by Will Wight
Lying there, Shera was tempted to fall asleep. This was Shepherd work, nothing more than watch and report, and it was like guard duty in a crypt compared to normal Gardener assignments. Ayana seemed all but lifeless herself, only the relentless motion of her eyes betraying her focus.
Shera had been trained to wait, just as Ayana had, but it had been years since she'd really had nothing to do on an assignment. Especially recently, when her missions were all full of action.
So she had to resist the temptation to sleep. At first. As the day progressed, she found the boredom drifting further and further away.
First, there were Magisters coming and going at all hours. That might be expected, considering that this mansion was owned by the Head of the Magister's Guild, but it was still disturbing to look across the street and see men and women carrying tall, strange staves. Everyone in the Empire knew what a staff like that meant, and no one wanted to cross the Magisters. They could do things with Intent that normal Readers couldn't dream of, and Shera had to respect the danger.
Worse, she imagined what it would feel like to leap down onto a Magister, plunging Syphren into his back, draining the power from his body. She almost shuddered at the thought, gripping the dagger tight. With each new arrival, it was harder and harder to fight the call of her Vessel.
She eventually had to unbuckle her shears and slide them across the roof, much to Ayana's silent shock. The thoughts didn't go away, but they retreated to a manageable level.
Back on observation duty, the situation soon turned even worse. The statues on the property were more than they appeared. When a group of children ran up to the lawn, chasing a runaway hoop, one of the tigers swiveled its neck to look at them. They left their hoop where it was.
So not only were the tigers Awakened, but they could move of their own volition. Shera had never even seen the Emperor bring inanimate objects to life, though she wouldn't be surprised to learn he could do it. Seeing it here, in the Capital...all of a sudden, every shaped hedge represented a potential security threat.
Even Ayana reacted to that, her breathing growing quicker, her bladed fingers tightening on the edge of the roof. It was worse when a pigeon tried to land on the head of a gargoyle, and the statue reached up and swatted the bird aside.
Then the world shook like the skin of a drum, and a hairline crack appeared in the sky.
It almost looked harmless: a thin pen-scratch on the blue of the horizon, shaped like a jagged lightning bolt. Shera might have overlooked it, except that it was a crack in the sky.
The Magisters reacted immediately, scurrying out of their mansion and running around the grounds like Imperial Guards faced with an unexpected attack. At that point, Shera broke stealth and whispered to Ayana, “We need help.”
Instead of chastising her, Ayana nodded.
Shera sent a messenger to the Luminians, who were waiting nearby in case of an emergency. Only an hour later, Darius himself arrived, bunching a hooded coat as though he was cold. He was a surprisingly good actor for someone so open; she would have thought he was actually raising his hood against the wind if she didn't know the real reason.
He climbed up the rope with impressive athletic coordination, ducking behind a defunct industrial chimney to look them each in the eye. Well, she assumed that was where he was looking from behind his permanent mask of darkness.
“We have no better idea than you do,” he said. He sounded excited rather than frightened, as she thought would be more appropriate. “It has to be the Elders, because who else could or would crack the sky? It defies everything we know about astronomy and our planet’s atmosphere, which is fairly consistent for Elder work. They don’t much care for the laws of the universe.”
“We’re not worried about the sky,” Shera said.
“She does not represent both of us in that statement,” Ayana whispered. Her eyes hadn’t left the horizon.
It had startled Shera at first, true, but she’d come to a very simple realization. “It’s not our job to worry about the plans of the Great Elders.”
“It’s my job,” Darius pointed out.
“Yes, and I’m sure you’ll have it sorted out by tomorrow morning. My job is to watch that house for signs of our assassins, and to retrieve a subject for questioning if possible. I’m concerned that their security is too tight, especially now that all the Magisters are…agitated.”
Shera had never planned on infiltrating Mekendi Maxeus’ mansion as a first resort, but it remained in the back of her mind as a possibility. But now…the security had been alarmingly intense even before the Elders attacked the sky. They needed a Reader’s report of the home.
“Your faith in my abilities is flattering,” Darius said. “Let me delay my investigation of a potentially world-ending crisis and I’ll check out this home for you.”
Shera patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t take too long. The world might come to an end, you know.”
Forty-five minutes later, he met them behind their rooftop perch once again. “Well, I can't give you much help.”
“Explain,” Ayana said shortly.
He shrugged. “It's un-Readable. I've never heard of such a thing, but the Intent on and around the grounds is all...scrambled. I was just trying to get a general sense of the place, and I felt everything from the utter desolation after a battle to a happy home full of children. Nothing accurate.”
Thanks to years of working with Lucan, Shera knew a bit of what Reading required. “Do you need to get closer?”
“Wouldn't help. To get any sort of Read on that house, I'd have to be close enough to rub my nose on the door.” He gestured to his hood. “In a manner of speaking. And I doubt something that obvious would be good for any of us.”
After Darius left, Ayana and Shera had returned to their spot on the roof. The day became colder and colder, and the Magisters started to thin out. It seemed that anyone useful in their investigation of the cracked sky had already been sent elsewhere, and the rest were just waiting around to hear word. Therefore, Shera and Ayana were forced to do the same.
