by Carol A Park
He dropped his hands. “Done,” he said, wiping his hand on his trousers and then sealing back up the jar of salve.
She pulled the shirt back over her shoulders and buttoned it back up. Admittedly, her back felt better already.
He folded his hands in his lap. “So, now’s the part when I have to pass on the message from Yaotel.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“He wants you to try talking to the man who attacked him,” Vaughn said. “They can’t get anything out of him.”
Cold ran through her. “What in the abyss does he think I can do?
“I think his logic is—”
“Takes one to know one?” she snapped.
“Ivana—”
“The person he’s looking for is dead.”
There was a heavy silence. Vaughn met her eyes. He hesitated. And then he said quietly, “Weren’t you the one who told me discarding a name didn’t mean the core of who you are had changed?”
Hearing her own words repeated back at her cut deep.
No matter how many days she sat in a room translating a text, she would never escape this. Never.
“I see,” she said. “Glad to know you agree with me now. Now you can go tell Yaotel—”
He put a finger on her lips.
She halted, more out of surprise than anything else.
“Yes, I do agree,” he said firmly. “But only because you have it reversed. You think Sweetblade was your core. One and the same with Ivana. But she wasn’t, and she never was. She was a mask you wore so often, you lost track of the real you.”
He was wrong on both counts. Sweetblade was neither the same as the person who had once been Ivana, nor a mere mask. She was a suit of armor, a prison, a grave. Now, she was gone, and what remained was the detritus of three shattered lives—not some abstract “real her” that had been floating around waiting to be found again.
“But she did teach you an awful lot,” he continued, “and her loss doesn’t mean you’ve lost the skills and memories that could enable you to help us.”
“Not that long ago,” she said tightly, “Yaotel’s needs and wants didn’t seem that important to you. What changed?”
Vaughn exhaled. “Well. Turns out things here are…” He bit his lip. “Way more dire than I thought.”
She didn’t want to know. But what was the alternative? Retreating to the other façade, that of a peaceful life never marred by the things she’d seen or done in her past life, or the one before that?
She sighed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”
“Yes. He’s decided you need to know.”
Ivana listened, dispassionate, to Vaughn’s relation of what Yaotel had told him. She didn’t even flinch when he told her that the Conclave army had an entire unit of battle-priests—and apparently a corpse-thing.
“Ri Tanuac’s plan,” Vaughn said, “is to continue putting off the Conclave with misdirection as long as they can. Three days ago, they made a big show of kicking Ambassador Mezzo out of the city. It was actually Danton, disguised as Ambassador Mezzo. Mezzo himself has agreed to stay hidden for now. As far as the so-called Conclave representative, they’ve put off ‘official’ meetings until they find out who talked. Tanuac doesn’t think they’ll move against Donia until after the sky-fire since it’s so close. He’s hoping to continue to put them off even longer. But it won’t last forever.” He ran a hand through his hair. “As soon as we get word that they’re marching toward Donia, Tanuac plans to send in a team to steal all their aether so the battle-priests are rendered ineffective.”
Ivana grunted. “Makes sense. What about the…corpse-thing?” she asked, the slightest of smiles twitching her lips, gone almost before it was there.
“A prime target, obviously, if they end up skirmishing with them. We’ve informed Ri Tanuac what we know about those things, assuming it’s anything like the other one we encountered—and to be prepared for the possibility of the Conclave using bloodbane in the assault.” He shuddered. “We’re all hoping that doesn’t happen. Frankly, I think Yaotel is hoping we can get Ferehar on board before it comes to anything so drastic.”
He understood why the mission Yaotel had sent him on had become so critical now. They needed Ferehar for the Xambrians to fulfill their part of the alliance—though, of course, Yaotel hadn’t known that when he’d first tasked Vaughn with reconnaissance.
Vaughn just wished he didn’t have to be a part of it. He never thought he’d miss his solitary days of roaming around hunting bloodbane. He’d wanted a normal life, and he was pretty sure this didn’t qualify.
Ivana sat silently, studying his face.
He rubbed his jaw and tried to push aside the gloom that encroached every time he thought about what Yaotel wanted him for. “Thankfully, I’ve got some time. He sent a friend of yours to Ferehar to continue laying some groundwork before we need to take any action.”
Ivana stared at him. “A friend of mine?”
“Aleena.”
“What?”
Vaughn nodded. “Yaotel apparently contacted her and asked if she’d help us. She should be there soon.”
Ivana seemed annoyed at that, though Vaughn wasn’t sure why. “Shouldn’t we have seen her on our way in?” she asked.
“Why? She wouldn’t have seen us. Yaotel gave her resources.”
Ivana shook her head.
“So. Will you talk to the man?” Vaughn asked.
Ivana closed her eyes.
Vaughn fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve. Tanuac had forbidden the use of torture, and Yaotel had said it wouldn’t work anyway—he’d just lie. Even the offer of some sort of eventual clemency for good information hadn’t swayed him.
Vaughn didn’t know if Ivana could get him to talk where others had failed, but if she could…
He hated to admit it, but what was happening here was important. If they could win, this could be the turning point for the Ichtaca—for all Banebringers.
