by Carol A Park
Footsteps coming down the hall broke the hypnotic effect of her mop strokes, and Vaughn stiffened.
But it wasn’t Sweetblade; instead, it was yet another woman, who looked worried.
What is this?
The newcomer made her way directly to the mopping woman, and the two held a hushed conference that ended with the mop being set aside and the two women disappearing together back down the hall.
Vaughn stood. He had taken a room at an inn in the next block over; it couldn’t hurt to see what was happening before returning for the night.
Ivana sat at her desk again, a pathetic pile of only three books stacked in front of her, and one open on her lap. It was everything she had in her personal library that might mention Banebringers. She knew very little about them other than what the priests of Yathyn spewed in their warnings against heresy and false gods.
Her lack of information wasn’t a personal deficiency; there simply wasn’t good, factual material out there, and if there ever had been, the Conclave had probably destroyed it.
Were there Banebringers who could move undetected? She didn’t know. For that matter, she didn’t know why their blood was silver, why they sought to unleash terrors on the land, why they worshipped false gods, and where, if their gods were false as the Conclave claimed, they gained their powers from. Powers she also knew next to nothing about, other than that they were named profane.
For all she knew, everything she knew about Banebringers was lies. She had moved for far too long on the underbelly of society to put much faith in pure motives for anyone, let alone priests.
And her sad collection of books wasn’t adding anything to her lack of knowledge. It had never bothered her until now, when it was possible that a Banebringer was spying on her. Worse, a Banebringer who could spy on her without being seen.
She looked around her study for what must have been the tenth time in an hour. She didn’t like not knowing. Not knowing enough about Banebringers. Not knowing whether what little she knew was true. Not knowing why a Banebringer was watching her, and who might have sent him or her. Not knowing whether the Banebringer could be in her study right now.
She slammed the book on her lap shut. No. She had bolted the door from the inside, and even if she were wrong, and the person hadn’t left, she would solve nothing by staring at shadows. What she needed was a way to find and dispose of this interloper.
The problem was, for all they didn’t know, the one fact everyone did know was that it was dangerous to kill a Banebringer, because when a Banebringer died, the death spawned a bloodbane—or monster, or demon, depending on who was describing the fiends. She knew this all too well from one near-disastrous personal experience. It was why Hunters Sedated them, instead of killing them. Sedation simultaneously rendered their powers inert and caused the Banebringer to enter an irreversible comatose state. The threat would be erased, without spawning even more bloodbane—as if the land needed more.
But that meant that should she catch this Banebringer, she would have to be creative in order to get rid of him. She couldn’t chance a vicious monster appearing in the middle of her inn. And how would she catch him, when she couldn’t see him?
Whatever his—or his master’s—purpose was, it obviously wasn’t to kill her, or she would already be dead. Even she couldn’t stop an invisible knife. So she would simply count on the fact that he would continue following her, and when the right moment came…
She fingered the sheath of the dagger hidden under her desk.
She would be ready.
A knock sounded at her door, and she glanced at the clock. Who needed her at this time of night?
The hallways of the inn were silent but for the padding of the feet of the two women he was following. Despite the circumstances, he felt strangely calm. For some reason, ever since he had become a Banebringer, walking at night, especially when it was still and quiet, calmed him. He attributed it to whatever connection they assumed he had to the heretic moon goddess, but he didn’t know if that was really the case.
They still understood so very little about Banebringers, partially because most people were too busy hating them and hunting them down to care, and partially because the Conclave had destroyed most of the historical records that might have helped them.
The women stopped at Sweetblade’s door, and he drew back, crushing another sliver of aether just in case.
The second woman knocked.
Sweetblade answered a minute later, looking tired and irritated. “Zyanya? Ohtli?” She looked back and forth between the two women. “What is this about?”
The two glanced at each other, but the one who knocked spoke. “It’s Caira, Da. She…she’s having trouble.”
Sweetblade raised her eyebrow. “Having trouble?”
The mopping woman spoke up. “The babe won’t stop crying, and neither will she.”
For a moment Vaughn thought Sweetblade would dismiss them, but instead she nodded curtly. “Give me a moment.”
She disappeared back into her rooms, and then after a few minutes, stepped out into the hallway, closed and locked her door, and retreated down the hall with the other women.
Vaughn hesitated. Was whatever this was about worth the risk? His curiosity was piqued. Who were these women Sweetblade employed at her inn, anyway? With the addition of the newest woman they had just mentioned, that made five women so far—no, six, since he had seen a woman working in the stables. Was the inn run by a gaggle of sisters or cousins?
And what was this about a babe? Did Sweetblade have children? That would be useful information.
He decided to follow them.
The women retraced their steps down the hall toward the dining room, but turned off into another hall before they reached it. At the end of that hall was a door, which Sweetblade unlocked.
Vaughn caught the door just as it was about to shut and slipped through.
