Blade's Destiny (Ishtar's Legacy Book 3)
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Blade’s Destiny
Ishtar’s Legacy: Book 3
By Lisa Blackwood
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Copyright
Blade’s Destiny © 2018 by Lisa Smeaton
Version #1
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and characters are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without the author's permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Cover Art Designed by Rebecca Frank
Edited by Tracy Vandervliet
Proofread by Angyl Mifsud
A queen and a slave must find their destiny together.
Decadence and depravity have long been hallmarks of the Gryphon Court and when a young king dares to bring change, his life is cut short by an assassin’s blade.
Tirigan, an escaped human slave, makes a desperate bid for his future by seeking out the young king who is said to abhor slavery. But Tirigan is too late and quickly finds himself back in the slave pens.
Asharru is still grieving her older brother’s death when the crown is thrust upon her. Intelligent and cunning, she knows none in her new court can be trusted. One of them is the mastermind behind her beloved brother’s assassination.
She needs help and there is only one place left for her to seek it.
The slave markets of Nineveh.
There she plans to acquire a small group of slaves, free them, restore their dignity, and offer them positions as servants and spies.
She is soon drawn to one beaten and chained man. To her horror and hope, she recognizes him as one of Ishtar’s sacred Blades, a warrior born to protect the royal line.
Tirigan has no love for gryphons, but they must put aside their differences and bond as Blade and Queen if they hope to save their kingdom.
Blade’s Destiny is a Fantasy Romance loosely based on early Sumerian and Mesopotamian mythology. It can be read as a standalone, but for maximum enjoyment it’s better to read the series in order.
***Author’s Note***
Queen Asharru and Blade Tirigan are King Ditanu’s ancestors. This is book one of their two part tale, but fear not, we’ll return to Ditanu, Iltani, Kuwari and Enkara later in 2019.
Ishtar's Legacy Reading Order:
Ishtar's Blade
A Blade's Beginning (short story)
Blade's Honor
Blade's Destiny
The Blade’s Shadow (Coming 2019)
Chapter 1
Asharru shoved the pile of reports, lists, and messages across the table. Slamming her hands against the cold stone, she pushed back the padded bench and stood. Then with a bitter twist of her lips, she frowned down at her responsibility, mentally acknowledging that Kadashman would have sorted and responded to these in the time it took her to craft two letters.
But her brother wasn’t here.
He never would be a part of her life again.
An assassin had made sure of that.
Now his absence left a massive void in her life she didn’t know how to fill.
The familiar tears tried to overflow her eyes, and her throat wanted to tighten with grief once more. But she’d promised herself she’d take up her brother’s legacy and do her best by it and the Kingdom of New Sumer.
No one else could. She was the last of the royal line of gryphons.
She circled around the table and strode across her outer chamber, where Kadashman had, until two moon cycles ago, seen to his kingdom’s running in the rare moments of privacy, as she narrowed her blurry gaze on her target.
The door leading out onto the balcony stood just a short distance away, promising the illusion of freedom for a few brief moments. She’d take that though. It was all she had, prisoner of the palace that she’d now become.
Outside the air was fresh. The breeze from the distant ocean carried a briny hint even this far into the island’s interior. Sighing, some of the tension and grief abating, she leaned a hip against the waist-high stone wall circling the balcony’s perimeter.
She gazed, unseeing, at the great city-state of Nineveh spreading out below her. This day, it’s beauty and allure failed to touch her, like every day since her brother’s assassination.
Though, she was determined that she’d see its beauty again one day after she’d found his murderer.
The days after Kadashman’s death, she’d thrown herself into her work, feverishly hunting for her brother’s killer. When the trail had gone cold. Trail? What trail?
The assassin had left no clues behind.
She’d only then come to understand if she wanted to catch the person or persons behind her brother’s murder, she’d first have to learn everything there was to discover about the nobles of New Sumer and unearth which family or faction thought to gain the most by having an untrained queen on the throne.
Well, she might be untrained in ruling a kingdom, but she was trained as a priestess of Ishtar. And High Priestess Diimeritia was astute at reading people and understanding their motives. Asharru had absorbed more than a little of that ability from her mentor.
That gift might just prevent her from becoming a puppet queen for some ambitious noble or even her own council.
What remained of the council, that is.
The first councilor had died of natural causes two seasons before Kadashman’s assassination. At the time, that first death had stirred no suspicion. Then a second councilor had been killed in the same attack that took her sibling.
