Assassin's Blood Page 22

  With everyone else still at dinner, it was a simple matter to sneak upstairs and let myself into Celebrach’s study unseen. My eye went straight to the dagger on its stand. Ni’ishasana, Thief of Souls. Now that I truly understood its power, I was even more repelled by the warped blade.

  How many fae souls were trapped inside its rippling surface, lending their undead strength to Celebrach, helping the Vipers flourish? I could hardly conceive of the kind of power he had at his disposal. I would have been happy just to be able to perform the kind of magic anyone from Spring had access to.

  “Sssage.”

  Goosebumps shuddered down my back as my name reached my ears. That voice came from no living throat, human or fae. I glanced once at the dagger, then turned my back on it, determined not to have anything to do with such an evil thing.

  “Sage.”

  The woman with the snake hair was back, emerging from the shadows that lurked in the corners away from the glow of the fire in the hearth. She beckoned me closer, but I was having none of that. As soon as I located that book, I was out of here. I checked the stack of books that still teetered on the edge of the desk.

  “Sage.” Her hair rippled like seaweed in the current. Or perhaps it blew in an invisible breeze. Maybe she was the Air mage whose powers had stopped my bullet. Even more reason not to have anything to do with her. That bullet would have solved a lot of problems.

  She raised her hand, and the shadows formed other shapes. Ash and me, coming together in a passionate embrace. I goggled for a moment, then went back to my search, tugging open the desk drawer with hands that only shook slightly.

  “Join with us. You can have him. You can have anything you want.”

  “Who says I want him?” I squeaked. Man, this was creepy. If those damn shadows came any closer, I would scream.

  My hands closed on a book bound in dark blue leather, and I pulled it out, tugging impatiently when the corner caught on the edge of the desk top. I had to get out of here. Join with them? What the hell did that mean?

  It was the handwritten journal I’d seen before, and I flipped to the end, resolutely focusing on the pages and doing my best to ignore what the writhing shadows were doing. I was never coming back into this room alone again. I could feel waves of power emanating from the damn dagger, and it set my teeth on edge.

  I ran a trembling finger down the columns on the last page until I found Lord Nox’s name. And there, under the “client” column, was the name of the person who had ordered his death.

  Sir Ebos, Knight of the Realms.

  28

  What did I know about Sir Ebos?

  He was a dragon fae, one of the rare few who lived outside the Realm of Fire, and thus immensely powerful. His brother was the Lord of Fire and, according to Allegra, there was some bad blood between them, but I hadn’t paid much attention to the details. He was one of the King’s Chosen, the knights tasked with the king’s protection, so he was at the very heart of the web of power that connected the Realms of Faerie.

  He ought to have been as trustworthy as the Hawk, his fellow knight. He should have been devoted to the king’s safety and interests. Yet here he was, arranging the assassination of one of the king’s staunchest allies.

  I’d thought something was off about him from the moment Allegra returned from a mission to the Realm of Fire without him, saying he’d been killed by trolls. Trolls should never have been able to kill a dragon. And his odd behaviour on that mission had almost gotten Allegra herself killed. A suspicious person might even have wondered if getting Allegra killed was his whole purpose.

  When he’d turned up later, miraculously back from the dead, his oddness had taken on a more sinister turn. Was it really a coincidence that he had arrived in the middle of a confrontation between the king and the Lord of Summer at the exact moment Lord Kellith needed him? His support set off a chain of events that could have gone very badly for the king and his allies. Who was he really working for, the king or his enemies?

  If I was the king, I would have found a reason to pack dear Sir Ebos off to some distant fortress until I could be satisfied as to the answers to these questions. Instead, King Rothbold had kept him close, which I guess had the advantage of knowing what he was up to—but the Dragon wasn’t a man I would care to have “protecting” me under the circumstances. I hoped Rothbold was only biding his time, gathering evidence, and didn’t actually trust him anymore.