But winning would involve more than keeping the Conclave at bay, or, if it came to it, winning against them in battle. Ultimately, it meant winning the Donian people over to their side. That wasn’t an impossibility, especially once they could oust any official Setanan influence, but it would still be a long road fraught with plenty of internal conflict. And the danger of outright revolt always existed so early on if the news leaked out that the Ri was working with Banebringers.
They had to find out who among the Ri’s advisors could no longer be trusted.
Ivana opened her eyes. “Don’t you have people who can do this sort of thing? Persuade with your Banebringer magic?”
“Charmbloods?” Vaughn asked. “Yes, but not in Marakyn right now. And, the way I understand it, their powers work best on people who aren’t already on guard, and it’s hard to use them to simply force someone to do what you want.”
She sighed. “I’ll talk to him,” she said. “With conditions.”
Vaughn had a feeling this was coming.
“One, no one other than you or Yaotel is to be within hearing distance while I’m speaking with him. Two, if I have to reveal my former identity to get him to talk, he dies when I’m done. Immediately. I don’t care if he’s destined for the noose anyway.”
Yaotel wasn’t going to like that, and Tanuac certainly wouldn’t—especially without knowing the reason. “I’ll…pass on the message.”
“Fine. If he decides he wants me to try, you know where to find me.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Assassin
The lanterns along the wall of the tunnel flickered with the passage of Nahua, then Yaotel, and then Vaughn and Ivana behind. The dank passage smelled of lichen and moss, and the air was heavy with little circulation.
Danton had told Vaughn—passing the information on from Driskell—that the vast network of tunnels and rooms beneath the mountain that overlooked Marakyn had been used for many purposes over the centuries. Dungeons, safe rooms, storage—even barrack
s.
Ultimately, it was the final purpose they intended to return it to. At the first branching corridor they had come to, the left passage had led to the area into which, even now, Ichtaca were moving their supplies and gear. What Ri Tanuac called “the inner circle”—those of the Ichtaca who had joined Yaotel in meetings with the Ri already, including Vaughn—had already settled into their new, if hopefully temporary, home. The rest, some of whom were still scattered throughout Marakyn, and some of whom hadn’t even arrived yet, were following in a trickle of one or two at a time, so as not to attract attention.
They had taken the right passage, which was narrower and empty of people.
Nahua stopped in front of one of the many doors that lined the passage. She pulled a key out of her pocket and handed it to Yaotel. Her eyes flicked to Ivana and then back. “I’m going to go see how the latest batch of Ichtaca are settling in. Let me know when you’re…done.”
She turned and walked back down the passage.
Vaughn took a deep breath. Yaotel hadn’t liked Ivana’s conditions, but he understood them. Tanuac hadn’t liked or understood them since Yaotel couldn’t explain who Ivana was or why she might be effective when others could not be. But after another few days of attempting to coerce, cajole, or bribe the attacker into giving them anything, and still, the man had remained silent, Tanuac had finally given in to Yaotel’s odd request.
When Nahua had disappeared, Yaotel unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Ivana’s face was stone. She glanced at Vaughn, jerked her head, and entered the door.
He closed it behind her, stepped into the corner, and folded his arms across his chest. He was here both to hear what the man had to say and as an extra precaution if the man tried anything.
Ivana stopped to survey the room where they were keeping Yaotel’s assailant.
It was empty other than a bedroll, a chamber pot, a plate, and the man himself.
He sat cross-legged on his bedroll, a vaguely bored expression on his face. His ankles had been slapped in irons and chains and one ankle had a chain leading to a bar on the wall—long enough to allow him some freedom of movement, but not long enough to get close to the door.
He took both their measures quickly, his eyes flicking once to the dagger at Ivana’s thigh, and then he leered at her as though she hadn’t recently bested him in a hand-to-hand contest. “Is this the part where they send in a whore to seduce me so I whisper secrets in the throes of passion?”
Vaughn frowned, but Ivana ignored his opening volley. “I hear you’re being uncooperative,” she said. “I went to the trouble of keeping you alive so you could be questioned, only to have you refuse to talk?”
She had? Vaughn hadn’t known that she had deliberately kept him alive. Then again, she could also be lying.
Ivana drew her dagger and walked closer to the man.
He eyed Ivana’s dagger, but his expression didn’t change.
“Here’s the deal,” she said, tapping the dagger against her thigh. “I don’t want to be here. I’m not going to waste my time asking you questions we both know you won’t answer. So instead, I’m going to tell you why you should spill what you know.”
Vaughn hadn’t had the faintest idea what she’d planned to say to the man, so now he found his curiosity piqued.
“Because, now that I am here,” Ivana continued, “you have exactly three options remaining. First, I heard they offered the possibility of clemency if you give good information. You could still take them up on it, but I sense that you didn’t like that option for some reason.”
The man rolled his eyes.
“As I thought. You know that if you do that, at best, you’re a free man with a ruined reputation and a target on your back.”
The man’s eyes narrowed.
