Traitor Princess, Assassin Saint

by T. R. Sherwood

  “Thanks,” Annara said sarcastically. Then she said, more quietly, “Did they die?”

  “Oh yes. Eventually. In each other’s arms, if you believe the legends.”

  “After tragically murdering each other, I assume,” Annara said, but all the sharpness had drained out of her tone.

  “Not quite,” Juniper said.

  She opened the book to a random page towards the middle and read:

  As the waves return to the shore and the sun returns to the horizon,

  those who are fated meet again.

  Scratch the surface of enmity and you might find so much love,

  you’ll never see the last of it.

  She looked back up at Juniper, who was smiling warmly at her.

  “It’s a Xiunian quatrain, in case you’re wondering. Four lines, alternating long and short. A form popularized among the Xiunian upper class by this very book, in fact.” Then, more softly, “So you see, there is precedent.”

  Annara closed the book and spent a long time looking at the black wool of the cape he had given her. The silk lining shimmered like a river at night, and both sides had absorbed the sunlight during the day. The fabric warmed her fingertips.

  “Why are you doing this, Juniper? You know that I was planning to kill you. Why are you helping me?”

  He folded his fan shut. “I knew your mother, you see.”

  Annara’s eyes widened. “You did?”

  “I did. She was kind to me when few other people in the Crescent were. I was an awkward child, someone who was better with books than people, and I didn’t speak Crescentian well. She treated me like a friend.”

  “Do you remember her name?”

  “It was Sparrow. Sparrow of Archon,” Juniper said.

  “Was she…” Annara swallowed. “What was she like?”

  “She had a quiet sense of humor. I think she was probably a good person in a very bad situation.”

  “Do you think she would be… I can’t see her being proud of me, but do you think she would be angry? Disappointed?”

  “I think that she would be glad Lord Archon is dead, but sad that you were the one who had to do it,” Juniper said. “But in the end, it’s impossible to say.”

  “Oh. Well. Thank you for talking about her.”

  “It frustrates me sometimes that no one else will. To answer your question earlier, Annara, I was very young when she died. I had no power in Archon. There was nothing I could do. But now I’m an adult. I know she would want you to be happy, and so I am doing what little I can to make things right, in whatever way I can.”

  “Oh.” Annara started to laugh. “My response to her execution was to go on a murderous rampage and kill the king of Archon. Your response is to want me to be happy.”

  He opened his fan again and hid a laugh behind it. “Vengeance isn’t one of my talents, I’m afraid.”

  “Thank you. Truly. I didn’t think anyone would be willing to do something like this for me.”

  Juniper raised an eyebrow. “Does this mean I’m exempt from assassination attempts for the time being?”

  “You’re exempt from assassination attempts forever.”

  He chuckled. “Thank you.”

  “I have to go,” Annara said. “I want to make it to Seichre before sundown. Can you find your own way back?”

  “Certainly. And, Annara?”

  She paused in the doorway.

  “Invite me to your wedding.”

  She made a rude hand gesture at him on her way out the door.

  ✽✽✽

  Juniper slowly made his way back to the harbor, yawning furiously. Running around talking to would-be war criminals and rushing off to avoid assassination was altogether too much excitement for him. He wasn’t cut out for it. All he wanted was to return to Chreon Se, find a good book and perhaps a glass of fine wine, and spend the evening in peace.

  When he got back, though, all of his aides looked worried. Chira was pacing up and down the docks.

  “What happened?” he said.

  “Some kind of crisis in Seichre,” she said. “We’ve been trying to get the details, but we’ve only spoken to fishermen and low-ranking merchants. No one really knows what’s going on.”

  “What do we know?”

  “Fires have been breaking out all over the Royal City. They’re not ordinary fires. Water doesn’t help, it just turns to steam. People are saying that someone can control the flames, and he’s issued an ultimatum to the Seichrenese king and queen, but we can’t verify that rumor at this time.” Chira’s professional facade cracked slightly as she bit her fingernails. “If it’s true, though, the Seichrenese government might actually fall.”

