Born Assassin Saga Box Set

by Jacqueline Pawl

  Behind them, Nynev whispers to her sister, “This is the leader of the mighty kingdom Firesse hopes to topple?”

  Ghyslain stops midstride. “Who are you? Tam, who are these women you’ve brought?” He whirls on his son. “What were you thinking, bringing Cirisians here? Are you insane? What do you think the nobility will say?”

  “Perhaps this discussion would be best had in private,” Mercy interrupts. She gestures to the guards walking the lawn and gardens—a few of whom have begun to wander closer, eyeing Nynev and Niamh with suspicion.

  “You’re right,” Tamriel agrees. “Father, let’s go to your study and I’ll explain everything.” When Ghyslain reluctantly agrees, Tamriel turns to Akiva. “Go to the barracks and have the dead soldiers’ belongings packed for their families.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Akiva bows. “Uh . . . what about Master Oliver’s things?”

  Tamriel opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Grief fills his eyes, tugging his mouth into a frown. Fortunately, Ghyslain saves him. “Leave everything where it is. There are plenty of unused rooms in the castle for the next Master of the Guard to make his office.”

  Akiva bows again. Several of the guards who had been wandering the gardens help him carry the coffins into the castle.

  Mercy frowns, a heaviness settling in her chest. Master Oliver and the other guards didn’t deserve the deaths they were given. Despite their initial animosity toward her, she hadn’t hated them. She’d seen how much Master Oliver cared for Tamriel and how much the guard’s supposed death in the Howling Mountains had cost the prince. Oliver had loved Tamriel. He’d protected him, and in the end, it had cost him his life.

  An hour later, the door behind Mercy sweeps open with a whisper of well-oiled hinges. She doesn’t look back. Her eyes are trained on the mountains looming in the distance, caught in the memories of those dark caverns and hidden sinkholes and stone monsters. Their journey had been doomed from the start. She should be celebrating—it’s nothing short of a miracle they escaped the Cirisians and the Daughters and made it back to Sandori at all—but Calum’s warning won’t stop echoing in her mind. Firesse is more powerful than they can possibly know. She’s preparing to lead her elves across the border to slaughter thousands of innocent citizens. Every life she and her people take will only strengthen her powers. They’re outnumbered, sure, but if they secure aid from the Strykers and the Daughters, they stand a chance of striking a devastating blow to Beltharos.

  Mercy has trained all her life against opponents carrying daggers, bows, spears, swords, staves, and shields . . . but not one who relies on smoke, mirrors, and unnatural tricks. How can she kill a woman who has the power to prevent someone’s soul from crossing into the Beyond? How can she kill a woman who has the power to make her troops invincible?

  How can their war against Firesse be anything but hopeless?

  Two arms slip around Mercy’s waist. Tamriel rests his head on her shoulder, staring out at the Howling Mountains. She can feel the warmth from his body, the rumble of his voice when he says, “I told my father everything. Every detail.” He lets out a long, tired sigh. “He believes me. Perhaps he really is insane.”

  “And Niamh?”

  “He has agreed to give her every resource at his disposal to aid her research and development of the cure. When I left, he was writing letters to the most gifted healers in the country, requesting their timely arrival in the city,” he says. “We moved the Cedikra to the infirmary, where you and Niamh will be working from now on.” He pauses. “Is that . . . all right? I know you spent a lot of time in there with Pilar and Alyss.”

  “Of course. It’s fine.” Mercy pushes away the memories of Pilar’s cloudy, blind gaze, the agony and desperation on Alyss’s face before Mercy had poisoned her. Little Owl. Now is no time for grief, she chastises herself. “Where will Niamh and Nynev be staying?”

  “Here, in the castle. Some of the servants are cleaning out the empty bedrooms and preparing them for the girls. For now, they’re resting in my room. It’s the only place not covered in dust.”

  Mercy turns around, leaning against the railing as she links her hands behind Tamriel’s neck, staring up into his tired, bloodshot eyes. “It’s just as well. You always sleep in the library, anyway.”

  “Precisely.” He presses a kiss to her temple, then pulls back, frowning. “You know, I offered to speak to my father in private so you could rest. Why did you go to Calum’s room?”

  Mercy reaches inside the pocket of the dress one of the castle slaves had given her. She pulls out the smooth, folded parchment she’d tucked inside. Tamriel stiffens when he sees it.

  “Is that . . .?”

  Mercy nods. It had taken her less than half an hour to find the contract stuffed behind a false back in one of the wardrobe’s drawers. “Do you want to read it?”

  Tamriel plucks it out of her fingers and tucks it into his breast pocket, frowning. “Not right now.”

  “What are you going to do if we get Calum back?” she asks.

