by Riley Tune
Only the high nobility could afford something as expensive as a bicycle. Normal nobility could afford servants, and carriages, but to have a bicycle you had to either belong to a royal family, or have a lot of yolars to spend.
I continued to follow Ember and tired not to gawk every time a person rode a bicycle past us. High noble or not, they looked ridiculous riding those things in the rain. Ember had slowed down a little more to the point that I had to will myself to walk more slowly.
“Up there, in the dark overcoat and hat. Do you see him? The one with the cane.”
I nodded my head as we continued to walk slowly.
“That is Lord Avery Ashland.” My stomach began to twist as Ember said the words.
“Ashland?” I asked him. “The family that own the yolar mines and the torch runners?”
“Of course, that family.”
I didn’t reply as Ember continued.
“Lord Ashland has a very profitable contract on himself.”
We followed Ashland down another street.
“Why?” I asked. Ember eyed me. It’s normal practice not to question the contract. Somebody wanted him dead, and wanted to pay us to do it. That was all that I needed to know. I knew Ember, though; he would have found out why such an important person was in our midst tonight.
“Lord Ashland has a fondness for the women of Vinc’s brothels. He’s actually on his way there now.” This didn’t seem odd to me at all. I wasn’t one to agree with brothels, but it certainly didn’t seem like something a contract would be put out for.
“So?” I asked as Ember paused.
“Lord Ashland not only has a fondness for women. He gets Vinc to procure women of a very young age. Once Lord Ashland has had his way with these women, he cuts them up in—unique ways. He stretches out the event to add to their suffering. Several have died, and a few have killed themselves, unable to cope with the event.”
We kept walking, keeping Ashland in our view as he went. My feeling of reluctance vanished. If what Ember had said was true, this man certainly deserved to die. I just would have preferred not to be the one to do it. I loved being a Warper; I just hated the killing part of it.
“The hard work has been done for you,” Ember said to me as he stepped off the main street and into a dark alley. “I have scouted this already, and I know exactly which roads he will take to get there. Because of his status, he goes out of his way not to be seen.
Shortly he will turn down another side street, and once on that street he will cut down a side walkway between two buildings. This is where you will strike. Light from the torch runners' flame will not shine there, and you will use the darkness and rain to your advantage. There will be just enough moonlight for you to see.”
I looked around the street. I’m not sure why I was even looking; I just was too nervous to stay still. “I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
Ember adjusted his hood. “You are. Don’t worry, I’ll be watching. At the very worst, he attacks you first, and you die in a gutter,” he said, with a wide grin. His grin faded just as quickly.
Before I could protest more, he warped away, leaving a faint shimmer in the air as he left.
“Dammit,” I said under my breath. Okay, Lox, you can do this. You’ve seen Ember do this a dozen times.
First I needed to check my belt. My knives were all there, and so was my dagger. I warped to the top of the building along the street and began to run. In what seemed like no time, I'd caught up with Ashland. Just as Ember had said, he was turning down a side alleyway.
He had a smirk on his face, and as soon as he was alone, he started to spin his cane around, and did a little dance as he whistled a peculiar tune. I can only assume he was growing more excited as he approached his destination.
Here we go. Now or never. He was in the middle of the alley now. I took a deep breath and warped from the top of the building, appearing directly in front of Ashland. As I locked eyes with him I noticed the look of shock on his face. That same look was replaced with fear seconds later.
“No. Stay back,” he said as he stepped away. Clearly Ashland knew what I was, and if he was seeing me, he knew what I had come to do. He was a young man, no more than twenty-five, and had boyish features. His face was smooth, and his eyes seemed too far apart. Like others of his wealth, his overcoat repelled the water that fell on it.
“You don’t have to do this.” Ashland said. “I have money!”
His begging angered me. “Do the children you cut and disfigure beg you not to do it?” I asked calmly, not letting my anger show. I needed to make this fast. Wherever he was, Ember was watching, and he hated slow kills. The rain had begun to fall more slowly now. He continued to back away from me. Was he really trying to leave?
Indeed he was. At that very moment, he turned to run towards the entrance of the alley. I rolled my eyes and warped again, this time appearing in front of him and in his way. He seemed to be so set on running that he had forgotten what I could do. I delivered a punch to his stomach that sent him to the ground in the mud. His fancy coat couldn’t repel that.
He cried out and grabbed his stomach. I stood over him and reached for my dagger. As I pulled it out from under my cloak I heard Ashland gasp for air. This wasn’t a gasp from pain. This was terror leaving his body.
I leaned in and grabbed his throat. His eyes grew wide as he struggled, clawing at me with his free hand as his cane jerked in the other.
Strength-wise, Ashland may have been stronger than me. He certainly was larger, but over the last two years I had learned that fear made men weak. I placed my knife at his throat, and even with the small amount of pressure I had applied, blood still began to drip. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. If I went through with it, it would start. The curse would begin and I would not, could not, stop.
For the rest of my life, I would be forced to take the life of others. Could I live with that? Did I even have a choice?
“Please,” Ashland pleaded.
