Kaislyn tried to focus through the pain. Which one was Nakia? Oh. Raina’s mother. Unfortunately, she had to agree with Ikaros’ opinion. “How sad for you that you’ve gone from a once powerful Phoenix King to skulking around the throne of your descendants!”
“I will always be king!”
“Keep telling yourself that. You don’t have the phoenix, the snake, or, you know, an actual kingdom to rule.” Kaislyn tried to sit up and fell back into the mud with a groan.
“It’s amazing how much it hurts not to die, isn’t it?” Ikaros chuckled. “And this will never go away for you. Not dying injuries always come back. Dying forever would have been much more pleasant.”
“You first.”
Her neck twinged with a sharp, cutting pain. She was at a severe disadvantage, broken and bruised, soaked and covered in mud, while Ikaros was dry and clean.
“I want you dead, Immortal Walker. I will see you dead.” Though his posture and clothing were pristine, his blue eyes glared at her with all the pent up insanity the man possessed and his fingers twitched.
“That makes two of us.”
They stared at each other. Kaislyn blinked first and Ikaros’ superior smile returned. “What do you think will happen when you die too many times?”
“Have you gone senile? Neither of us can die. The number of deaths don’t matter.”
“Don’t they?” Ikaros’ voice dropped, grew introspective. “Each death leaves us with a pain that won’t ever heal. Sometimes it goes away for a bit, but it always returns. What happens when those deaths stack up? One day you will be too crippled by the pain. One day you will be too damaged in mind and body to do anything but drool and mumble. One day you will be forever vulnerable and powerless. Would you not then seek a permanent death? Assuming, of course, that you could physically Shift into your birth life? How many times have you died, Immortal Walker? How much pain are you in right now?”
Kaislyn felt sick.
“Well!” Ikaros clapped his hands together, startling her. He rose to his feet and she could smell burning flesh. If what he said was true, then one of his own deaths caused that ever recurring burnt flesh. That smell.
“I have better things to do than chatting with you all day. Watching you fall was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.” He Shifted and Kaislyn sneezed, making her body hurt even more.
“I hate him.” The words seemed entirely insufficient for the situation. How long was she going to keep doing this? Fighting with Ikaros, keeping a tally of who had killed the other the most? It would never end.
No. It would end. Ikaros was right. Eventually, it would all catch up with her, with him. But who would go first? Rendered helpless by the other? The consequences Ikaros described frightened Kaislyn.
She sucked down some of the muddy water and tried to move again. She struggled away from the pools at the base of the falls, using whatever sticks she could find for support. Her shoulder was not dislocated, thankfully, but her ribs were broken. Her head throbbed and her neck hurt every time she tried to turn it. She suspected it was broken too.
Her belongings were at the top of the falls. The idea of climbing back up there nearly made Kaislyn black out again. But she needed to get somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Shaking uncontrollably, she began the agonizing walk toward the nearest village.
The sun had set long ago by the time Kaislyn stumbled into the village, relying on the smell of smoke to guide her. The shaman recognized Grehesh’s name; one of his granddaughters was married to some offspring of Grehesh’s family.
“You must have help,” the shaman said as his wife began a muttering tally of Kaislyn’s visible injuries.
“I was fighting with the Sorcerer. Right now I need a lot of Bliss Root and then sleep.”
“The god preserve us,” said the shaman and showed her to his own home. She didn’t protest when the fire was built up, or reject the offer of dry clothes. Once tucked in thick blankets made of soft alpaca wool, and as close to the fire as Kaislyn dared to sit, she took the offered cup of Bliss Root potion the shaman had left for her. As she slipped into oblivion, one thought rose up out of the darkness.
She was done dying over silly things like poisoned water or stolen Black Sand. Done letting him manipulate her into an endless state of death and pain. She was going to beat him at his own game. And she was going to cheat. She was going to find the moment before Ikaros became immortal and kill him permanently.
