Wind whips around Mercy as she emerges onto the balcony, sending her hair flying around her face. She holds it back with one hand as she leans over the balcony railing, peering into the lake’s waves two stories below. They shimmer with the reflections of the stars, foaming when they crash against the large algae-covered boulders. A fall into them would certainly be fatal.
Mercy considers the railing. It’s not terribly high—not even waist-height—and intended more for decoration than anything. It would not be difficult to lift a body over it, and there is little chance the prince’s body would be discovered, provided Mercy can find something to weigh it down enough that it won’t be dragged to shore by the current.
An image of Ghyslain sobbing into his hands in his study fills Mercy’s mind, but this time, he’s not crying for his lost love. He’s crying for Tamriel.
She shakes her head, and in her mind’s eye, the king lifts his head slowly, lowering his hands to his sides. His eyes are bloodshot and rimmed in red, but no tears slip from between his lashes. His lips do not quiver. Slowly, ever so slowly, they lift into a knowing smile.
His son—and the threat to his reign—are gone.
Mercy pushes away from the railing and returns to the room. She perches on the corner of the bed and places the knives on her lap, trying and failing not to admire the downy texture of the pillows and the way the silken sheets slip between her fingers when she runs a hand over them. What will become of this room once Tamriel is gone? she wonders, but the answer is obvious: the fineries will be torn out and placed on trading ships and the furniture too large to move will be hidden under dust cloths, the room sealed like a tomb. In a few years, Tamriel Myrellis will be nothing more than a name in a history book.
Thump.
Mercy grabs her knives and jumps up, her eyes flicking to the door. It’s closed, as she had left it, and the line of light under the doorway is uninterrupted. Still, she crosses the room and makes certain the latch is in place. It’s possible the guards have returned, but not likely; even on the hall’s rug, their steps would have been loud enough for her to hear their approach.
She scans the room and spots something shiny on the floor in front of the desk. It’s a crystal paperweight, no larger than her fist. Mercy examines it, confused. The face of the desk had been empty when she’d come in, which is why she had ignored it. It’s still bare now. There’s no way the paperweight could have jumped out of the—
Out of the open drawer.
Mercy sets the knives and the paperweight down on the desk. She couldn’t have missed the drawer before; it sticks out five inches, crammed with papers, quills, and a handful of half-empty jars of ink.
She must have overlooked it. Inanimate objects don’t move on their own. Still, she shudders when she remembers the guards’ slow, bumbling movements and the glazed looks in their eyes, that unease she had felt when they had passed.
Mercy kneels and begins digging through the papers. They’re all legal documents, private ledgers and pages of finances from banks both foreign and domestic—some Feyndaran. It’s odd—what dealings would Tamriel have with Feyndara? The two countries barely communicate, and financial matters are almost always handled by the king or treasurer—at least, matters with as many zeroes as these accounts hold.
Mercy pulls them out of the drawer and sits back on her heels, her brows furrowed in confusion. The pages don’t list the accounts for the Myrellis line—no, it’s for Drake Zendais, brother to the late queen.
She flips the page and her breath catches.
The Assassins’ Guild teardrop sigil is stamped across the top of the creamy white paper, and lines of slanting cursive detail the contract for the murder of—
Of Tamriel Myrellis.
Mercy drops the papers and scrambles back, her pulse pounding in her ears.
He knows.
She crawls forward, shuffling the papers into her arms from where they’d fallen, rereading the contract and rereading it again. Each time, she wishes for another name, and each time, it remains: Tamriel Myrellis. And at the bottom, in a slightly smudged, hurried hand, is signed His Majesty Ghyslain Myrellis.
Only two copies of a contract exist at a time—Mother Illynor keeps the original, and a copy is given to the purchasing party to do with what he chooses; most destroy them, some frame and hang them above their mantles. Where Tamriel found this isn’t important. He knows an assassin is coming for him. He may not have realized the assassin is Mercy, but it won’t take him long; he’s not stupid. The possibility must have crossed his mind. A visiting dignitary from an estranged and enemy country is hardly an everyday occurrence, and could not have been noted without a degree of suspicion.
