Assassin's Apprentice

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

  “Dari, listen to reason.” Lord Cobb reached for her hand again, but Dari wouldn’t let him touch her. “If your sister resists you, or if she’s being held in some fashion that doesn’t allow for escape, you’ll have no choice but to…” He broke off, obviously searching for the words. At last he came up with, “You’ll have no choice but to offer her Mercy. Could you do that, if you’re left with no option?”

  “There will be another option.” Dari spoke through her teeth this time, and Aron couldn’t help but notice the brilliant flares of red and green all around her body. Her graal, more the truth of it than the illusion she cast, was so powerful he didn’t have to focus his vision in that certain way to see it. In fact, he had to blink against the force of it, and convince himself not to look directly into the green brilliance, lest it claim his senses, and maybe his sanity.

  “No matter the circumstance, I’ll get her out,” Dari said, glowing more brightly than ever. Lord Cobb and Stormbreaker averted their gazes as she insisted, “I will get my sister home safely.”

  “You can’t know that,” Lord Cobb countered, driving Dari to her feet.

  She slammed both palms against the table and leaned toward Lord Cobb. “If Platt acts to harm my sister, I’ll—”

  “You’ll do nothing.” Lord Cobb stood as well, arms at his sides, his voice loud enough to command all the attention in the room. His gaze was as stern as any Aron had ever seen from his own father, and it took some effort not to scoot his chair back from the table to get more distance from the man. “Platt is a king, Dari. The king of your people, and he and your grandfather have kept all of you safe for years. If Platt acts, it will be to save your people, and to save you from further danger. You know he has more to attend to than the workings of one heart—even if that heart is yours.”

  Dari removed her hands from the table, turned away, and finally lowered her head. “I can find Kate. You tell Platt and my grandfather I can do it.”

  “I see that you intend to, and I hope that you’ll be successful.” The sternness was gone now, and Aron saw nothing but kindness in the dynast lord’s weathered face as he approached Dari and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I have my youngest sons dispatched as messengers in every dynast, keeping ears open for any word, any hint. I’ll give you whatever help I can, child, but there’s no promise Kate is even alive.”

  Dari moved away from him, but not rudely this time, and sat down once more. All the air seemed to rush out of her in a single breath. “My twin still lives.” Her voice was thin now, her tone almost desperate. “I’d know it if she died.”

  Lord Cobb remained on his feet, but he looked at Stormbreaker, as if he didn’t know the mechanics of what Dari had just claimed.

  Stormbreaker placed a portion of sweet bun on the table in front of him. “Twin connections are very strong, Dari. Why can you not see Kate on the other side of the Veil?”

  Dari went back to staring at her fingers in her lap, which made Aron want to slip around the table and sit beside her, just in case his presence might offer her solace.

  “It’s always been difficult, since Kate’s mind and awareness aren’t consistent,” she said, “but usually, I would have caught a hint of her by now. I don’t know. It’s as if her essence is hidden from me. Being hidden, I mean.”

  Stormbreaker’s brow furrowed. “To hide a twin from a twin, that would take a powerful force indeed. I can think of only a few who could manage such a feat.”

  “A few that we know of,” Lord Cobb corrected, once more sitting down, then shifting his attention back to Aron. “Aron Weylyn, here beside us and eating his weight in sausage, is proof that many rogue legacies, both true and mixed, may be running about the countryside right under our very noses.”

  Dari clenched her fists on the tabletop. Aron could tell she was holding back a fresh tirade, or maybe another round of pleading with Lord Cobb, but she never got the chance to speak.

  The chamber’s wooden door bounced open, and in strode a big, muscular man in a gray robe. He looked to be the same age as Lord Cobb, perhaps a few years older, and just as fit—only this man had no hair. Not on his head or face. Not even eyebrows. Aron couldn’t help thinking he looked a bit like a brawny brown egg. An egg with four full black spirals tattooed on his face, one at the forehead, one on each cheek, and one on his chin as well.

  This rank-marked egg could darken a room with the magnitude of its frown.

  Lord Baldric.

  Aron needed no formal introductions, and his mind moved automatically to the proper address of a Lord Provost—his title and his first name, to distinguish him from a dynast lord.

