by Carol A Park
“Tell me who you were talking to,” she said again, pronouncing each word slowly and deliberately. “Or I start cutting into sensitive body parts.” The dagger drifted lower.
Damn, the qixli wasn’t worth that!
“All right—all right—I have a device that allows me to speak over a great distance. No one was here. I was using the device.”
“A device that allows you to speak over long distances,” she repeated, incredulity in her voice.
“Yes.”
“Show me. Now.”
Vaughn waved in the direction of Sweetblade’s dagger. “Could you…?”
She took one step back. While keeping a wary eye on her, he shifted to pick up his bag, pulled out the qixli, and then offered it to her.
She didn’t take it. “That’s a mirror.”
“Just look at it.”
“Hold it up for me to see.”
He did as she asked, and she examined it more closely.
“Very well. Then…” She flicked the hand not holding the dagger. “Speak to someone.”
He hesitated. That was drawing awfully close to a line he wouldn’t cross.
“Now.”
But not over it yet.
He held the device in his palms again, as he had before, and willed it to call out to Yaotel’s qixli.
The silvery substance started to shimmer. He moved it around so that she couldn’t see what he was looking at—and more importantly, so that Yaotel couldn’t see her. She looked like she was about to protest, but stopped abruptly when a voice came out of it.
“Vaughn? What now?”
“I forgot to tell you,” Vaughn said. “Make sure I’m not contacted again. I’m going somewhere where the qixli could fall into hands it shouldn’t. I don’t want it glowing and attracting attention.”
“You already get yourself into trouble?”
“Just being extra cautious.”
Yaotel snorted. “Right. Because that’s normal for you.”
Vaughn smiled, but his throat felt tight. “Give Danton a hard time for me.”
“Do it yourself, when you get back.” The image faded.
Ivana was staring at the qixli, and for a moment, Vaughn saw neither carefree young lady, cold assassin, nor world-weary woman. “Burning skies, you were telling the truth,” she whispered.
He shoved the qixli back into the case and tossed it into his bag.
“How?” she demanded.
“Let’s just call it Banebringer magic,” he said.
The cold persona snapped back. “My original question remains. Who were you talking to?”
“A friend.”
She pressed the dagger against his ribs again. “Not good enough.”
He set his jaw. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can tell you.”
“I’m not above torture.”
He closed his eyes just long enough to steel himself against the nausea that swept over him. “Go ahead. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
She didn’t move the dagger, either to remove it or cut into him.
“Or kill me, if you must,” he continued. He met her eyes. “There are some things worth dying for.”
“And there are some things worth killing for,” she responded.
He snorted. “Indeed, I imagine for you, it’s shiny and has a nice weight in your hand.”
Her eyes flashed, and in an instant, the hand not holding the dagger had seized his throat and jaw. The heel of her hand pressed painfully into his throat, and her fingernails dug into his jawline. “Don’t pretend to understand me,” she hissed. “Because you don’t.”
He swallowed, trying to dislodge her hand. This was clearly the wrong time for making wry observations. “Look—I’m not a threat to you. I don’t know how to convince you of that.”
“You can’t.”
A tendril of hope died. But he took a guess that he hoped was right. “But you’re not going to kill me here, are you? Would you really take that chance?”
She pushed herself away from him by shoving his head back, and then put away her dagger. She seemed more annoyed than angry, now.
He breathed out and rubbed at his jawline. “I wasn’t talking to anyone about you. My friend was contacting me to tell me that my—Ri Gildas knows that I’ve been shopping for assassins.”
Sweetblade remained silent.
“But…you already knew that,” he guessed.
She looked at him askance. “Ri Gildas issued a matching contract on you three weeks ago.”
“A…what?”
“He has offered to quadruple any offer an assassin receives for a hit on him, if he or she refuses the contract and instead turns in your head.”
Vaughn’s throat went dry at the same time his hands started to dampen. It was a rational move on the part of his father, having discovered that Vaughn had gone on the offensive. It also meant that Sweetblade…
She was holding her dagger up, examining it as though looking for mold on a loaf of bread.
This was worse than he had thought.
“I see,” he said. “That’s…just great.” He stood up. “Lucky you.”
She shrugged and turned away from him. “Perhaps.”
He furrowed his brow. Huh? Was she saying she wasn’t planning on cashing in on that contract, even though she was planning to kill him? That made no sense.
Then again, nothing about this woman made sense. Why had suggesting that she killed for money—which she obviously did—anger her?
If he could figure out who she really was, he might have a chance at knowing how to convince her to leave him alone.
Whatever it was, he had a feeling her “girls” were the key to understanding her. He knew what she did, but didn’t understand why an assassin would take on such a project. Was it all a cover for her true identity, since no one would suspect the charitable innkeeper was really a hired killer?
Or…
A curious thought hit him.
Perhaps the assassin was the cover for the innkeeper.
As the carriage started moving, Ivana closed her eyes again, blocking out the sight of Heilyn—or whatever his name was. She was irritated at herself that she had let him get under her skin. Irritated for momentarily losing control.
