A Storm of Glass and Stars (The Oncoming Storm Book 4)

by Marion Blackwood

  Whirling back around at the sound, I found Niadhir climbing to his feet. His manners were completely changed. Gone was the sad scholar and instead, a man with a cold voice and calculating eyes dusted himself off and drew up to his full height.

  “You were such an interesting research object,” he continued in the same emotionless voice. “So very resilient but at the same time, so insecure.”

  Shocked, I took a step back. “What?”

  “You never stood a chance, though.” His cold eyes glittered. “As soon as I drugged you and convinced you to tell me about your friend Rain that you got killed, I knew I had everything I needed to break you into tiny little pieces. When Queen Nimlithil finally authorized me to begin my experiment, I was ecstatic.”

  My mouth was suddenly very dry. I worked my tongue around it a couple of times before I could form a word. “Experiment?”

  “Yes, making you believe you killed another friend.” A detached smile stretched his lips. “After that, I could simply watch you descend into madness and all I needed was a hallucinogenic and to say a few strategic things to fuel your guilt and pain.”

  Water crashed against stone further away and mixed with the noise of blood rushing in my ears. I shook my head but the scholar pressed on.

  “Making you feel small and stupid. Telling you that you were cursed. Reminding you of all the awful things you have done. Convincing you that you were a villain by hinting that you could still be saved. Saying that you were beautiful and pretending like I cared about you and wanted to have a future with you.” He lifted his shoulders in a light shrug. “It was so easy. You were like a child. So gullible and lost. Desperate for someone to love you and want you.”

  Stumbling back another step, I shook my head again. “You’re a psychopath.”

  Niadhir raised his chin defiantly. “I am a scholar.”

  “You did that to her?” a dark voice growled behind me.

  “Yes.” The lunatic scholar arched an eyebrow at the assassin responsible for the comment. “Were you not paying attention just now?”

  “I will make you beg for death,” Shade threatened, drawing out each word.

  Without turning around to watch the lightning storm flash in the Master Assassin’s black eyes, I held up a hand. “No. He is mine.”

  “Oh!” Niadhir held up a finger in the air and then dug around inside his white suit until he found a small notepad.

  A knife-covered Storm Caster and the Master of the Assassins’ Guild had just threatened to kill him but he seemed to completely disregard that fact as another scientific query jumped to the front of his mind. He pulled out the notepad while excitement bounced in his eyes.

  “Tell me,” he began, “did you ever notice the white mist in the Spirit Garden?”

  I was too fascinated by how completely crazy he was so I answered honestly because I kind of wanted to see where he was going with this. “Well, yeah.”

  “Did you notice anything specific about it?”

  “No?”

  “Excellent!” His eyes lit up and he scrawled something on the piece of paper. “It induces hallucinations. It kept you in a constant drugged state since you received your daily dose by going to the Spirit Garden. Hence the nightmares and the slight hallucinations.”

  My mouth dropped open. That was what had caused the nightmares and the dead people popping up at the ball and other places? Niadhir finished writing and jerked up from the notepad. He tapped the pen to it.

  “But I was so curious to see what would happen if you were dosed twice. I knew I just had to send you back there twice in one day to study what would happen.” He drew a hand over his chin. “The breakdown you had when you thought all the people you had killed were there to punish you was fascinating. That was my planned breaking point for you. The moment when I stripped you of everything you were and made you into someone else. Into the kind of person I wanted you to be.”

  Completely lost for words, I just stared at him. He had drugged me. Given me nightmares for weeks and made me see dead people. He had orchestrated the breakdown that had crushed me into a thousand shards of glass that very nearly left irreparable damage. Anger surged through me. That damn psychopath had tried to change the core of who I was.

  The darkness ripped from my soul. Tendrils of black smoke snaked around me while my eyes went black as death. I threw my arms out. Lightning crackled as storm clouds gathered around me. Rage and insanity danced in my eyes as I leveled a withering glare on the scholar before me.

  “After everything I’ve been through, you thought you would be the one to break me?” Thunder punctuated my words. “I have survived on the streets as a child. I have been beaten, betrayed, tortured, and hanged. I have been forced to betray allies. Assassinate innocents. I have been called heartless, cold, and cruel. I got my best friend, my sister in all but blood, killed when I was eleven. When I was a child!” Lightning flashed around me as the dark clouds grew. “After all of that, after everything I have survived, did you really think that you would be the one to break me? I am smoke and steel and lightning. I cannot be broken.”

  Niadhir took a step back, fear coloring his eyes, but it was too late. Sand sprayed into the air as I shot forward. Desperate pleas fell on deaf ears when I caught up to the scholar. I rammed a hunting knife through his heart.

  A strained gasp cut through the noise of the storm. Niadhir pressed his hands to his chest as I withdrew a blade smeared with blood. Grabbing the back of his neck, I drew him towards me.

  “You cannot break me,” I whispered in his ear.

  When I released my grip on his neck and took a step back, his knees buckled. Black sand ruined his spotless suit as he slumped to the ground. Well, that and the large red stain spreading across his chest. I watched the light die in his pale violet eyes before pulling the darkness into my soul again. Drawing a deep breath of sea air, I let the rage subside. No one would break me.