  It was as if the man’s title and his fury had stormed into the room before his body ever broke the plane of the entrance.

  Aron got to his feet at the same time as the others and lowered his gaze from the Lord Provost.

  It’s time for my first judgment. I feel it in my blood. He stared intently at his feet, willing the man not to notice him, but knowing that he would.

  Aron wished his graal would tell him something, give him some small hint of the truth, but his mind remained absolutely and completely silent.

  He was on his own with this one, no matter how it ended.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ARON

  Aron’s body reacted of its own accord, tensing, as if his muscles expected that he might have to flee for his life before this meeting ended. The trays on the table once more lost all appeal, and he wished he hadn’t stuffed himself so thoroughly that he might not be able to run as fast or as far, from the sheer weight of meat in his belly.

  Aron let his gaze shift in the fashion Dari taught him, and noted the touch of black and ruby coloring drifting about the bald man’s shoulders and head. A hint of Cobb legacy, though nothing as strong as the dynast lord’s.

  Lord Cobb nodded first, though even at Stone in Lord Baldric’s own chambers, he remained of higher rank. “I trust you avoided bloodshed, Baldric?”

  “Dirt-eaters.” The Lord Provost’s frown grew more thunderous. “Stone observes the sanctity of messengers like every citizen in Eyrie, but if the cursed fools want to duel each other, they can swap sword blows until they bleed to death for all I care. Off Stone grounds. Away from Stone’s walls. I sent them away under guard of the Stone Sisters. Let’s see them get away from that before I wish it.”

  Lord Cobb opened his mouth as if to offer commentary, but Lord Baldric kept up his tirade. “And Pravda Altar has lost her senses, if she ever had any to begin with. For the twenty years since she’s been elevated, Thorn has ignored every orphan they could shunt to Triune. Now she wishes to discuss the possibility of transferring ‘any unclaimed children’ to Eidolon. In the middle of a war.”

  “Pravda is Lady Provost of Thorn, Baldric,” Lord Cobb said quickly, as if to make sure to get his words in before the next explosion. “She’s not an Altar now, or allied with them any further. And she’s not the girl-child we used to tease and leave behind in the barns and fields.”

  Lord Baldric snorted. “Don’t be fooled. She’s the same conniving little—”

  “Baldric.” Lord Cobb gestured to Stormbreaker, Aron, and Dari.

  Lord Baldric grumbled for a moment, then wheeled on Stormbreaker without so much as a small bow to Lord Cobb. “And what have you brought me? A Brailing stolen from the Watchline without consent of his dynast lord—and her. Some pigeon under the direct protection of Kembell Ross, and him crazed with grieving the loss of two more children.”

  “Darielle is Kembell’s granddaughter,” Lord Cobb said from behind Lord Baldric, whose mouth came open from the shock. “And she’s no pigeon. I’ll not explain more, and you won’t ask, and you will see to her comfort and safety while she’s in residence at Stone.” After a moment, he added, “Please. For the sake of all the three of us have shared, you and Kembell and me. It’s a small thing to ask, Baldric. Truly.”

  The entire land seemed to slow to perfect stillness for Aron. He noticed tha
t Stormbreaker and Lord Cobb weren’t moving, and Dari wasn’t even breathing deeply enough to make her chest rise and fall.

  Lord Baldric glared at Stormbreaker. He didn’t seem to be able to process Lord Cobb’s announcement, or willing to turn on Lord Cobb and refuse his request. When he spoke, his words were still directed at Stormbreaker, this time in a strangled whisper. “Are you trying to incite the wrath of two dynast armies and bring them directly to Triune’s gates?”

  Stormbreaker didn’t meet Lord Baldric’s furious stare or even answer his inquiries. Instead, he proffered one of his own. “Where is my sister? Has Tia returned?”

  Both Aron and Dari raised their heads at Stormbreaker’s words. Aron was relieved to see that she looked as confused as he felt—so he wasn’t the only person surprised by the question.

  Lord Baldric stopped ranting, but the furious hue stayed in his cheeks. “We’ve had no word from Snakekiller, for good or ill. I’m sorry, Dun.” The shift in his tone was nothing less than unsettling, and Aron set his teeth to keep them from chattering.