Kaislyn spent three days asleep in the shaman’s house before waking, feeling completely normal but for a cold. With Ikaros fresh in her mind, she suspected the cold was from a death.
Her clothes had been washed and dried and she was offered a supply of food to get her back to Grehesh’s as well as the escort from the village’s favorite single young man. Kaislyn managed to keep a straight face in her refusal, explaining she was instead going to the Second City.
Ikaros spent an inordinate amount of time there. It wasn’t just his favorite city. It would have been from where he first went to the mountains to become immortal. It was there, she would find his birth life.
She was sent on her way with a last parting gift, a necklace chain of the Weeping flower. The mountain god’s favorite flower. Kaislyn thought the god had good taste. While highly toxic and useless for anything but murder, Weeping was a very pretty little flower. She thought it looked like snowflakes.
The stories claimed they were formed when the mountain god cried for the first time. Each tear turning into the delicate, white bloom. So it was called the Weeping flower. A flower of mourning and death. And good luck. Kaislyn loved the contradictions found in the mountains. Loved that something as sad as the Weeping flower was a symbol of luck and hope.
It took her two days to reach the lower hills. From there, she had an unobstructed view of the distant Second City. Tucked under mountain shadows and wrapped on two sides by the river, it looked tidy and peaceful. She could feel the invisible line below her, between the mountains and the Second City territory.
Several days of hiking followed by three days recovering in the village and another two days of hiking. Call it a week. Living with Grehesh for the past year, Kaislyn hadn’t spent more than a day at a time away from her birth life. Now she’d just done a week. It made her feel... free, unencumbered by restraint or caution. She’d never considered how much fun it really was to be in her immortal life.
Setting her necklace on the hillside, Kaislyn Shifted to her birth life. She’d forgotten it’d been night when she first left Grehesh and her parents. It bothered her to forget something as small as that. She was determined to keep her life as orderly as possible. Even if it killed her.
Already did kill her, girl.
She stepped over the withered flower necklace—a week old in just a step—and walked from the mountains and into the Second City territory. She found a grassy depression to wait out the rest of the night, nodding off into a deep sleep around dawn.
She woke late in the morning. Cutting across the hills, she found a road leading toward the Second City. The wildness of the hills flattened and became orderly fields of green or golden crops. The bent figures of workers dotted the farmlands. The road grew busy with people journeying to and from the city. Donkey and alpaca caravans jostled travelers for additional space.
A sprawling open market outside the city did little to alleviate the crush of people passing through open gates into the city itself. Kaislyn tripped trying to avoid a steaming refuse pile and nearly broke her nose on a large statue.
“You’re everywhere, aren’t you?” she scowled up at the stone Ikaros. His face was serene, gazing at the distant mountains. The crown on his head was carved like a sleeping snake.
For a city that had just been poisoned, it was remarkably robust. Kaislyn thought it would be lethargic and empty with people lying in the streets dying. There was a smell. A combination of rotting food and unwashed body. Not unlike Ikaros’ usual scent. But that could just be the Second City. The Th
ird City smelled like rotting fish and it was perfectly healthy.
The palace was located near the center of the city on several rising hills and as Kaislyn neared it, the crowds only grew thicker. What was going on that the street was suddenly packed with people? Excited people...
Kaislyn spun. She needed to escape. The nearest place was a booth. She scrambled onto the flat wooden counter and swung up to the awning. From there she could—
“Blazes!”
The edge of the roof was too high for her to reach. Kaislyn dropped onto the awning and flattened herself against the taut, brown cloth. Just in time.
Nearing her hiding spot was a small procession of four guards. They were dressed in ceremonial uniforms of gold-hemmed brown with bright red vests, their swords in matching sheaths. A fifth man walked at the back of the group. He was taller and broader than even Drazan, with brown eyes, black hair, and a neat, closely trimmed beard. A naked sword hung at his waist.
