Assassin's Apprentice

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

  Snakekiller frowned at him, keeping her dagger tight in her fist. “My business is with you, until I say otherwise. I would be remiss in my duty to Stone to abandon you—and my duty to all of Eyrie.”

  Nic startled at her choice of words and quickly studied her face. The knowing look she gave him left little room for misinterpretation of her meaning, and his heart started to beat slow, then fast, slow, then fast, as he reached for denials, misdirections—anything that might put Snakekiller off from the truth of his life, of him.

  In the end, he could only lower his head to escape the cold fire in her snowy blue eyes and murmur, “I was almost sure before that you knew I was … someone. You know the full truth of who I am. You’ve known since the day I woke in your wagon.”

  Snakekiller seemed to relax a fraction, as if glad the truth had been bared between them. “I knew the day I scooped you from that alley in Can Rowan, though Hasty and Terrick did not, and do not. I didn’t want whoever had tried to kill you to have a second go at succeeding.”

  Nic tensed, but tried not to bring on another round of tremors, or worse yet, a fresh fit or length of fever. “I think … I think it might have been rectors. The rectors at the castle.”

  As he spoke, he closed his eyes and waited for her to scoff at him or grow angry at such a disrespectful suggestion.

  Instead, she let out a snort of anger. “Raise your head, boy. No treachery from Thorn or those trained by Thorn, no matter how great the magnitude, would make me so much as lift a brow in shock.”

  Nic stared at her openly then. He had never heard anyone speak of Thorn with such a tone of disgust. He had thought perhaps he wouldn’t be believed when he shared his impressions of the day he almost died, but clearly, Snakekiller was ready to accept any dark comment he made about the Thorn Guild.

  “Centuries ago,” she said, looking more into the dark night than at Nic, and speaking as if she had an audience of unseen sympathizers, “Thorn was as honorable as Stone, and as committed to its duties. Healing, medicines, spices and crops, tending the orphans of Eyrie no matter their station or legacy—they were the perfect balance to Stone and worked in harmony with Triune, the land, and Eyrie itself. These last generations, much has changed within the walls of Eidolon.” She thrust her dagger into the dirt beside her knee. “Many have paid the price for Thorn’s dereliction of duty and their shortsighted meddling in affairs beyond their guild walls.”

  As she finished her diatribe and glared at her dagger, Nic knew without question that Tia Snakekiller was one of the people who had paid for Thorn’s straying from their sanctioned path, though he couldn’t say why or how. Thorn had wronged this Stone Sister, and she did not appear willing to forget the slight, or forgive it.

  He found comfort in her anger, and a steadying of his belief that she would never turn him over to Thorn or to any rectors. Still, he wasn’t certain where she stood on her earlier promises and bargains. “You said I could go to Stone, that I could take vows at Stone, should I choose to do so.”

  “I will guard your secrets, if that’s what you desire—though in time, I hope you will choose differently, for yourself and for Eyrie.” Snakekiller kept her strange blue eyes locked on his. She leaned forward, as if she might be hoping he would suddenly think differently, believe differently about his new life and his new opportunities.

  He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, but found himself shaking his head as if to deny her wishes in some gentler fashion than outright refusal.

  Snakekiller settled back on the blanket and sighed. “I will keep you safe, as I was once kept safe. Stone will protect you as they protected me, and as they protected my brother, despite his own stubborn risk taking.”

  “Thank you again,” Nic said quietly, but this time it was Snakekiller who shook her head.

  The dark night and orange light of the fire seemed to color her unusual hair as it moved, and when she spoke, her voice was firm and direct. “My brother and I are not nobles, Nic. We have no destiny that mixes with the throne of Eyrie.”

  Nic stared up at the moons winking through the frosty dantha leaves and almost laughed. “My destiny doesn’t lie in Mab. Not anymore. I was … cast out.”

  “By an act of attempted murder, not the force of law.” Snake-killer dismissed his argument with a wave of her hand—the one not holding the dagger she had pulled back out of the dirt. “Eyrie has gone to war because goodfolk and nobles alike believe that Mab has no heir, and this does not feel like a normal war to me. My mind, my heart tells me—well, never mind that. But, Nic, the time may come when you have to step out of your fear and pain and claim what rightfully belongs to you.”