  Juniper’s mind felt like a kaleidoscope, with brightly colored thoughts tumbling furiously over each other. “Right. Very well. If the Seichrenese government falls, there’s nothing we can do about that. All we can do is attempt to negotiate with whatever’s left. Go back to Chreon Se and find a way to contact your Seichrenese counterpart. Ask if we can help with the evacuation effort, if there is one.”

  Chira bowed and turned to board their ship. She froze on the gangplank. “Wait, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “No,” Juniper said, in that same odd, distracted tone. “I don’t think I am.”

  “This is a crisis, Lord Chreon Se. We could use your expertise.”

  “You’ll do fine, I think,” Juniper said distantly.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I think I’m going to Seichre.”

  “What?”

  Juniper turned to one of the fishermen who had been watching this whole exchange. “Sir, could I trouble you for the use of your boat?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not taking you. I don’t want to go back there.”

  Juniper fished a gold ingot out of his pocket and tossed it to him. “I would never ask you to risk your life without adequate compensation. Twice that on arrival, and there’s no need to wait for me.”

  The fisherman stared at the gleaming ingot in his hand. He didn’t even bother biting it. “Yes, my lord. Happy to help.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Chira shouted across the water. Behind her, one of the older aides, who had known Juniper longer, just shook his head. “Do you even have a plan?”

  “A plan?” Juniper felt his face fall into the blank look that people often found infuriating. “Don’t worry. I’ll come up with something on the way.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Even before Annara landed in Seichre, she could tell something was in the process of going horribly wrong. Thick columns of smoke reached up from the ground. The sun burned red. The light that flickered on the buildings was the wrong color. It had turned a deep, bloody red.

  One of the sailors hesitated with his hand on the rudder. “I don’t know if—”

  “Keep sailing.”

  “But—”

  “If you help people escape whatever that is, you’ll be a hero,” Annara said, wondering if she would have to pull a knife on him.

  Apparently, she wouldn’t. The sailor nodded, resolute.

  When they reached the harbor, the docks were crowded with people. Annara ducked under someone’s arm and slipped through the crowd like a fish swimming upstream. From here, she could see that the roof of the palace had caught fire. It burned furiously, so hot that she could see drops of molten lead fall from the eaves like stars. She started to run.

  There was no fire around Wraith Manor. It wasn’t the only untouched building, but it was very noticeable in an upscale neighborhood that was being ravaged by fire. The buildings around it were shells filled with flame.

  Annara pressed the hem of her cape to her nose and mouth. It was still wet from the sea, and the smell of salt helped to cover the smell of smoke. It was settling into her clothes, though, and her hair, sharp and acrid and nauseatingly familiar.

  Did Senne have something to do with this? Senne had obviously never w
anted to burn the Royal City down, so this couldn’t be her intention. But then there were the people who had created Senne. Someone had to have built Wraith Manor. And, fuzzily, just before Senne had transformed against her will, Annara remembered hearing a knock on the door.

  She let herself into Wraith Manor. Inside, all the memory steel doors were shut tightly. When she tried to force them to move with her crowbar, which she had hidden in Senne’s umbrella stand, none of them budged.

  That was fine. Annara pulled one of her bombs out of her pocket. The entire Royal City was burning down. No one would notice a little extra destruction.

  The explosives blew a path into the hallway, where, incredibly, the door to the basement was hanging open. All of its regular iron locks were shattered, and a little bit of light leaked out from the bottom of the door.

  Annara took her shoes off and crept silently down the stairs, knife in hand. She could hear a voice mumbling to itself like a creek burbling as she walked. Once she reached the bottom, the scene was simpler than she had expected it to be: one old man, hunched over a table, evidently concentrating. Senne, chained to the largest piece of memory ore she had ever seen, looking as if she had lost consciousness.