Judging by his size and the way he turned to talk to a guard, Kaislyn guessed he was the royal captain. She tried to remember what she’d heard about him. Drazan thought he was stupid. But he thought everyone was stupid.
The waiting guards came to attention. A woman detached herself from the nearest cluster of people. She wore a long dress of a deeper red than her escort. She always wore red when she went out. Always in mourning for her murdered family during the First Bloody Year, always remembering the Second Bloody Year when she claimed her birthright and cities. Her long brown hair was pulled back from her face with small gold clips and her telltale black eyes were soft and friendly as she spoke with those nearest her.
She hasn’t changed much, Kaislyn thought. Her usually narrow face had filled out some from her recent pregnancy, softening her features. Perhaps a few more lines creased her forehead.
Drumming her fingers on the awning, Kaislyn waited for the Phoenix Queen and her guards to pass. She doubted anything less than a city-wide poisoning would have drawn Raina away from the newborn heir.
Kaislyn stilled.
“Oh, damn. Come on, Nisken... Where are you?” She searched the crowd for the absent Royal Assassin. Nisken rarely left Raina’s side when she wasn’t in the Fourth City, sticking by her like a burr. The phoenix was missing too. Had she left them both behind in the palace to watch the baby while she was out? Kaislyn couldn’t imagine any other reason that would have kept either from the queen’s side.
Raina and her guards began moving again. While she did keep a contingent of guards when she went into the cities, the queen’s paranoia was well known and she never allowed more than a handful of guards to escort her. It would make an outside attack easier. If stupid. She was a Phoenix Queen after all.
Kaislyn rose to her knees so she could see the crowd better. The movement caught the royal captain’s wary attention and their gazes met. He visibly started. Drawing his sword, he turned and scanned the crowd himself. She saw nothing that could have alarmed the burly man and she quirked an eyebrow at him. He moved past her spot and spoke in a low voice to the queen, gesturing behind them toward the distant palace.
The queen shook her head.
Was Kaislyn the paranoid one now? There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary here. No dramatic figure in the shadows. That was thinking like her parents. Always showy, even when skulking. If she thought like a thief, she’d be...
...there in the open, disguised as that cripple crouched on the ground. Perfect height to hamstring a passing guard. And there. Enthusiastic, over-eager youth pressing forward to meet his queen. There would be more nearby. He wouldn’t waste time on just two assassins.
It was none of her business.
Girl, everything became her business sooner or later.
Kaislyn filled her lungs. “Attack!” she screamed.
In hindsight she should have chosen a different word as the disguised assassins took that as the signal to move. The burgeoning attack reminded her of fish swimming upstream. The crowd surged backwards in an instant panic as the assassins lunged forward to the queen. Kaislyn counted ten of them.
The nearest guard went down, felled by the disguised cripple. Shedding his cloak for better movement, he exploited the gap in the loose circle around the queen. Dagger raised, he rushed at her. The queen pivoted, glanced coolly over her shoulder at the assassin inches from her person. His eyes rolled up in his head and he toppled over without touching her.
The queen stepped over his crumpled form, her black eyes no longer friendly but bright with fury. Pinpricks of gold fire shone from her irises. She stopped a second assassin in a similar fashion, freeing the guard nearest her to engage the next rush of attackers.
“Ikaros, you fool. She can control their minds.”
He would know that.
Kaislyn hesitated in her search, pausing on the embattled royal captain fending off two assassins. Despite his size, he was fast. And much better with a sword than she would have guessed. Nearly as good as her parents, she thought, as one of the assassins dropped. But he’d also become separated from the queen.
She kept looking.
There!
A man with blue eyes on the stoop of a nearby building. He was dressed like a recently arrived trader with mud-splattered clothes and cracked boots. A thick stubble of growth covered half his face, drawing attention to his unnaturally blank, blue eyes. Ikaros must have ambushed him near one of the trade routes in the mountains and taken over his mind. The man stood tensely, hands hanging at his sides, curled backwards, concealing a dagger in each hand.