  She stared at him again, and the strident tone in her words faded into something softer, maybe even desperate. “The time may come when you have to give yourself up to save us all.”

  Nic tried to catch his breath, but he was having trouble keeping his chest from caving inward. “I don’t have that kind of power. And who would follow me? I’m the hobbledehoy, remember?” He gathered some steam and volume as the words spilled out, words he knew Snakekiller didn’t want to hear—but she needed to hear them and remember the truth of who and what he was before somebody pitched him out of Can Rowan’s castle. “Goodfolk and dynast nobles laughed at the hob-prince when I was fat and soft in the body, and now I’m crippled and soft in the head. I barely have a hint of legacy—”

  Snakekiller’s bark of laughter cut him off. “You cannot be serious. A hint of legacy? Is that what you believe?”

  She turned on the blanket to face him completely, her legs only a few hand widths from his own knees. “Nic, in the older days before the mixing disasters, those with the Mab legacy often came to their mind-talents much later in life than those from other dynasts.”

  Nic couldn’t see how anything from the past applied to him. He pressed his fingers into the stack of blankets covering his own legs. “I know how it was, but the Mab legacy has long been cycling back to nothing, just like all the other legacies.”

  Snakekiller leaned forward again, this time bringing her marked face very close to Nic. Even in the firelit darkness, he could see her benedets, and how the spirals seemed to move of their own accord. “These fits you’ve been having, I believe they’re from the injuries to your head. But the fevers—that’s the Wasting. Though it’s one of the strangest presentations I’ve ever seen.”

  Nic gaped at her, not even bothering to pull back from her scrutiny. “It can’t be the Wasting. Mab rarely gets the sickness, and besides, I’ve had too many bouts. I should be dead.”

  “Yes, I don’t argue. You should be dead from it, but you’re not, and that’s a mystery we’ll both have to unravel.” Snakekiller eased back of her own accord, then stood and stretched her arms out to both sides, as if to get the blood flowing. “The Wasting isn’t killing you, and it doesn’t seem to be taking your mind away, either. As for why you got the sickness, I think it’s the strength of your legacy, and whatever it’s mixed with.”

  Nic kept shaking his head, not believing, or not wanting to believe. “I think our long days on the road have made you tired.”

  Snakekiller laughed, then gazed upward at the moons. “You have the Mab legacy, and I believe you have it in full measure. It’s blended with something I don’t quite understand, but once you’re trained, you’ll be able to track and sense the future. I believe you’ll even be able to project yourself into possibilities, lay paths to outcomes, and literally call the future to you, as you choose it.” When she looked back at him, a fervent certainty seemed to have claimed her beautiful face. “Who can stand against a mind-talent like that, Nic?”

  Once more, Nic said nothing, this time, because there was nothing he could say. Nothing at all.

  “That’s why Mab has always ruled. That’s why Mab should rule.” Snakekiller sheathed her dagger and held out both hands, beseeching him to see the logic of her belief. “It’s not just the gifts of the sea and the bounty of hardwood that your dyn
ast commands. It’s your legacy. Used with kindness and forethought, the Mab mind-talent has always shown the Fae the path to survival.”

  Nic kept his silence, but he couldn’t quite shove away everything he was hearing. He nodded because he agreed with what she said about the Mab legacy, even if he had no trust at all that he possessed such a mind-talent.

  Snakekiller kept her arms outstretched. “It was the Mab legacy that led us from our first world to this one, before we were wiped away by the greed and power mongering of humans who cared nothing for the old ways and old peoples. It was the Mab legacy that saw us through the Great Migration, and the making of the dynasts, and the forging of our life in this world.”

  Nic’s mind reeled back to Can Rowan, and the castle, and the reality of the Mab left on Eyrie’s throne. “But if my mother has the legacy, it may be the Mab mind-talent that brings us all to a bitter finish.”

  Snakekiller lowered her arms and dropped to her knees in front of him. The action was so swift and forceful that he leaned away from her as she spoke. “Then you must restore your own strength, gain the training you need, and stop her, Nic.”