My steady hand began to shake. Pull it together, I said to myself. This is who you are. The shaking in my hand seemed to increase and, for a second, my grip on Ashland’s neck gave way.
That second was all it took, and suddenly I felt a crushing blow to my head as I stumbled back. Ashland had hit me with his cane. I positioned myself.
“You don’t seem to have the heart for this, boy,” he said to me. Who was this guy? I thought. Then Ashland smoothly removed the handle end of his cane, revealing a slender blade on the end. It was a nice blade, too. Polished steel, with some sort of writing etched in the side. A blade befitting his noble status in Thera.
“Myself, I have no problem cutting,” Ashland said. “It’s something about the feeling of flesh parting that is—” He paused, searching for the right words. “Blissful to me.” With those final words, he lunged at me.
3
Ashland had the eyes of a madman as he came crashing down with his nobleman's blade. Naturally, his attack was pointless. He may have been noble and wealthy, but he wasn’t quick enough to get the drop on a Warper. Seconds before he could land on me, I warped to a position directly behind him. He turned quickly on me. His brown hair was messy now, and looked more like that of a wild man instead of a noble. His hat had long since fallen.
This was bad, I thought to myself, as Ashland’s grip tightened on his blade handle. It popped into my head again that Ember was watching, and I'm pretty sure he was upset. I’d bet my dagger on it. I had Ashland. His life was in my hands, and I froze. That wasn’t the Warper way. Now I would have to make this right.
Holding my dagger in one hand, I quickly drew one of my three throwing knives with my other. In my first days of training, the knife would slip from my hands as a result of sweat and rain on my palms. Not now, though.
It made a whistling sound as it ripped through the air and plunged into Ashland’s shoulder. He screamed out in pain and instantly dropped his blade to the ground, using that hand to cover the wound. I smiled for a sec
ond. He wasn’t used to fighting, that was for sure.
“Hey!” a voice shouted out. My head jerked so hard towards the noise that my hood fell. The sudden increase of rain flooded into my eyes and caused my hair to cling to my head. “What are you doing down there?”
Guards. Three of them. They must have heard Ashland’s scream.
In an upper-class part of Thera like this, guards made rounds pretty frequently. They approached slowly, all dressed exactly alike in lightweight suits of armor that reflected the moonlight onto to the walls of buildings in the alley. They looked almost as if they were glowing.
The guard in the front had on a helmet that left his face exposed, but most of his head protected. He was a dark-skinned man, with a wide forehead and eyebrows as thick as my finger. He let his hand rest on the end of his sword gently, but his posture was stern and rigid.
“Lord Ashland, is that you?” the guard in the front said as he leaned closer and drew his sword. Great. Of course they knew each other. That was how my luck worked.
“He’s a Warper!” Ashland said as he ran towards the guard. “He’s trying to kill me.” He pointed to the wound on his neck, continuing to hold his bleeding shoulder as he ran and screamed. “You will be paid double your wages in yolars—just kill him. Kill him now!”
Without warning a spear broke through the darkness and buried itself into the wall directly behind me. Now this guard was left defenseless. Not too bright at all.
Had I not been ready to warp, the spear would have easily found its mark between my shoulders. I needed to get out of here, and fast. Too many witnesses, too much of everything. Everything was going wrong in such a short amount of time. I saw Ashland finally making his way behind the guard. He stood for a second and looked in my direction. Then he ran. In those seconds, those brief moments, my entire purpose for being here was gone. I had failed.
Suddenly, the alley around me went black. I struggled, trying to remove whatever was over my head, but I couldn’t. It felt like some sort of sack. Whatever it was, it had an odor that you could smell two kingdoms away. Somebody had entered the alley from the other side, and I hadn’t even heard them approaching. Whatever this was on my head, it left me unable to see, and because of that I couldn’t warp away. I slashed out with my dagger, trying to hit something, anything, but I couldn't. The person holding the sack over my head was strong.
I felt a punch to my side and a kick to the back of my legs that dropped me to the ground. I caught myself as my knee began to throb. My hand was submerged in water now. I must have found a puddle as I'd fallen.
“We take him to the palace,” said a voice that seemed to squeaky to be a man's.
My heart began to drum faster in my chest. The palace? Why take me there? Criminals usually were taken to the holding cells in the council building. Then again, I was no normal criminal. I was a Warper, and certain precautions were needed.
A muffled screamed pierced the air and the grip on my visual prison relaxed. I heard a loud thud beside me as the thing on my face fell loose. I removed it quickly to see a guard lying on the ground, looking directly at me. He had on no helmet and, while his body was lifeless, his eyes remained open. The blood flowing from his throat began to swirl as the falling rain mixed with it.
At the other end of the alley I saw him, moving with a speed that, even if I tried, I could never match. Ember had finally decided to step in. It had certainly taken him long enough.
His fluid motions, perfected over years of being a Warper, made him look like he was dancing. Like he had a rhythm to the way he delivered slashes from his dagger and blows from his fist. One of the guards who held a spear was already on the ground, dead. I could feel my eyes widen a little as my head jerked. I knew he was moving fast, but I hadn't even seen him attack that one. It was the one who had thrown his weapon at me. That made sense. Take out the weaker one first. He posed the least amount of a threat.