If he knows, why hasn’t he done anything?
Suddenly the acrid scent of smoke fills Mercy’s nostrils, strong enough to send a wave of nausea rolling over her. She shoves the papers into the drawer and kicks it closed with one foot, but it doesn’t move more than three inches before catching on something and sticking. She crawls forward and reaches up to push the drawer closed with both hands, but not before the sound of footsteps alerts her to life in the hall. Under the door, two dark lines interrupt the light between the wood and the floor, and—perhaps it’s the darkness playing tricks on her—the doorknob rattles slightly, grasped by a large hand. Mercy clamps a hand over her mouth, resisting the urge to gag at the smoke, as the door opens behind her. She bites her lower lip so hard she tastes the copper tang of blood. Desperate, she shoves the drawer closed with one hand while scrabbling blindly with the other across the desk’s surface for one of her knives.
Get out! a stranger’s voice screams in her head. Now!
She’s too slow.
A hand twines in her hair and yanks her head back, and she finds herself staring into familiar eyes. His mouth draws back into a sneer, and a terrified, cowardly noise escapes Mercy’s lips. Her fingers close around the handle of one of the knives and she swings her arm back, the blade pointed where she expects her attacker’s chest to be. He blocks the attack, but not before she feels the knife slice through soft flesh. He grunts in pain and grabs the paperweight from the desk. It disappears from her view and she struggles against his grip before the hard crystal cracks against the back of her skull. Stars swim in her vision and the knife slips from her slackened grasp. Only then does he let go.
Still on her knees, she falls onto her side, clutching her head and the last strains of consciousness. Her hair hangs over her face and eyes, and through it, she can see her attacker step over her and open the drawer. He shuffles idly through the papers, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. Mercy’s vision wavers and her ears feel like they are stuffed with cotton. Warm blood trickles slowly down the back of her head. Despite every fiber of her being fighting against it, her eyelids drift shut.
The last thing Mercy hears before falling unconscious is his long, weary sigh, and the smirk in his voice when he says, “Look what an awful mess you’ve made, love.”
30
Something tickles Mercy’s nose.
It’s soft, the scent cloyingly sweet. A rose. Her eyes closed, she scrunches her nose and turns her face away. The rose bumps her nose again, and when she reaches up to swat it away, her arm only moves a few inches before the tether around her wrist pulls taut. Her eyes snap open and she realizes with a jolt of terror that she is spread-eagled on the bed, her wrists and ankles bound to the bedposts with strips of cloth torn from the sheets, which have been removed. Her head rests on a pillow; the rest have been discarded somewhere in the room. Outside, the pale pink of dawn paints the sky.
Kneeling on the mattress between her legs, Calum smiles at her. Rage burns like bile in Mercy’s throat. “You’re going to have to give me more than flowers if you want me to forgive you for hitting me with a paperweight,” she groans. She glares at Calum, but it’s not very intimidating considering her vulnerable position.
Calum brings the rose to his nose and inhales deeply. He shakes his head. “I’m afra
id you’re misinterpreting my actions, love,” he says, “but I’m not surprised after the hit you took. Quite a blow—although, to be honest, I hadn’t meant to hit you so hard. And since I’m woefully short of smelling salts, I figured this might work just as well.” He stands on the mattress and steps over Mercy’s leg, then hops onto the floor. He drops the rose on the bedside table, then leans his elbows on the mattress beside Mercy’s pillow. He brushes a hair off Mercy’s face. She does not blink as she stares at him with loathing in her eyes. “You really frightened me, you know, holing up here in the middle of the night.”
“Sorry for the trouble,” she spits. She notes with satisfaction a bloodstained strip of bandages wrapped around his forearm where her knife had cut him earlier. He follows her gaze and nods.
“Cut me pretty badly, considering you were using a dinner knife. It won’t need stitches, but I’ve got to applaud your initiative, if not your creativity.”
“Where is the prince?”
