Assassin's Mask

by Everly Frost

  I quickly release her from my grasp, leaping away from her, ready for anything.

  Amalia rushes to her feet, backing away from me, one hand raised, ready to defend herself. I’ve proven that I can beat her in a fight and I know her weakness is in her legs. I will take her down again if I have to.

  She says, “Don’t react.”

  There’s a creak like the branches of a tree groaning against each other. She hunches her shoulders and presses her lips together, her forehead crinkling.

  Wings spread out at either side of her, unfolding in painfully slow increments. Her feathers are clumped together in places, damaged in others. In some sections, they are layered over the top of each other. They are metallic like mine but…

  One of them is missing, and of the ones that remain, some are silver and some are… copper.

  She has both Valkyrie and Keres feathers.

  My heart stops beating. “How is this possible?”

  She contemplates her wings. Her eyes close briefly as she passes over the spot where her feather is missing. “I stole the Keres feathers and placed them over my own.”

  I can’t breathe. If the copper feathers aren’t hers, then that means…

  “You’re Valkyrie.”

  She was telling the truth: I can’t use my power to kill her. In fact, I can’t kill her at all. I don’t even know if the Keres ring could harm her. As far as I can see, she has assimilated with the Keres feathers.

  “I am Valkyrie.” She ruffles her feathers. They grate and creak against each other, the copper feathers grinding against the silver ones.

  I exhale my shock. “Who are you to me? Are we related?” She looks so young, not even a decade older than me, but the person she is beneath her outer façade tells me she’s much older. I remember Slade’s fear that I was pretending to be the same age as him…

  She sighs. “Open your senses, Hunter. Dig beneath the perfume I use to hide the cruel reality. Tell me what you sense.”

  My forehead creases. I allow the scent to invade my senses again. The odor of decay follows hard on its heels.

  I say, “You’re dying.”

  She nods. “A long and painful death. I’ve been dying for… oh… five hundred years to be exact.”

  Five hundred years ago, the first rings were made. The Valkyrie were hunted and their feathers ripped out. Just like her missing feather…

  I stumble backward. My senses scream at me with everything that I’ve been ignoring, everything I’ve been pushing away because I didn’t understand it. Her immense power. Her commanding presence…

  I choke on the realization. “You’re…”

  “I am Amalia Avery, the last Valkyrie Queen.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  She is my Queen.

  She is the Queen whose feather gives Slade his power to create Realms. That’s how she walked straight into the Legion’s Realm. After all, her feather was used to make it. It’s also how she hijacks the ledgers. Her power is the pure Valkyrie power from which assassin’s magic was created.

  But as the answers become clear to me, anger boils to the surface. Her feather may have been stolen, but she has perpetrated that evil act herself. She has caused so much pain and violence on top of it. The Keres feathers she wears are not soft birth feathers; they are fully grown feathers that had to be ripped out. “You took feathers from Keres women! Why?”

  She snaps, “It was justice for their betrayal! The Keres Queen was my friend. I protected her. But when the first ringmakers captured her, she sold out my people in exchange for her freedom.

  “The ringmakers raided my home, dragged my ladies from their beds in the middle of the night. They took my daughter. Ripped out her feathers. All because of the Keres Queen’s betrayal. That’s when we became enemies.”

  I flinch at the pain in her voice, the deep agony of watching her people suffer. Of her own suffering. But there are at least thirty copper feathers attached to her wings. She committed the same atrocity.

  “How do you wear them without dying?”

  A sly smile appears on her face, replacing her pain. “Because I took them when their owners were unaware of my intentions. The Keres power is only dangerous to us when it is activated. A Ker could hug you and not kill you unless she wants to.”

  I cry, “But the Keres ring hurts when I touch it!”

  “Because the rings are in a constant state of active power.” She contemplates me, her gaze open and guileless, her innocent façade making me ill. She must have tricked each one of those Keres women into trusting her.

  I spit in disgust, “You took the feathers for revenge! You’re no better than the ringmakers.”

  She hisses, “I took the feathers to stay alive! You don’t understand—”

  A massive thud against the wall snaps my attention to the left.

  Amalia gasps, her wings folding to her side with a crack. She suddenly appears terrified, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “He’s breaking through… But that’s not possible… Not even using my ring…”

  The wall splits up the middle, a neat parting, to reveal Slade standing on the other side. He is full of fury, hands clenched at his sides, a haze of power swirling around him. He has removed his jacket and tie, unbuttoned his shirt at the neck, and rolled up his sleeves.

  He storms through the gap, his blazing eyes meeting mine as it closes behind him. The connection between us is instant, his power leaping out to me, his quick assessment taking in everything at once: me, Amalia… and her multi-colored wings.

  His eyes widen. His protective instincts are already high, silver highlights flooding his eyes. Now his anger accelerates. His voice is an urgent demand. “Hunter! Are you okay?”

  Before I can respond, Amalia lowers her center of gravity and hunches her shoulders, her entire body tense. Her lips draw back in a snarl as she spreads her wings, extending them to their full extent. They’re massive, larger than mine.

  Her power thuds through her so hard that it forces me to take a step backward. The force growing around her beats at me in waves, hot and unbearable.