The second guard with a spear thrust it at Ember at the same time as a lead guard slashed with his sword. Ember warped, only slightly, to the side of the lead guard, slashing at the back of his leg. He spun so fast that his cloak flew up in his wake, and he slashed again at the opposite leg. The guard screamed and spat as his head jerked back and he stumbled to the ground. Ember’s dagger found its mark both times in the one spot that the armor didn't cover.
The butt of the spear swung at Ember's face, but he dodged it, and at the same time, he threw one of his knives at the guard, instantly warping away. As the knife impaled the guard's throat, Ember appeared beside him and ripped the knife away, letting the guard fall. His spear made a loud clang as it fell from his hands and rolled away.
To his credit, the lead guard was still trying to swing at Ember with his sword, but with no legs to stand on, it was a futile attempt. One that looked almost comical. I moved a few feet closer as Ember warped behind him. He removed the guard's helmet and planted his knee to the side of the guard's head, and the guard fell face first on the ground. He wouldn’t kill the last guard. That wasn’t Ember’s style.
While Ember was famous, almost legendary, even, as a Warper of extreme skill, he preferred to be feared. He thought fear traveled through the kingdoms of the Prime Sovereignty much faster than any other emotion. Killing all but one of the guards left one to tell the story to others.
When it was all over, he scowled at me as he placed his hood back on. I took a deep breath and swallowed the little bite of pride I had left.
“I’ll see you at home.” That was all he said in a gruff voice as he turned and warped away.
I stood silently for a moment. Motionless, I let the rain wash over me as it fell. The remaining guard had limped away, but I was pretty sure he would return with help. If nothing else to remove the three bodies of his fallen fellow guards. I put my dagger and throwing knife away. How had I let this happen? The way I saw it, if it wasn’t for this damn curse looming over me, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I wouldn't have frozen up the way I had. It truly wasn’t my fault. Ashland would be dead, the contract would be completed, and Thera would likely be a better place without him.
I wanted to scream as I stood there in the alley. Instead, I slammed my hand against the side of a building repeatedly. My hand, vulnerable as it was, started to feel the pain immediately. Rubbing it, I decided it would be best to leave the alley. I didn’t want to still be around when those guards returned.
Warping would have been the easier way, and it would have been a lot faster, too. Despite that, I opted to walk instead. Inside I couldn’t help but think that, had I done what I needed to, all this could have been avoided. Those guards wouldn’t have had to die, and Ember wouldn't have wasted these last two years of training.
As I walked I tried to convince myself over and over again that what had happened, or hadn’t happened, wasn’t my fault. I was wrong, though. Hate it as I might have, it was my fault. I had the chance, and I'd let it slip away.
I felt ashamed. I felt like every person walking around me on the street was giving me side glances. As if they knew of my recent failure, and what I was.
I would have bet Ashland was currently telling his friends some glorious story of how he'd fought off a Warper in an alley. No doubt he had left out the part of my hesitation, and that his success was due to my faults. I couldn’t let this happen again. Who knew what Ember would do when I got home?
Would he stop being my teacher? Could he even stop? I wasn’t sure if the bond worked that way. Maybe the time I was taking to walk there would give him time to relax. Maybe he wasn’t even upset. Maybe I had been imagining that look of disappointment on his face.
No, Lox Norcross, I thought, you were not imagining it at all. It was there. The look of disgust, and it was aimed at me.
I looked up around me. I was pretty close to Ember's place. He had many houses, of sorts, around the Prime Sovereignty. Some were so nice that you’d think a noble lived there. Others, like the one I was headed to, were more unappealing.
; The closer I got to the house, the more I began to think of what would happen next. The only clear point of action was to perform the job. To kill Ashland, and execute the contract. This would likely be harder than expected. Ashland, assuming he was smart, would have guards with him at all times now when he entered the city.
Finally I found myself standing in front of Ember's place. It was different than most homes in Thera, and it was very hard to find unless you knew where to look. This wasn’t by chance. Ember had gone out of his way to make his home hard to find. It also had no doors on the bottom floor, and the only windows it had were on the second floor. The design was of his own imagining and was intended so that only Warpers had access to the house, and entry could only be gained by warping to the roof and using the door found there.
I warped to the top of the house. There it was. A lonely panel on the roof that led inside. It almost looked like a trap door.
Behind this door would be a small steep flight of stairs. I dropped down to my knee and for the last time vowed to myself that I would make this right. If not now, then as soon as possible.
My hand clasped around the handle, and I pulled it open. It made noise, and a lot of it. I slipped into the door and down the steps as fast as I could, so that too much rain wouldn’t fall inside.
I closed my eyes for a second, and descended the final steps cautiously as I prepared to face whatever Ember had to throw at me.
4
I removed my cloak, bracers, and greaves and set them neatly on the floor. Ember’s home, or at least this one, was full of potential that he wasted. If this home had belonged to my mother, or almost anybody besides Ember, it would look more homely. Instead, most of the rooms were empty. In the main room were two areas set up for sleeping. One for me, one for him. We didn’t have beds, just places we slept on the floor.