The guards on duty had claimed to hear a disturbance outside in the gardens, and some of them had gone to investigate. The remaining number had stayed at their posts. When the first guards had returned, it was to find King Kadashman bleeding out on the floor, a hand clasped to his own slit throat, his councilor already dead beside him.
Not one guard had heard anything.
Only the highest trained and most skilled assassin could have managed such a feat, Asharru had been told.
At least that’s what she was supposed to believe.
She didn’t.
There was another way, one that would require a bit of gold and a great betrayal. Asharru looked down into the gardens, her gaze seeking out the guards on duty, wondering which ones had been paid off.
Not for the first time Asharru speculated on how ‘natural’ the first councilor’s death had really been. Sure, at five hundred and fifty-nine, Councilor Namkuzu had been ancient, even by gryphon standards.
But if that death had been an assassination and her brother had learned the truth, would he still be alive?
That doubt would nag at Asharru’s consciousness for many moons yet.
Soft steps approached from behind. Usually, her fingers would already be reaching for the long dagger that had become Asharru’s constant companion. This time she didn’t bother, didn’t even turn toward the sound, already knowing by the slight unevenness of the gait who it was.
Guardswoman Kuri.
One of only three people in all of Nineveh whom Asharru still trusted.
Though the uneven gait was a new addition.
The woman had been injured in a training bout earlier in the day and refused to leave Asharru’s side, even to rest.
Asharru could have issued a royal decree that the woman take a day to rest, but she wouldn’t do that to her, knowing the fear, grief, and guilt the woman hid well.
No, Asharru wouldn’t force the woman back to her own quarters where she’d fret and pace until her next guard rotation.
Kuri had lost as much as Asharru had in that blood-drenched night two moon cycles ago. She just couldn’t show it.
“Crown Princess, I have news.” New grief echoed in Kuri’s voice.
The guard wasn’t prone to showing her emotions. Thus, whatever news Kuri carried with her wasn’t the pleasant kind.
Asharru’s attention sharpened; a calm, cold mask falling into place, hiding her emotions as she turned toward Kuri.
“Speak, my friend.”
The guard hesitated for a moment, then continued. “I regret to inform you that High Priestess Diimeritia has died, my lady.”
The world went quiet. The breeze no longer blew. The seabirds were silent. There was no thunder of gryphon wings in the air. Nineveh faded as Asharru absorbed Kuri’s words.
Diimeritia dead.
Her childhood friend, mother figure, trusted confidant, and mentor. Gone.
Asharru quietly breathed for a few moments.
Finally, she asked, “How?”
“She’d gone for her afternoon rest and never woke again. There was no sign of foul play.” Kuri swallowed hard and then added. “She looked peaceful.”
“That is…thank you for being the one to bring this to me.”
Asharru knew time would one day take even Diimeritia from her.
But why now?
Dark suspicion filled her heart. It was too much.
She would learn the truth, but for now, all that she knew was that Diimeritia was gone, another loved one stolen from her.
Diimeritia had been so proud. First of what Kadashman had tried to do for New Sumer, and later, equally proud Asharru was fighting to carry out her brother’s greatest plan for the kingdom—to abolish slavery and bring an end to the tyranny of the noble houses.
A great vessel to fill, but with Diimeritia’s wise counsel, Asharru had high hopes that once she became queen and consolidated her power, she’d move forward with Kadashman’s legacy.
His dream, that one part of him she was determined to keep alive, was the only reason she got out of bed each morning and attended to her duties.
But without Diimeritia’s wise counsel?
Asharru would have to dwell on that problem later. “Who found her?”
“A servant, my lady.”
Asharru nodded and then squared her shoulders. “Send a runner to inform the other councilors what has happened. We must see to the funeral arrangements.”
“At once, my lady.”
“And her apprentice, Gekura, I would like to speak to the girl and reassure her I will continue her training myself. She will have a great role to fill in the coming days and is likely feeling overwhelmed.” After all, had Kadashman not been killed, it would have been Asharru assuming the title of High Priestess, and even after training all her life for that role, she still felt overwhelmed, not to mention, grief-stricken.
Asharru could only guess at what the poor, fourteen-summers-old girl with only two moon cycles of tutelage under Diimeritia, must be feeling.
“The girl…was not there.” Kuri’s eyes widened, and her nostrils flared slightly. It was the only tell that betrayed her concern. “The girl might be visiting with her family. I will have a runner sent to find the girl.”
