Dare (The Blades of Acktar Book 1)

by Tricia Mingerink

  To disguise the source of his discomfort, he pushed himself into a sitting position. His wound twisted and shot fresh pain through his body. He pressed a hand to the bandage as if he could hold the pain there. A hand under his elbow steadied him while someone tugged his pillow into a better position behind him.

  He glanced up. Renna hovered next to him, adjusting his pillow and steadying him. She retreated back to the chair and swiped her hands on her skirt. Her eyes flicked to his arm before swerving to the tray.

  Leith glanced down at his right arm. His marks stood out starkly, thirty-four reasons to fear him. Should he tug the blanket to his chin to cover them? No, that’d admit he felt ashamed. He couldn’t show a weakness like that. Not to her. Not to anyone.

  Renna handed out the food. Leith smiled when he received his plate of beef roast and mashed potatoes. Finally some decent food.

  Brandi glanced at Renna and bowed her head. Renna’s gaze flicked in his direction before she also bowed her head. “Our Father God in Heaven…”

  Father. Leith’s breath caught in his throat. The word rolled from Renna’s mouth so easily, as if the title meant something warm and comforting.

  Not someone to be feared.

  “Amen.” Renna raised her head and glared at him. He focused his gaze on his plate. She wouldn’t understand this. He’d seen her father sacrifice himself to save her. Leith’s father…Leith clenched his fingers. His father had sacrificed Leith to save himself.

  Renna nibbled at her lunch. Her worry ate at her appetite. Brandi didn’t seem to care that the Blade posed a danger to them. If Renna were to guess, she’d say that Brandi thought of the Blade as a friend. Was the Blade using her little sister to gain information?

  The Blade wiggled into a better sitting position. The muscles in his arms and chest rippled. She swallowed at the knot in her throat. Every day he could move a bit more by himself. Soon, he’d be up and walking.

  What dangers would he pose then? He claimed he’d had nothing to do with Michelle Allen’s kidnapping, but he was a Blade. He couldn’t be trusted.

  She glanced at the door. She’d only stayed because she’d wanted to keep an eye on how he was treating Brandi. She shouldn’t have worried. Brandi had him as wrapped around her finger as she had everyone else, the goats and horses in the stables included.

  He set the tray on the bedside table, the food half-eaten. A frown lined his face and scrunched his forehead, a look he’d worn since she’d prayed before the meal. Was he angry they kept praying in front of him?

  “You shouldn’t waste good food like that.” The heat in her chest straightened her spine. “But I guess you’re used to having so much food you can waste it.”

  Brandi glanced at her, cheeks bulging, eyebrows tilted.

  His green eyes speared her. “We’re given our portion at the castle but no more than that. I’m grateful to have that much. You were rich once. You grew up with plentiful food, servants, new clothes. I didn’t.”

  Renna picked at a clump of lint on her skirt. At one time, she hadn’t worried about the food for their next meal. She’d had several new dresses every year instead of one whenever her last dress fell apart. Her parents had sheltered her from work, all except learning healing with Aunt Mara, an amusement to indulge a child.

  Time to change the subject. “How did you grow up?” Where had the Blades come from? They seemed like they’d always been men, always killers, always Blades.

  Brandi stopped chewing and stared at the Blade.

  He turned his face away. “You’re poor, but you have good food on the table every day, a nice house providing a roof over your head, and a family who cares for you.”

  “I should have more family.” Fire rushed across her face and curled in her chest.

  “At least they cared about you.” He wrapped his arms over his stomach. “My father was a drunk. My mother and I wore clothes she could patch together from the charity bin and ate burnt and leftover food we could beg from shopkeepers at the end of the day. Our house, if you could call it that, was smaller than this room.”

  Renna tried to imagine a house smaller than the tiny bedroom. Pity stabbed her chest. No, not pity. She couldn’t pity him. He was a Blade.

  “I ended up a servant to King Respen when he was lord of Blathe. He trained me to be a Blade. He’s been decent, at least. We get a roof over our heads and food. He rewards us with marks.”

