Assassin's Heart

by Sarah Ahiers

  He held up his hands. “Lea, I simply want to make your stay here in Yvain easier. That’s it. If you’re not at your best, then your training won’t be your best either. I’m sure you’re starving, and honestly, I could use the company.”

  “Are you going to show me how to make the timed bomb?”

  He at least had the decency to feel embarrassed, judging by the way his throat turned red. “No, we can’t during the day.”

  I glared at him. He had to be delaying things. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t trust him.

  “We had a deal,” I said. This was taking too long. I hadn’t accomplished anything yet, and Faraday’s letter urged me to hurry. I couldn’t spend any more time here.

  “I know. We can work on it tomorrow night.”

  “Tonight.”

  He shook his head. “It’ll take me time to get all the supplies we’ll need. But tomorrow night. I promise. Now, let’s get something to eat before we starve.”

  I didn’t want to wait another night here. I wanted to head home to Lovero. I wanted to kill the Da Vias.

  For now, I would stay on his good side. If I couldn’t get the bomb tonight, then maybe I could work on one of my other necessities. And Les was right. I was famished.

  I smoothed the skirt of my stained dress. I desperately missed my closet of clothes. Each dress I’d owned I’d picked out myself, and they had been tailored to accentuate my good bits and hide the not-as-good bits. And wearing the same clothes over and over again just made me easier for Lefevre to spot me in a crowd. I needed a change, but for that, I would need more money. But there was nothing I could do about that problem.

  I gestured to the back window. “Less chance someone will see us.”

  We slipped outside, replaced the boards, and headed toward a city square. Alessio kept up a steady stream of chatter, pointing out landmarks and interesting facts of the city, and I nodded when it was appropriate and asked the occasional questions to make it seem like I was interested, but mostly I was lost in my own thoughts.

  It seemed so natural to spend time with someone, a boy, Les, in broad daylight. Val and I had hidden in the shadows, kept everything secret. Which had been exciting, but looking back, it had also been stressful, sometimes, and tiring. It would’ve been nice to have Val court me for real, to go out in public with him and not worry about who might see us.

  It didn’t matter. I couldn’t be with Val anymore. His Family had destroyed mine. Regardless of how I felt about Val, salvaging our relationship was not possible.

  That didn’t mean, though, that I wanted someone else. I glanced at Les, his long neck, his large nose. He winked at me and pointed to a building where a priest had held off a dozen angry ghosts, armed with nothing but his faith, until the sun had risen hours later. Les was funny and kind, and he actually seemed to understand some of what I was feeling. But he also held the keys to the Da Vias, and I wasn’t here for friends.

  Les paused and handed a beggar woman a coin.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked when we were far enough away.

  “Because she needed the help.”

  “But she’ll probably just spend it on chetham leaves or something else.”

  “Or maybe she’ll spend it on food, or a warmer shawl, or to pay back a debt she owes so she can greet Acacius gladly at the end of her life.”

  I turned away from his eyes and how they seemed to see right through me. There was no point to helping that woman. She wouldn’t give Les anything in return.

  “Here we are.” Les flourished his hand in front of a small street vendor, serving skewers of lamb. He bought us each one, and then led us away.

  “Alessio!” a man shouted, and Les waved at him.

  “A friend of yours?”

  He shook his head. “No friends. Only me and the old man. People don’t stick around.” He cleared his throat and suddenly seemed older.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Nineteen. You?”

  “Seventeen.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure you had a lot of friends left behind. You’re just short of royalty there.”

  I shrugged. “I learned very young they were more interested in what I was than who I was. Maybe they’re hoping for favors from Safraella, or from a Family. Maybe they’re more interested in the wealth and power. And even if they aren’t, it can be difficult to keep any friendships because, try as they might, the common can’t fully understand. My brother Rafeo was my greatest friend. Then my cousin, Jesep. And my suitor, Val. I spent a lot of time with him.”

  He paused so slightly it was barely noticeable. “Suitor? You must really miss him.”

  “No.” I brushed the sides of my dress. “He was a Da Via. I’d rather avoid seeing him again for the rest of my life.”

  Les paused and watched me. His study made my nerves twitch, and when I was nervous I blushed.

  “Was he there?” he asked. “The night of the attack?”

  I stepped over a cracked cobblestone. “I’m not sure. I didn’t recognize anyone. I didn’t even realize they were Da Vias until Rafeo told me. I confirmed it with the king.”

  Les tripped. “Did you say the king?”

  I nodded.

  “I was mostly joking when I compared you to royalty earlier. . . .”

  “Well, any clipper can speak to the king. He’s a disciple of Safraella too. And my father and Costanzo Sapienza were good friends since childhood. My father helped put him on the throne.”

  Les nodded, his eyes wide as he took this in. “How would a relationship with another clipper work? I thought the Families were all at war with one another.”

  “Some of the Families have good relationships. Gallo and Zarella, for example.”

  “But weren’t you always worried your suitor Val was planning something?”