Finally, just before sunset, a shadow flicked through the gardens in the yard and through a side entrance. Shera elbowed Ayana, who nodded—she'd seen it too.
A man in all black, carrying a pair of heavy knives on the back of his belt.
They'd found their cut-rate Gardeners after all.
“That's one,” Ayana whispered. “There should be more. We need another to confirm.”
Almost on cue, a woman slipped through the alley just underneath them. She strolled casually across the street, despite her tight black outfit, and passed between the gargoyles on the way into the mansion.
“Confirmed and witnessed,” Shera said. “Bag the next one?”
Ayana returned her eyes to the streets. “I'll cover you.”
It was more than an hour until the next potential candidate: he was older this time, closer to Ayana's age than Shera's, and broad across the shoulders. His knives were more like short swords, and he swaggered out of the alley to their left.
At the sight of him, Shera's bloodlust surged. She slipped down a rope concealed against the side of the building, her imagination turning red with thoughts of murder. When she killed him, his power would fuel her. She would finally feel awake again, alive again...
The voice died away, and she came back to herself. Her thoughts had transitioned into Syphren's whispered voice without her even noticing.
The wrappings are decaying too fast. She needed a replacement binding for her blade now; she couldn't afford to wait until they returned to the Gray Island.
Such were the thoughts that occupied her mind as she drove a poisoned needle into the big man's neck. She just managed to catch him as he fell backwards, her knees aching under the weight of his body. Puffing and panting, she dragged him farther back into the alley, testing the handle of a nearby door. Locked.
According to the information provided by the Luminians, this building—the same building on wh
ich she and Ayana waited—was used to store third-rate alchemical supplies that had been rejected by Kanatalia. It should be unmanned, and practically empty. A shipment had just gone out, and the stock wouldn't be replaced for months.
It was the perfect place to pose a few questions to a fake Consultant. If they could get the lock open.
Shera might have been able to force the door, but she had left her shears on the roof. She started back toward the rope to climb up the side of the building, only to find Ayana staring at her from six inches away.
Without a word, the older Gardener pushed her away with the tip of her iron claws. She busied herself with the lock for a moment, sparks flashed in the shadows, and the door swung open.
Whatever issues Ayana had against her Imperial Guard parents, she had certainly learned to use their gifts.
Together, they wrestled the black-clad man into the warehouse. Two minutes of searching in the dark provided them a three-legged chair, and Ayana produced a roll of tight cord from her belt, binding him to his seat.
Then they leaned against a pile of packing crates, waiting for him to wake up.
“Who is he?” Ayana asked, her voice scraping in the quiet.
Shera peered at him carefully, dredging her memory. She had always been quicker with numbers than faces, and of course it had been fifteen years since she'd seen him. He could have been the smallest runt under Maxwell's care. Ultimately, she came up with nothing.
“Either I've never seen him before, or he's changed that much since he was a child.” In the spirit of honesty, she added, “Or I just don't remember.”
Ayana clashed her bladed fingernails together, as she had when she was dissatisfied with an answer from her students. “That's unfortunate.”
It was. Any detail Shera could call up would inform their questions, allowing them to get more accurate information more quickly.
He stirred, and Shera reached for her shears out of habit. Torture was not the most reliable method of gathering information, but she found intimidation worked perfectly well. If he was convinced she could and would kill him, he should cooperate.
She started to walk out, heading up to the roof to retrieve her belt, when Ayana handed it over. One shear was loose in the sheath, and the other wrapped in bandage. “I taught you better than to leave this behind.”
Shera took the belt, immediately feeling a surge of hungry greed. “Drain him, claim him! Then her, then the feast across the street...”
“I've been through some changes since then,” Shera responded. Ayana gave her an odd look, almost concerned, but ultimately nodded.
Finally, their captive shook off the bonds of alchemy and woke with a scowl. He flexed his arms against the cords, found them solid, and pushed the floor with his feet. When he learned that his ankles had been tied to the feet of his chair, he settled down, eyeing them with obvious anger.
Ayana stepped up, using her inhuman appearance to full advantage. Her pale hair seemed to shimmer in the dim light, her pink eyes wide. Bladed hands flashed in front of his face, and a voice like a specter's howl said, “Tell us who you are.”
Shera had seen the show before, but the man rocked back on his chair. “Light and life! Where...” he worked his jaw, as though it wasn't quite working. “Where am I?”
She drove a fingernail into his side until it drew blood and a grunt. “Who are you?”
Gradually, the fear faded and the anger grew. “You've made a deadly mistake,” he said. “You won't live out the night.”
It had only been a few seconds, but Shera found that the earlier a prisoner started spouting threats, the less productive they were likely to be. She walked over, drawing Syphren and pressing the flat of its blade against the side of his throat.
At that, he froze.
“I could draw your life out through your skin,” she whispered in his ear. “This is my Vessel. I could drain away your soul, leave your lifeless husk in the alley, and repeat on the next of your friends to stop this way. I've got all night. When I get what I want, I'll go home and sleep like the dead.”