  “We do know that Seventh High Master Uldin and his youngest apprentice were killed at the Brailing-Ross border. Stray arrows, Lord Brailing claims.” Lord Baldric smacked a fist against his open palm, the color on his face expanding to cover his neck, too, red creeping over sun-baked brown. “The old fool is trying to blame some shadow-man with a cloth-wrapped face—said the same man butchered a bunch of soldiers, too. The Brailing Guard has dubbed this mystery fellow Canus the Bandit.”

  Stormbreaker looked both sad and uncomfortable as Lord Cobb laughed outright at this announcement.

  Dari turned her head to avoid Aron’s eyes.

  Aron felt a queer unreality sink about his awareness. As it had back in that village, in the Zeller home, his mind seemed to split into two pieces, one that remained engaged with the real world, the now world—and one that shot back to the night he sought the Brailing Guard to avenge the deaths of his family.

  I didn’t kill them. Dari stopped me. Or the glowing boy with the bright red legacy. I didn’t do the murder.

  Did I?

  But what if he had, somehow?

  Were his thoughts powerful enough?

  Maybe he, Aron, was this heinous outlaw, this Canus the Bandit.

  And maybe Lord Baldric will know it and kill me now.

  Yet even if Aron had managed to do harm to the soldiers, he couldn’t fathom how he would have also sent an arrow through a High Master of the Stone Guild so far away from his targets—much less manifested as the image of a wrapped man fresh from the Barrens. Those things couldn’t be possible.

  At least he didn’t think they were.

  Brother help me.

  Lord Baldric paused, then swore to make clear his opinion of what he obviously considered to be Lord Brailing’s lies and excuses about the High Master’s death. “Cayn take the Brailing Guard and Altar’s warbirds with them—I’ve demanded a full granary load in repayment for Uldin’s death on their watch, and I’ll judge the archer myself when he’s caught. Canus the Bandit, indeed.”

  Aron felt a surge of surprise at Lord Baldric calling the name of the horned god inside his own walls, then thought himself foolish. Of course a killer wouldn’t fear the god of death. Hadn’t Stormbreaker used an image of Cayn to make their dav’ha, after all?

  “Uldin’s oldest apprentice—what’s his name—Galvin? Yes, Galvin Herder. He isn’t ready to take the duties and may well never be, so I’ve decided to elevate Windblown to Uldin’s position.” Lord Baldric pointed at Stormbreaker. “That’s a favor to you. You know I’m not fond of Windblown, but he’s acquitted himself well these past years as your companion.”

  Stormbreaker seemed to gather his emotions, and he gave a little bow.

  Before he straightened back to his full height, Lord Baldric had caught site of Aron, and his brown eyes crackled with energy and disapproval.

  Aron swallowed. He didn’t insult the Lord Provost by looking him directly in the face, but he wouldn’t let himself cower either, no matter how his muscles tried to pull him to the chamber floor and curl him into a tight ball.

  “Now, as for this boy,” Lord Baldric said, his gaze still firmly fixed on Aron. “Westin says he may have the Brailing legacy. Is this the case?”

  “Yes, Lord Provost,” Stormbreaker said, remaining in his tense, stiff stance. “We believe he might possess the full and true measure of the old Brailing mind-talents.”

  Lord Baldric grunted in acknowledgment, maybe surprise as well. “And has he done anything with his mind-talents that I should know about?”

  Dari’s breath hitched along with Aron’s. She shot a desperate glance at Stormbreaker, but the High Master didn’t acknowledge her unspoken plea. Stormbreaker ignored Aron’s worried look as well. As if oblivious to the damage he might be doing, Stormbreaker plowed ahead with telling the Lord Provost and Lord Cobb about Aron’s attempt to attack the soldiers, and how Dari thwarted it and brought him back to this side of the Veil. He didn’t make any excuses for Aron, or discuss his lack of training or understanding—nothing of the sort. He just laid bare the facts, and left them in the hands of Lord Baldric.