  Still, if it was evidence he was after, Sir Ebos’s name on the Vipers’ accounts was pretty damn conclusive. The man was a traitor and needed to be dealt with before he caused any more harm.

  By the time Ash returned two days later, I was in a fever of impatience. I had so much to tell the king that I was desperate to get out of this place. And I still had to stop the Vipers assassinating Lord Nox. I could never look Raven in the face again otherwise.

  The fact that I was the one meant to be doing the assassinating was a little detail that I still had no idea how to overcome. Baby steps. First, I needed to get Ash on my side.

  I finally broached the topic after we’d finished a practice match with short swords that left me drenched in sweat, my right arm trembling with fatigue. Ash certainly hadn’t lost any of his edge while he’d been gone, and I’d spent too much time with my books and not enough honing my still-limited skills. Still, letting one of the Vipers come at me with a sword had seemed like a bad move, especially without Ash there to make sure things didn’t turn murderous.

  “I found out something worrying while you were away.”

  “More worrying than the way you walked right into that thrust?”

  I nodded tightly, forcing myself to unclench my teeth.

  “Tell me as we head back for lunch. I still need a report of your studies while I wasn’t here.”

  He was brusque and businesslike, with no sign of our brief moment of connection. I could have been anyone, or no one. It made me annoyed with myself for being so pleased to see him when he’d turned up with the breakfast tray.

  “I found out who commissioned the hit on Lord Nox,” I said once we were on the path that ran through the trees back to our cottage, and could be sure no one would overhear us.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. When he opened them again, they were hard. “Do not tell me how you found that out.”

  “It was the Dragon. Sir Ebos.” He showed no reaction—he was probably inured to betrayal after all these years as a Viper—so I hurried on. “Don’t you think that’s suspicious? Why would a knight want to kill one of the Lords? I’m worried it’s a trap.”

  Now he did react—just a little flinch, but I caught it. “It’s funny you should bring that up. Lord Nox is in Spring. That’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think? If it’s a trap, it’s one to get you back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You followed me here after I met with Raven, and now Night and Spring are meeting. What is the one thing they have in common? You.”

  There was a weariness in his voice that tore at my heart. Yes, he’d seen a lot of betrayal, and now he was armouring himself for another one. And the worst part was, he wasn’t even wrong. Oh, he was wrong about Night and Spring working to free me from the Vipers—or, at least, I thought he was. Raven might be able to persuade his father to help, but Lord Thistle wouldn’t give a crap what happened to me. But he wasn’t wrong about the rest. I hadn’t exactly come here with peace and love to all Vipers in mind, and the weight of the guilt was crushing me.

  “Rubbish. Raven’s just a guy I know from Court. I only met him because he helped out a friend.”

  “That’s not true.” He stopped on the path and turned to face me. Moonlight through the branches gave his skin an ethereal glow and darkened his eyes to unreadable depths. “I saw you with him outside The Drunken Irishman. He kissed your hand. Standing close, like this.”

  He took my hand and drew me closer. My feet obeyed without even querying the orders with my brain. His scent filled my nost
rils as he pressed a kiss into my palm, his eyes never leaving mine, then closed my fingers over it with infinite tenderness.

  “No more lies, Sage. At least not between us. You came here to spy.”

  “I didn’t.” It was a pathetic protest, but in my defence, he was mighty distracting. He was taller than me, but not so tall that those full lips weren’t frighteningly close to mine. All I had to do was tip my face up to his. I couldn’t seem to look away from his mouth.

  “And now your friends are frightened because you’ve been gone so long,” he continued with ruthless focus.

  I tore my gaze away from his lips and met his eyes. They had that haunted look about them again, the one that said he was preparing himself to be hurt, because pain was all he ever expected. The one that made me desperate to help him heal.

  “They probably hope to seize hostages to trade for your safe return, so they get Sir Ebos to order a hit on Lord Nox, then gather together to wait for us. If they catch one of us, they think Lord Celebrach will give you up.”

