by Jackson Lear
Before she could ask us anything else I said, “Let’s get a move on.”
The five of us trundled across the outskirts of Erast until we fell within sight of Kasera’s compound. Greaser held me back for a moment. “I’m not going in there. I’ve already done fourteen years with them. I’m not interested in being told to do it all over again.”
“I’ll take her in,” I said.
“You’re sure? You could just let her walk up by herself.”
“I’m sure. Something unexpected. You know how it goes.”
He held his hand out to me, biting back a warning that this wasn’t going to go as well as I hoped for. “Then good luck.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
Greaser eyed me carefully, unsure if this was the final time we’d see each other. He turned to Día. “Well little lady. We’ve spent the last three days looking for you. I’m glad to see that it paid off. I hope you have a long and happy life.”
She mumbled a, “Thank you.”
Greaser backed away. Lieutenant came up to shake her hand. “Ma’am, it was a pleasure to see you alive. No matter what happens to you I’d like you to remember that there are people looking out for you whether you know them or not, there to keep you safe and to come to your aid when you need it the most. If you ever wake up in the middle of the night, just know that are people out there who will frighten your nightmares away.”
She didn’t quite know what to make of that. “Thank … you?”
Lieutenant looked to me. “I’m not sure how easy it will be to get you out if they renege on whatever deal you think you have with them.”
“I’ll just have to use my good looks and charm.”
Lieutenant snorted. Runaway came up, offered Día the last of the meat and a purse from one of the doctors that jangled with coins then left with only a nod. I gave the guys a moment to get into position, hopeful that if anything went wrong in Kasera’s compound then they would at least know if I was alive or dead.
I asked Día, “Have you ever heard of Kiera? Or of Brayen?”
“Who are they?”
“From the orphanage. Twenty years ago. One of them saw the Eyeless Ghost a month before she was abducted.”
A starry-eyed look fell upon Día. She had no doubt heard the horror story before.
“Don’t worry. You won’t be seeing the Eyeless Ghost again.”
A spearman watched me approach. I was covered in drying blood, sweat, and I stank like a baboon’s ass. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I did the best impersonation of Lieutenant I could muster. “Good morning. I have a feeling that Alysia Kasera Lavarta left instructions to anyone manning the gate that she or someone of a similar position would receive me if someone of my description came to see her. I come from the orphanage. I’ve found the girl they took. Miss Kasera would like to see her, even if it’s only for a few minutes.”
The spearman rolled his jaw around like he was trying to suck out a piece of food caught between his teeth. He rang a bell. “Please wait to the side, sir. Someone will be with you in a moment.”
‘Sir.’ Not the most unusual thing I had ever been called but I wasn’t going to complain.
That moment took a while. Another soldier came down to the gate, asked who I was and what I was doing there, quizzed me a little further since I looked like an assassin who was about to be introduced to the lady of the house. He went away.
Zara came over. Looked at the state I was in, then to Día by my side.
“Dare I ask?”
“Problem resolved,” I said. “You have my dagger. I’d like it back.”
She pursed her lips together. “Looks like you have a few more.”
“It took me a long time to find one I liked. I want it back.”
She groaned, lifted her chin, and led us towards the front of the house. Two people appeared at the front door. General Kasera, looking annoyed that his authority was being undermined. He hadn’t slept much since we first met but he was as alert as ever. His eyes offered little warmth. Instead he was a man who wanted to know if I was a threat to him, his career, or his family. And if I was, how costly would it be to make me disappear? He looked over me carefully. There was a girl by my side who was very much not Myalla Castor. This one had been starved, exhausted, and run through the worst few days of her life. There was little mistaking who she was.
I turned my attention onto Alysia. Someone who knew how to talk to me from the moment we met. Wise beyond those years. And even with that I had dismissed her as being too young to make a good senator. Until now. She smiled at me, weakly. Her great charade finally over.
I didn’t have the strength to smile back. “Hello Kiera.”
Chapter Forty
We took a walk through the garden. Zara followed us from a somewhat close but safe distance.
“When did you figure me out?” asked Alysia.
“While I was interrogating one of the Desten’s.”
“He told you?”
“No. That’s just when it clicked. Back when you came to the orphanage, you were no lady of Ispar. You might’ve looked it and sounded like it but you recognized that Kel was running away with nothing more than a glance. All he had on him was a rolled up mat. To him, it was everything he owned. No high-born would’ve known what he was up to from just that. I started to think that Zara wasn’t the general’s assassin after all. Maybe it was you.”
She cracked a smile. “You thought I was an assassin?”
“I entertained the idea for a while until you seemed overwhelmingly disappointed in who I was. I got the feeling we could’ve stayed there talking until the sun came up.”
Another smile. “I thought you knew when we first met. You started to read me better than I cared for.”
“I thought you were very good with people but I never thought I was talking to my friend who should’ve been dead for twenty years.” I gave her another glance, trying to see if any of Kiera’s physical side made it into the woman I was looking at now. “What do you remember?”
