Tamriel whips around and spots Calum and the elf approaching. Behind him, Mercy swings her sword in a whistling arc, a warning to a Cirisian who had dared to step too close.
When they reach the others, the elf behind Calum gives him another hard shove. He narrowly misses skewering himself on the prince’s sword as he pitches forward. Mercy steadies him and scowls as if the ambush were somehow Calum’s fault, then turns her attention back to the seven elves surrounding them. Her angry gaze flits from one tattooed face to another, her eyes like smoldering embers.
“We could—” she begins.
“No, Mercy,” Tamriel interrupts. “We can’t fight them all.”
“You can’t.”
“He’s unarmed,” Tamriel says, jerking his head toward Calum. “He’ll be a liability. Stay your weapon unless I say otherwise.” He lowers his sword an inch. Calum hopes the elves don’t notice the prince’s hand shaking. “What do you want with us?” he calls to the elves.
“Nice try,” Calum whispers, “but they don’t speak—”
“Are you all right, friend?” A young man with braided chestnut hair and bronze tattoos coiling around his eyes and cheekbones steps forward. The rest of the elves fall back a step in respect. Calum’s brows shoot up.
“Son of a bitch,” he mutters. This one speaks the common tongue perfectly, without the slightest hint of an accent. To his right, the elf who had held the dagger to his throat snickers.
“For what it’s worth,” the man continues, lowering the arrow nocked in his shortbow, “we are sorry for having startled you.”
Tamriel’s face is a mask of fury. “The man whose body was left here was a Beltharan soldier. Did your people kill him? And what have you done with the men at the outpost?”
“Do not presume I would deign to speak with you, human,” the elf snaps, spitting the word like a curse. His green eyes swing to Mercy, his expression shifting from hostility to concern. “Have they hurt you, sister?”
She blinks, startled. “No, not at all.”
He scans her clothing, remnants of what she had worn in the capital—no special ornamentation, but still finely made. He pauses when he notices the plain patch of fabric just above her heart. “You are traveling with two human lords, yet you do not wear the mark of a slave. Are you a free woman?”
“One of the few,” one of the elves murmurs.
“I am. They’re my friends.”
Calum lets out a tight breath. He had half expected her to leave him to the mercy of the Cirisian savages. Despite the evening heat, Mercy’s face is pale and he can see the sheen of a cold sweat on her brow. As they wait for the archer’s response, Tamriel and Calum exchange worried glances.
We should never have set foot on these Creator-forsaken islands.
“Doahje-ven,” the archer finally says, and the Cirisians return their weapons to the sheaths strapped to their hips, backs, legs, arms—anywhere they could possibly arm themselves, they carry weapons. “Wen che’amonoe-sho taig villaj.” Then, to Mercy, “You will come with us. You mustn’t fear these rroza any longer.” He glares at Tamriel and Calum. He bounds up the bank and gestures for Mercy to follow. The rest of the elves don’t move, glaring at Tamriel and Calum with their hands on the grips of their weapons.
When Mercy doesn’t move, the archer looks back and raises a brow, stretching the vine-patterned tattoos around his eyes. “Wherever I go, they go, too,” she calls. “If you want me to come with you, you’ll bring them with me and order your men to stay their hands.”
“You’re not in the position to make demands, I’m afraid.” The archer crosses his arms, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “You’re outnumbered.”
“I’ve beaten worse odds.” Mercy ignores Tamriel’s sharp intake of breath as she lifts her sword and points it at the elf’s bare chest.
He chuckles, swatting it away as if it were a pesky fly. “It’d be a sight to see, you two taking on seven men, but I’m afraid that will have to wait for another day. Our First awaits your arrival, and it’s best to not keep her waiting. We won’t touch your friends as long as they give us no trouble.”
Calum snorts. “We’re to simply trust your word? Why don’t you first tell us where our men are?”
“I owe you no answers, rroza,” the archer growls. “Trust me or do not, it’s your choice. It’s much easier to slit your throats and leave your bodies here to rot, like we did your soldier there.” He nods to the branch where the man had hung, the limp rope still swaying slightly in the breeze. “Out of respect for my friend here”—he nods to Mercy—“I’ll spare your lives.”