Intimidation wasn't difficult for her, as she usually didn't care whether she killed a man or let him go, but tonight...tonight, Syphren was writing the script. It was harder and harder to resist carrying out her threats.
He looked between the two of them, breathing heavily. “They call me Akko.”
Another traditional name of the Am'haranai, taken straight out of the Consultant history books. Shera looked at Ayana, but the older woman had already moved on to a different question. “You're working for someone, Akko. Who?”
His breaths came faster and faster. “The Magister's Guild. They took us in after the Emperor's death, completed our training. Our father, Maxwell, never got the chance.”
His eyes flicked to Shera's face and then away as he said that. He knew. She may not have remembered him, but he certainly remembered her.
Shera was a little surprised that both of the half-trained assassins she'd met so far had recognized her on sight. Had she changed so little since she was a girl? Or had she made such an impression on them?
“How many of you are there?” Ayana asked.
“Thirty, maybe. You shouldn't have taken me.”
“And where are the others, Akko?”
“You shouldn't have taken me,” he repeated, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. He began making a visible effort to control his breathing.
Ayana drove another finger into his side, making him flinch. “Where?”
His eyes opened, unfocused, and he stared at the ceiling. “All around us.”
In the shadows around them, figures in black stepped out, knives in their hands. Shera stared blankly.
There's no way. That's not possible. She would never have missed that many people before, much less with her Soulbound powers. With Syphren on her waist, she should have felt them coming a block away.
Then a few more silhouettes stepped into the dim light from the high windows, and the mystery was solved. They were carrying staves.
The Magisters had hidden their group somehow, slipping inside the building undetected. This whole thing, from the presence of the warehouse to the knock-off Consultants crossing the street openly, had been one obvious trap.
She'd seen them preparing, but had assumed that they were inviting a fight from the other Guilds. The Magisters shouldn’t have known that she and Ayana were even in the city, and certainly not that they had any interest in Magister business.
Shera wasn't used to being on the side that was lacking information. She didn't enjoy it.
At last, a final figure stepped out from behind a pile of crates. He was a tall Heartlander in a stately suit, a seven-foot ash-gray staff in one hand. It burned on the end with a warm orange flame, lighting his companions and the interior of the building. On his face was a jet-black mask.
Mekendi Maxeus. Head of the Magister's Guild.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “It’s been quite an eventful day, hasn’t it? I think we may have something to discuss.”
Shera's knife didn't want to listen. Even trapped in a warehouse, surrounded by enemy assassins in black and Magisters with their staves ready for battle, Syphren begged her to attack.
“Drain the life from their bodies!” it said. “Steal their power and make it your own!”
Shera felt the Vessel's urging as though it came from within her, but she knew better. The knife was wrong. It believed they could take on this room full of killers and powerful Readers, while she knew otherwise. Ayana, beside her, had clearly recognized the same thing: she'd spread her bladed hands in surrender, standing next to Shera with a completely open expression on her face. She would attack if she saw a chance to escape, but she wouldn't start a fight without an advantage. Nor would Shera.
But Syphren's still, small voice continued working on her, whispering in her ear, until she almost wanted to kill someone just to shut it up.
“Ladies, I kno
w this is abrupt, but let me reiterate that I’ve had a very stressful day.” Mekendi Maxeus looked every inch the Heartlander gentlemen, with two exceptions: his staff, which carried a luminous flame, and his black mask. The mask covered his face, a shade darker than his skin, completely hiding his expressions. Shera had to go by his voice, which sounded polite and pleasant enough.
Her Vessel told her something of a different story. Through it, she was aware of the power of everyone in the room—the Magisters burned with a heat deeper and stronger than ordinary people. But Maxeus was different. His Intent was packed within him, coiled and completely controlled, ready to strike at his direction.
If he wanted to talk, she'd let him talk.
“We've known about you since the start,” he continued. “Your Guild has the lion's share of the information, but it doesn't have a monopoly on the market, as it were. The hundreds of Readers who work for me aren't blind.”
“I'm sorry we disturbed you,” Ayana said, her rasping voice unusually gentle. “Guild business, you understand. We had no idea this man was in your employ, and you're welcome to him.”
Maxeus tapped the end of his staff against the floor. “You know, I heard every question you asked him, and each of his replies. It's not hard to infer, from context, the direction of your questioning. A few of my colleagues would be very happy indeed with me if I caught you and displayed your corpses, thus proving that I had no choice but to defend myself against an assault from Consultant's Guild assassins.”
His voice never changed, and Syphren told her that his Intent never shifted, but Shera still tensed. It lined up with the news from the Luminian Order, and with the actions of the Imperial Guards: the Imperialist Guilds wanted to start a fight. By walking into this fight, Shera and Ayana had given them exactly what they wanted.
If they're dead, they can tell no one.
“Consultant's Guild?” Ayana asked. “I think you'll find that you have no way of identifying us as Consultants, sir.”
“I'm sure I won't need much proof. My Readers and I will know, and the other Guild Heads know enough to recognize your Gardeners at work. They won't be difficult to convince. It is the truth, after all.”