“I remember pretty much everything as Kiera,” she said. “I remember my parents dying, I remember the orphanage. I remember you. I remember having nightmares, being taken, being held against my will, and being sacrificed. After that, I don’t remember much. It was like I was trying to remember a dream that refused to return. I have glimpses of memories from when I was three years old again. I remember my parents being proud of me for being able to speak better than everyone around me. Then I started to remember the dream again. Bits of it here and there. I scared my governess one day. She ran to Father. She wasn’t sure what to make of me but I knew things that three year olds shouldn’t know. Father watched me closely. He soon became distant towards me. Grandpa came to see me and started testing what I knew. The doctors returned. As soon as I saw them, I knew what had happened to me and what they had done. I played dumb. I pretended to be a three year old so they would leave me alone. Grandpa came to me that night. He asked who I was. I refused to tell him, insisting that I was Alysia Kasera and that I had been playing a game. But they knew. They tracked down where the doctors had been, who they took, and brought me back to Erast. I met Sesta Silvia. We talked about me, the old me. Father looked into everything there was to know about Kiera. And you. You disappeared without a trace. My mother protected me. It was a hard ten years, convincing Father that I was his daughter and that I wasn’t going to ruin him. It wasn’t my fault but even so he took a long time to trust me. I guess it helped that my life as Kiera had been a misery that everyone wants to escape from.”
We plodded along under the careful scrutiny of a handful of mounted soldiers guarding the perimeter. “When did you finally come back?”
“I’ve been in Syuss ever since getting married. My time is divided between here and Torne until my husband returns from Anglaterra.” She turned my way, coming to a stop, trying to apologize for something that wasn’t her fault. “I looked for you. I really did.
Zara went back to the orphanage asking the sestas if they knew anything about you. They didn’t. They had looked into where you used to work and they looked to the friends you had back then. You simply disappeared didn’t you?”
I nodded. We walked on.
“How did you become a mercenary?”
“There were four companies at the time in the city. I chose the one the farthest away from the orphanage so that I would never have to see it again. Our captain at the time kept kicking me out, told me to go get a proper job. Instead I went to find you for myself. I went up and down every street in the city. I peered into every window. I asked everyone I could. I even searched the crags but I never found any trace of you. After almost a year I went back to the captain. The anger he first saw in me had turned to defeat. I was less of a threat to the company so he brought me in, put me on latrine duty to see how long it would take for me to runaway. I refused to give in. Eventually the older guys started looking out for me and I finally had a place I could call home.”
We both sighed, drifting along at the unfathomable distance between who we once were as friends and where we were now.
Alysia looked over the rolling hill to Zara. “She didn’t think you were going to survive.”
“Neither did I. You could’ve told me where you died the first time we met. It might’ve made things easier for me.”
“I didn’t have long and I didn’t want you to die out there. There were more doctors out there than you could handle.”
“I handled them anyway. Besides, what’s the life of one thug compared to a thirteen year old girl?”
She turned my way, smiling. “When the thug is my old best friend?”
It left me at a loss for words.
“I wanted Día back. I wanted you to find her. I also didn’t want you to die and leave Myalla stranded somewhere with no hope of getting out.”
“She had hope. I may be a bad guy but I’m not evil. Any idea who Día’s sacrifice was supposed to save?”
“No. We asked. They emphasized discretion. Whoever it is, they’re rich and have connections.”
“Another general’s family?”
“Possibly.” She sighed, unsure of what to do now that I knew one of her family’s darkest secrets. “So what happens now?”
“First, I want your family to look after Día. I don’t care if it’s your father’s family or your husband’s. Take her in, treat her well, pay her well, give her a job that she’ll enjoy doing. If she doesn’t like it, find out what she wants to do instead and let her work her way to that one. She’s had one hell of an ordeal, one that you can probably relate to. She deserves a break.”
“Okay.”
“Kel too. He’s Día’s best friend from the orphanage. He’s a walking storm ready to go off but I’m sure he’ll settle down once he’s seen Día safe and sound. Find out what he’s good at, give him a job that keeps those two close by.”
Alysia smiled at me. “Okay. What about you?”
“I’m going back to my friends.”
“To your life as a closer?”
“It’s the only life I know.”
“It wasn’t always. I was given a second chance. So have Día and Kel.”
“I already have a second life. It came with a new name. One I like.”
“Which is?”
I considered my options carefully. There was a good chance that I had told Día my real name. And the sestas. After the lack of sleep and the numerous fights to the death I had endured in the last few days, I wasn’t entirely sure who I had told the truth to. Once again I found myself breaking another code of the company. “Raike.”
She smiled again. “I looked into your family, hoping that you might’ve kept in touch with them.”
“How did that go for you?”
She shrugged. A no-go, which was understandable. “I can offer you a job.”
I almost guffawed at the idea.
“I’m serious. Come work for us.”
