by Riley Storm
Ksaperi’s footsteps paused, most likely when he noticed her. “Hi.”
The floor creaked slightly under his weight as he came over to where she sat curled up into her little ball. As if sensing her aura, he stopped a few feet away before sinking down to her level, so as not to tower over her.
“I see you packed a bag.”
Amber’s non-verbal noise of agreement elicited a quiet sight, but little more.
“Are you going to talk to me at all?” he asked after a minute of silence had passed.
Shrugging, she pondered the question. Was there much to say?
“What are you doing?”
Irritation boiled over without warning. “What am I doing?” she growled. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to leave!” She reached out and snatched the duffel bag, pulling it in close.
“Right. I kind of got that impression. I guess what I was really asking was, why haven’t you?”
She snorted and rolled her eyes all at the same time. “Why? This is why.” Getting to her feet she stormed over to the door and whipped it open.
In the hallway, three Asps lounged nearby, one of them slowly cutting up an apple, eating the slice straight from the knife.
“There. Now you know.”
All three of the Asps looked over and smiled, the one with the knife even giving her a wave. “Going somewhere?” he sneered.
Amber slammed the door in his face, ignoring the rude laughter that followed. Glaring at Kasperi, she lifted just one eyebrow. The point was clear. If she did leave, she gave up her protection, and the Asps would kill her in a heartbeat.
“I’m not leaving, because I’m your prisoner, held here against my will,” she snapped, pushing past him to the little kitchenette and grabbing a water bottle from the fridge, downing a quarter of the contents in one go.
“We’re back to that dynamic are we?” Kasperi asked, face reflecting the sadness evident in his voice. “I thought we’d moved on from it.”
“What, just because we slept together? Because I grew a bit more comfortable? That doesn’t mean it changed. It just meant I was trying to make the best of a bad situation!”
Kasperi nodded slowly. “That’s all I was then, a bad situation?”
“Don’t throw this back on me,” she snapped. “I’m the victim here.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But don’t act like I haven’t sacrificed for you, or put my own ass on the line for you. I could have let them kill you out in the forest, or numerous times since. I get that this sucks for you, I really do, Amber. I wish it could be different. Every day, I hope I’ll find something to help you come closer to your goal of leaving here. Of being in control, and free.”
She caught the slight hiccup in his voice when he talked about her leaving, the pain that slipped into his voice for an instant before he reeled it back in, holding onto it, not letting it show.
“It’s going to be okay,” he continued after a moment. “I know it will.”
“Oh, really? You know it will? How can you know it’s going to be okay?” She knew the sarcasm wasn’t fair to him, but right then, Amber didn’t care.
“I know you. I can tell.”
Amber laughed. “That’s right, not to mention clichéd. How the hell can you know me, when I don’t know a damn thing about me?”
He frowned, green eyes glowing beneath scrunched eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
“It means what it sounds like!” she said in exasperation, throwing her hands in the air. “I don’t know anything about me. I never knew my parents, what they were capable of, what they were like.”
Kasperi’s frown deepened, growing somber. “What are you talking about, Amber?”
“I’m an orphan, Kasperi. Do I need to spell it out for you? I was five, maybe six, when they died. I don’t even remember. I had no family, nobody to look after me. Nobody to tell me what I am.”
“That’s terrible, and I’m very sorry, Amber. I didn’t know. But I’m not sure how that has anything to do with the situation at hand.”
“Think, you dunderhead! I’m a mage. I have a power inside me, one that comes naturally, strong, and with a violent tendency toward evil. You yourself told me that being a mage is a genetic gift. So one, or both of my parents gave it to me. Yet they were killed young. Somewhere around my age. Does it not compute to you that maybe they were evil as well?”
She stormed across the room as the real issue bothering her finally erupted, but it wasn’t done.
“I wish you would stop trying to tell me I’m something I’m not. I can’t afford to have that kind of hope, Kasperi. I can’t afford that dream. I need to acknowledge what I am, what I was born as, and learn how to mitigate that. This,” she said, tapping the collar. “It stops me being like them, or any of the other mages you’ve tangled with over the years. With it, I’m human again. Normal. I can go find jobs, work a life. I won’t have to worry I’m going insane.”
“That is enough!” Kasperi bellowed at full volume, losing his control.
Amber took a step back, fearful at the sheer rage visible in his face. Muscles strained at the plain black t-shirt he wore, threatening to shred it as fury-pumped blood prepped him to fight.
“I am sick and tired of hearing you berate and belittle yourself. The only reason you think you’re evil, is because of assholes that refuse to leave you alone and insist that you are. Until you met me, you only thought you were going insane. If people hadn’t been so prejudiced against you, things would have gone differently. We could have brought you in. Trained you, let you take your time to learn control. Instead, you were pushed too hard too fast, all the while being told you’re worthless. Well, enough!”
Kasperi stormed across the room toward her. Backpedaling out of the way, she sagged with relief as he marched right on past her. The door barely stood a chance. He simply lowered his shoulder and lurched into it. The thick wooden panel shot across the hallway, clipping one of the Asps in the side and sending him spinning to the ground.