  Tamriel glances away. He’s quiet for a long time, then he murmurs, “I hope he died.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I hope he died in his sleep. I hope he isn’t currently trapped somewhere on the Islands, forced to play spy for that monster who calls herself a savior. I hope he doesn’t have to watch thousands of his countrymen be slaughtered because of information he provides her. I hope he is at the Creator’s side, free of the jealousy and hunger for vengeance which caused him to buy the contract on my life. I hope he is dead,” he says, anger flashing in his eyes, “because if not, I will take from him everything he holds dear, as he tried to do to me.”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “Sadly, I mean every word.”

  “Then let’s get out of here. I don’t want to think of Calum anymore.”

  “Nor do I.”

  She follows him through the bedroom, glaring at the bed where Calum had tied her after she had discovered the contract. Then, as they pass the desk and the crystal paperweight Liselle had used to help her, sudden sadness fills Mercy. She’ll likely never see her parents again. First her parents, and now Liselle is missing, too.

  No, I’m not.

  The words are faint, barely discernable over the sound of the hinges when Tamriel opens Calum’s bedroom door.

  Liselle? Mercy silently calls as she follows Tamriel into the hallway. You’re still here?

  Barely. Listen . . . no power . . . ask Tamriel . . .

  “Ask Tamriel what?” she asks aloud, stopping in the middle of the hall.

  “What?” Tamriel frowns in confusion.

  “Liselle. She wants me to ask you something, but I can’t hear her. On the Islands, she said she doesn’t have much power. Firesse is trying to stop her from helping us.”

  Cassius . . .

  “Right!” Mercy spins around, narrowing her eyes at him. “What did Cassius tell you before you left? Don’t try to lie or hide anything. Tell me the truth.”

  He glances away. “It’s not important. It must’ve been a mistake.”

  “Tamriel!” Mercy throws her hands into the air. “Whatever it was, it terrified your father. He was gaping at you like you were a ghost when we arrived. What did Cassius tell you?”

  The fight leaves Tamriel’s eyes. “He said . . . I was going to die on the journey.”

  Suddenly, all the air is sucked out of the room. “He had a vision of you dying? Where? When? How?”

  “I don’t know. His visions aren’t as powerful as Pilar’s were—his family hasn’t had a full-fledged Seer in generations. He only gets glimpses in dreams, like the image of the Cedikra and the name Niamh. Random hints. He saw it the night before we left for Cirisor. Remember when my father and I spoke in private in the throne room right before we left? My father told me about the vision.

  “That’s why I was so on edge after we left the Islands. We were heading back to Sandori and I thought my time was running out. The second we sa
w Kaius and the Daughters in that market in Xilor, I was certain I was going to die.”

  Mercy begins to tremble at the memory of how close they had come to the vision coming true. She remembers perfectly the glint in Lylia’s eye, the smirk on her lips, as she had lifted the bow and loosed the arrow straight at Tamriel. She remembers the scream ripping out of her throat as she watched the arrow fly though the air and the low thunk it had made when it hit flesh.

  “But it didn’t come true,” she says quickly. “We’re in the castle, and you’re alive. You didn’t die. It couldn’t have been a vision, then. It was just a normal dream.”

  Tamriel shakes his head. “People with the Sight don’t dream. Even the most weak-blooded Seer has visions when he or she sleeps. They may not reveal anything important, but they always . . . come . . . true . . .” His brows furrow as he trails off. Then his eyes widen and his jaw goes slack with shock.

  Mercy comes to the same conclusion a second later. If all Seers’ visions come true, Tamriel would be dead right now. But because Calum had jumped in front of his cousin and taken the arrow for him—the arrow which would have killed him—it means the outcomes of the visions can change. If the outcomes can change, then . . . “There’s no guarantee Niamh will be able to create the cure for the plague,” Mercy whispers, terrified that saying the words too loudly will make them a reality.

  Tamriel nods. “She knows nothing about herbalism. No other healers have been able to come up with a tonic or poultice which helps. All our hopes were based on that vision, on Cassius claiming she’ll somehow figure out the cure. But now . . . we have as much a chance of saving our people as we did before we left. If we can’t figure out the cure, all those guards will have died for nothing. Everyone suffering in Beggars’ End, in the infirmaries, in their homes, will die. One tenth of our population, Mercy, and the numbers are growing by the day.”

  Mercy slumps against the wall, dropping her head into her hands. It’s only a matter of time before the Cedikra rots, the plague spreads, Firesse and her clanmates-turned-soldiers invade . . .

  . . . but despairing their bad luck isn’t going to cure their people.

  Mercy rubs her tired eyes and pushes away from the wall, smoothing the wrinkles in her dress. Tamriel gapes at her as she turns and starts down the hallway. “Where are you going?”

  “To the infirmary.” When she reaches the corner, she stops. “Aren’t you coming?” she calls over her shoulder. “We have work to do.”

  45

  Calum

  Calum wakes in a cold sweat, gasping for breath as a chill overtakes his body. He’s lying on his back on a scratchy blanket, staring up at a canvas sky. A candle burns somewhere out of sight, its flame casting an orange light on the sun-bleached walls of the tent. He tries to lift his head to catch a glimpse of his surroundings, but his body is heavy, leaden, and his muscles do not respond to his commands. Bits and pieces of the last several days rush back to him, but they slip through his grasp like the last wisps of a quickly-fading dream, disappearing from his memory before he can make sense of them.

