Assassin's Apprentice

by S. R. Vaught; J. B. Redmond

  In response, Stormbreaker selected a dagger covered with ceremonial marks and lifted it. “I don’t know for certain, but, yes, I believe you’re correct. Either he came for Aron and his family in person, or his soldiers had orders to break their chevilles without dispatching their essences. The numbers were too great for any other explanation.”

  Aron still gave no visible response. The boy just stared at the fire, but somehow Dari knew he was listening.

  “When you took Aron, were you interfering with the course of a dynast’s history?” Dari asked, knowing the question might offend Stormbreaker. Eyrie’s guilds expressly swore never to interfere with the workings of a dynast, and to do so would be cause for expulsion and execution.

  Stormbreaker gave no visible reaction save the slight inclination of his head as he continued to study the dagger he held. “I was saving a boy, the child of a man to whom I owed a personal debt, nothing more. I urged Aron’s family to leave the Watchline, but apparently, they couldn’t make their escape in time.”

  Aron continued to sit so still he might well have died as they spoke, but for the steady rise of breath in his chest, and the bright, living focus in his eyes as he gazed at the flames. Dari lifted her hands from the earth and brushed away the dust on her fingers. As the faint clouds of brown wisped past Aron and dissolved in the light breeze, she decided to risk another question, one that revealed much about her own increasing disquiet. “Fae and Fury have known many wars across many worlds and lands, fighting with one another and against one another. But this—this attack on the Watchline—it has a different feel to it. Do you sense it?”

  “I do.” Stormbreaker lowered the dagger in front of him and placed the blade reverently on the ground as he shifted his full attention to Dari. “I sense … I sense this war could mean the end of my people.”

  “The end of your people?” Dari heard herself echoing Stormbreaker’s words, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her blood had surged at his words, because, yes, that was it, that was what she had been sensing, though she couldn’t for the life of her understand why.

  Stormbreaker touched the dagger he had placed on the ground, then stared at it as if the blade might contain answers to questions even he feared to ask. “The land itself might remain intact, but society could collapse and come to nothing.”

  “The Fae always manage to survive.” Dari couldn’t wrap her mind around what he was saying, or imagine how such a thing could come to pass. “Even if the conflict rages too long, some will escape, move on to new territories if necessary.”

  Stormbreaker shook his head, then glanced at Aron. “With the strength of the Fae bloodlines so depleted, if our society collapses, I doubt we can recover again. There will be no migration, no rebuilding.” His frown grew deep and sad, like the tone of his voice. “If we ruin what’s left of our strength, if we kill our youngest and brightest and strongest, Eyrie will belong to your people once more.”

  Dari stared at Stormbreaker, pondering his words with a mixture of shock and trepidation. Her rational mind tried to argue that such an outcome would be desirable, fantastic in fact. If the Fae destroyed themselves, her people would have no reason to remain in hiding. Surely they would be able to reverse whatever damage was done to the energies of the land and make Eyrie fertile and welcoming again. There would be no more hiding, no more fear.

  But the loss of so many lives—and how many would be innocent? Cut down because of proximity, or starvation, or other tragedies?

  Somehow, it seemed unfair and wrong. Murder and mayhem—those weren’t the ways Dari wanted her people to reassume their rightful place in this world, even indirectly. Who was to say that the conflict wouldn’t spread and grow until every living thing in the land suffered and perished? The mixing disasters had almost produced such devastating madness, hadn’t they?

  We start the battles, her grandfather always said, but it’s Cayn who ends them.

  Only death, destruction, and perversion came of war. Her grandfather was committed to that belief, as was her cousin Platt, who was the leader of her people. She knew that Eyrie’s guilds, by charter, were supposed to hold the same values and refuse to participate in wars no matter how great the incentives or pressures.

  “You saved my life, Cha Dari, of—” Stormbreaker broke off after interrupting her internal struggle. He waited, then, and Dari realized he was protecting her privacy, that he wasn’t sharing what he had learned on the other side of the Veil. He wanted her to supply the answer she wished Aron to have, rather than simply reveal her identity, even though Aron might remember it on his own, from his own contact with her, as he healed.