  The old man hadn’t heard her. Sweat glittered on the back of his neck as he murmured quietly to himself. Annara slipped past him. If she could just wake Senne up, this would all be so much easier.

  As she got closer to the chunk of memory ore, the distortion in the air intensified. The shadows flickered. Patterns in the air seemed to form faces, the faces of people she had once known. Annara reached for Senne’s shoulder, intending to shake her awake. Her finger brushed the nape of Senne’s neck. As soon as their skin touched, the world went dark.

  ✽✽✽

  She opened her eyes. Her throat felt clogged by a feeling of vertigo, as if she was submerged in water so deep she had forgotten which direction was up. It took her a minute to realize she was back in Archon, staring at the cold surface of a veined marble wall.

  “Sentiment is for other people, Lord Wraith.”

  Annara whirled around to see herself, dressed all in white and wielding a small silver pistol. Standing a little ways away, Senne said, “You used to call me Senne.”

  “What? Excuse me,” Annara said loudly to Senne and her past self, before feeling extremely stupid. It was memory ore. This was a memory.

  “What are you doing here?” It was Senne’s voice, but it was coming from a different direction.

  Annara turned. Another Senne sat slumped against a wall, out of the way of the fight that was about to follow. This time, she was wearing the clothes Annara had just seen her in. She wore no veil, and she looked exhausted. Her hair had been pulled half out of its usual high ponytail, and it hung in oily strings around her face.

  “I came to find you,” Annara said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I have something to say. I’m sorry, Senne. I should never have hurt you.”

  Senne looked up at her. “You’re part of the hallucination, aren’t you?”

  “What?” Annara said, half-laughing. “Because I apologized?”

  The ghost of a smile flickered briefly across Senne’s face. “You have to admit, it isn’t the real Annara’s usual style.”

  “I apologize all the time, Senne,” Annara said indignantly. “I apologized for not doing the dishes that one time, remember?”

  “Vividly. But, please, don’t.” She put her head in her hands. “The real Annara doesn’t call me Senne anymore.”

  “Alright,” she said, more softly. “I won’t talk about things like that. Do you know what’s going on outside?”

  “Oh, I’m well aware. Tin learned to control memory steel, and now he’s threatening the government with a massacre in order to gain more political power.” Senne spread her hands. “But there isn’t much I can do about that here, is there?”

  “Can we find a way out?”

  “Do you think I haven’t tried?”

  “So, what,” Annara said, “is your plan just to sit here and wait to die?”

  The flash bomb went off behind them, throwing Annara’s shadow up onto the wall and turning the marble walls to searing white. Senne ducked her head just in time, in a way that suggested she had seen this scene several times already.

  “We could,” she said flatly. “Or you could sit back and watch the show.”

  After a few moments, Annara sat by her side. Their past selves clashed. Annara pulled her knife out of Senne’s chest. Past-Annara leaned back and lit the fuse to the bomb hidden under the floor.

  “I didn’t see you do that the first time,” Senne said. “It was clever.”

  “How long have you been watching this?”

  “Oh, only a few times before you arrived. Before then, I was treated to a pleasant montage of my other worst memories.”

  “And when I came into the room in real life, it changed to this. Maybe it’s our shared worst memory,” Annara said.

  “If you were real, I would be tempted to agree.”

  “Rude.”

  Annara’s mind whirled. Senne obviously wasn’t operating at her full capacity. She was smart, and under regular circumstances, she would have figured out Annara was real minutes ago. Annara wondered what the problem was. An injury, maybe, or lack of sleep, or the psychological assault from the memory ore. Maybe a combination of all three.

  An explosion started to bloom in slow motion on the other side of the room, full of flames and fragments of marble. Annara caught a glimpse of her past self’s face, twisted in pain and horror.

  “Listen, don’t look at that anymore,” she said to Senne. “Look at me instead.”

  Senne turned, reluctantly and shakily. Annara had to fight the urge to brush Senne’s hair out of her face.