  Renna blinked at him. She’d always thought Blades were voluntary, paid killers. That they’d joined the ranks of the Blades willingly, reaping vast rewards for their evil deeds. But the picture this Blade painted... “You’re a slave to him.”

  His head shot up, his green eyes widening. “No, it’s not like that.”

  “You’re provided with food, shelter, and clothes, but nothing more. You have to obey every order he gives you. Are you punished for failing?”

  “Yes, but only after three failures.”

  “Are you allowed to quit or leave?” Renna leaned on the bedpost.

  “No.” His voice dropped, as if he didn’t want to admit the truth. “King Respen hunts us down if we don’t return.”

  “And then what? You mentioned punishment. What kind of punishment?”

  The eyes he turned her way had been stripped of their hardness. “Death. Death for three failures. Death for trying to avoid punishment. Death if we try to run.” He squeezed his eyes shut, hanging his head.

  She needed time to think, and she could hear the strains of the second service starting. She rushed from the room, releasing out a long breath when she was safe in the hallway.

  Renna’s words rattled in his head. King Respen owned him. He hadn’t told Renna and Brandi the full truth. King Respen owned him more than they thought.

  But being a Blade was a privilege only to be won by those tough enough to survive the training and skilled enough to never fail afterwards.

  He’d never seen himself as a slave. After the first time he’d been asked to kill, he hadn’t felt forced. His will had been King Respen’s will. He’d never questioned it, never resisted it.

  Until now. Renna and Brandi had cared for him. They’d given him his life and didn’t demand anything in return. When he reported to King Respen, he’d reward that kindness with danger, if not death.

  Unless he listened to the desire to resist.

  Resistance was a bad idea. Bad things happened to those that resisted King Respen. To spare them, he’d have to risk death himself. And he wasn’t brave enough for that.

  Brandi bounced off the end of the bed and set her plate on the table. She waved at his unfinished meal. “Are you going to eat any more?”

  Leith shook his head. He cleared his throat. “Do you have any more Daniel stories?” Somehow, the Daniel stories tasted like a sweet form of resistance.

  That devious, almost scary grin returned to Brandi’s face. Her eyes sparkled with the gleam of a hunter who has her prey right where she wants it. “Well, this story isn’t really a Daniel story since he isn’t in it. But his three friends are.”

  Brandi settled into her story-telling voice. Leith relaxed along with her. “The evil king liked the huge statue from his dream so much that he decided to make one himself, though his would be all gold. After he built this statue, he decreed that everybody had to bow down and worship it when he gave the signal. If they didn’t, they’d be thrown into a furnace and burned up.”

  Leith got a sour taste in his mouth. He could see where this story was going. Daniel’s three friends had refused the king’s food. They weren’t going to bow down to this statue. The king was going to punish them, and they’d die in that furnace.

  “When the time came, the king ordered all these musical instruments to play. Everyone bowed down, except for Daniel’s three friends. Some of the men, who were not happy that these three captives had been promoted over them, told the king. The king was very angry, so he had the three friends arrested and dragged to his throne room.” She gripped fistfuls of air and
dragged it towards her.

  Could Brandi see his hands shaking? He saw another king’s darkened room, King Respen meeting with his Blades, one of them chained against the wall awaiting punishment.

  Even now, First Blade Vane hunted Zed Burin. After his third failure, Zed had run into the Waste, the desert on the eastern side of the Sheered Rock Hills. A foolish chance. Vane would catch him. Vane always did.

  “The king asked the three men if it was true. He even gave them a way out to say that they hadn’t been ready the first time and would bow the second time. But, they refused. They could not worship the statue. The king was so angry that he ordered his men to make the furnace seven times hotter than it already was.”

  Brandi’s voice built as she made tying motions with her hands. “The three friends were tied up, dragged to the furnace, and thrown in!”

  Leith couldn’t help the small noise in the back of his throat. He needed the friends to get out of it somehow, to succeed in their resistance.