  “Ross,” she said, deciding to be at least that honest. Let all the other Fae think she was some lord’s pigeon, far down the dynast bloodline. It wasn’t like she could hide the shade of her skin, or her talent for dispatching the dead. “Dari of Ross.”

  “Cha Ross.” Stormbreaker held his dagger toward her, hilt first. “Were it not for your bravery and Aron’s, for your determination and his, I would have died beside that barn. The two of you fought a battle worthy of any soldier—of a legion of soldiers. In honor of your courage, I offer to make dav’ha with both of you. If you consent, I will join us with the mark of Cayn, to commemorate the army of dead we dispatched.”

  Dari stared at Stormbreaker once again. Her mouth opened in surprise.

  A day ago, this man had been her captor, and now he was offering to bind himself to her with a blood-promise? To stand beside her in any conflict, and to keep her interests always close to his heart? Those who made dav’ha gave each other total honesty, total support, whenever and however possible. They became la’ha and li’ha, sisters and brothers of the heart, evermore. It was a promise, not an oath—not binding in any legal sense. But it was a promise independent of dynast allegiances. Independent, even, from guild duties or bonds of marriage and birth families.

  What would her family say about such a promise with a Stone Brother? They might think it wise, to have allegiance with a man who might rise to great power. But a blood-promise with a Fae—a man not even of the Ross dynast?

  She shivered with distaste—and interest.

  It would seal his silence about my origins, would it not?

  Once more, her eyes found Aron.

  And his as well.

  Yet if she made this promise, she would be bound to this devastated, broken boy. To the awesome and frightful abilities he might one day learn to use, if Lord Brailing didn’t manage to kill him or have him killed.

  And if Stone isn’t forced to dispatch him for failing to control himself.

  Did it bother her, to think she might be shackled to a child who would never recover from the wounds to his heart?

  She thought of how he stood over Stormbreaker, slaying mane after mane after mane, even though Aron probably believed it would have been better for him if the Stone Brother died. She thought of how he almost embraced his dead sister, no matter the consequences. She also thought of how alone he was, and about her own twin sister. Dari had come north to search for Kate, poor confused Kate, who could not keep her thoughts and actions in order.

  Thanks to my negligence. Were it not for me, Kate would still be safe in the mists.

  But now Kate’s frailty would place her at the mercy of whatever captor might run across her. Kate was just as alone as Aron, at least in her own troubled mind.

  The similarity was too much for Dari to bear.

  “I will do it.” She moved herself closer to Stormbreaker and held out her left arm, to signify her first dav’ha. “These promise ceremonies are not common to my people, but I will honor the mark you make, Stormbreaker.”

  Stormbreaker retrieved his dagger from the ground and touched her arm with the hilt, then held it toward Aron.

  “When I claimed you, I called you Aron Frosteye. You have distinguished yourself beyond such a casual designation, so I ask you now, do you choose another name for yourself?”

  Dari thought Stormbreake
r was being formal, or foolish, to offer such a choice to a boy mute from shock, but to her surprise, Aron’s mouth opened. His voice wavered and broke as he spoke, but as he formed the syllables, she understood him perfectly, with a rush of painful memory from the night before.

  “I am Aron, son of Wolf Brailing of Brailing,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “And I will be Aron Brailing when I die.”

  Stormbreaker’s eyebrows arched. The blade in his hand twitched, as if he considered withdrawing it before Aron could extend his arm.

  Dari knew Stone well enough to know that the guild did not allow the keeping of family names, of family ties forged prior to Harvest. She didn’t think Stormbreaker could grant such a request, but when he owed the boy his life, when he was offering to make dav’ha, how could he deny it?

  After a pronounced silence, Stormbreaker steadied the dagger he offered Aron. “If I had the power to allow you to keep your family name, I would do so—and it’s obvious that you’ll hold that name in your heart until you breathe no more. I respect that, and do not challenge you.”