“I should ask you the same question, Mercy. Where is he?” Calum’s eyes narrow, the crooked grin fading. “Because I can tell you where he’s not, and that’s rotting six feet underground, or bobbing along at the bottom of the lake, or whatever you’d planned to do with his body. No, last time I saw him, he was still the alive.”
“Tying me up isn’t going to kill him any quicker. What if he walked in right now? What do you think he’d do if he found you holding me hostage in his bedroom?”
Calum barks a laugh, the volume sending waves of pain through Mercy’s head. “Oh, Mercy,” he says. He leans back and grins. “That explains everything. You thought my room was his? Simple enough mistake, I guess, but I thought you were better than that, O Great Daughter of the Guild.”
Mercy clenches her hands into fists, her blood boiling with anger. “What the hell do you mean, your room?”
Calum looks offended. “I’m the king’s nephew. I’ve lived here for eighteen years, since dear old dad was brutally murdered by one of your Sisters.”
Mercy’s head feels foggy, stuffed with cotton, yet the name on the papers she’d found comes back with startling clarity. “Drake Zendais. So you’re Calum Vanos—”
“—Zendais,” he finishes. “Vanos was my mother’s maiden name. I use it when I travel. A little less conspicuous, don’t you think?”
“The contract is fake, isn’t it?”
Calum doesn’t respond. He stands and unties Mercy’s wrists and ankles, then crosses to the ottoman and picks up the bottle of wine. He pries it open with one of Mercy’s knives and takes a drink straight from the bottle, then holds it out to her. “I’ll explain everything if you can make it all the way over here. If not, feel free to rest, take a nap, build your strength back up. I won’t hurt you.”
“I find that extraordinarily hard to believe.”
“Whether you believe it or not, it’s true.” He settles onto one of the cushions and pours wine into one of the goblets, which he extends to her with a raised brow. “You’ve already ruined my plans for the night—I might as well see this through.”
When her expression doesn’t change, he lets out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve invested too much in you to kill you, Mercy. And although you won’t admit it, you’re not nearly as strong as you pretend to be. You wouldn’t be able to stop me if I changed my mind,” he says. “Luckily for you, you’re still in my good graces. However, I’m certain I can come up with plenty of ways to make you do what I want without killing you, should you choose to make this difficult.” The entire time he speaks, his expression does not waver from his pleasant smile, yet Mercy does not underestimate his sincerity. His effortless charm is what caused her to trust him in the first place, and it is not lacking now.
Mercy rises slowly, feeling the tendons in her neck strain as she lifts her head, then her back vertebra by vertebra. A thick bandage is wrapped around her head to stop the bleeding, but it does nothing for the pounding headache, the simultaneous feelings of lightheadedness and leaden extremities. Fully upright, she swings her legs over the side of the mattress until her bare feet brush the cold stone. Only then does she realize that she is no longer wearing her Solari gown, clad only in the gold leotard she had worn underneath. Her bare legs prickle with goosebumps.
“Your blood ruined the dress,” Calum says as she frowns down at her exposed skin. “I had a slave bring something from storage, so it might not fit. It’s over there.” He waves to the wardrobe across the room. “You might want to wait until you’re more steady to dress, though.”
“I’m fine.” Mercy stands and takes a step, and the world seems to slide out from under her. Her legs almost give out and she clutches the bedpost. She lets out an involuntary groan.
“Lie down, Mercy.”
She shakes her head. “When I make it over there, I am going to flay you alive.”
Calum’s chuckle is the only response.
One step at a time, Mercy shuffles away from the bed and half sits, half falls onto the cushion opposite Calum. It’s only a few feet from the bed, but in her pain-filled haze it had felt like swimming through syrup. Calum offers her the glass of wine and she drinks the contents in a single gulp, soothing her dry throat. He fills the goblet again, and his own, and they drink in silence. After a few minutes, the throbbing in her head lessens and a warmth emanates from her stomach as the alcohol courses through her veins.
“Drake Zendais was my father,” Calum finally says. “When I was two, Ghyslain had him killed by one of Illynor’s assassins because of Drake’s involvement with Liselle’s murder. The assassin who murdered my father snuck into our house in the dead of night and stabbed him in the heart with a letter opener. She left him in his study, lying in a pool of his own blood, for one of his slaves to find.