“Yes, do that,” Asharru’s said slowly. Then in a lower voice. “Though, Gekura is usually in Diimeritia’s outer chambers rewriting messages and council reports this time of the afternoon. I find it doubtful the girl would be away this one time.”
Kuri nodded sharply in acknowledgment of what she was implying.
“I will rouse the city guards to find her whereabouts.”
Asharru nodded and then followed Kuri back into the outer chambers and on out into the hall, where they picked up another two dozen guards. Kuri wasn’t taking any chances it seemed.
“Your brother?” Asharru asked.
Kuri glanced back at her. “With Diimeritia.”
She didn’t need to say he didn’t trust that the death was as natural as it appeared. If she knew Hunzuu at all, which she did since he was her brother’s oldest friend and the four of them had grown up together, he would be looking for anything out of place.
When they arrived, more guards lined the hall outside Diimeritia’s chambers, and two held open the door for her.
Waving over one of the other guards, she instructed him to inform her when the three councilors arrived. Asharru wanted to greet them herself to see if she could read something besides surprise in their expression, or the lack of surprise.
The guard nodded sharply, bowed, and then retreated from the chamber to carry out her orders.
“A wise call, my lady. We need to discuss a few things in private first.”
Kuri’s acknowledgment came as a relief. It wasn’t just Asharru finding Diimeritia’s sudden death suspicious.
Hunzuu called from a room deeper in the Priestess’s suite. They followed his voice and found him in a workroom standing over a table stacked with parchment, ink, and even a few ancient clay tablets from the archives.
“Crown Princess.” He bowed when she entered. “I’ve found something you should see.”
He indicated the table with its assortment of parchments and reports. She scanned it but didn’t see anything unusual. The stacks were tidy, as they always were. Asharru envied Gekura her neat hand at cuneiform and her organizational skills.
Asharru’s own work area looked more like a troop of monkeys had ransacked her workroom, which wasn’t all that different from when Kadashman had presided over his domain.
But Gekura was much tidier by nature.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Exactly, my Lady,” Hunzuu said.
“The ink is now capped and sealed, but there are several fresh drops splattered across the desk, but there is no quill with a wet end. One is missing. Nor is there any parchment with wet ink to explain the few drops on the wood.”
He dabbed at one small splotch and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger, his fingertips turning black.
“I am certain Gekura was sitting here working as she normally does this time of day. But something or someone distracted her from her work. Which is strange since, on the surface of things, it looks like Diimeritia died peacefully in her sleep. I see no sign of a struggle. It’s doubtful the priestess’s death would have drawn Gekura’s attention.” He paused and motioned them over to another tiny smear of ink on one carpet.
Then he continued further into the chambers until they came to the gr
ound level balcony. The doors were closed but not locked from the inside.
Asharru’s breath caught. After Kadashman’s death, Diimeritia didn’t trust anyone and had started to lock all her doors.
“I think Gekura was working on a report, heard a noise as the assassin entered through the unlocked balcony doors—perhaps left open by a bribed servant or guard. She might have heard this,” Hunzuu demonstrated the soft squeak of the hinges as he opened the door slowly, “came to investigate, and laid eyes on our assassin. Poor girl wouldn’t have had a chance.”
Asharru didn’t doubt his words, because her gryphon instincts were warning of some danger.
“Might Gekura not have discovered the high priestess and panicked?” It was too painful to call her by name. None of it was real yet. Asharru hadn’t even been in the bedchamber to see the body.
Though, the excuse of a panicking youth sounded weak even to her own ears.
Gekura was fairly unflappable for a girl of fourteen summers. If she’d found her mentor dead, she would have come to Asharru immediately. She didn’t like to think of the third possibility. “What if Gekura was in on this?”
“If Gekura were behind it, she wouldn’t have started scribing a report only to stop part way through and destroy the parchment. And because of that.” Hunzuu pointed to a quill half hidden under a chair. “I think Gekura was in the workroom, heard something, came to investigate with the quill still clasped in her hand, hence the few splatters of fresh ink I found, and then was killed when she saw the assassin. I think the quill fluttered to the floor unnoticed when the assassin went back to the workroom. There he took the parchment she was working on, sealed the ink, tidied the remaining quills to make it look like she wasn’t here. He might even now be disposing of Gekura’s body somewhere with the hope we’d just assume Diimeritia’s death was natural.”