  “They don’t know where I am.” This time, my protest had more force, trying to wipe that look from his eyes. “They probably think I’m dead. The only plot against the Vipers is in your head.”

  His hands tightened on my shoulders. “You’re lying to me; I can tell. Do you plan to betray us?”

  His gaze held me pinned, and I couldn’t look away. His intensity was overwhelming; there was nothing else in the world for him in this moment but the answer to his question. But how did I answer it? How did I reconcile two such differing goals? Was there any way to save both Lord Nox and Ash?

  “How could I betray you?” I whispered.

  As I did, my voice faltered, and a shadow crossed his face. Shame flooded me as I watched him retreat behind the armour that shielded his soul from the realities of his life. The mask of the cold assassin dropped back into place.

  I continued, trying to fix it. “Ni’ishasana compels my obedience the same as yours.”

  But the fabled dagger, for all its chattiness, was remarkably silent on this point. There were no warning signs, though I planned a betrayal every bit as bad as he feared—nothing less than the destruction of his whole organisation. Maybe the dagger didn’t notice plans; maybe it was only actions that counted, and I’d be struck down as I tried to save Lord Nox.

  “And yet Lord Celebrach doesn’t trust you. Do you think apprentices normally go on jobs? This is a test, and if you fail it, both our lives are forfeit.”

  I pulled out of his grip and resumed walking. The cottage was only a little further on, and for once, I wouldn’t be objecting to his habit of trying to pour alcohol down my gullet. I was ashamed and miserable and frightened, and the storm of emotions was almost more than I could bear.

  “Well, he doesn’t trust you either, does he?” I threw over my shoulder.

  His laugh was bitter. “Trust is a foreign emotion to Vipers. Lord Celebrach hasn’t got where he is by trusting anyone.”

  Once inside, I went straight to the sideboard and poured myself a drink. I’d downed it before he’d even shut the front door behind us.

  “How can you stand living like this?” I poured myself another, and one for him, too. “Always watching your back. Never trusting anyone or letting anyone get close. You do everything your father asks of you and it makes no bloody difference at all. He still doesn’t trust you. He doesn’t even seem to like you. He’s not going to win any Father of the Year awards, is he?”

  Ash took a sip of his drink, watching me over the rim of the glass. “I’m not exactly the son he dreamed of, either.”

  “Then he needs better dreams,” I said shortly, surprising a bark of laughter out of him. “Not that I can talk. My father tried to murder my best friend in front of me. Did murder some good friends of mine,” I added softly, thinking of Dandelion and the other guards who’d fallen to my father’s duplicity that day.

  “My father destroyed the woman I loved.”

  Oops. In a face-off between evil dads, his still won hands-down over mine. At least mine didn’t steal people’s souls when he killed them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you.”

  He sighed. “It’s not as though I will ever forget, whether I am reminded or not. But you are the first person I’ve ever talked to about Hattah. Sometimes, now, I remember her as she was … before.”

  “That’s good, I guess.”

  He smiled at me; a genuine smile that softened his forbidding appearance and brought a rare warmth to his grey gaze. “It is. It is good.”

  He lifted his glass to me and drank. Mine had somehow got itself emptied again, so I refilled them both.

  “Are you sure our fathers aren’t twins separated at birth?” I asked. “Mine’s a necromancer, and yours is a—” I gestured broadly with my glass, spilling a little sticky alcohol onto my fingers. I stopped to suck it off. “Yours is whatever he is. Lord of the Deadly Dagger. Stealer of Souls and Poacher of Powers. We should drink to their destruction.”

  I raised my glass, and he clinked his against it solemnly.

  “To the destruction of our fathers,” he said. “May they and all their works end in ruin.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” I drank to it a little too vigorously, because some of the amber fluid slopped out the side of the glass and ran down my face.

  He reached out and wiped it with his thumb in an infinitely gentle caress, then carefully took the glass from me. “That’s probably enough for you.”