“Thank you,” Tamriel murmurs, and the archer’s brows shoot up.
“Did you say thank you?” He marches forward until he and Tamriel are nose-to-nose. “Your thanks are worth less to me than the scum in the streets of your city is to you, human. If you are to learn anything here, let it be thus: you are nothing. Nothing. Your soldiers could not hide behind their swords and shields any better than you will with your noble blood and title,” the archer says, his lip curling. He spits on the ground at Tamriel’s feet. “Allow me to teach you one more thing: death claims every man—elf, prince, and beggar alike. You had better hope it does not come for you today.”
13
Mercy
The Cirisians speak nothing but their strange, slippery language as they lead Mercy, Tamriel, and Calum away from the old soldiers’ outpost. The guards are nowhere to be found, and Tamriel’s inquiries into their whereabouts go unanswered. Surprisingly, the archer allows Mercy and Tamriel to keep their swords, knowing despite Mercy’s brave words that they’re not foolish enough to use them against so many adversaries. Calum, however, remains unarmed, his crossbow with its broken strap safe in the arms of an elf named Semris.
To Mercy’s left, Tamriel marches in mechanical silence, his eyes never straying from the archer’s back. He watches him with a mixture of curiosity, anger, and caution.
The archer leads them through a curtain of hanging vines and along a path so narrow they must walk single-file to avoid catching their clothes on the dense underbrush. High overhead, the sky has turned from pale blue to indigo, nighttime shadows settling like a blanket across the island. Somehow, the Cirisians know perfectly well the way to their camp without aid of lantern or torch. They trek easily along the uneven trail their people’s feet have carved through the wilderness, chuckling whenever Tamriel or Calum trip. They do not laugh when Mercy stumbles. The elf in front of her simply turns around, wordlessly points to the root on which her foot had caught, and takes her hand as he helps her over it.
Mercy stiffens when the elf’s gaze meets hers, but his eyes are void of the loathing and bloodlust she had seen when he had looked at Tamriel. His pupils shine in the dark, like a cat’s—like her own must. After all, the Cirisians were the first elves, the ones whose blood runs in the veins of every elf in the world. That shared blood is likely the only reason the archer did not immediately attack when he spotted them.
She watches Tamriel step carefully over the root. Sensing her gaze, he lifts his head and offers her a small, cautious smile, brushing a strand of black wavy hair out of his face as he does so.
Creator, he’s so beautiful.
The thought slips unbidden through her mind, along with the words—his words—I’m just trying to come up with a way for you to stay. She remembers the night in the library, the feeling of his hands around her waist, pulling her close as he had kissed her. Her face flushes, and she is suddenly grateful that the night obscures her expression. Somehow, in their short exchange beside the stream, whatever had been broken between them had begun to mend itself. It’s wrong, she knows. It is not Mercy’s right claim the prince’s heart; it belongs to a noblewoman or a beautiful foreign princess, someone who isn’t being hunted by bloodthirsty killers. Even so, she had chosen him in Sandori, and she’ll fight tooth and nail to stay.
As the hours drag on, Mercy becomes certain that the archer is leading th
em in circles. She can tell Tamriel and Calum are hopelessly lost by the growing unease on their faces, but she is not so easily tricked. The attempt to disorient her would have been successful had she not been trained so well by the Guild.
Finally, they emerge onto the beach at the opposite side of the island, the ground turning from hard soil to damp sand under their feet. The archer runs to the two hand-carved canoes waiting on the beach and gestures for Mercy to sit inside. Two Cirisians settle in behind her, close enough that their knees to dig into her back, and another positions himself at the front. While the archer pushes the canoe into the water, then hops inside, Tamriel and Calum are herded toward the other.