  “I can’t,” he whispered, wishing he were strong enough to scramble to his feet and flee into the frigid night.

  Snakekiller’s intense expression didn’t shift, and Nic could feel the heat of her breath on his face. “Who else could do it, if not you?”

  He tried to swallow but coughed instead. His mind reeled crazily from one excuse to the next, from one truth to the next, but his lips and teeth and tongue wouldn’t speak them aloud. He stammered until Snakekiller brought her finger to her lips to silence him, stood, and drew her swords. She turned to face the southern section of the darkened woods surrounding them.

  Nic’s blood roared in his chest and ears, making him dizzy with fear and confusion. He tried to make himself get up, but his limbs felt like weak twigs, and he couldn’t even make it to a kneeling position. How was he supposed to save Snakekiller and all of Eyrie when he couldn’t even sit up?

  But Snakekiller was already lowering her blades, and a smile had replaced her fierce look of conviction.

  Seconds later, Hasty and Terrick pushed their way past a dantha trunk and some undergrowth. They were both so tall they had to duck to get past the last branch and into the clearing. Terrick’s gray tunic and breeches were soiled from their long hours on the road, and his brown hair looked as scraggly and mussed as Hasty’s, but both looked well and hardy, and happy, as well.

  “We’re in luck,” Hasty announced in his booming bass. “Fin-mont, on the edge of the Scry and near the border of Ross, will give us shelter until we wish to move on to Triune. It’s two days’ ride with the wagons. Terrick and I have already secured lodging at the little inn.”

  “They have no patrons, with the war in such motion and the treachery of Canus the Bandit on the roads.” Terrick grinned despite his grim words. “Good fortune for us, at least.”

  “Is the Bandit active in this area now?” Snakekiller had been sheathing her swords, but Nic saw her hesitate.

  “We heard he struck a soldiers’ encampment near the Ross border four days ago.” Terrick’s grin didn’t wane. “A raiding party of Brailing Guard, come to steal winter stores—but ten of them won’t be going home.”

  “No great loss.” Snakekiller finished sliding her blades into their leather scabbards. “And the war? What did you hear?”

  At this, Terrick’s jovial expression finally faded, and Hasty frowned. “Thorn is stirring to the east. They’ve sent emissaries to Stone guild-houses near their borders and laid claim to orphans and the sick.”

  This brought Snakekiller’s head up fast. “Why? Thorn hasn’t troubled themselves with the needs of Eyrie in decades—the needs of the poor, I mean.”

  Hasty’s frown remained fixed on his usually friendly face. “Strange times, strange measures, perhaps.”

  Snakekiller let out a snort of disgust. “I’d sooner believe they have some hidden purpose.”

  Neither Hasty nor Terrick argued with her, and Nic wondered if they shared her poor regard of Thorn. It surprised him that so many people harbored dark sentiments about the guild most revered by the nobles of Eyrie, and he wondered just how protected he had been inside the walls of Can Rowan’s castle, even with all the personal tragedy he had faced.

  “Brailing and Altar forces have claimed the westernmost section of Mab,” Hasty added as he put down his pack. “And Lord Cobb isn’t acting to expel the Brailing raiding parties from his borders.”

  “Mother bless us, is he wavering in his neutrality?” Snakekiller shook her head. “No. No, I won’t believe that, not of Lord Cobb. He and Lord Ross would never make themselves a part of this madness.” She turned her gaze to Nic and stared at him until he had to look away from her. “Goddess willing, the greater dynasts save for Mab will never stir, and this will end before it becomes an exercise in endurance and corpse counting. Before the damage done to our land and people grows too great.”

  If he could have pressed his hands to his ears to block out her words, Nic would have done so. The spineless urge shamed him almost immediately, and he forced himself to raise his head enough to see her again.

  “We’ll send word to Stone when the season breaks,” Snakekiller was saying, her attention back on Hasty and Terrick. “You and Terrick might return when it’s warmer.”

  Terrick flopped to the ground near the fire and his bedroll, while Hasty settled himself near the flames in a more dignified fashion. “Nic might be able to travel more steadily and safely by then.”

