.”

  Adiran chose, lunged toward Nadiyeh, and she rose to meet him. She stepped into the blade, letting the sword press home, easing its way in beyond the sheltering ribs. She clutched the blade, pulled herself along it, and made a tiny sound that could have been a whimper or a laugh, a sob or a cry of triumph.

  “Now,” she whispered. Now, and her voice spun into nothingness as her eyes closed, as she pulled the blade downward with her dying weight. Silence rang on the pier, the silent pleasure of Ani's gloating, the weight of the compact between Herself and Adiran snapping into place. Whether Evan lived or died, Adiran's course was set, Ani's chosen victim used to fuel Adiran's quest for vengeance.

  Janus felt defeat roll over him like the tide; his city burned, and it would burn more once Grigor learned of Ivor's death.

  Adiran licked the blade tip, tasting the death he had dealt, and smiled when he found it palatable. He raised his head, and said, “Now, Ivor.” The voice was a terrible blend, the rasp and rattle of the god overlaid on Adiran's childish sweetness. Janus knew he should rise, knew he had to do something to prevent Ivor's death. If Ivor died, they lost Antyre, and more, they lost Adiran—Ani was a harsh intrusion into any mortal host. How much worse would it be for a child, mostly mindless to begin with?

  Janus staggered to his feet, thinking at least, if he killed Ivor instead of Adiran, the compact would hold; Adiran could be used to protect the country. As he had used Maledicte.

  Ivor had found a boat hook and was trying to snag the dinghy. Now he dropped it hastily and took up his blade again, facing Janus, facing Adiran.

  Psyke took a deep breath and said, “Haith, I summon you.” It was nearly conversational, save for the waver in her voice, that fragile uncertainty.

  A shadow emanated from the earth, flowing through the fog like a serpent and rose to stand three times as tall as Psyke. He inclined His head toward her, waiting patiently as only stone could wait.