Sweetblade glanced back, no doubt catching the extra pause before the door latched shut, and Vaughn froze, but she didn’t seem to pay it much mind and continued on with the group.
The door didn’t lead to a room; instead the hallway continued as though no door had been there in the first place.
Vaughn glanced back, frowning. He had noticed that Sweetblade’s inn seemed to stretch farther back than the space he had seen allowed, but he had assumed a large kitchen or perhaps meeting area. He hadn’t considered that there might be another section of private rooms back here.
In his hesitation, he had to hurry to catch up as the group of women disappeared through another door, and once again he snuck through at the last moment.
The contrast between this room and the hallway was startling. Almost immediately, the cries of a child pierced the air; he couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard it out in the hall. Soundproofing again, apparently.
The room was spacious and had a few rocking chairs scattered around, as well as an entire wall devoted to—incredibly—children’s playthings. A plush rug covered one half of the room and hardwood the other.
A woman sat on the floor in front of one of the rocking chairs, doubled over to her knees, arms wrapped above her head, sobbing, and next to her in a cradle lay a young baby, screaming. He supposed, by the description he had overheard, that this was Caira.
Vaughn crept around the perimeter of the room to get closer.
Sweetblade went to the woman immediately. She knelt in front of her and gestured sharply to the two wide-eyed women behind her. “Is one of you going to pick the babe up, or are you going to let it scream?”
The worried woman stepped forward to take the child. “We’ve already tried to calm him.” She shifted the child to her shoulder in what looked like a natural manner. “He won’t stop crying.”
Sweetblade glanced at the woman holding the babe. “Take him to the other room,” she said. “I’ll attend in a moment.”
The woman nodded and retreated, patting the babe on its back and muttering soothing words.
The
cries lessened and then cut off as they disappeared into a door on the other side of the room, leaving only the sobs of the mother.
Sweetblade sat silently until the woman on the floor’s sobbing subsided. “What’s troubling you, girl?” she asked softly.
The woman, Caira, shook her head, and wrapped her arms tighter around herself.
The mopping woman spoke, then, so softly Vaughn found himself reflexively leaning closer to hear. “We’ve been worried that she’s going to hurt herself, Da.”
Sweetblade didn’t react to that startling announcement. Instead, she gestured sharply to the mopping woman. “Leave us,” she said. “Go help Zyanya with the babe.”
She obeyed, leaving Sweetblade alone with Caira…and Vaughn.
He inched back a little bit, feeling out of place and uncomfortable. It was like stepping into an entirely different world—one he had never seen or known. All these women, crying children…
Perhaps it would be best for him to leave. Could he slip out of the door without one of the women noticing? Unlikely, at this point.
“Caira,” Sweetblade said again.
There was a moment of silence, and then, “He wouldn’t stop crying. He won’t sleep, and he won’t stop crying…” She trailed off. “I can’t do it,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Hush,” Sweetblade said, “of course you can. You’re not alone. That’s why you’re here. You need to ask for help.”
Vaughn blinked, confused. That’s why the woman was at the inn? To get help with her child? That seemed…odd, even for someone who wasn’t an assassin.
But Caira didn’t seem to hear Sweetblade. Instead, she had started crying again, this time the silent, wracking sobs of a pain so deep the sound just wouldn’t come out.
Vaughn understood that, at least.
Caira pulled herself into a ball and whispered something.
Sweetblade sat back on her heels and closed her eyes for a moment. She then pushed herself to her feet and entered the door where she had banished the other two women.
A moment later, all three had returned. “Take her back to your room,” Sweetblade was saying. “See that she sleeps.”
“What about the babe?”
They all stopped to look at the child. He had finally ceased crying and was looking up at Zyanya with wide eyes, squirming restlessly.
“Give him to me for now,” Sweetblade said. “Take care of Caira. Tell the others to keep watch on her and help her if it looks like she needs it. Don’t wait to be asked.”
Zyanya nodded and handed the babe over to Sweetblade.
Vaughn watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as Sweetblade cradled the child in her arms. He wanted to call out—let the other women know they had just handed over a child to a killer. But he remained silent.
Zyanya urged Caira to get up, and she finally complied, and all the women except Sweetblade left out the back door.
The babe had started whimpering again, and Sweetblade sat down in the rocking chair with it and began singing a soft lullaby.
Vaughn felt frozen to the floor. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sweetblade’s face.
Not the sharp intelligence and wariness he had seen in her eyes when she had been investigating in her rooms. Not the irritability and shortness she had expressed toward the women, despite her outward demonstration of concern.
But tired. Worn.
Not expressions he would have expected on the face of an assassin.
Transfixed, he found himself moving closer to the rocking chair.
The babe’s eyes had closed, and Sweetblade, still rocking, was staring out in the room, eyes distant.
And then Vaughn tripped over a heavy object on the floor. He caught himself with his hands—but not before letting out a soft “oof.”