“You want me to work for you?”
“For the Kaseras. Given the impossible odds you’ve just survived, my father would be foolish not to take you on.”
“Yeah, your father wants to keep an eye on me.”
“Probably, but he didn’t tell me to hire you. This is all on me.”
Gods know what I looked like at that moment. I probably bellowed in laughter like a fool. Either way, it hurt my ribs. “You want me to follow your orders? Or the command of the man who paid people to have you sacrificed? And to live next to the soldiers I’ve been trying to avoid my entire life? No. Your family has just as much darkness surrounding them as I do.”
“Sounds like you’d fit in.”
I shook my head. “You couldn’t afford me.”
“My father can.”
“My skills rely on cracking the skulls of people who can’t pay me on time. What could your family do with me that they can’t do themselves?”
“Can I ask you; how many people have you actually killed?”
“I’ve never bothered to keep track. Anyway, you already have an assassin with you.”
“Who’s the assassin?”
“Zara.”
Alysia looked over. Zara moved to attention, hearing her name, seeing a look on Alysia’s face like she should be ready to strike. Alysia waved her hand, settling her back down.
“Zara’s an infiltrator.”
“Same shit, different word.” My ribs hadn’t stopped aching and all this walking was killing me. I just wanted to lie down and let sleep do its thing. “I can’t abandon my friends. They’re the only ones I have.”
“That’s not true anymore, is it? Now that you know about me. Besides, aren’t you tired of sitting around all day being bored, looking for ways to stir up trouble until your boss tells you to knock it off?”
I honestly didn’t have a great answer for her. “I don’t know how to be a good guy. I’m sorry but no.”
Her eyes cracked, showing a sadness I had never seen in a person before. “There will always be an offer.”
I shook my head. “It’s something I shouldn’t even consider.”
“Joining the enemy?”
“It’s a backwards way of doing it. A lot of us join the army then join a company.”
“You wouldn’t be joining the army. You’d be joining me.”
“It sounds like I’d have to follow the orders of someone in a military uniform. I’ve been trying to avoid those people my whole life.”
Her sadness remained.
“There’s no need to look at me like I’m a wounded puppy. I’m onto my second life already. If I ever have a third …”
She started to perk up.
“The answer’s still no. Tell your father I’m no threat. None of my people are. I’m going to have to go now, tell my captain everything that’s happened, and hope that he understands some of the drastic measures I’ve had to employ.” I turned, making my way slowly to the front gate, hoping that everyone who was watching me could see very clearly that the general’s daughter was still alive and in no danger whatsoever.
“Brayen?”
I paused. “Yeah?”
“I’m glad I got to see you again.”
I nodded to her. “It suits you; being a lady. You always had the heart and strength for it.”
She smiled with a ‘thank you’.
I looked back to the villa. General Kasera was still there. Standing still. His hand on his sword. Watching me.
I crept back to Alysia. “Something I want to know: why isn’t your father in Ispar swearing his allegiance to the emperor?”
“He and the emperor go back a ways. My mother is standing in his place.”
“Why not be there himself?”
“There were reports of an uprising building north of the Muirin river. The emperor ordered him to take care of it quickly and end the separatist movement.”
I squinted at her. “There’s no uprising happening in Muiria.”
Alysia raised her
index finger to cover her lips.
“Your father lied to the emperor?”
She offered me a gentle smile. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Considering I’d be executed if I did, I was pretty sure I could keep that to myself. “Is your father making a move against the emperor?”
“There are six hundred senators, most of whom are also generals. Someone is always making a move against the emperor.”
For the first time in what felt like years, I couldn’t help but smile. I left Alysia in peace and headed back to the front gate. Zara followed, offering me my blade only when I reached the edge of the compound. I pocketed it, instantly feeling more like myself once again. I gave her one last glance-over. “I like your hair.”
She arched an eyebrow at me, unimpressed.
“Even if it is just a wig.”
That one did it. Infiltrator, my ass. Only an assassin would give their opponent something to grab onto and then take their advantage away the moment her hair came flying off her head.
I walked away, unsure if Castor was lurking nearby or if Kasera would send the cavalry after me. Maybe I should’ve agreed to his daughter’s terms. Or maybe that would’ve given him a chance to send a private to stab me in the dead of night.
I met up with Lieutenant, Greaser, and Runaway half a mile north of Kasera’s. We circled around the city, avoiding the streets and any rival territory until we returned home. I fell back into my usual quiet state, grabbed a tankard of wine, drank myself stupid, and slept.
Book Two - Protected
One of the world’s best assassins left no trace behind.
Alone in an unfamiliar city, Raike finds his curiosity piqued when the body of a military steward is carried away. The only sign of murder is the victim’s last words: “If anything happens to me they’ll go after the commander next.”
Compelled to poke at an imperial cover up, Raike finds himself caught in the center of the chaos, targeted from all sides, where his presence now endangers an old ally he has been trying to avoid at all costs.