  40.

  Shade chuckled behind me. “It’s good to have you back.”

  I turned around to find the assassin giving me a lopsided smile while Elaran nodded next to him.

  “I agree,” the auburn-haired ranger announced. “Moping doesn’t suit you.”

  “Right?” Shade said before shifting his amused gaze back to me. “Threatening to kill people in a cloud of black smoke and lightning is so much more your style.”

  “I wasn’t moping,” I muttered and drew my eyebrows down in a halfhearted attempt at a scowl.

  Another bout of rippling laughter drifted through the night air. I shook my head. Damn assassin. After wiping off my knife and returning it to the small of my back, I strode across the black sand.

  “Come on,” I called over my shoulder. “Help me get the rowboat in the water.”

  Together, we pushed the small boat across the beach until we finally reached the dark blue water. The vessel wobbled slightly as the three of us climbed aboard. With powerful strokes, we made our way out to sea.

  “What now?” Elaran waved a hand at the vast expanse of water around us. “We’re going to row back to Pernula?”

  “Oh come on, have a little faith.” I grinned at the confounded elf. “When I stage a rescue, I do it properly.”

  Waves crashed against the sides of the boat, sending sprays of salt water over us as we made our way further out. Before long, a hulking shape became visible on the horizon. It grew larger at a rapid rate.

  Shade narrowed his eyes at it. “Is that...?”

  A smirk decorated my face. “Yep.”

  “How did you even arrange that?”

  “It’s the only reason I agreed to that damn ritual in the first place.” I shrugged. “I knew they’d never let me send a letter to someone outside otherwise.”

  The Master Assassin arched an eyebrow at me. “And they didn’t read it?”

  “Of course they did.” I gave him a short shake of my head as if that should’ve been obvious. “Which is why I wrote two letters. One for Niadhir to read and one fo
r me to send.” Another grin flashed over my mouth. “Come on, sleight of hand is kinda my thing, remember?”

  “Underworlders,” Elaran muttered and shook his head ruefully.

  The assassin and I both chuckled at that. While we waited for the dark shape to get closer, I filled them in on what had happened while they’d been locked away. They listened mostly without interrupting but there were some parts where I could almost see the anger dancing in their eyes. I contemplated giving them a censored version but after everything we’d been through together these past few months, I figured that they deserved the truth.

  I had already finished when at last a wall of dark wood blocked out the horizon.

  “Someone arrange for a pickup?” a cheerful voice called above us.

  Looking up, we found Zaina grinning down at us from her pirate ship. Wood clattered as she threw down the ladder.

  “When you stage a rescue, you do it properly indeed.” Shade chuckled and then nodded at the ladder. “After you.”

  Shooting him a satisfied grin, I grabbed the closest rung and started the climb. Zaina reached down and helped me the final bit onto deck.

  “On the night of the full moon, huh?” She chuckled. “You didn’t give me a lot of time to get here.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Once I had both feet on the wooden planks, she clapped a hand to my shoulder and gave me a warm smile. “Don’t be. It’s good to see you.” She nodded at the assassin and the elf as they climbed onto the deck as well. “All of you. A lot of people have been really worried about you.”

  “Yeah, uhm, sorry about that.” I scratched the back of my neck. “It’s kinda my fault that we got caught up in this.”

  The pirate leveled observant black eyes on me. “And later, we’re gonna have a very long drink while you tell me all about whatever this thing you got caught up in is.”

  “Promise.” I let out a small laugh. “But we’re gonna need more than one drink.”

  “It’s a deal.” She winked at me. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

  While snapping orders to her crew, Zaina strode across the deck. Shade nodded at me before following the pirate and firing off a whole bunch of questions about the state of Pernula. I turned to Elaran. He was leaning against the wooden railing, staring at the gleaming City of Glass across the dark water. The damp material groaned as I moved over and rested my arms on the railing next to him.

  “She’s a good person.” He let out a long sigh. “A rare person.”

  Already knowing that he was talking about Princess Illeasia, I just nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Do you think we ever had a chance?”

  “I think you still do.” I motioned at the world around us. “One day, all this craziness with her mother will be over. And then, there’s nothing stopping you from being together.”

  Mixed feelings of sadness and determination washed over his face. “I still need to protect my people.”

  “When this war is over, there won’t be anything to protect them from.” I bumped his shoulder with mine. “Don’t forget that you deserve to be happy too.”

  For a long moment, we just stood there, listening to the waves slosh against the hull. A cool night wind ruffled our hair and brought another waft of seaweed and salt to our lungs. Sails snapped above us.

  “You’re not fooling anyone, by the way,” Elaran suddenly declared.

  I frowned at him. “Fooling anyone with what?”

  “It might be covered in black ice and metal spikes but you do have a heart.”

  My eyebrows shot up as I stared at him. A warm feeling spread through my chest and I gave him a small smile. The grumpy elf seemed to notice the expression on my face because he crossed his arms and drew his eyebrows down.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he huffed. “You’re still the most disagreeable person I’ve ever met.”

  I snorted. “Right back at you.”