  Aron glared at Stormbreaker, unmoving.

  “I propose a compromise, to honor both our traditions and your request, a name taken from the oldest ruling lines of Brailing. Will you accept Aron Weylyn?”

  Son of the wolf, Dari translated in her head. From a dialect even older than the Language of Kings, brought to Eyrie when the Fae and Furies first migrated to this planet through the great channels of power, swapping their old world for a new one. Did the boy even know what the word meant?

  By the flash of his sapphire eyes, he did know, and he was appeased, though he spoke no more. Instead, he extended his left arm, and Stormbreaker touched it with the hilt of his ceremonial dagger.

  Aron and Dari sat and watched as the Stone Brother heated his blade in the fire. He waited until the tip changed color, removed it, then, before the silver could cool too much, used it to burn the downward triangle of Cayn’s face into his own arm, followed by the upward twist of Cayn’s horns, which formed a pentagram. Anyone who saw the mark would know it as a glyph representing the great horned god of death, the terrifying winged stag.

  Stormbreaker reheated the knife, removed it from the fire, and gestured to Dari. She leaned forward, arm still extended, and closed her eyes.

  The moment the hot blade touched her, she wanted to scream. It made a sound, a sickening sizzle she had heard only a few times in her life and didn’t care to hear again. Then came the smell, sickly sweet, not unlike the bacon Stormbreaker fried, yet completely different. Dari had to swallow repeatedly to keep from retching from the pain and the stench. Face, horns—each line burned new agony into her flesh, and when Stormbreaker finished, Dari wanted nothing more than to thrust her arm into an icy mountain stream.

  The Stone Brother let her go, and Dari opened one watery eye to look at his work. A perfect raised face of Cayn gazed back at her, pink and angry against her dark skin. The mark was small, no bigger than the pad of her thumb, carved just above her wrist. Typically, first dav’ha marks were made near the inner bend of the elbow, but Stormbreaker would have filled that spot long ago. He placed their marks where they would match, even as the skin moved across the years.

  As soon as his blade heated again, Stormbreaker turned to Aron.

  The boy held out his arm and didn’t move as the Stone Brother carved the dav’ha mark into his flesh.

  Dari imagined that Aron had been frightened and angry when Stormbreaker Harvested him. She figured he had planned a dozen escapes, maybe even a few that would have worked. Now the boy knew he had nowhere to run. Whether he wished to be a professional killer or not, Aron would shed his old identity, learn to live by the Canon of Stone, and become an assassin.

  Perhaps he now wanted the training Stone had to offer. In his place, she would want those skills. How else could she ever hope to bring her family’s killers to judgment? What better way to learn to strike down the enemies who crushed the people she loved?

  Even now, Aron Weylyn, the newly named Son of the Wolf, might be etching the title and face of Lord Brailing across his broken heart. One day, he would learn the name of the guardsmen who did the killing on their lord’s orders. And one day, as a fully trained Stone Brother, apprentice to a High Master, Aron Weylyn might draw a stone on one of those murderers, and when he did, the horned god Cayn himself would smile.

  Stormbreaker’s eyes flashed.

  Had he caught a trailing of her thoughts?

  If he had done so, he seemed to agree with her assessment. Maybe he even looked forward to the day he might put that stone in Aron’s hand.

  The Stone Brother brought the ceremony to a close with a pledge, repeated by Dari and mouthed silently by Aron.

  “By this mark and the memory of our battle, I pledge my heart to you.”

  It was done, then.

  Dari looked at Stormbreaker and Aron, at the man and boy she would call li’ha for the rest of her life, which might be shorter than she planned if the borders to Dyn Ross remained closed. She had actually bound herself to two people with Fae blood.

  For now, she would have to trust herself to these two former enemies, and even, in part, to the likes of Windblown and the Altar whelp he apprenticed. Dari didn’t care for either of them, but even if she went to Stone as a person in need of shelter instead of a Harvest prize, she would have to find a way to make peace with many who struck her as arrogant or deceitful or dangerous.