The rest of the elves pull small oars out from under the rough-hewn benches and begin paddling toward the shore of the next island. The archer leans forward and smiles at Mercy. “You shouldn’t fear me,” he murmurs. His shoulder-length hair is loose around his face, several of the braided strands shining with tiny gold and clay beads. He nods to Tamriel and Calum, who look extremely uncomfortable being sandwiched between the elves in the other canoe. “They should be afraid, but not you.”
“You promised me your men would not touch them,” she growls, and his eyes momentarily flick to the sword at her side. Perhaps he regrets the decision to allow her to remain armed, after all.
Good.
“We will not kill them.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
He raises a brow. “I consider it a spectacularly fair deal. Their fathers and grandfathers exiled us to this land when they decided the shape of our ears made us worthless, and they slaughtered and enslaved our people by the thousands when we refused to bow to their whims. The lands you call Beltharos and Feyndara and Gyr’malr were ours first, with names which were lost when the humans purged our history to make way for themselves,” he says, anger flashing in his eyes. “Even though we finally surrendered to our prison, still they sent soldiers to loot and kill and rape. They send their soldiers now. These rroza are not content without the blood of innocent elves on their hands.”
“You keep saying that word,” Mercy says, frowning. “What does it mean?”
The archer leans back and stares up at the blanket of stars over their heads. Mercy follows his gaze. Away from the lights of the city, they burn impossibly bright; it’s a sky Mercy hasn’t seen since she left the Keep. “It’s a shame our people have lost the true language of the elves and adopted this barbaric tongue. Stay in the camp awhile, learn our shared history, and you will discover what it means.”
“I’m not staying here with your people.”
“Our people,” he corrects. “And we’ll see.”
The archer dangles his arm over the side of the canoe and lets his fingers drag across the water, little ripples trailing in their wake. Mercy admires him, transfixed by every little movement. The Cirisian priestess she’d met in Sandori, Lethandris, had moved with the same grace and dexterity, but she had been gentle and soft-spoken. This young man’s melodic voice is blunt and direct. Every movement is laced with carefully controlled power, strength woven into every inch of his lithe frame. She mirrors his position, resting her arm on the side of the canoe, and reaches for the cool water. Does it feel different? she wonders. Before going to Sandori, she’d never seen a lake. This is a sea.
His fingers fly out and catch hers. “Do not touch the water,” he warns.
“Why not?”
“Wouldn’t want the wraiths to get you before you make it to our camp.”
“Wraiths?” She makes a face. “They’re just a story.”
“Even the most outrageous stories hold a kernel of truth.”
Mercy rolls her eyes. “Fine. Suppose they are real, then. What will happen if they get me?”
“They’ll make you see things—people you’ve lost, mistakes you’ve made, your deepest regrets—and once you see them, you can’t forget. I’ve seen a wraith take the form of a soldier’s dead wife and call to him from across the sea, singing a song she’d sung to him on their wedding night. It continued every night for a week, until the soldier could endure it no longer. He snuck out of his camp in the middle of the night, telling her every step of the way how he was going to find her and bring her back so they could be together. He’d walked straight into the sea without a second thought. The commander found him floating facedown in the water the next morning.” He releases her hand. “The wraiths like to lure people to the water—it’s the only place on the island which isn’t protected by Firesse’s charms.”
“But you’re safe?” she asks, unimpressed. Faye had liked to tease her about not believing in anything she could not kill with her sword, and Mercy doesn’t believe this for a moment.
Then again, says the nagging part of her brain, you hadn’t believed in ghosts before you met Liselle, either.
“Firesse, our First, placed charms on the land. When you meet her tonight, she will decide what is to be done with you and your ‘friends.’” The archer is quiet for a moment, staring at the dark seawater. Slowly, his eyes lift to hers. “Tell me something. You were raised to fight—I can see it in the way you carry yourself. Did you live among humans?”
Mercy nods.
His expression turns sympathetic. He looks away. “I’m sorry. I know firsthand how cruel they can be to people like us.”
Their canoe jolts when it finally hits the shore of the new island. Tamriel and Calum’s glides onto the sand a second later. The archer jumps out and, alongside an elf from the other canoe, pulls them fully onto the shore, the wooden bottoms carving deep canyons in the sand. As soon as he can, Calum jumps out as if burned. Tamriel follows, although he is much better at hiding his discomfort as he moves to Mercy’s side.
