by Carol A Park
His shoulders straightened with resolve. An excuse—justification, perhaps? “Of course not,” he said.
He had killed those women to satisfy a lust that had gone unsatisfied for years, because she had ceased harming herself.
Those women—and a man—had all died because of her.
A long-suppressed voice now found a place to emerge. Your fault, it whispered.
No.
They had died because of Elidor’s sick obsession with her, and that was it.
“But it wasn’t the same, was it?” she asked.
“No,” he said, seeming downcast. “It wasn’t the same.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” she said, speaking as though she were soothing a toddler who had skinned his knee. “But you don’t need them.” Her eyes flicked up behind him, and he was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice. She gently took his hand in hers and removed the dagger from it. “I’m here now.”
“Yes,” he whispered, his arms falling to his side.
She stepped to the side as three burly Watchmen barreled into him from behind and flattened him face-down on the ground.
They shouted and demanded and bound his hands behind his back and did all the things lawmen liked to do upon catching their prey. She slunk around them and back out into the street.
Xathal was waiting there.
She met his eyes. Wiped off her knife. Returned it to her boot. Picked up the dagger Elidor had thrown and sheathed it back at her thigh. Straightened her cloak and pulled it back around her.
“That was quite the pursuit, Da,” Xathal said softly when she had finished. “I feel as though there is more to you than meets the eye—perhaps more than I’ve been told.”
Her hand came to rest on the hilt of her dagger under her cloak.
He gave her a side eye. “No. Don’t tell me. There are some things I simply don’t want to know.”
She released the hilt of her dagger. Unnecessary, and problematic anyway, with three Watchmen in the alley who had only moments ago seen him very much alive.
“The mother and child are both unharmed,” he continued. “Well done.”
Ivana flicked her eyes to the alley. The Watchmen were dragging Elidor out. “You have your killer, Ruios. Congratulations. This is where my work ends.”
With that, she bowed and walked away from him. She crossed two intersections and then looked back.
Xathal was still watching her. He tipped his hat to her and turned away.
She turned the corner and breathed deeply of the late fall air. It was cool and moist, decidedly un-suffocating.
“Very good,” a voice said from the shadows. A cloaked figure stepped out.
Llyr. She had expected him.
“Meet me three nights from now. Usual spot,” he said.
He left without an affirmation from her.
Alone in the night, she lifted her still-glistening arm to the moonlight and examined the blood almost dispassionately before wiping it off.
Yes. Decidedly un-suffocating.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The underground hall was empty but well-lit. Nonetheless, Ivana stayed toward the wall, in the shadows.
Llyr had changed the location of their meeting at the last moment to a little-used hall in the underbelly of one of the larger temples to Yathyn. The change made her uneasy.
Her time in Carradon was done. Too many people would recognize her now, and there would be too many questions about the man she used to live with and his disappearance.
But what exactly did the Conclave intend?
She had no good will toward the Conclave. In fact, she was tired. Tired of doing the bidding of others, whether that be Elidor or their Conclave handlers. Tired of being jerked around by shadowy masters whose motives she could only guess at.
Oh, it wasn’t that she cared whom they decided needed to be assassinated or why. But the entire group was distasteful to her. She supposed some of the lowest of priests were sincere, but those with any sort of power were corrupt, through and through. She didn’t know whether they even believed in the gods they purported to worship.
She wanted out from under their thumbs. She doubted they would ever let her go in any other way than at the bottom of the river.
Footsteps echoed down the silent hall at last. Ivana looked in their direction to see Llyr striding down the hall.
And him. Oh, how she hated him.
His snide remarks. Crude comments. Suggestive looks.
Ugh.
She moved out into the open, halting him.
“Good,” he said. “You’re here.” He removed a leather pouch from his waist and tossed it toward her.
She caught it easily—and frowned. It was far too light.
“This,” she said, raising an eyebrow at Llyr, “is ‘well-paid’?”
“Yes,” he said. “About that.”
Ivana narrowed her eyes at him. She wasn’t in the mood for this. She had spent the last month playing games with a serial murderer, all the while being reminded of a past she had taken up this life to forget. She wanted her money, she wanted to know their plans for her, and she wanted both now.
“What,” she said through clenched teeth, “is the problem?”
He raised an eyebrow, and she met his eyes coldly back.
“Those who wanted Elidor on this job insist that the original amount was quoted for Elidor’s assistance.” His eyes slid over her. “Not his apprentice’s.”
Ivana’s jaw twitched and her ire rose. “You fools would have paid the killer had I not been the one who took the job.”
Llyr’s upper lip curled in a sneer, but she cut him off before he could make whatever snide comment he had at the tip of his tongue. “I caught your killer. I want the agreed upon amount, and I want it now.”
“But it didn’t turn out as we expected, did it? And since you didn’t manage to eliminate him, we had the additional hassle of getting him back from the Watch before they could interrogate him.”
She didn’t have to take this from these people. She could snap this arrogant man’s neck if she wanted to. She stepped in close to him. “Do you really want to spar with me?” she hissed.
