Assassin's Maze

by Everly Frost

Chapter Seven

  I stumble onto Saber Lane, making it no further than the entrance before I lose my invisibility. I teeter against the lamp post and grab hold of it, but I can’t stop myself sliding to the ground, my knees clunking against the cobbled stones.

  “Hunter!” Slade catches me before my head flops to the ground, drawing me safely against his chest. My ear rests against his heart and I exhale with relief, unclenching the hold on the fear that was building inside me. It’s possible I might be going into shock. Not something I’ve experienced before but I’ve heard people talk about it.

  “I don’t want it,” I murmur, trying to see where Slade is taking me. He veers quickly left and Tansy’s face appears in my field of view. Vlad stands in the corridor behind her.

  “Quickly,” Tansy says. “Bring Hunter to the parlor and lie her down on the floor. Vlad, bring me my spellbook.”

  As soon as Slade sets me down on the carpet, the book appears above me for a moment before Tansy closes it, places it on the floor, and leans over me.

  She presses her hand against my shoulder, closes her eyes, and murmurs beneath her breath, “Pictures not words.”

  Warmth from her power spreads across my arm and torso, radiating from the point of contact in all directions. My body sinks into the floor, relaxing for the first time in days. Her healing power travels through my neck up to my cheek, and the sting from my stitches fades. A gentle tugging in that location tells me that Tansy is removing them with her power.

  Heat continues to blossom across my shoulder, increasing until it is nearly too hot, before it recedes again. I slip in and out of consciousness as she continues to heal me. Regaining my senses, I catch glimpses of Slade pacing at the side of the room, stopping only to drop his head into his hands before he gets up and paces again. Vlad stands watch from the door, his expression closed off and masked. Finally, Tansy, her eyes gentler than I’ve ever seen them when she looks at me, tells me she is finished.

  She whispers, “Why aren’t you healing like normal, Hunter?”

  I test my arm. The pain is gone and the wound is mended, but I’m too exhausted to get up. I tip my head back against the carpet, my hair spreading out beneath me, pulled out of the braid I put it in this morning.

  Unable to move, I’m at the mercy of Tansy’s questioning eyes and the worry behind them. Both she and Slade know about me, but Vlad doesn’t. The fact that she’s willing to ask me questions in front of him tells me the extent to which she trusts him. My heart tears a little for her. Vlad has to leave today and the chances of him coming back are slim. I know what it feels like to be torn apart from the person I love, and circumstances are not in their favor.

  Slade kneels beside me, sliding his big arms behind my back to support my torso and help me sit up. His cheek presses to mine, but when he speaks… he’s angry, his words cutting across me.

  “Hunter… never tell me to run from a fight again. You can’t use the bond against me like that. I nearly lost my mind when you made me leave…”

  I gasp. I made him go? Did I compel him against his will? If it wasn’t for the bond, would he have stayed and fought Amalia?

  I try to see his eyes, but he’s holding me too tight.

  Kneeling beside him, Tansy exchanges some silent communication with him. When she and Slade first met, they were in danger of tearing each other’s throats out, their reactions fueled by fear and misunderstanding, but now… something has shifted between them.

  Tansy’s ferocious glare intensifies. “A Realm, please, Slade. So that we can speak in private. Vlad, step inside.”

  The giant assassin does as she asks, quietly pulling up a chair. I can’t read his expression but that’s not unusual for Vlad. Knowing his inner emotions is like trying to see through an opaque shield.

  Once Vlad is seated, Slade shifts slightly and the air shimmers around us. The room doesn’t change into another place, but silence descends, blocking out the sounds from the outside world. A gauzy veil appears across the windows, giving us privacy.

  We are contained in a safe bubble where I can speak freely, but fear rakes through me. I’ve been holding on to my secrets for so long, only sharing them when they are torn out of me. Telling Vlad what I am and what’s really going on is a leap of faith for which I am not prepared. Telling Tansy that I’m dying is a truth I’m not ready to speak. Telling Slade that I will never force him to run to safety is a promise I can’t make, because if it comes to a choice between him or me, I already made that choice when I gave him my feather.