  And, in truth, how different would they be from her? She had her own secrets to keep, and her own battles to pursue. Most of them, she wouldn’t like any more than they liked her.

  Stormbreaker stood. “Dari, you and I must teach the boy what he has to know about his legacy to make us all safe. Then we need to ride out and cover the leagues quickly.” His green eyes flickered as he glanced east, in the general direction of Can Rune, where Lord Brailing held his seat. “With dynast lords turning on their own people, the only safety in all of Eyrie may be behind guild walls, and we’ll be sorely pressed to reach Triune before trouble reaches us.”

  Dari thought about the irony of seeking safe haven in the stronghold of professional killers, but she kept such thoughts to herself as Aron Weylyn got to his feet. His sapphire eyes blazed as he looked toward Can Rune and nodded, seeming to give himself over to the idea of becoming a Stone Brother.

  “Perhaps,” Dari dared to say as she stood and carefully took Aron’s hand in her own, “there is such a thing as killing with honor, after all.”

  PART II

  Elhael

  FATE WATCHES

  CHAPTER TEN

  DARI

  Time was short.

  Dari felt that in her depths, though common sense could have told her the same thing.

  War had begun. Borders were closing. Allegiances were being forged, and the lay of Fae lands might already be shifting. No doubt the byways were becoming more treacherous by the hour.

  Yet she and Stormbreaker still had work to do with Aron, no matter what was happening outside the clearing. It wouldn’t do to evade soldiers and looters, to survive the surges of displaced citizens and refugees wars always produced, only to die by accident in battle because the boy didn’t understand his own power, or couldn’t control it.

  He could kill us as we ride, as we sleep—it wouldn’t take much.

  She helped Stormbreaker settle Aron on the ground a few paces away from the cook fire, then sat facing the boy. The spot Stormbreaker had chosen was sun-warmed and soothing, close to a nearby pond. It was perfect for going through the Veil, especially for Fae who needed structure and inducement to achieve a meditative state. Dari and her people never needed such help, but she knew those with Fae blood often did, especially if they had little practice at the craft, or if they were distressed or unbalanced.

  At the moment, Aron would meet all those characteristics, she thought, then had to fight off a surge of dread.

  Stormbreaker’s face softened, and when he spoke to the boy, hi
s voice was measured and kind. “What do you know of the Fury races, Aron?”

  The boy shrugged, indicating very little.

  Dari figured he knew what most Fae without extensive guild education could grasp. Perhaps the names of the races, general ideas about Fury abilities, and something about how all the Furies but the Sabor came to perish during the mixing disasters.

  Stormbreaker must have made the same assumption, and he began the boy’s instruction simply enough. “Furies have a natural ability to go through the Veil, whether or not they’ve been trained to the skill. Since you and I are of Fae heritage, we have only a fraction of the understanding Dari possesses.”

  Aron’s gaze shifted from Stormbreaker to Dari, and she could tell the boy believed what Stormbreaker was telling him. “My people often refer to being on the other side of the Veil as seeing the world-carved-over-the-world,” she said. “Everything has more detail, and though it isn’t solid, it can be seen at such greater depth, in such greater detail, like the most intricate woodwork imaginable.”

  At this, Aron brightened a fraction, which surprised Dari.

  Was the boy already so talented with his meditating that he had perceived this in his time on the other side of the Veil?

  Indeed, someone in Aron’s former life must have had some knowledge and skill, and made an attempt to pass these gifts on to the boy. It was fortunate for Aron and for them all that she and Aron would not be starting at the absolute beginnings, at least. Still, it was the next bit that Stormbreaker had to say, the part that was coming, that she most feared Aron would reject. And it was the most essential, if they were to let the boy live.

  Stormbreaker’s green eyes brightened, and the spirals on his face seemed to move as he worked his jaw. “You have noted, I’m sure, that I possess a dangerous and unusual legacy.”

  Aron’s arms twitched, and he nodded.