Ikaros wasn’t just using him to watch the attack. He was waiting. Waiting as the queen drew nearer to him, as the fight surged in their direction.
“Clever man,” Kaislyn muttered. It was an elaborate feint to give the one person immune to the queen’s hypnotic gaze a chance at killing her.
Almost one person.
Kaislyn ran across the awning and jumped. She stumbled as she hit the ground but kept moving, barreling straight into the waiting assassin. They toppled into the street.
Kaislyn met the blue eyes of the man beneath her. “Nice try, Ikaros.”
The trader didn’t move, daggers forgotten as they stared at each other. She imagined Ikaros’ rage at seeing her and it made her grin.
“What are you doing here?” the man said finally. His voice was dull, lacking in emotion.
“I got bored in the mountains. It’s more exciting here, wouldn’t you agree?”
“The young queen won’t always be so well protected. She will die and I will have my cities back.”
His muscles tensed and she rolled off him as he jerked a dagger around to stab her.
The man glanced between her and the nearing queen. “Are you in your birth life, Immortal Walker? Think you’re safe just because I’m not here? I’m willing to risk my chance with the young queen to find out.” He darted for Kaislyn.
Scrambling for her knife, Kaislyn backed away. She hit the booth.
The royal captain twisted into view, cutting the man down just as Kaislyn found her knife. “Don’t think I haven’t forgotten about you,” he growled. Before she could reply, he turned away, back near the queen, felling the last assassin.
Kaislyn stared at the dead man at her feet. It wasn’t his fault he tried to kill her. The rest of the attackers had chosen, but had he? Had he volunteered to be Ikaros’ conduit?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Whatever you were before, you didn’t deserve to die under Ikaros’ control.” She crouched down and closed his blue eyes before someone else noticed them.
She looked up to see the royal captain’s gaze on her again.
Blazes.
He took a step toward her, sword held casually in a fist.
Kaislyn fled.
This had been a bad idea.
Too late now.
Kaislyn waited until evening before approaching the palace. The last thing she wanted was to draw more attention to herself, but she was fairly confident Raina would be more co
ncerned with the safety of her child than anything, or anyone, else.
The palace was a sprawling multi-level complex draped over several hills. A wall ran around it with several gated entrances. There were five guards on duty at the gate Kaislyn chose. It was a small gate to warrant the number of guards, but everyone would be extra cautious after the street attack. The gate itself was closed.
An alcove built into the wall beside the gate offered a second, private entrance to the palace. It was big enough for a few chairs and a table. Beyond the wooden slats of the inside alcove door, she glimpsed a courtyard and stairs.
Kaislyn lurked indecisively in a nearby street. She was suddenly very nervous.
A low murmur of voices caught her attention and she turned, welcoming the distraction. A large shadow separated into two figures. They reunited for a quick kiss before the smaller figure hurried toward the palace. The guards, while recognizing her as a palace servant, still detained her in the alcove for an interview before letting her through into the palace grounds.
The other figure watched for the process and then walked away. Kaislyn recognized the short, rolling step.
“Kam,” she called softly.
He whirled around. Kaislyn came closer until they could each see the other’s face. A grimace crossed his. “’Course you’d be here.”
Kaislyn studied the other thief. He’d lost weight which did not improve his appearance and his hair was thinning. When had she last seen him? A year ago? It seemed longer. A lifetime ago. Perhaps even literally, she admitted to herself, thinking of how much Shifting she’d done in the mountains.
She rubbed the diamond on her necklace.“Creating a new territory here, Kam?”
“Looking for something to blow up?” he retorted.
“As if I would be so careless,” Kaislyn said, coldly. “I wouldn’t want you ratting me out to the local captain. Again.”
Kam’s face paled delightfully in the gloom. “I didn’t betray you. I had nothing to do with your arrest.”
“You’re not clever enough to orchestrate an arrest like that without getting implicated anyway. I got unlucky there.”
The Immortal Walker Page 8