“What are you doing?” she yelped, following him into the hallway.
There, she found Kasperi dismantling the trio of Asps with little more than his bare hands. In seconds, they were little more than unconscious bodies strewn across the carpeted floor, breathing, but not moving.
“Kvoss!” he bellowed, moving down the hallway like a bulldozer. “Kvoss, this ends now, you pathetic miscreant!”
Amber followed him down the hallway as discretely as she could but moving fast enough to keep him in sight. Kasperi was about to do something stupid, and she just knew it would be up to her to prevent it from happening. Somehow.
Getting between nearly six hundred pounds of angry giant sounds like a great way to end today. Lucky me.
27
Although he’d dropped the trio of watchers with ease, Kasperi knew things weren’t going to be that easy as he approached the Asp training area. They would be aware now, prepared and ready for his arrival.
He didn’t give a shit.
Kicking in the door to their common room, he bellowed for Kvoss yet again. The Assassin was his true target, the man he’d have to deal with to stop the pathetic hunt for Amber. Nobody had truly expected him and the Asps to stop watching her and looking for any excuse to kill her, but even Kasperi hadn’t expected him to so boldly defy the Queen.
Unless this isn’t the first time he’s done something like that. If he’s used to moving against her, then this would come easily…
“What do you want, Kasperi?”
A quartet of Asps appeared in the hallway on the far side of the room, outfitted for combat, a selection of artifacts in their hands.
“Not you,” he snarled, stalking forward, reaching up for a sword. He whipped it around, leveling the blade at the shifters in his way. “Move aside, or I’ll cut you down where you stand.”
The four shifters glanced at Kasperi, then at his blade, which was glowing red—with magic. He noted that it appeared his ability to work m
agic was back, and then shoved it aside. All that mattered was Kvoss.
The Asps, recognizing this fight was beyond their capabilities, wisely backed up, pacing him as he headed for Kvoss’ quarters. They didn’t flee, but none of them tried to stop him either.
“Is he in there?” Kasperi snarled, stopping at the doors, holding the Asps back with his sword.
“Should be,” one muttered, clearly upset at not being able to stop the intruder.
“Good. Go away.”
The Asps didn’t move.
Kasperi sighed, funneling magic into his sword before they could react. Bright red bands of magic reached out, grabbing the speaker and, at a mental command from Kvoss, slammed him into the wall three times before anyone could lift their own weapons.
Releasing the now unconscious shifter, Kasperi slowly waved his sword back and forth between the trio remaining standing. “Which one of you is next?”
“It’s fine,” a voice called from the far side of the doors. “You may go.”
Kvoss.
The Asps glared daggers at him but retreated down the hallway and eventually out of sight. Kasperi doubted they had gone far, but he didn’t care.
Spinning, he blasted the door open with magic and stormed into Kvoss’ chambers. Sheets of red energy billowed out from the blade, smashing furniture and brutally clearing a path between him and the Assassin.
“I see you upgraded your swords,” Kvoss observed calmly. “What the fuck do you want, and why shouldn’t I cut your head from your neck where you stand?”
“You would be dead before you knew it,” Kasperi said, speaking in calm, measured tones, a man who knew what he was talking about.
Kvoss was a good fighter, and quite possibly the most versatile artifact user in House Ursa. But Kasperi would wipe the floor with him with swords, and his magic infused swords made it child’s play.
The Assassin shrugged. “You have no idea who you’re talking to, boy.”
“I’m talking with the man who is purposefully trying to kill my mate. I’m talking with the man who willfully disobeyed his Queen.”
Kasperi took the second sword from his back, leveling it accusingly at Kvoss even as it too began to glow red. “I’m talking with an all-round asshole not worthy of being a Title Holder or of the respect that comes with it. I am talking to a man who is not worthy of being a member of House Ursa. I am talking to a disgrace,” Kasperi finished, his voice deadly even.
“Your point?” Kvoss covered up a false yawn.
“I challenge you to a duel.”
The Assassin’s eyes went up in surprise. A formal duel challenge hadn’t been issued in the House in ten or twelve decades. Life had risen in value, to the point where near-meaningless killing over honor insults was all but outlawed. The key being, all but outlawed. They were still a legal means of challenge, but shifters were expected not to engage in them.
Too bad.
“You don’t have to do this.”
Kasperi half-turned at the familiar female voice. Amber stood in the doorway, a quartet of Asps either side of her, many with weapons drawn. She stood tall, shoulders straight.
“I’ll be fine.”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “This time you’re wrong, Amber.”
His mate bit her lip, looking into his eyes, trying to read his mind. “Why?”
“Because.” He surveyed the Asps, then looked back at Kvoss, one sword pointed in either direction. “Because this is wrong. Whether you can handle it or not is irrelevant. This is not the way my house treats a guest. It is not the way anyone should be treated. You aren’t here trying to cause evil, to hurt or kill anyone. Even before, at the bar. You ran before it got too bad, taking yourself out of position to do harm.”
“She is ev—”
“Complete that sentence and I will stick your head on a pike as a reminder to everyone what happens when you lose your honor,” Kasperi said softly, red-orange flames extending from the tip of his blade toward the speaker.