  “You should eat something. You’ll feel better,” Annara said, unloading her pockets. “Look, I’ve got an apple, some flatbreads, a smoke bomb— don’t eat that, obviously— a flask of rum…”

  Senne stared at the food like she had never seen it before. Annara broke off a piece of flatbread and pushed it into her hands. Her fingertips brushed against Senne’s knuckles. Senne jolted as if she had just been given an electric shock.

  “I’m sorry,” Annara said. “I understand if you don’t want to touch me, after looking at all this. But you have to eat.”

  Behind them, the bloody scene had reset. “Don’t you think it’s better this way?” Annara’s past self said. Present Annara could hear the strain in her own voice. “The curtains came down, the show’s over, all the veils are gone. We can finally show each other what we really are.”

  Senne reluctantly took a bite of flatbread, chewed, and slowly swallowed. “You’re real, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what I keep saying,” Annara said, passing her the flask of rum and taking extra care not to let their fingers touch. “What tipped you off?”

  Senne shrugged. “You seem more like yourself than you have in a while. You were lying, weren’t you? It was all a performance.”

  “I do that a lot. You might want to be a little more specific.”

  Senne gestured at the version of Annara dressed all in white on the throne of Archon. The room turned briefly, violently bright as she threw her flash bomb. Nothing in the room felt real. The air had no temperature, and the light was too flat. Only the food seemed tangible. The apple in Annara’s hands and the metal of the flask were both cold enough to feel bright.

  “Oh. That,” Annara said, using her knife to cut spirals of scarlet peel off the apple. “I think I believed it at the time. Apple slice?”

  “Thank you. And now?”

  “Well, it all seems a bit excessive now. Conquest and destruction sound all very well and good when you’re fifteen and begging for money, but I’m twenty now. I’m safe enough to make better decisions.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “I don’t know,” Annara said. “I wanted to come here, you know, to apologize, and then I
found both you and Seichre in a bit of a scrape. I might like a little cottage on the south coast of Chreon Arda, maybe, by the sea, where they grow lavender, but not too far from the gambling halls. I would get bored without the occasional con.”

  “A cottage by the sea,” Senne repeated.

  Annara smiled at her. “What, did you think I couldn’t appreciate the quiet life? After all this is over, I’m going to sleep for a week.”

  This drew a small smile out of Senne. Her lips cracked. Annara passed her the flask.

  “Sorry I don’t have water. Are you feeling better?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Senne paused. “I’ve never seen you wear black before.”

  “Someone told me it would look good on me. Oh, look at that.”

  Past-Annara had just lit the fuse of her largest bomb. Instead of traveling down the fuse, the light had frozen, fixed like a star at the end of it. The rest of the scene had frozen too. Lord Wraith and Lady Archon were as still as the surface of a mountain lake. Their forms started to blur at the edges, as if someone had smeared the wet paint of a painting. Colors stretched and smudged.

  “I take it this means we’re going back,” Annara said.

  Senne nodded. “Listen, Annara, we don’t know what we’re going to find out there. I know I can fix this, but if something happens to me…”

  Annara had meant to say I’ll take care of it, but it came out as “I’ll take care of you. Don’t underestimate me.”

  Senne reached out and took her hand. “I would never.”

  The room darkened and blurred, until the shapes of the throne room were unrecognizable. The afterimages of gray and white faded slowly from Annara’s vision. The scene melted into the gray charcoal shadows of Wraith Manor’s basement. The cold floor bit into Annara’s palms.

  She sat bolt upright and looked wildly around. Senne was still chained to the ore. As Annara watched, her eyes fluttered open, and then shut again. Annara grabbed her wrist and took her pulse: slow, but steady. She showed no signs of waking back up.

  “Oh, she’s not dead,” someone said behind Annara. “It’s just exhaustion. Exposure to that much memory ore would take a toll on anyone, even Lord Wraith, and she’s been there for hours.”