  I was pleasantly buzzed and emboldened by the alcohol. And perhaps also by the tenderness of that kiss he’d pressed into my palm. I could still feel the tingle of his lips on my skin. I caught at his hand. “So why do you stay, Ash? You hate him, you hate the Vipers—why not leave?”

  “Because the choice isn’t mine.” The bitterness was back in his voice. “The dagger holds me to his will. What I want doesn’t come into it.”

  “But you’d make that choice if you could.”

  “What’s the point of discussing it? It’s hopeless.”

  “Say it wasn’t, and you could leave. Would you?” I held my breath in anticipation of his answer. So much was riding on it. Tell me you really don’t want to be a Viper.

  He looked down at our clasped hands. “Perhaps. But is a different life really possible? We carry our burdens with us wherever we go. I’m afraid there is no escaping the past.”

  I wanted to tell him everything, but I was still just sober enough for a little restraint. I wasn’t a hundred per cent certain of him yet. But if I could persuade him to join with me against the Vipers, I could save Lord Nox. We could leave this terrible place, and all I would have to do would be to keep us both locked away and unable to answer the dagger’s call until King Rothbold could destroy both Celebrach and the hateful blade.

  And then we would be free.

  He sighed and released my hand. “But this is all fancy. Ni’ishasana holds us all captive, and we have a job to do.”

  “Lord Nox,” I said. “What else did you find out?”

  “The Lord of Night is in Spring for an extended visit, and Lord Thistle and Lady Feronique plan a masquerade ball in his honour.”

  “When?”

  “In three days’ time.”

  So soon? I knew exactly what he was saying—a masquerade was a perfect opportunity for assassins who wanted to pass unseen. He had already chosen this as the time for the strike.

  “We will use poison,” he added. “There will be plenty of opportunities for you to slip it into his drink at the ball, and poison is less … confronting … than some of our other options. I want this to be as easy as possible for you.”

  So I had three days to come up with a plan to save Lord Nox’s life. I felt abruptly sober again as the weight of it threatened to crush me. How could I manage it, with both Evandir and Atinna on guard, ranged against me? Would I have to kill them both to have any chance of success?

  And what if, in the end, Ash didn’t want to leave the Vipers with me?
Would I have to kill him, too?

  29

  I’m sitting at the high table in the long dining room, in the throne-like chair that used to belong to Lord Celebrach.

  No longer. It is mine. Ni’ishasana hangs at my side, a comforting weight that reminds me of my power. My fingers tingle with it, as if the magic I now command is too big to be confined in one person’s skin, and it wants to break loose. I could level mountains, if I wished. Raise waterspouts. Fly. It is everything I ever dreamed of when I was only a weak halfbreed.

  That power connects me to every person in the crowded room. All those faces turned toward me—I own every one. They are my Vipers. I can bend them, break them, send them wherever I wish. Each one will do my bidding or die trying.

  Even the ones that hate me.

  A special kind of satisfaction fills me as I contemplate Evandir, seated at the end of the high table. He thought Ash was his big rival and totally discounted me. His mistake.

  “Evandir,” I say, and he looks up from his meal.

  “Yes, Lady Serpent?” His tone is calm and compliant, but he can’t quite hide the loathing in his eyes.

  My smile widens as I push my chair back from the table. I cross one black-clad leg over the other. “My boots are dirty.”

  Puzzlement creases his brow. “Shall I call for a servant?”

  The other Adepts at the table are watching, and a hush begins to settle over the room as the Vipers at the lower tables become aware that something is afoot.

  “I would prefer you to take care of it yourself.”

  “Now, my lady?”

  “Come here.”

  The sound of his chair scraping back over the floor is loud in the suddenly quiet hall. His face is a mask, but through the magic that links us, I can feel the anger burning like wildfire inside him. He kneels at my feet and pulls a handkerchief from his pocket.