He didn’t seem at all flustered. “You’re being transferred to Arlana. Go back to your home and await further instructions.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless, of course, you have some further objection to raise?”
He met her eyes smugly, as if knowing he had her, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She glared at him and turned away.
He sniffed and began to move past her. “I always did think you were a little too sweet to be a hired blade,” he whispered in her ear as he passed, and his hand brushed her thigh.
Her barely contained rage snapped.
Her dagger was in her hand and shoved into his gut in a split second, and then she shoved him backward before he bled all over her.
He stumbled back, his eyes wide with shock, his hands to his stomach, blood staining the cream-colored rug beneath their feet.
Then he fell—and she finished the job with a quick slice to the throat.
After a moment, he lay still.
Ivana looked down at him, bloody dagger still dangling from her hand. “A sweet blade,” she said to his corpse. “Appropriate. Thank you.”
She divested him of a second pouch of coins, wiped the blade on his tunic, and then sheathed it.
Well. So much for Arlana.
Epilogue
The wind was cold. Winter was on the threshold, and Ivana had hundreds of miles to travel before she could find a place to disappear for a while—give the Conclave time to give up the search, and more importantly, forget they had ever employed an assassin’s apprentice named Ivana.
Both good reasons to move on as quickly as possible.
Even so, her steps tarried on the way out of the city that night. She found herself drawn to the burial grounds at the outskirts, and then to the wall where those who had chosen to hav
e their remains cremated had their urns interred.
She walked along the wall and then stopped at one plaque in particular. She ran her finger along the engraved words, which were difficult to make out in the dark, even with a clear night and a half moon.
But she knew it was the right one. She had been here once before, three years ago, when she had attended the funeral as a family friend.
Boden, the apothecary’s apprentice.
She wasn’t sure what she intended to find or feel, standing here again.
A test, perhaps?
As it was, all she felt was the night breeze trying to find its way through crevices in her cloak.
And yet…
“After all this time, you still grieve that boy?”
Ivana stilled, but she didn’t turn. “Grieve would be a strong word,” she said, and it was. There was nothing so intense left within her walls. “But perhaps there is still room for regret.”
Finally, she turned to face him. “You escaped.”
Elidor stood about ten feet from her. Not close enough that she couldn’t defend herself against a sudden move, but neither was it far enough that she could easily run from him.
The corners of his mouth curled up in that same smile that never reached his eyes. A learned reflex. “Escaped would be a strong word. It would be better to say exiled and repurposed.”
She shook her head. It all amounted to the same thing. They had let him go. Why?
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was why he was here.
“You betrayed me,” he continued. “I always wondered if you would in the end.”
She snorted. “As if you care.”
“You know me too well.” He lifted his face to the sky and studied it, as though the stars held some hidden meaning for him. “And, perhaps, you learned from me too well, to my own undoing.”
She knew his meaning. He had sought to undo her training, her self-control, her resolve, by tormenting her with her own past—for his own sick purposes. She hadn’t bent, and instead he was the one who had lost control.
“Where are you going now?” he asked, when she didn’t reply.
“I’m afraid I may have upset the delicate balance between myself and our former masters,” she said. “So somewhere—anywhere—else.”
“Ah, yes. I heard about that incident.”
She shrugged. “No great loss.”
“And what will you do?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” Her knowledge and training could open several business opportunities for her. “Private investigator. Bounty hunter.” She smiled faintly. “Innkeeper.”
“I always thought you would do well with freelance work.”
She raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised. He was speaking as though they would bid farewell and she would walk away, but she didn’t believe he would let her do that so easily. “Freelance work,” she repeated.
“In fact, I would suggest it strongly. As long as I know you’re out there somewhere, drawing someone’s blood, I think I can be content.”
That settled that. “Freelance work would do as well.”
He moved closer to her, and she put a hand on the hilt of her dagger. But he merely held out his hand. Dangling from it was her sister’s necklace. “I believe this belongs to you.”
“Keep it.”
“I insist.”
She frowned and held out her hand, and he dropped it into her palm. “So you’re content to leave me alone.”
“I am content.” He smiled again, and this time it was of a quality that reminded her who she was speaking with. “For now.”
He inclined his head to her, turned, and walked away.
Ivana splayed her hand against her thigh. So that was it. Once again, she found herself alone.
But unlike before, not defenseless.
She glanced at Boden’s plaque and was satisfied at the genuine lack of any overwhelming feeling within her.
No. Not defenseless at all.
Her fingers curled around her sister’s necklace.
For now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carol lives in the Lancaster, PA area with her husband and two energetic boys. She loves reading (duh), writing (double-duh), music, movies, and other perfectly normal things like parsing Hebrew verbs and teaching herself new dead languages. She has two master’s degrees in the areas of ancient near eastern studies and languages.
Also available:
Banebringer (The Heretic Gods #1) – May 2018
For more information on upcoming books, visit www.carolapark.com