And irritated that he looked so much like Airell.
He had to be a brother; the resemblance was too close.
The relation was hardly his fault—and he obviously had no love for the father he was trying to have killed—but she couldn’t help despising him for it all the same.
She wanted this entire affair to be over. The banquet, the reward, disposing of Heilyn…so she could repair the crack he had managed to put in her walls before it grew any larger.
Chapter Eight
The Steward and the Maid
The man who met them as they stepped out of the carriage late that afternoon was as charming as any snake before it showed its fangs. While his clothes were fashionable, he wore the colors of Ri Talesin, which meant he wasn’t a noble himself, but he could have fit in among them easily.
“Da Ivana, I presume,” he said, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. She offered him a sweet smile and low curtsy in response, despite the way that his eyes lingered on her bosom before turning to Heilyn.
“And Dal Heilyn. You are most welcome in my master’s house. I am Dal Allyn, Ri Talesin’s steward, and will assume charge of you while you are here.”
Interesting that the Ri was putting them—as far as he knew, two insignificant commoners from the capital that happened to have the good fortune to slay a monster—in his steward’s charge.
The steward made a motion to the carriage driver, who spurred the horses down the drive, and began walking back toward the enormous manor ahead of them—without looking back at them or asking them to follow, which, despite such personal care, put them in their proper place as guests, but not highly regarded ones.
He swept one hand in a wide arc around him. “The grounds and manor house have
been in the Ri’s family for four hundred years,” he said. “They are vast, and I would ask that you stay close to the manor, should you decide to wander while you are here, and stay close to the rooms allotted to you inside, lest you become lost.”
Ivana studied the back of the man as they walked. The request was offered graciously, but the dual meaning was clear: Be impressed with my master’s wealth. Be assured that you are nowhere near his level in society. Therefore stay where you are told.
Honored guests, perhaps, but only within limits.
It didn’t take too much effort for Ivana to keep up the façade of the enraptured commoner. A slight opening of the mouth, wide eyes, and she could let her mind wander while she gazed around.
The manor house was far too large for the seven people that the Ri of Weylyn’s immediate family consisted of, and the Ri no doubt had far more servants than they required to live comfortably.
And the steward was sure to enumerate all of the estate’s features as they mounted the stairs into the great hall. Stables. Gardens. Hunting grounds. A large lake for fishing. Thick walls to keep out roaming bloodbane—oh their safety was quite assured.
She was sure to ask many hesitant questions, becoming more bold as he answered them, gathering as much information as she could while keeping up her role. The steward seemed to appreciate her interest and flashed her a smile or two that left no doubt as to his.
That was one to keep away from.
Ivana followed the steward through the great hall and up a back stairway. Marble. Gold. Crystal. And were those diamonds set into that mirror? Good gods.
She spared a glance at Heilyn. What was his reaction to all of this?
He didn’t appear overly affected, which didn’t surprise her. A minor noble family might have a modest manor, but rarely had the means to be so extravagant with their wealth. Even the noble her father had worked for—well-off enough to hire a highly educated and respected personal tutor for his children—hadn’t been so garish.
If Heilyn were Ri Gildas’ son, his family had a much higher ranking than the noble her father had worked for, even if Gildas hadn’t been a Ri whenever Heilyn had left home.
Still, he ought to act a little more awed. There was no reason for the Ri, his steward, or any of the many servants passing through the halls to think that they were anything but the lowest of low. It would start rumors.
And servants did like to gossip.
If anything, he looked tense. As though he expected an assassin to jump out of a darkened stairwell at any moment.
She held back a dark laugh. Or plunge a dagger into his back from right next to him.
When the steward stopped his long tour of the manor to speak with a maid, Ivana leaned over to Heilyn and whispered in his ear, “Look impressed.”
He started. “What?”
She gave him a look she hoped he would understand as irritation with him and then gave her most charming smile to the steward as he finished his conversation with the maid and turned back to them.
He bowed and returned Ivana’s smile. “Idel will show you to your suite, just down this corridor,” he said. “The Ri has timed your arrival to coincide with a banquet he was already giving for a friend of the family. You will be honored there tomorrow night.” The steward took Ivana’s hand, kissed it again, and then disappeared back the way they had come.
The maid curtsied. “This way, please.”
They followed her a short distance down the hall until she stopped at a door. She opened it and allowed them inside. “Dal, your room is on the left, and Da, your room is on the right. You will be informed when your presence is required tomorrow.” She curtsied again and gestured to a long rope secured to the wall. “I am assigned to your needs. Please let me know if you require anything until then.”
“Thank you,” Ivana said to the maid warmly. Heilyn gave her a curt nod, let his eyes sweep over her once in an appraising manner, but otherwise ignored her.
The maid gave Heilyn a wary look, Ivana a shy smile, and closed the door after them.