  Fear grows in my stomach. There’s a reason she is the Valkyrie Queen. She is the strongest, the most dominant, a woman with many faces.

  She spits, “Slade Baines, descendant of Josiah Baines who murdered innocent women. You will die today.”

  She leaps toward him but I ram myself into the space between them, bracing for impact, both of my fists connecting with her chest. “No! You won’t touch him.”

  She stumbles backward, hissing, “You don’t know what he is.”

  She hits back at me, trying to force me out of her way, her fist like iron, so much harder than before. Pain explodes through my cheek, radiating down my neck.

  She let me believe I could beat her. She’s stronger than she allowed me think.

  I grit my teeth, harness my power, and crash into her, lifting her off her feet. At the same time, I release my wings. They cut the air like pure silver blades. I beat them and carry her up toward the ceiling. The roof elevates as we soar toward it—she’s changing it so I can’t push her into it. She tries to beat her wings, but her ability to soar out of my hold is abysmal. As I suspected, she has no balance in the air. Her mismatched feathers make sure of that.

  It doesn’t stop her.

  She hits my left wing, right where it connects with my shoulder. The impact sends me spinning, forcing me to let her go. She plummets clumsily to the floor, landing in a heap of material, her legs buckling, but she regains her balance within seconds.

  The table vanishes, allowing her to storm straight toward Slade.

  He’s ready for her, darting forward to dodge her grasping hands and exchange quick blows back and forth between them. He holds his own against her, but I’m terrified of what she could do to him. I don’t know if she can harness the Keres power through the feathers she stole. She seems reluctant to kill me but she has made it clear that she has no reservations about harming Slade.

  I an
gle my wings and spear toward them, grabbing her wings and wrenching her away from him. Swinging her around, I fling her at the wall. It transforms when she hits it, becoming spongy instead of cracking. It cushions the impact and allows her to drop neatly to her feet.

  The environment changes rapidly around us. The ceiling opens up and brilliant sunlight glares down into the room. The walls dissolve and searing heat beats around us. My feet sink into sand, but this is not a beautiful beach like the one Slade created.

  We’re suddenly standing in the middle of a desert. The air is so hot that it burns my lungs. Sand swirls around my legs, biting my skin. Slade stands two steps apart from me, ankle-deep in it.

  Amalia quickly creates a stone platform for herself so she can move freely. It shifts and remains under her feet with every step she takes. I try to move but I only slide deeper into the grit.

  She shouts, “You should not protect him, Hunter. He is a ringmaker!”

  Slade freezes, eyes wide with shock.

  I spin back to Amalia. “What are you talking about?”

  She wears a cruel twist on her lips. “Slade Baines is descended from a long line of warriors bred for their strength and speed. Their sole purpose is to hunt us for our feathers. His parents left the Order, but his brother was seduced by the hunt.”

  The breath drags in and out of Slade’s lungs. He says, “You killed Foster.”

  “I should have killed you, too.” Her expression cycles from rage to disbelief. “But you let go of the feather he tried to give you.”

  Slade’s breathing calms. He was about to tell me about it when Amalia appeared in the ballroom; about what he remembered.

  He says, “It was one of the copper feathers. I picked it up and… I gave it back to you.”

  The sunlight plays in Amalia’s eyes, highlighting the weight of darkness that has consumed her. “I let you live because you did that. I thought I could control you. But now you’ve grown more powerful than I ever dreamed.”

  Her shoulders hunch protectively and her features contort with rage, her emotions cycling back to anger. “You will never take my feathers!”

  He replies, simply, “I don’t want them.”

  She narrows her eyes at him; she can’t understand why he gave her feather back, but Slade is different. He always was. I know him like I know myself. He is his own person. He found his own way. Even if he is descended from ringmakers, it doesn’t define him.

  He is not the Valkyrie who lost his way.

  Amalia is.

  The only way I’m going to fight her now is to fly. Slade has the same thought, spreading his wings at the exact moment that I do. The electrical current thrumming through his wings crackles in the air. Our feet suck out of the ground as we rise in unison.

  I’m about to soar toward her when Amalia screams, stumbling backward, missing a step and ending up in the sand.

  I pull up sharp as her perfect features contort in horror. She points at Slade’s wings. “What did you do?”

  I hover above the sand, carefully beating my wings. “I gave him my feather.”

  She clambers to her feet, finally searching my wings. Her focus zeros in on the gap—my missing feather.

  There’s a moment when she freezes. Then her face drains pale. “Why would you do that to yourself?”

  I expected her to be surprised, shocked, maybe even afraid, but she looks like she’s going to be sick. Her reaction is so intense that I’m not sure what to make of it.

  She demands, “Did he force you?”

  I stare at her, baffled. “I did it willingly.”

  Is she afraid of him? Or me? Or something else?

  She shakes her head to and fro. “Our feathers are our life, Hunter. Literally.”

  She struggles to her feet as she gestures at the gap in her own wing where her feather was taken. “This is why I’m dying. The moment the ringmakers took my feather, they triggered my death.”

  Everything slows down around me as her meaning sinks in.