  I’ve been alone for years, moving only by the power of my own two feet, living only by my own determination.

  “No.” I pull out of Slade’s arms, wobble to my feet, and pretend that I’m not an unsteady mess right now. “I won’t put any of you in danger.”

  Slade folds his hands across his chest as he stands, silver light bleeding into his eyes, an immovable force. “You have to tell them what’s going on. Tansy and Vlad care about you. If they can help—”

  “They’re not allowed to care! Nobody is allowed to care. William cared and now he’s dead.” My shout shocks me, echoing back at me in the protected space. “This is my war, Slade, not anyone else’s. At some point, I will have to break the Code. We both know it. When that time comes, I don’t want anyone else tangled up in it.”

  Slade draws himself up to his full height, a growled response on his lips. “Hunter, you’re very good at pushing people away, but I’m telling you right now, I won’t be pushed. I’m staying right here.”

  My heart is brittle and bitter. “You’re bonded to me. You don’t have a choice.”

  He crosses the distance rapidly, but he doesn’t touch me. “Choice? I chose you, Hunter. Bond or not. I don’t believe for one second that happened against my will.”

  “But my Mom…”

  His gaze softens. “No matter what happened between your Mom and Gareth, there must have been a time when they felt something for each other.”

  I whisper, “I’ll never know. But I can’t take any chances.” I point out the window in the direction of the Lane, this place that is filled with humans and magical beings who all sought safety and freedom from their past—a safety that I could destroy. “I have to protect them… all of them… from Amalia.”

  “We will,” he says. “All of us. Together.”

  He still doesn’t touch me, but the air sizzles in a way that tells me he is about to access his power. The depth of trust and emotion in his eyes is too much for me.

  He says, “I know how hard it is for you to trust people. I spent most of my life in a fog of rage, making anger my shield, the mechanism I used to keep anyone from getting close to me. So… I’m going to take a leap of faith first.”

  Tansy has located herself next to Vlad. It’s impossible to miss the way she has reached for his hand.

  Slade says to them, “I trust you both with this secret.”

  His wings form at his sides, glowing and silver, the electrical currents of Valkyrie power streaking through them.

  Tansy’s eyes widen, but Vlad hardly reacts, a wry smile spreading across his lips.

  Tansy asks, “How?”

  Slade doesn’t exactly answer her when he says, “I’m not a born Valkyrie. I became one.”

  Vlad’s smile turns into a wolfish grin. “Now I feel a lot better about the fact that you beat me.”

  Slade turns back to me without putting away his wings, tucking them close to his body. “This is my war, too. I’m fighting it with you, Hunter.”

  I have struggled for a long time to let Slade care for me. It’s taken me a long time to let him into my heart. To really trust him. When he reaches for me, his touch is impossibly calming, gentle, as if he’s absorbing all my anger with every stroke of his hands across my arms and back.

  He says, “I want to be part of the battle, part of your life. Loving you is not about taking the good, it’s about sharing the hard, about walking this path with you.” He runs his hand across my healed
cheek. “Your choice is whether you let me.”

  Cain and I once had a difficult conversation about accepting help. He said that if I was his woman, I wouldn’t think of it as “help” because loving someone is not about obligation. Slade doesn’t want to be seen as “help.” He isn’t treating me as if I’m not strong enough. He wants to fight with me.

  “Will you let me?” he asks.

  He has taken a massive leap of faith by revealing his wings in front of Tansy and Vlad, the kind I never would have taken.

  I nod once, then stronger. “Yes.”

  Tansy’s expression softens as she rises from her seat and reaches for my hand. “Please, Hunter. I lost William. I can’t lose you, too. Something’s wrong with your healing power and I need to know what it is.”

  I clear my throat, my eyes burning, struggling to speak through my emotions. “Since Vlad hasn’t freaked out yet…”

  “It will take a lot more than wings to freak me out, woman,” Vlad grumbles at me. He rises from his seat and crosses the distance, a tower of muscle dressed deceptively in casual jeans and a gray t-shirt.