  “The fire was so hot that it killed the men who’d thrown the friends into the furnace.” Brandi leaned closer, her voice deepening as if imparting a secret. “But, the king looked into that furnace, and he turned to his men and asked, ‘Didn’t we throw three men, bound, into that fire?’ His men agreed. The king pointed at the furnace. ‘I see four men, unhurt, untied, and walking in there, and the fourth man looks like the Son of God.’”

  Leith gaped at Brandi. This story had turned really strange. “How can someone look like the son of God?”

  She smirked and raised her eyebrows. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”

  He slammed his mouth shut. Of course he did, no matter how strange it got from here.

  “So the king told the three friends to get out of that furnace. They did and the whole court looked at them. The men weren’t hurt. Their clothes and hair weren’t even singed, and they didn’t even smell like smoke. The king was so astonished that he made a new decree that anyone who spoke against the God of the three friends would be punished.”

  Leith stared at Brandi for several minutes, not sure which of his thoughts to say first, if any. “You really believe these stories?”

  She gave him a look, like he was the strange one. “You don’t?”

  Grabbing the lunch tray, she waltzed from the room, a satisfied smile on her face.

  Leith fell back on the pillow. Great. Now both sisters gave him too much to think about. His life had been so simple before. Now everything jumbled in a knot he didn’t want to unravel because he didn’t know what else would unravel with it.

  9

  By the time Thursday crawled in, Leith couldn’t stand lying in bed any longer. Sitting up, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  Yesterday, Brandi had fetched his saddlebags for him. He dug out his second black shirt and tugged it over his head. The fabric fell over his shoulders, covering his marks. For a moment, he could almost pretend he wasn’t a Blade.

  He tottered over to the door of his room and swung it open. The corridor to the kitchen stretched into the distance. Each step shot pain down his legs.

  Glancing back, he groaned. He’d only gone about five feet from his door. Closing his eyes, he leaned against the wall.

  When he’d caught his breath, Leith managed to hobble down the rest of the corridor. As he entered, the lively conversation died a quick death.

  He slumped into a seat by the table and rested his arms on the wooden surface. He glanced around at the blank faces and let his head sag.

  With a laden silence pressing on the room, Brandi placed pewter plates onto the table. Mara set a pot on the table while Renna added cups and a jug of goat’s milk.

  Lachlan slid into the seat at the head of the table. Mara and Renna clustered at the end of the table as far away from Leith as possible. Brandi hopped into the seat across from him. At least someone didn’t fear him.

  After a brief hesitation, Lachlan bowed his head. To be polite, Leith bowed his head too as Lachlan’s voice drifted around the table. “Our God in Heaven, bless this meal we are about to eat. Strengthen us to walk on the right path. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

  As Leith raised his head, he stifled the questions that burned his tongue. Who was this Jesus they kept mentioning? Brandi had ended her prayer in Jesus’s name also. What power could a mere name hold?

  Mara pushed to her feet and picked up the pot with a cloth-wrapped hand. Brandi scrabbled for her bowl and held it out. Mara’s mouth tipped into a frown as her blue eyes flicked towards him. “Guests first.”

  “Oh, right.” Brandi plunked her bowl back on the table and stared at Leith.

  Wait, he was the guest? He was a nuisance. Perhaps a burden. He held up his bowl, and Mara ladled a portion of vegetable soup into it. The air filled with salt and basil.

  He should say something. What was the polite thing to say? He forced a smile. “Thank-you. It looks delicious.”

  She halted, her eyes darting back and forth as she studied him. “You’re welcome.” A smile creased her face into layers of wrinkles. A strand of gray-blond hair drifted out of her bun.

  An ache stabbed Leith’s chest. The last time he’d seen his mother, she’d smiled at him just like that, her black hair falling around her shoulders as she gave him a bowl of watery soup made from a bone he’d scavenged. He’d never had a chance to say goodbye. Not that it mattered. His mother must not have wanted him any more than his father did.

  The ladle clanked and soup splashed as the family received their meal. Leith blew on a spoonful and eyed them.