  She says, “You’ve killed yourself.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  My wings fail me. I drop to the sand, numb and unable to speak.

  I remember how much trouble I’ve had healing; how long the bullet wounds took to close and how weak I was after the fight to save the Guardian. I thought it was because of restraining Slade the day before.

  My focus shoots to Slade. He falls to the sand, his wings crumpling around him. The gorgeous electrical current disappears as rapidly as his feet descend into the sand. His fists clench and unclench and a mask takes over his features. It’s the mask he uses to conceal his pain. “Hunter… no…”

  I spin back to Amalia. “You’re lying! There are only two ways to kill us—”

  “There are three! Foolish humans don’t realize because it doesn’t happen straight away. You won’t die today. Not even next week. Maybe not for months. But you won’t live another year. Your mother should have warned you but… perhaps she didn’t know.”

  There were lots of things Mom didn’t know. It was the dangerous side-effect of being the last of our kind, of all the knowledge that was lost over time. I was always worried about the information that wasn’t given to her and therefore she couldn’t pass on to me. She didn’t know that the assassin’s rings were made of feathers and why she felt sick wearing one. What Amalia just told me goes hand in hand with that information. It’s a gaping hole in what Mom could teach me.

  I shake my head, backing up to Slade, needing him to know that I don’t believe it. Despite everything, I refuse to consider it. I bump into him, his warmth searing my back, his nearness a comfort that I need right now.

  I glare at Amalia. “If what you say is true, then how are you still alive?”

  She sweeps a hand through her copper feathers. “I’m alive because of these. The Keres are like us. They can take life. But they have an additional power: they can return a soul to a dying body. Imagine how awful that is on the battlefield, to return life to a tortured, broken person, extending their pain. But it’s how I’m still alive.”

  The feathers glisten in the increasing heat as she continues, “These copper feathers keep my soul in my dying body. Unfortunately, their effect doesn’t last forever. I need a new one every thirty years or so.”

  I say, “That’s why you want the Keres girl.”

  “No, actually. She can lead me to a place where I can be healed forever. Where I can replace my lost feather with a much more powerful one…”

  She sucks in a sharp breath, as if she never intended to tell me so much. She shakes her head, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. “It is a Queen’s burden to speak the truth to her people. It’s why I stayed away from you for so long. But now… you will obey me.”

  I am resolute. “I will not.”

  Her lip curls. “You are my soldier. Mine! You will do what I want!”

  A laugh tears out of me. “I belong to myself. I fight the darkness. You embraced it.”

  Amalia’s expression turns to stone. “Then you will die.”

  I’ve avoided meeting Slade’s eyes because I’m afraid of what I’ll see. The intensity in his expression now breaks my heart.

  He says, “I can’t lose you, Hunter.”

  I shake my head. “You won’t.”

  Amalia screams at us, “You think you love each other, but you don’t. You’re connected because he is a ringmaker, because that’s how they trap us. The ringmakers are the strongest, the worthiest match. That’s how they lure us. He doesn’t love you. Nobody loves us!”

  She throws her hands into the air and a windstorm billows up into the air, wild and sudden. Sand flicks into my eyes, tearing around me, grating my skin. I snap my wings closed before the gust lifts me off my feet.

  The change in the environment is too rapid for me to scream or shout. There is no warning and no way to hold onto Slade. A thick wall of sand rises between us. It is so dense that it forces me away from him. I inhale the gritty substance, trying n
ot to choke. I can’t even scream his name.

  Slade!

  The sandstorm shrieks in my ears, blocking out all other sound. I can barely open my eyes, shielding my face with one arm and pushing through the storm with the other. The granules shred my skin, razor sharp pain slicing through me. I can’t see my legs but they hurt, too.

  I push on through the sandstorm.

  Where is he? He was right here a moment ago.

  I trip over something. A foot. Slade’s boot. I drop and grip it, feeling my way upward toward his torso. His arms close around me and then…

  The windstorm dies.

  The sand plummets in a sheet toward the dunes.

  It’s suddenly very quiet.

  Slade falls to his knees in the circle of my arms, bumping against me. I drop with him, my knees connecting with the sharp sand, holding tight to his chest.

  His head drops to my shoulder, resting there, a heavy weight.

  “Slade?”

  Amalia looms behind him, her hand on the back of his neck.

  Her power is a violent hum through my senses, but it’s not the Valkyrie power that I’m familiar with. The power she is using now is foreign and terrifying.

  She says, “I hold his soul in my hands, Hunter. If you love him, you will do what I ask.”

  Fear invades my whole body, making me cold despite the hot sun. Slade sags against me. His arms skim my sides. He hasn’t answered me. The only thing that stops me losing control and tearing Amalia apart is the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

  He’s breathing. Barely.

  She has used the Keres power to take his soul. Now she can decide whether to give it back.

  I’ve lost so much already… Mom, William, and soon Briar. I can’t lose Slade. Not this man whose anger matches my own, who fights his inner darkness like I do, who is as damaged and as imperfect as I am.

  I already know what Amalia wants.

  Wretched and powerless, I make myself speak. “I will bring you the last Ker.”

  She smiles. “Good girl.”