“What did he say to you?”
“The usual ‘plight of my people’ stuff. Nothing important. Just don’t touch the water.”
Tamriel’s face darkens. “I don’t trust them.”
“Not surprising, considering they threatened to kill you. In fact, I think trusting them would be a decidedly bad idea.” She jerks her chin to Calum. The last thing they need is him doing something foolish and getting them all killed. “Is he okay?” She couldn’t care less about his wellbeing after he threatened her earlier, but she needs him alive so he can answer for his crimes when they return to the capital.
“Considering we have no idea where the rest of the guards are, I’d say no. When he was little—before he knew the truth of his father’s death—he used to have nightmares that the Cirisians broke into his father’s house and murdered him, and he was convinced they were going to come back to kill him next. He was so paranoid that my father had special locks put on his windows and extra guards posted in front of his bedroom door simply to put him at ease.”
“What did he do when he discovered the truth about his father’s death?”
“Nothing. He couldn’t do anything, not against the king. He had to accept it and move on.”
Mercy stifles a snort. Sure, he had accepted his father’s death very gracefully.
“How are you?” Tamriel asks. Higher on the shore, the archer signals for them to follow, and they begrudgingly begin the walk to where he waits.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you? I mean . . . Well, after all that’s happened—”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Mercy—” He stops then, on the edge of the tree line. “You’re not in the Guild anymore. You don’t have to pretend that you’re indestructible.”
Anger flares at the concern in his eyes, at their situation, at the futility of this stupid mission. Without a word, she pushes past him.
He lets out an exasperated sigh. After a couple seconds, he jogs to her side, shaking his head. “No.”
“No?”
“No, you can’t just brush me off like that. Not now. Right now, while we’re here, it’s us against the elves. We must be prepared in case they decide not to honor their word. That means we have to trust each other. You have to
trust me.”
“Like you trust me?”
Tamriel opens his mouth, then closes it. “I . . . It’s complicated.”
Mercy rolls her eyes.
Calum sticks close to them as they walk, casting sidelong glances at the Cirisians out of the corner of his eye. He repeats the guards’ names to the rhythm of their footsteps.
“Akiva . . . Maceo . . . Parson . . . Conrad . . . Silas . . . Clyde . . . Master Oliver.”
His voice breaks on the last name and he inhales a sharp breath. Behind them, one of the Cirisians says in a goading voice, “Your friends wouldn’t be dead if they hadn’t—Ach!”
Calum lets out a roar of frustration. Mercy, Tamriel, and the elves whirl around to see Calum pinning the mocking elf against a tree trunk, his forearm braced against the man’s throat. Immediately, the Cirisians unsheathe their weapons and level them at Calum, who doesn’t appear to notice. His face is red, a vein throbbing in his forehead.
“Go ahead,” he hisses, “finish that sentence.”
The elf scrabbles and scratches at Calum’s arm, his eyes wide. “You—”
Thunk. Splinters of wood go flying when an arrow impales itself in the trunk, barely an inch from Calum’s arm.
“Release him,” the archer growls, his voice low and murderous, “or my next arrow will find its way into your skull. Then your name can join those on your list of the dead.” In one swift motion, he nocks another arrow and draws the bow string, aiming straight at Calum. “Which shall it be?”
Calum glares at the elf he has pinned, whose mouth gapes like a fish’s. Then his face drains of color and he stumbles back, a hand pressed to his chest to calm his racing heart.
“A wise choice,” the archer says, returning the arrow to his quiver. He marches up to Calum and seizes the front of his shirt in his fist, pulling him close. “Next time,” he says slowly, “there will be no warning.” He shoves Calum away with a sneer. As he stalks back to the front of the group, he sticks a finger under Mercy’s chin and turns her face toward his. “And next time, his neck won’t be the only one on the line.”
Born Assassin Saga Box Set Page 53