  “I tell you what, Hunter,” he says. “You and I seem to do well when we make deals with each other. So… let’s make a deal. You tell me one of your secrets, and I’ll tell you one of mine.”

  I narrow my eyes at him as he challenges me with an arched eyebrow and a smile that I can’t quite decipher.

  I say, “Deal.”

  I spread my wings, not slowly like Slade did, but with power, stopping them scant inches from crashing through the furniture on either side of the room. The sound of them spreading snaps through the silence. They glimmer, every feather shining and radiant, the source of my power and my life.

  Vlad takes a step back, eyes wide now. “Okay. Those aren’t fairy wings.” He side-eyes Slade, speaking in his blunt way. “No offense, but… uh… I figured yours were the result of some sort of magic spell, something connected with your assimilation with your assassin’s ring whereas Hunter’s…”

  “It’s not a spell,” Slade says. “Hunter used a feather to save my life but as a consequence…”

  He trails off. It’s up to me whether I tell them the consequences. He was right: I can’t keep the truth from the people around me anymore.

  I point to the gap in my feathers and say, “I’m dying.”

  Chapter Eight

  I tell Tansy and Vlad everything. I start at the beginning—my mother’s bond with Gareth, her protection of the Keres baby and the baby’s birth feather, and now my search for the Keres woman with the violet eyes. I tell them who Amalia really is—my supposed queen—and how she survived all this time. I tell them the frustrating truth: only a Keres and Valkyrie together can end her. Then I tell them that my only hope is a hidden Realm that is fabled to contain the original birth feathers of the first Valkyrie and Keres.

  Tansy is ashen when I finish. She smothers a cry with her hand. “It’s my fault. I didn’t heal Slade that night. You never would have given him a feather if I had helped you. You’re dying because of me.”

  I take her hand, pulling it away from her mouth, holding it in mine the same way she took my hand after William died. “I gave Slade a feather because he was riddled with bullets from guns you didn’t fire, Tansy. He was riddled with bullets because he chose to go on an impossible mission. He chose to take the mission because I asked him to become Master of the Legion. We are all responsible at one time or another.”

  She wipes her eyes. “I promise you, Hunter. The next time you ask me to do something, I will do it. No questions asked.”

  Vlad folds his arms across his chest. “The woman my former Master chased across the country and assassinated because of Amalia… she was a Keres? And her child is the key to opening the hidden Realm?”

  I nod. “That’s correct.”

  He is thoughtful, his eyes narrowing, sifting through information in his logical way. “My Master chased her from the forests near Portland. It stands to reason that the Realm is located in the west.”

  Tansy gasps, her eyes flying wide. “West!” She grabs hold of my arm. “William said something about that yesterday. He wanted to write it down but there wasn’t time before the attack happened. We had to protect the books.”

  Slade casts a hopeful glance at her. “I’m trying to decipher the books to know for sure.”

  “I can help you,” Tansy says. “I was helping William.”

  “I would appreciate that,” Slade says.

  Vlad asks, “What can I do?”

  Slade says, “Find out everything your Master knew about that woman and her child. Any clue might help.”

  “Consider it done. But I have to warn you, if the Realm is located in the forests… your path to it won’t be easy.” He takes my hands in an unusual gesture. “We had a deal, Hunter. You told me your secrets, now I’m going to tell you one of mine.”

  He casts a gentle glance at Tansy when he says, “My mother was a witch.”

  Tansy’s eyes widen again and I twitch with surprise.

  I say, “But you’re human. You have no aura.”

  “Exactly.” He sighs. “When I was born without any magical ability, my mother was cast out of her coven. It broke her. She took me to my father and then she disappeared. I searched for her my whole life and never found her.

  “But her coven… they were not satisfied even then. They sealed off their territory in the forest so none of them could meet and fall in love with a human again. If the Realm is located there, you will have to get past Mother Serena first.”

  Slade says, “If it’s there, we’ll need your help.”

  “You have it,” Vlad promises.