“My family wasn’t nobility, but my father and grandfather supported the Myrellis line and had worked closely with King Alaric before his heart attack and Ghyslain’s ascension. They were loyal and had grown wealthy buying and selling valuable art, and that’s part of the reason why Ghyslain and Elisora’s betrothal had been supported by the nobility.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Mercy crosses her arms and frowns at Calum.
“How much do you know about your parents, Mercy?”
“You know exactly how much I know.”
“My father’s second wife was unable to have children, and he had divorced his first wife before she could give him an heir. So, to continue his bloodline, he raped one of his slaves so she could bear him a bastard child he and his wife could pretend was legitimate. That slave was your mother, Mercy.”
She freezes. “No.”
“Your mother and father had been slaves of my father for five years. They were married at the time. Drake Zendais raped her and she gave birth to me,” he says calmly. “A few years later, she and your father had you, then fled after Llorin killed Drake. Your father was the slave who found her standing over his body, and your father gave you to the Guild so that he and your mother could escape—”
“Don’t lie to me, damn you—” She jumps to her feet and staggers, and Calum extends a hand to steady her. She jerks away as if burned.
“Mercy,” he says. “A child between a human and an elf is born human. You know that. Affairs like those are not at all uncommon among the nobility; there are more elf-blooded bastards in Sandori than anywhere else in the country.”
“How could you possibly know? When you arrived in the Keep, how did you know it was me?”
“Several of my father’s former slaves still work in the city. They’ll tell almost anything for the right price.”
Mercy searches Calum’s face for . . . for anything. Anything but the blatant honesty shining in his eyes. He wears no guard over his emotions, nothing to hide the way he stares at her, watching her process this information.
“What do you want me to do now, Calum? What do you want? Some heartfelt family reunion?” she finally says. “I have no reason to believe a single word you say.”
> “You’re right, you don’t. I’ll bet you’ve heard talk about me, though; the nobles like to gossip.” He stands and opens the wardrobe, pulling out a carefully folded dress. When he hands it to her, she recoils, and he does not fail to notice. “Ghyslain took me in when I was two, and Tamriel and I were raised and tutored together. Last year, I joined the Strykers under our mother’s name and used the opportunity the travel provided to collect on debts owed to my father from his clients. With that and what he had stored in banks across the sea, I’ve amassed a small fortune. Nothing like what we had before the estate was lost to the crown when Ghyslain became my guardian.
“So, what do I want, Mercy? I want the prince dead,” he says. “I want the prince dead, and I want the king to appear complicit, so the nobles will be clamoring to remove him from power. There will be no one left to rule, and the city will be thrust into chaos. Everyone will be vying for the throne. Now, my claim is only through marriage, true, but with my castle upbringing and my position in the guard, I’m a better choice than some stuffy nobleman’s son. The council will no doubt agree.”
“The contract’s void,” Mercy says. Her head swims and the wine has turned sour in the back of her throat. “That’s not Ghyslain’s signature, it’s a forgery.”
“The only people who know that are in this room, Sis.” He bares his teeth in a smile eerily similar to her own. “And you won’t tell a soul, because I know you’re going to go through with it.”
“Oh, you do?”
“I do. Because if you don’t, you’ll return to the Guild a failure. A laughingstock, just like you’ve always been. I know how much you want to be a Daughter, how much you hunger for Mother Illynor’s approval—I saw it in your eyes when we met. You tell them it’s a fake and you’ll be back where you were two weeks ago, bullied, ignored, underappreciated—just like when you were an apprentice. Is that who you want to be, Mercy? Do you want to return to that life?” His eyes gleam wickedly. “Complete the contract, and no one’s the wiser. You’re a Daughter—not any Daughter, but the Daughter who murdered the prince. Can you picture the envy on Lylia’s face? And Faye? She might even forgive you for the stunt you pulled in the Trial. With me on the throne, the Guild will want for nothing. There will be nothing I cannot provide for you.”
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