  The silence curled around him. Did they expect him to start a conversation? What did people normally talk about over family meals? He and Martyn Hamish usually talked about their last mission or knives or something like that when they ate their meals in the Tower common room.

  He met Brandi’s gaze. He could count on her to break the silence. “How’s my horse?”

  “Well, Ginger—that’s our goat—has decided Blizzard’s back is the best place to nap. I don’t think Blizzard minds. He doesn’t stand up unless she starts moving around too much.”

  Leith popped another spoonful of soup into his mouth to stop his grin. Just like that, the tense silence melted under Brandi’s chatter.

  As everyone swiped the last of the food from their plates, Leith caught the surreptitious looks shared around the table. He glanced between them. “I already know you’re Christians, you pray before meals, you hold Sunday services in your home, and you own a Bible.”

  Renna gasped and hunched her shoulders.

  Brandi smirked as if she didn’t care he knew enough to get her killed. “And you know the first few chapters of Daniel. We’re up to Daniel 5. Would you read it tonight, Uncle Abel?”

  With a last glance at Leith, Lachlan stood and strode to the pantry. After a few minutes of rummaging, he returned with a worn book in his hand.

  So the Daniel stories were in the Bible. Leith scrubbed his damp palms across his thighs. He shouldn’t listen to them. They were banned by King Respen, and he’d be participating by listening. Worse, he’d enjoyed the stories. Had asked for more. Remained silent even now as Lachlan read.

  The words flowed differently than Brandi’s re-worded versions, but the story had a familiar feel. The evil king’s grandson was now king. This grandson liked to host wild parties. While he was at one of these parties, God’s hand wrote words on the wall. Everyone stopped what they were doing. Daniel was summoned, and he interpreted those words as a warning that the kingdom would be overtaken by a different kingdom, and that night it happened just as Daniel said.

  Leith shifted. Perhaps this explained why King Respen didn’t like the Bible. In the last story Brandi told him, the king lived like an animal for seven years to humble his pride. In this story, the king was overthrown as God’s judgment. King Respen wouldn’t want to be told that he was under anyone’s control, even God’s.

  But it shouldn’t matter. King Respen didn’t believe in
this stuff. Nor did Leith. So why did it scratch at him? They were just stories. Nothing more.

  When Lachlan finished, Renna and Brandi stood and gathered the plates. Leith placed his hands on the table. He should offer to help. That was the polite thing, wasn’t it?

  As he gathered his strength to stand, the kitchen door resounded under a firm knock. Renna peeked out the window. Her face paled. “It’s Sheriff Allen.”

  Mara glanced between the door and Leith. “He must want to search the manor this time.”

  Leith’s stomach clenched. Surely after all the time they’d spent healing him, they wouldn’t hand him over to be killed now? He hung his head. Why should he trust the goodness of these people? They had no reason to spare his life.

  As the door rattled again, Lachlan pushed away from the table. “Mara, see if you can delay him. Brandi, offer to take care of his horse. Don’t let him go into the stable. Renna, you and I will take care of the Blade.”

  That’s all he was to them. The Blade.

  Leith sucked in a breath as Lachlan yanked him to his feet. Renna wrapped his other arm over her shoulders.

  Together, they hauled him from the room. As the door closed behind them, Leith could hear Mara welcoming the sheriff into the manor.

  “Where are we going to put him?” Renna leaned her face away from him.

  Leith stumbled. His wound throbbed with the exertion. The meal he’d eaten threatened to come back up, coating his tongue with vinegar.

  “In here will work.” Lachlan dragged him into a bedchamber.

  The room contained nothing more than a bed, the quilt thrown back at the end, a washstand, a wardrobe, and a bedside table. Grey paint covered the walls while worn boards creaked under his feet. A haphazard pile of books tumbled across the bedside table while a basket sat on the floor, the linens from the bed piled in it.

  “Mara was planning to wash the sheets. We’ll hide him here.”

  Leith stared at the basket. “I’m supposed to curl up in that?”