  I blinked. “In hindsight maybe I should’ve been more worried. But I’d known Val my whole life and we shared a territory, Ravenna, so there was overlap.” I picked a speck of lint off the sleeve of my dress. “No one knew about us. We kept it secret. There was no love between the Saldanas and Da Vias.”

  Alessio tugged on the pendant resting on his chest and led me down another side street. “But what about that saying I’ve heard . . . ‘Family over family.’ Doesn’t that mean you really should fraternize with each other?”

  “Mm.” I pushed my hair behind my ears. “What that means is you put your clipper Family before your blood family. So if your father tells you one thing, and the head of the Family tells you another, you do what the head tells you.”

  “That seems backward.”

  “Everything we have is due to Family. My status doesn’t come from being the daughter of Dante and Bianca. It comes because I’m a member of the Saldana Family. Anyone who joins us, through birth or marriage or adoption, is named Saldana. That’s Family. That is more important than blood ties. It has to be if we’re to survive the way we have for generations.”

  Les scratched his jaw, lost in thought.

  Speaking too much about the Nine Families turned my stomach. I stopped. We were wasting time I didn’t have. “What are we doing?” I asked. “What did you want to show me?”

  “This.” He stopped and waved his hand before him.

  Resting on canal waters that twirled lazily before us, moored to the alley so it wouldn’t float away, bobbed a boat.

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  twenty

  “A BOAT.”

  “My boat, yes. It’s clear you don’t know anything about our canals or boats, so I thought I’d show you how to work one and map out some of the waterways.”

  “I know how to use a boat. Ravenna has a seaport.”

  “Canal boats are different. You steer them with a pole while standing, but they’re flat bottomed and they rock easily. It takes skill to stop from falling in.” He untied the boat
and held the rope in his hand.

  “I don’t have my own a boat, though.”

  “Then borrow one. They’re tagged and someone will return it to its owner.” He tapped the boat and a symbol carved into the prow, declaring who it belonged to. “Returning it will accrue a debt and the common enjoy a debt.”

  What could teaching me how to work a boat gain him? “Why would I even need to know this? It’s not like I plan on staying.”

  “Because the canals are the best way to escape the ghosts,” he answered.

  I thought of my first night here and knew he was right. Still, I hesitated.

  He sighed. “Remember how I said my mother was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m only half traveler, on my mother’s side, and the two of us were visiting Yvain with my grandfather. I think they were looking for my father, so she could leave me with him. When she was murdered, we had to identify her body. My grandfather wanted her to be carted home. He told me to stay at the law office and wait for him while he made arrangements with her body. And he never came back.”

  “He left you there? Alone? How old were you?”

  “Seven.”

  I tried not to picture little boy Les, sitting on a chair, knowing his mother was dead and waiting for someone to come for him. My chest ached for that child.

  “So the lawmen kicked me out onto the street. The sun had set and they were tired of watching me and there’s no love for travelers here. I hid beneath a bush, trying not to cry. But the ghosts found me. They always find you. I had to outrun them until finally I just spent the night in a canal, hanging on to the edge and swimming into the center if one came too close to me. That went on for a week or two. Then I met your uncle and he took me in.”

  The boat had drifted, and he yanked the rope to bring it closer. “So now you know. When I say the canals will keep you safe from the ghosts, you can believe me.”

  He gestured for me to step onto the boat. My burned palm throbbed, and I tightened my hand into a fist. Any escape from the ghosts was a skill worth having.

  I stepped onto the boat and it rocked immediately, threatening to spill me into the water.

  Les jumped in beside me, a long canal pole in his hands. “I’m going to push us around a bit. You should stay standing so you get a feel of the boat and how easily it shifts. This canal leads to our home, and I’ll show you how it connects to your place, too.”

  “Why? I already know how to find your home.”

  He grinned. “In case you need another way to reach me.”

  I scowled. He was too familiar with me sometimes. “So, your grandfather,” I said. “You were family. How could he abandon you like you were worse than livestock?”

  Les pushed the boat roughly, and I swung my arms out to keep my balance.

  “My family wasn’t very accepting of me, being a half-blood. Every day I’d clean the tiger cages and dream of getting closer to them, of taking care of them. But my family made me stay away. All the men and women who worked with the tigers scarred their forearms with tiger claws, to mark their important status.” Les gestured to the top of his forearm, dragging his fingers like claws across the skin. “As you can see, no scars for me, because taking care of the tigers meant you belonged. And I didn’t. I was less than them, not worthy.

  “And here, in Rennes, they weren’t accepting of me either. Only your uncle didn’t seem to care about my heritage.” He leaned forward, using the pole to drag the boat around a corner.

  “Safraella doesn’t care,” I said. “A death is a death. Marcello would have been raised to believe so, too.”

  “While my grandfather spoke to the lawmen about my mother, before he left, I snuck in to see her. She always wore a pendant. Said it was a gift from her grandmother and contained old magic. I wasn’t allowed to touch it because I was only half traveler.”

  He lifted the pendant I’d seen before from under his shirt. It was a disc-shaped agate, with shades of blue radiating out from the center, polished to a high sheen.