  After another few moments of amused looks and stifled chuckles, we left the railing and drifted across the ship. In the shadows of the raised part of the deck, Shade caught up with me. With my back against the wooden planks, I studied the assassin. Strange feelings swirled in his dark eyes.

  “I lied before,” he stated. “Back in Travelers’ Rest.”

  “The Master of the Assassins’ Guild lied about something?” I drew my hands in a dramatic arc. “Shocker.”

  A hand on my collarbone pushed me into the wall while his athletic body pressed against me. His lips met mine with ferocious passion. I blinked in surprise. After one more second of trying to figure out what was going on, I gave up the futile attempt and instead leaned into his embrace and returned the kiss.

  There on that pirate ship under the stars, time stood still as everything else dropped away and Shade and I became the only two people in the whole world. His heartbeat against my chest. His lips against mine.

  After an eternity of timelessness, he drew back just enough to place his lips next to my ear. “I do care what happens to you.” His breath was hot against my neck. “I care about you.”

  Strange feelings, feelings I didn’t even knew I was capable of, sparkled like fireworks in my chest. A shiver rippled through my body as he drew his fingers along my throat before placing his strong hand behind my neck. Lightning crackled inside me. His lean muscles shifted against me as he ran his other hand down my body before he drew me into another ravenous kiss.

  When he at last pulled back and the press of his muscled body no longer kept me upright, I slumped back against the wooden planks behind me. I felt as though my brain had been blown clear out of my head and had sailed up into the heavens.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “That was... wow.”

  Putting two fingers under my chin, he tilted my head up to meet his eyes. “I do care about you,” he repeated.

  Before I completely lost myself in his intense dark eyes again, I raked my hands through my hair and cracked a rueful smile. “You know, as much as it annoys me, I care about you too.”

  A lopsided smile quirked his lips. I ran my fingers along his jaw while my own smile turned sad.

  “But love is not for people like us.”

  Some of Zaina’s sailors blundered into our momentous moment so Shade took me by the hand and led us towards the railing instead. Leaning a hip against the wood, he gazed down at me.

  “Your body seemed to disagree just now,” he said with a grin.

  Chuckling, I grabbed the collar of his shirt and drew him in for another quick kiss. Satisfaction coursed through me when a small moan escaped his lips. I drew back.

  “If only it were that simple.” Twisting away slightly, I leaned against the railing and stared out at the darkened sea.

  He propped up his elbows on the damp wood next to me. “What do you mean?”

  “When we get back to Pernula, you’re gonna have to regain power you’ve lost while you’ve been away. And...” I blew out a short chuckle. “You’re not satisfied just being the General, are you? If I know anything about you, you’ve already started manipulating your way into becoming the sole ruler of Pernula. But to do that, you need the support of the nobles and the merchants. No matter how reformed they think you are, I am still a thief from the Underworld. So, if you want to become the sole ruler of Pernula, you can’t do it with me by your side.” I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Dropping his head into his hands, he raked his fingers through his thick black hair before looking up again. A heavy sigh rose from his chest. “You’re not.”

  “And besides, when we get back to Pernula, I’m leaving again. I finally know where the Storm Casters are and I have to go find them.”

  His intense black eyes searched my face. “Are you coming back?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” A smirk spread across my lips. “I was always planning on coming back. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

  The Master Ass
assin chuckled and shook his head. For a while, Shade and I just stood there, arms brushing against each other as we watched the waves in comfortable silence. The white city was growing smaller in the distance.

  “And when I get back,” I said at last, “I’m sure you will have married some strategically important daughter.”

  Shade nodded next to me. “Yeah, I probably will. And you will have fallen for some powerful Storm Caster who can teach you everything you want to know.”

  I tipped my head to the side. “Probably.”

  “But then again, maybe we won’t have.”

  Casting a glance at him from the corner of my eye, I found him watching me. “Maybe we won’t have indeed.” Strong waves slapped against the ship as I turned to face him again. Trying to suppress the mess of emotions in my chest, I lifted my eyebrows at him. “Hold on, didn’t we agree that feelings were a bloody inconvenience?”

  A surprised chuckle bubbled from his throat but then he gave me a grave nod. “Yes, we did. And they are.”

  Matching his dead serious look, I pretended to hoist a cup in the air. “Well, then. To a cold black heart.”

  Shade lifted his own pretend cup into the night air. “To a cold black heart. That we may or may not actually have.”

  Laughing, I shot the assassin a knowing look. “May we one day find out which.”

  After drawing soft fingers along my neck, Shade made his way back into the ship. My skin still tingled from his touch. The two of us together, what a force we would’ve been. I shook my head. If only our lives weren’t so bloody complicated. Maybe one day they wouldn’t be, and what would happen then, only the gods knew.

  As we sailed on to the open sea, I gazed back at Starhaven and the City of Glass. It had been one of the most emotionally draining experiences of my life but I had also found out some very important things. In addition to, well, whatever it was that Shade and I now were, I had also learned quite a lot about myself and about the Storm Casters.

  Thanks to Maesia, I didn’t have to search blindly anymore. I knew where the other Ashaana were and I could now start my journey to understand how my powers worked.