  Aron didn’t know whether to shout or run, or kick Stormbreaker right in the shin like one of his little sisters might have done. He had known the information would be shared, but the way Stormbreaker told the tale seemed so stark, so cold. Anger took Aron’s breath first, followed fast by a pained sadness and a sense of betrayal. For a dark moment, he was standing outside his home again. He was listening to his father disown him, and he wanted to kill Stormbreaker just as he had then.

  Lord Baldric approached Aron, moving slowly, and Aron’s eyes darted all over the man’s gray robes, wondering where his weapons might be hidden.

  Aron knew he should probably run now. Yes. Running would be wise. But for some reason, his legs locked into place, and all he could do was shake and stare at the floor.

  “Look at me, boy.” The demand was simple, and spoken in low tones, but it sounded like a thunderclap to Aron.

  He had to use all of his strength and courage to lift his head and do as the Lord Provost had ordered. When he did, he felt like the Lord Provost was glaring directly into his graal, his very essence—and like he might never stop. Like he could hold Aron there for as long as he pleased, while Aron squirmed and screamed under the merciless scrutiny.

  “I have taken in children with legacies as dangerous as yours, Aron Weylyn,” Lord Baldric said, his tone neither friendly nor cruel, “though admittedly none with a dynast lord actively seeking their murder. Why should I keep you here? Why should I even take the risk of letting you live, when you’ve already tried to become an oathbreaker?”

  Aron couldn’t help glancing at Dari and Lord Cobb, who didn’t seem inclined to save him from the Lord Provost, especially not in the man’s own chamber, in his own keep, behind the walls of his own castle. Aron’s gaze moved to Stormbreaker next, and there Aron saw more truth, and his wish to kill Stormbreaker began to ebb.

  Aron understood now, just from the expression of respect and deference on Stormbreaker’s pale face. Here was the man who had allowed the High Master to stay at Stone. Here was the man who had protected Stormbreaker despite his powerful mind-talents, who taught him the control he now employed to not hurt anyone with the bursts of weather he could command. Lord Baldric had been one of Stormbreaker’s teachers and masters and champions, and that told Aron all he needed to know.

  It went without saying that Aron wanted to live. That didn’t surprise him. What did surprise him was the stirring of emotion at the Lord Provost’s words. The lightning-bright realization that for all of his doubts about coming to Triune, about entering the castle, about becoming a Stone Brother, Aron desperately wanted to stay. He had nowhere else to go, nothing left but these men and the training offered so that one day, he might have the chance—the legal, ethical chance—to right the wrongs done to his family.

  When he looked back at Lor
d Baldric, Aron did his best to let this desire to remain show on his face, in his eyes. Let the old man probe into the depths of his thoughts. Let him take him apart layer by layer, if that’s what he sought to do.

  “To Stone go the Stones.” Aron willed his voice not to crack under the strain. “I’m a Stone now. Look into my heart and find the cold, smooth rock at its center.”

  Lord Baldric laughed.

  Aron had expected many reactions, but not that one, and the rich sound of the man’s amusement dug at him down deep inside.

  This was serious to him. His life, his future—it was no folly, nothing to be taken so lightly.

  “Aron with the heart of stone, what of your grudge against the Brailing Guard?” Lord Baldric laughed again, and Aron wanted to bite him. Hurt him somehow—do anything to make that sound stop.

  “What of it?” he snapped before he could calm himself. His fists clenched at his sides. “There is nothing I can do about my grudge now, but if I’m true to my training, and if I follow everything my father taught me about kindness, honest labor, honor, and truth, I’ll earn my place in the Stone Guild. Then, after the war is over, when criminals are called to task for their war crimes, perhaps I’ll draw a stone on one of the dirt-eaters who murdered my family. That alone would make my life have purpose.”

  Aron couldn’t see anyone around him anymore. The world had narrowed to Lord Baldric, to his brown, tattooed face, and the gleam in his bark-colored eyes.

  “Vengeance.” The Lord Provost sounded thoughtful. Maybe even impressed. “That’s as good a motive as any, and as good a motivator, one Stormbreaker knows well. As for all that about kindness, honest labor, honor, and truth—not bad aims and goals for a guildsman of Stone. I suppose you’ll do.”

  Aron’s mouth opened, but he closed it before he could say anything to reverse the Lord Provost’s decision.