Sweetblade’s face changed from soft to sharp in an instant, and she turned her head to stare directly at the spot where he was crouched.
Clumsy fool! he berated himself, heart pounding.
“Who’s there?” Sweetblade asked, her voice soft, but on the edge of dangerous.
Sweetblade rose from her chair, and Vaughn scrambled to his feet and edged away.
Her eyes narrowed when she reached the same place, and she turned in a circle, eyes darting back and forth, and then looked down at the offending object—a boat, lying on its side.
A moment later, the perplexing woman was holding a sleeping babe in one arm and a dagger in the other.
Not good. Definitely not good.
What would the best course of action be? Hide and wait till she went away—and hope he had an opportunity to escape this area before other women entered? Flee and hope for the best?
Sweetblade stood silent and still for what seemed like an eternity. Her eyes passed where he stood twice, and both times he squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath.
Finally, she moved with an impossible silence to the cradle, laid the sleeping child down, and started circling the room, looking into every shadow and every corner, until she returned to where she had started.
Surely now she was convinced that no one was here.
Then she went to both of the doors in turn and locked them—with a key she had tucked in her pocket.
He swallowed. No getting out now without the key. He was running out of options. He briefly considered tackling her—she couldn’t see him, after all—but that was dangerous with a dagger in her hand. He could probably overpower her with sheer mass, but he had to assume a respected assassin could hold her own in a scrap, and who knew what other tools she had available to her? What if he failed and took a mortal wound?
There was a reason Banebringers avoided melee fighting.
All right, then. He just had to wait her out. Even if she happened to move too close to him, he could slip farther away. As long as he stayed hidden, he could continue to evade her.
“I know you’re here,” she said softly, the sudden speech into the silence startling Vaughn. “You were in my rooms earlier, and I know you’re here now.”
How…?
“I’m guessing you can’t stay invisible forever,” she said. “I’m a patient woman. I can wait.”
Vaughn gaped at her. How had she come to the conclusion that there was an invisible person in the room, rather than that the noise had simply been her imagination? That didn’t seem to be a logical conclusion for a normal person.
And she was right. He could stay invisible for quite a while—hours, even—but eventually he would run out of his solid aether and then be forced to burn it from his own blood. That might gain him a few more hours before he risked burning too much and fainting from blood loss. And he could only stay invisible if he were conscious.
So he had perhaps five or six hours? How long until sunrise? Would the women come back and try to get into the room before then?
Surely. And then she would have to unlock it, and he could slip away.
“If you’re thinking you’re simply going to wait until someone else needs to get into the room, that won’t work. My girls know that if the doors are locked, I’m not to be disturbed. It will be a while before they become concerned.”
Her girls? “Perhaps sooner since you have one of their children in here with you,” Vaughn blurted out.
And in the split second he had to contemplate, with horror, the stupidity of speaking at a time like this, she had lunged in his direction. He barely managed to stagger out of her way and to the other side of the room, but he was no longer moving even at his level of quiet, and she was on him again before he could think of a next move.
He dodged again and hit his thigh on the corner of one of the low shelves that held toys. He grunted and stumbled to the side, and a moment later she swept by, catching his smarting leg and causing him to lose his balance.
He fell, and in his panic and desperation he lost control of the aether.
It was so astonishing to see a man simply appear out of nothing that Ivana almost lost the opp
ortunity to strike while she had him on the ground, and while he was quite visible.
Almost.
Her blade found his throat and her knee his groin before she allowed herself time to think further on it.
“Wait!” the man cried out, struggling against her.
She looked down at him, and her deferred astonishment from the previous moment returned as shock.
She knew this man.
He returned her gaze, a bit of fear, but mostly frustration in his eyes.
No. No, it wasn’t him. He simply had some similar features.
Blood started to seep out from around her blade; she was pressing too hard. She released the pressure on the dagger, but held it there, stopping short of doing real damage.
She shook herself, annoyed that she had allowed herself to become rattled. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
He tried to speak, but it came out as a whimper.
She lessened the pressure on his groin. “Answer me!”
“My name is Heilyn,” he said. “No one sent me.”
She leaned in close to his face. “People don’t stalk assassins for their own entertainment,” she said. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll castrate you before I kill you. Slowly.”
Incredibly, he tried to smile, though it came off as more of a grimace. “Your options are so generous,” he said. “But you can’t kill me, unless you want to spawn a bloodbane inside your inn.”
He was wrong, of course. She could, and would, kill him. Banebringer or not, she could never let someone who knew her identity go free.
She simply couldn’t do it inside her inn.
The blood trickling down his throat had started to change to the same silvery substance she had found on her rug and on Beidah. She fought down the side of her that wanted to be absolutely fascinated by this phenomenon. She could indulge her curiosity when he was dead. “You’re a Banebringer,” she stated.
He nodded, and then winced as the motion scraped the edge of her blade further against his throat. “I swear it—I’m here on my own. I—I needed your services…”