  “I took it, to remember her by. I didn’t know I’d never see any of my family again, but my grandfather didn’t notice what I’d done. I’m sure he was angry when he got home and saw her pendant missing. It’s all I have left of them. All I have from my previous life.”

  I raised my eyebrow, trying to lighten the somber mood we’d fallen into. “Was that your first time being a thief?”

  He chuckled. “No. Travelers worship three gods. One of them, Boamos, is a god of thievery and wealth. I’d definitely dabbled before. I daresay He—and my mother, actually—would have been quite pleased at my little act.” He flicked the pendant.

  “What does kalla mean?” I asked.

  He jerked the pole and the boat tilted sharply. Only my quick reaction kept me on my feet. He smiled slowly. “That’s for me to know. Unless you speak Mornian.”

  His mood seemed to have lightened. This was probably the best chance I’d get to broach the subject. “Les, do you think I could speak with Marcello again?”

  He blinked, and his smile vanished. “I told you, he’s forbidden you to return.”

  “I know, but what would it hurt to try again?”

  “He could leave. Just slip out when I’m not home, disappear on both of us.”

  “Would he really do that?”

  “It’s his favorite threat.”

  I frowned. A threat wasn’t anything, though. It could have been false, an easy way to keep Les in line. Les said Marcello hadn’t left the tunnels in years, and I doubted seeing me again would be the final pressure to crack the egg.

  “What if I promise this would be the last time? I could speak with him quickly, then leave. Let him think it over on his own terms. I can control my temper.” I could convince him to help me. I knew I could.

  “Why are you in such a rush anyway?” Les asked.

  I didn’t want to think about the letter, about the Da Vias searching Ravenna for me, discovering I’d come to Yvain. I just had to hope it would take them longer to find me than me to find them. “Sooner or later the Da Vias will find me here. I don’t have any time to waste.”

  He watched the swirls on the canal water.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “One more try. But you will have to be polite and respectful, even if he’s drunk. Even if he’s an ass. If you’re not, he won’t even listen to what you have to say.”

  I nodded eagerly. “I can do that.”

  We continued down the canal, lost in our thoughts. After a few moments the silence slipped into awkwardness. Les poled the boat and began to hum. I watched him.

  “Do you always sing to yourself when thinking?” I asked.

  He blinked. “I guess so. I’ve never really thought about it before. I used to sing in the tiger cages. And when I was hiding from the ghosts in the canals. I suppose it’s just a habit.”

  I thought about humming my tune when marking a kill. It seemed we had something else in common.

  “And here we are.” He poled his boat to a mooring and I saw that we’d reached the street next to their alley. Time to speak to Marcello.

  Les tied the boat off and jumped out. I followed behind, but the boat rocked suddenly and I stumbled. Les grabbed my hand, steadying me. He laughed, his hand clasping mine, and I laughed too. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed. I’d forgotten how good it felt.

  Les’s smile faded and he stared at me. His fingers stroked mine.

  My breath caught in my throat and my cheeks burned. I pulled my hand free. “I think that’s enough for now.”

  The wind blew a strand of his hair across his throat. Les rubbed his neck and nodded. “You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry.”

  Was he? Because I didn’t have time for this. I needed to concentrate on the Da Vias and nothing else.

  Even if, for an instant, I remembered how it felt to have a body pressed against mine, how it felt to feel so alive when Val kissed me and showed me how beautiful he thought I was.
r />   But that wasn’t for me. It wouldn’t be fair, to feel so alive again, when my Family was dead because of me.

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  twenty-one

  I SAT DOWN ON A CHAIR ACROSS FROM MARCELLO. HE glared at me while Les poured tea. Then Les disappeared into one of the back areas, leaving us alone.

  I couldn’t decide if he was being polite, or a coward.

  “I thought I told you to get out.” Marcello sipped at his steaming tea.

  “You did. And I did. And now I’ve returned.”

  Marcello set his cup down. “What do you want this time, niece?” he sneered. “Get it out so we can all get on with our pathetic lives.”

  “I don’t have a life anymore,” I said. “The Da Vias took it from me.”

  “That’s why I included you in the pathetic part.”

  I dug my fingers into the arms of my chair, trying to rein in my temper. Marcello’s eyes flashed to my hands, and he grinned slowly.

  He was trying to get a rise out of me, trying to make me angry so he would have an excuse to throw me out again. I wouldn’t let him beat me.

  “They lit the house on fire,” I said. “While we slept. They came inside and set the fire and waited for us to flee our beds before cutting us down.”

  Marcello tapped the arms of his chair. “That is what the Da Vias do. They are sharks in the sea, always circling, always waiting for an opportunity to taste blood.”

  “I left my brother’s body in the tunnel,” I continued. “I left my mother in the house, fighting Da Vias, while the roof collapsed and surrounded her with flames.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have abandoned her, then.”

  I bit my cheek until the taste of blood bloomed across my tongue. “Emile was four years old. Jesep was sixteen. Matteo was nineteen. Rafeo was twenty-four and already a widower.”

  “So? What’s your point? Death comes for all of us. You of all people should know that Safraella sees not age, nor wealth nor creed.”