“Still, until that hangman’s noose is around your neck, there’s time to think it over, time for certain types of clients to rescue you, maybe even time to orchestrate your own escape and deal with the client on your own terms.”
She crouched down to his level. “This isn’t a job given to second chances. Most of the time, the only way you leave it is in a grave. I’d take the chance they’re giving you. It’s slim, but if you don’t agree to it now, it will no longer be an option on the table.”
Vaughn studied Ivana’s profile. She was perfectly calm and her expression schooled. Was she was listening to her own advice? Was it all an act, or did the words come from something deeper? She had been given a second chance and yet seemed to struggle with embracing it fully. Not that she’d ever admit that to him…
The man leaned forward, inches from her face, and sneered at her. “Who in the abyss do you think you are, wench?”
Vaughn bristled; he had to restrain himself from jumping forward and threatening to throttle the man until he rephrased that.
And then he wondered at his own reaction, toward protectiveness, toward offense on her behalf. That was not…normal for him.
For Ivana’s part, she merely straightened up, looked down on the man, and answered his question. “I was once known as Sweetblade.”
Vaughn had to restrain a wince. So much for clemency.
There was a long pause. The would-be assassin looked the former assassin up and down again, a little less smugness, a little more disbelief.
“I see you’ve heard of me,” Ivana said. “Good.”
“Sweetblade is dead,” he said.
“So they say,” she said. “And yet.”
And yet. It seemed an apt description of his observations of the woman Vaughn had traveled with these past months. Sweetblade was dead. And yet.
The man swallowed, but still, he sneered at her. “You’re lying.”
She shrugged. “All right. You can believe that. Doesn’t change the fact that now that I’ve told you that information, I cannot possibly let you walk free, whatever the Ri may have promised you. Option one is now off the table.”
In one quick motion, she had her foot on the chain between his ankles and her dagger against his throat. “Now you have two options left. You can tell them what they want to know, and then I’ll give you a nice, quick, painless death. Or you can refuse, and when I’m done with you, your mind won’t be intact enough to tell anyone what you know, let alone what they want to know.”
He swallowed again. “They haven’t tortured me yet—”
“Do you think I care about their standards?” she asked.
Vaughn bit his tongue. She wouldn’t really torture him, would she?
Okay, she probably would. But he couldn’t imagine Tanuac being happy with that outcome…
The man stared at her. And then his shoulders deflated. “Fine.”
Ivana stood up and sheathed her dagger. “Then talk.”
Vaughn quickly pulled his qixli out of one of the pouches at his waist. He held it down at his thigh and clenched it tightly in one hand, activating the aether, and connected to Yaotel’s qixli just outside the door. Not a sound came out. Yaotel should be ready.
“I don’t know the client’s name,” the man began. “But he wasn’t Donian. Setanan.”
“And what were the terms of the job?”
“Eliminate first and primarily the man named Yaotel—and then anyone else in the room I could, if I had the chance.”
That was unexpected—and disturbing. The person who’d hired him presumably knew there’d be a room full of Banebringers. Killing Yaotel would likely have meant more deaths, which would have compounded upon itself. So that had to be intentional, right? It was targeted at Yaotel but intended to take out as many of them as it could, consequences be damned—maybe even consequences be desired.
The assassin couldn’t have known they were Banebringers. Or that the job he had accepted had been near-suicidal.
“Ambitious,” Ivana said. “The payment must have been especially generous for such a risky job.”
The man shifted. “What he offered was more valuable than money.” He leaned forward. “He offere
d me magic. He was a Banebringer.”
Vaughn started. What? No. That was impossible. That was… He struggled to school his face, lest the assassin notice his disconcertment.
There was a long pause. “And how would you know that?” Ivana said evenly after a moment.
The assassin seemed to sense that he had surprised even Ivana because at this point some of his smugness returned. “He showed me his blood. And then he showed me a trick so I could use it, same as the Conclave. And demonstrated a bunch of others too.”
Vaughn wanted to take over the questioning. There were far too many questions, new questions, running through his mind, questions he wanted to be sure Ivana asked the man. But he didn’t dare interrupt. He had to trust she would understand what they might need.
“And what sort of magic did he offer?”
Good.
“Stealth, healing, manipulation, a few others. Stuff that would have come in handy, ya know?”
“And did he show you what he could do?”
Even better.
The man shrugged. “Yeah, wasn’t as useful to me. But he did some stuff with ice.”
An iceblood.
“Did this Banebringer happen to say why he wanted Yaotel and the rest of us dead?”
The man shook his head.
Ivana drew in a slow breath through her nose. “Anything else you can think of? Distinctive features on the man’s face?”
The assassin snorted. “I’d think being a Banebringer ought to be distinctive enough. He was Setanan, knew from his hands. Wore a hood and a mask and it was dark, so I can’t tell you much more than that.”
“Where was pickup once the job was done?”
“Same place I met him. Down on the first tier, behind one of the factories—after hours.”
Then, at last, Ivana turned to glance at Vaughn.
At the same moment, the door to the room opened, and Yaotel slid in, his face grim. He closed the door behind him and then looked at Ivana. “Finish it.”