  Snakekiller shrugged as she sat down, and Nic could tell she was giving effort to appearing offhand and casual. “Perhaps.” Her blue eyes shifted back to Nic, and this time they gripped him like two unrelenting fists. “For now, we’ll lodge in Finmont. Later—well, later, we’ll all make our choices about where life will take us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  ARON

  Stormbreaker stood in front of the fireplace in Aron’s bedchamber, his arms folded and his pale, marked face grim with anger and disappointment.

  Aron held his position beside his bed, one palm resting on the soft blanket. The room smelled of lingering smoke and sweat from Zed’s dirty robes on the other bed, but Aron was too miserable to be embarrassed over their poor housekeeping. His heart kept up a dull pounding, as it had since he had stabled Tek and returned to his room to await Stormbreaker’s arrival and the consequences he would face for the incident with Tek, Zed, the bull talon, and Galvin.

  Stormbreaker had required him to recite his version of events, but the man hadn’t spoken a word since. His silence made Aron’s tired muscles ache. Sweat coated the back of Aron’s neck, and he had to struggle not to beg Stormbreaker to forgive him. He would have rather faced a whip or fist or even Lord Baldric’s temper than this.

  Stormbreaker’s unusual eyes remained fixed on Aron’s, and Aron couldn’t look away. He couldn’t even form a proper prayer to the Brother, to ask to be spared from judgment so soon. He wasn’t even sure he deserved to be spared. He had improved in his basic strength and sword skills, but certainly not enough to survive a combat.

  “Is it or is it not your intention to be my apprentice?” Stormbreaker’s question was clipped and sharp. “Do you plan to complete your training at Stone and become useful to this guild?”

  Aron’s pulsing emotions flared in a hot rush. “Yes!” He clenched the spread in his fist, then made himself relax, lest Stormbreaker take offense at his upset. “Yes,” he said again, this time with a bit more control.

  Even as he made the declaration, Aron had a hurtful memory of his father’s voice, whispering to him that he would always be Wolf Brailing’s son. Stone and Stormbreaker had made no effort to erase Aron’s history or to ask him to forget his origins. They asked only that Aron understand who he was now, and who he would be tomorrow. He was a Stone. He was. Why had he allowed himself to behave with such disregard for Tek and Zed’s safety?

&n
bsp; Stormbreaker let his arms fall to his sides, and his gaze softened just enough to allow Aron to breathe. “If you wish to serve Stone, then you must make peace with your Brothers and Sisters even when that peace comes at great price to you. You have enemies enough in the world outside these walls. You cannot afford to make adversaries within them.”

  Aron waited until he was certain he could speak without being disrespectful, then shared his truth with Stormbreaker, as his master had so often encouraged him to do. “Galvin Herder’s heart is cold like a winter’s night. He’s—I think he’s cruel.”

  Stormbreaker’s stiff posture eased, and he raised a hand to rub his chin, as he often did when making a decision. “I don’t argue that point, Aron. Perhaps it would help you to know that Galvin’s family surrendered him to Stone when they couldn’t control his aggression, then died in the fevers that swept through Graal Valley the following year. He, too, has lost the people most dear to him. Without the proper care and support, such a devastation could make anyone cold inside. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Aron’s mouth came open, and he lowered himself to sit on the corner of his bed. Scenes from his bloody dreams about the Brailing Guard tried to batter down his self-control, and his cheeks burned from a fresh rush of emotion. He didn’t know whether to feel sympathy or humiliation.

  Was he, Aron, like Galvin already?

  Did those dreams mean he was destined to grow ice around his soul, too?

  “Galvin has nothing but Stone,” Stormbreaker continued. “He has no one but Stone. We—you—are his family now. Be a brother to him.”

  The cover of Aron’s bed felt silky beneath his fingertips as he stroked it, taking what little comfort the softness offered. “How can I be a brother to Galvin? He won’t allow it.”

  “Try to convince him.” Stormbreaker came to stand directly in front of Aron, gazing down with the kind expression Aron associated with Stormbreaker’s teaching and encouragement. His tone shifted to sad, then worried as he spoke. “The time may come when you must trust Galvin Herder to slay a murderer at your back. I know of no better way to seal your loyalties to each other than to force you to fight together.”