The rude Asp snapped his mouth shut and nodded, eyes wide as he stared at the fire-blade now nearly six feet in length.
“I am ashamed of how far the Asps have fallen,” Kasperi said evenly, addressing the entire room once more, along with the shifters he could see starting to crowd the hallway beyond, many of whom were not Asps, but had simply heard of what was going down.
“You are supposed to be the protectors of House Ursa. Your position was titled Assassin because you were supposed to be the strongest among us, willing to kill in any manner necessary to protect us as a last resort. You were not supposed to have a death squad that roams the countryside cutting down any mage that didn’t immediately bow their head in respect.”
People outside shifted uneasily as he pointed out how ugly things had become. None of them liked to be reminded that they had sat by and let it happen, or that their friends had become eager killers, instead of reluctant life-takers. It was a critical, important difference, and somewhere along the line it had been blurred.
“Even after she agreed to stay here, against her will, what did Amber do? Did she sulk and seek a way to escape, or to cause us harm? No, she tried to learn. To educate herself on the rules of magic, on how to use magic, so she could prevent it from happening. Did we encourage this? Did we nurture her studies and help her develop? No!”
Kasperi slammed his sword into the stone floor of Kvoss’ chambers, the heated fire-magic exploding outward upon impact even as rock hissed and popped.
“You tried to kill her. You continued telling her what you wanted her to be, instead of showing her what she could be. The only times she’d lashed out, were at those people trying to get her to do just that. Are you all so blind that you cannot see the idiocy of that? If I walk up to someone and punch them in the face and get punched back, how does that make them the bad person?”
More shuffling and ease, mumbled agreement from some, but it wasn’t enough.
“This is why the human magi hate us so much. They think we want nothing more than to exterminate them. To slaughter them. You should be ashamed.”
Kvoss’ face was carved from stone as Kasperi spoke, and although he said what needed to be said, Kasperi knew he’d put the Assassin in an impossible spot. Either he backed down completely, admitted he was in the wrong and quite possibly lost his position, or he accepted the duel. They would fight, and the winner would write history and dictate the future.
The Assassin of High House Ursa spoke into the silence that followed Kasperi’s impassioned speech.
“I accept.”
28
The crowd immediately backed away, sweeping her up with them as they cleared out of Kvoss’ private quarters. She tried in vain to get a glimpse of Kasperi, to try and grab his attention, to tell him he didn’t have to do this, but there had to be three dozen or more bear shifters in attendance. More were arriving every minute, in ones and twos as word spread of the showdown throughout the manor.
In such a morass of monolithic giants, she was but an ant scrambling to avoid being crushed underfoot. Few gave her space, and those who noticed her were just as often rude as they were polite. Finally, resorting to delivering elbows to sides from unexpected angles and height, Amber was able to push through to the front.
“You can look right over me,” she snarled when one of them refused to move aside.
A cold-eyed stare looked at her, then through her.
“Don’t make me take this off,” she threatened, reaching up for the collar.
Amber didn’t have any intention of actually doing that. The Asps were all there, and she was positive one of them would slip a knife into her back within seconds of the steel coming loose. Hopefully, the shifter she was threatening didn’t know that.
“You have heart,” he said calmly, and moved to the side so she could see the two combatants beyond.
They were in what she assumed was the Asp training area, a section of rooms dedicated to them, just as the Magi had his own, and
other groups within the Manor did as well. Kasperi was facing Kvoss, perhaps seven feet separating the two.
She wanted to call out to him, to ask him why he was doing this, why he was engaging in this nonsense? Sticking up for her was one thing, but a bloody duel? What point was he trying to make? And to whom?
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Kvoss asked, standing with legs apart, balanced easily on the balls of his feet. In one hand, he held a sword that gleamed with fresh shine in the bright light of the training hall. The other gripped an…Amber peered closer, not trusting her eyes.
It was a pink plastic horse…with blonde hair.
“Why does he have a My Litt—”
“It’s a relic,” the same shifter said from next to her. “Kvoss’ favorite. Looks ridiculous and unassuming, but powerful.”
“I take it this isn’t the first time someone has asked about it.”
The big shifter snorted in amusement. “Not even close. It’s a running joke at this point, but the man has the skills to back it up. I hope your man knows what he’s doing.”
She frowned, looking up, taking in the man’s powerful jaw, thick brown hair cut short, giving him a square-like look. He was vaguely familiar.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Why do I know you?”
“Name’s Khove,” he said calmly, steely-gray eyes softening just a bit, showing through a hint of blue.
“Khove.” She repeated the name, closing her eyes, trying to place where she’d seen him. “You’re one of the Queen’s Own! Her bodyguards.”
“Correct. Day off today.” He laughed quietly. “Although maybe not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t seriously think word of this is going to pass the Queen by, do you?” He grinned. “Just stick close by. It’s going to be an interesting show.”
Amber nodded, but her reply was stolen by a scathing insult from Kvoss in the center of the room. She didn’t quite catch it, but Kasperi bristled in reply.
“Of course I care for her. What sort of ignorant Neanderthal would question that? I’ve never made any secret of it.”