  I give Vlad a cautious smile. “That explains how you know so much about witch’s magic.”

  He grins at my wings. “This explains how you took a death blow for me.”

  He levels his blunt gaze with mine as if he has read my mind. “We will end Amalia one way or another. But we will find a way to do it within the letter of the Code.”

  He knows me too well. Vlad is a bear of an assassin who speaks his mind, kills without regret, but treats Tansy as if she’s priceless. I know in my heart that the next time I face Amalia, it won’t be as an assassin. It will be as a Valkyrie.

  A distant thud makes me jolt.

  Slade gives us a warning glance. “Someone’s here.” His wings disappear and my own snap shut, folding away while Slade removes the magic around us. As soon as the Realm disappears, Tansy strides to the door.

  It bursts open the moment she turns the handle. I glimpse a green beanie and an old coat before Briar hurtles down the corridor toward me.

  Briar shouts, “I went to the bookshop, but you weren’t there.”

  My heart leaps to see her. I pull her inside the room and throw my arms around her bony shoulders, hugging her tightly. She thrums within my grasp, as if she’s going to leap out of her skin.

  I ask, “What’s wrong?”

  She pulls back, agitated, “Where is she?”

  “Who?”

  Briar jumps out of my hold, wild eyes searching the room before she grabs my arm. “Where is Archer Ryan?”

  I startle. Glance at Slade and Tansy who wear equally perplexed expressions. Only Vlad is expressionless, a slight narrowing of his eyes conveying his bewilderment.

  Archer Ryan fought Lutz this morning and saved Briar from assassination.

  I say, “Not here, Briar. Why would he come here?”

  “Not he. She. I told her to come here where she would be safe!”

  Briar rounds on Slade, her ferocious glare causing him to take a startled step back. She advances on him with a snarl, “This is Hunter’s territory. You have no power here.”

  The determination on Briar’s face and in her aggressive stance remind me that she was once a Horde assassin. If she were holding a weapon, I would fear her right now. In fact, like Lutz Logan, she probably doesn’t need a weapon to kill.

  “Stop.” I squeeze my
eyes closed and take a deep breath, stepping between her and Slade to demand Briar’s attention. “You said… she…”

  Briar clearly struggles with my response, rounding on me now. “I did.”

  “But Archer is Patrick Ryan’s son.”

  “No.”

  “No?” My head spins. “A daughter?”

  “It was a surprise to me, too. The first day I saw her was the day you entered the Legion to become a Novice. She uses an alias—calls herself “Grace”—but she told Lutz that her real name is Archer Ryan. I believe her. The way she fought him proves it. She even saw through his blur!”

  “Wait… what? That’s not possible—”

  Briar rushes on. “She told Lutz to get off her turf or she would kill him.”

  That was exactly what Lutz reported. But I shake my head again. “Archer Ryan can’t be a woman. Archer Ryan is a cold-blooded killer. He was raised in the underground. He is Patrick Ryan’s son. Patrick Ryan. The man Mom protected. And his son.” I can’t seem to stop repeating myself, as if the more I say it, the more real it will be. Not a lie like Briar is trying to make me believe.

  “No!” She takes hold of my arms and shakes me hard. “Archer Ryan is a woman. A kind-hearted, caring, thoughtful young woman who hides her scars and knows how to fight dirty to beat assassins like Lutz Logan.”

  I whisper, “Lutz said she threw a coffee cup at him…”

  Briar’s shoulders sag. “She was bringing me breakfast. Instead, she saved my life—”

  “Why, Briar? Why would someone like Archer Ryan help you?”

  Briar growls, “I’m trying to tell you… she gave me food. Every damn day for the last few months. She always carries a book in her pocket. She wears her father’s ugly old coat. She lives in a rundown apartment and chews her nails when she’s nervous. She is a good person. Now she’s going to die because she helped me.”

  “No… this can’t be true…”

  Briar’s voice rises. “Don’t you see? Archer needs you!”

  The room suddenly spins. Those words… Ridley said the same thing to me…