They stood in an elegant—if sparsely decorated—sitting room. True to the maid’s word, there was a door on the left of the room and a door on the right. In the middle, two couches and an armchair were positioned near a fireplace against the wall, and a long, full bookshelf graced the other wall.
The meager belongings they had brought with them had already been transported to the room and set against one wall. Vaughn tucked his bow and quiver, which he had insisted the guards let him keep with him for the rest of the journey, in the gap between the bookshelf and the corner where it wouldn’t be of much notice. He then turned to watch while Sweetblade paced the length, breadth, and then circumference of the room, peering into every nook and cranny, and then disappeared into each of their respective rooms for a time. Finally, she emerged, managing to look both satisfied and displeased at the same time.
She stopped in front of Vaughn. “You should try to act a little less like you own the place,” she said to him.
“Your pardon?”
“I know having maids bow and scrape to you in the middle of this lavishness was probably normal for you, but here you’re just like me: nothing, and no one. Act like it, or you’ll draw attention to us.”
He blinked and wetted his lips. How did she…?
But she was probably right. He needed to look like he was unused to this environment. “Ah,” he said. “Not exactly normal…”
“Come now, Heilyn. You obviously are—or were—noble. Let’s get that out of the way.”
He gaped at her. Had he said something to give that away?
She rolled her eyes and started ticking off her fingers. “You are well-spoken. You are clearly of mixed Fereharian and Weylynian ancestry. You have exceptional skill with the bow. And…” She gave him an appraising look. “You had enough money to hire an assassin.”
Well, there was that. “Oh.”
“And for the love of Temoth, please keep your raging need to conquer any attractive female under control while we are here.”
He frowned. He had barely looked at the maid. “I don’t need to conquer—”
She turned away from him, cutting him off. “The Ri obviously doesn’t trust us—probably because he expects us to rob him while here, but you never know what other reasons he might have.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t trust us?”
“Aside from the fact that most nobles expect all commoners to be criminals of some sort or the other?” She ignored the look and raised eyebrow he cast her. She had a knack for saying such ironic things.
“Because he put us in a shared suite. Easier to keep an eye on us.”
True.
“But mostly because there are at least two servants tasked with following us around.”
That, he hadn’t noticed.
She went to the bell pull and gave it a firm tug. A chime sounded from the hall, and a few minutes later, the maid knocked on their door.
Sweetblade opened it. “I was wondering…would it be possible to have a bath?” she asked, by all appearances hesitant and unsure of herself. “I couldn’t find a place to heat water.”
“Of course, Da,” the maid said. “There is a bathing chamber off your room. I will send servants to draw a bath immediately.” She turned to Vaughn. “Dal?”
“Um,” he said. “Sure. I mean, a bath would be nice. And food, if you have it.” He hoped that was sufficiently uncouth for Sweetblade. He didn’t know if he could feign the innocence she put on so well, but uncouth…that he could do.
The maid curtsied. “I will have dinner brought up after your baths.”
Ivana waited until the last hints of daylight were gone from the twilight sky, and then a few hours after that, until she could be relatively sure there wasn’t an excess of people moving about the Ri’s manor. Then, she went into the bathing room, slipped out of the window there, dropped down onto a ledge below her, and crept along the wall until she found an unoccupied roo
m to enter.
Having thus avoided anyone who had been assigned to watch their door, she proceeded to map the layout of the entire manor.
On the first floor were rooms for entertaining. The second, the family living areas. The third, their own floor, housed the guest chambers—though the wing their chambers were in was much less elegant than its opposite on the other side of the manor.
The manor had, of course, a basement as well, housing the cellar, safe-room, and servants quarters, and in one wing, even two prison cells, though those were currently empty and unguarded.
The Ri had also built a passageway out of the safe-room. That wasn’t uncommon for the wealthy who could afford the extra expense; a safe-room was nice, but a safe-room with a back door was even better, should a monster break through the heavy metal door into it—or, the gods forbid, spawn inside of the room itself from one of its occupants.
The back door of a safe-room was also useful for other necessary escapes. Ivana made a note to explore the passageway farther the following day to see where it would spit the escapee out.
Satisfied she had an adequate knowledge of the manor should she need to make a hasty exit, she began to make her way back to the unoccupied room on the third floor that she had re-entered the manor through.
To her chagrin, as she approached the door, the steward himself turned the corner of the hallway. She hadn’t seen another soul for the two hours she had been exploring, and she had nowhere else to go, so she turned and faced him. “Oh, thank Temoth,” she said, hurrying toward him. “I thought I would never find my way back to my room.”
The steward stopped, obviously taken aback to find her out of her room. “Da Ivana,” he said, bowing. “What brings you out at this time of night?”
She, in fact, wondered the same thing about him, but she chewed on her lower lip and averted her eyes. “I…I couldn’t sleep. I thought a walk might help, and I’m afraid I’ve become turned around. I’m so sorry if I’ve been impertinent in doing so…”
The steward relaxed and chuckled. “No, no, quite all right, my dear.” He gave her a sidelong look. “Perhaps I can show you back to your room.”