  He blinks and realizes belatedly that several people are standing over him, peering down at him as if he is a specimen for study. Kaius and Faye stand side-by-side on his left. The Assassin’s nose is crooked and bruised, dark shadows coiling around her eyes like a mask. The Cirisian healer, Quibris, stands on his other side, accompanied by none other than the abomination herself:

  Firesse.

  “How do you feel?” she asks.

  “Like you should have let me die long ago.” He glares up at her, some of the fog slipping from his mind. “Where are we? What happened? Why am I not dead?”

  “You’re back at Ialathan, of course. I’m not surprised you don’t remember the journey back—your wound was infected and you were delirious with fever.”

  Calum takes a deep breath and the bandages around his chest pull tight. He suddenly remembers everything: running with Tamriel and Mercy, watching Master Oliver die, taking the arrow meant to end Tamriel’s life. His terror returns tenfold. “Is . . . Tamriel alive?”

  No one speaks for a long time.

  He waits.

  And waits.

  And then Firesse says, “No.”

  The world crumbles around him. “What?”

  “Your heroic stunt might have worked if Lylia hadn’t had more arrows in her quiver,” Kaius says, his face betraying no emotion. “She struck him down seconds after she did you. Except that time, the arrow was fatal.”

  “You’re lying,” Calum snarls, fear threatening to choke him. “I want to see his body.”

  “It’s not here. His guards are bringing it back to the capital.”

  Calum bites his lip as hard as he can, blinking back tears. He will not give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry. “And Mercy?”

  “The second she realized Tamriel was dead, she bolted.”

  The tent is suddenly stiflingly, maddeningly small. Calum squeezes his eyes shut. “I’d like to be alone for a while.”

  “Leave us,” Firesse orders.

  After the others shuffle out of the tent, Firesse squeezes his shoulder in an attempt to be comforting. “I’m sorry it had to end like this, Calum.”

  He scoffs, opening his eyes to glare at her. “No, you’re not.”

  “Do you think I enjoy watching people die? Human or elf, a life lost is a tragedy. However, sometimes we must do terrible things to facilitate change. To get justice. I’m only doing what’s best for the people I love.”

  The beads in her hair clink softly as she glances away, the candlelight softening her features. She trails her fingers down Calum’s arm and takes his hand in hers, leaving a trail of warmth wherever she touches. “I don’t know why I’m explaining this to you—you’re no stranger to doing bad things to help those you love. What I am doing for my people is exactly the same. Unpleasant, yes, but necessary.”

  He pulls his hand from hers. “We are nothing alike.”

  “We have more in common than you think. Only . . . there’s still one problem.”

  Calum narrows his eyes. “And what would that be?”

  “You took that arrow for your cousin. Even after seeing the power I possess and agreeing to help me, you chose him. Undoubtedly, you would have chosen him over and over again had Lylia not killed him.”

  “So you think that I will be loyal to you now that Tamriel is dead?”

  She shakes her head. “You’re still loyal to your country. You’re my hostage, but I have no idea whether I’ll be able to trust whatever information you give me about your homeland. Thankfully, I know someone who will be more than happy to indulge me.” Her lips spread into a wide grin, her eyes glittering in the candlelight. She lays her palms flat on Calum’s chest and presses down until he cries out with pain. He clenches his teeth at the agony ripping through the hole the arrow had left in him. Firesse begins muttering in her strange guttural language.

  Enchanting.

  Calum’s eyes widen. Drake. He tries to buck her off, but the infection has left him weak. Firesse splays her fingers, her hands growing hotter and hotter by the second. His skin scorches, every nerve ending igniting, every cell of his body combusting at once. Spots dance in his vision until all he can see is white. He clenches his teeth until his jaw aches.

  He won’t let Firesse hear him scream.

  Her hands are still on his chest, filling him with liquid fire. His back arches and he thrashes, the tendons straining in his neck, his hands closing into fists. The coppery tang of blood fills his mouth when he accidentally bites his tongue.

  Then . . .

  It disappears.

  Firesse’s hands drop from his chest. The moment the connection is broken, Calum bolts upright, gasping. His hands fly to his face, to his chest, to the bandages which are now soaked with blood from his thrashing. He isn’t burned. His skin isn’t even red.

  He begins to laugh hysterically, out of his mind with relief.

  The laugh cuts
off sharply as ice fills his veins, the sensation as shocking as when Calum had plunged into that frozen lake so many years ago to save young Tamriel.

  Hello, son. Did you miss me?

  The voice is no more than a whisper, but the words are as clear as if Drake had whispered them directly in his ear. Clearer, even—the voice is inside his mind. Calum wants to jump up and bolt from the tent, but his body doesn’t obey.

  That’s because it’s no longer your body.

  Get out, he snaps. Get out, get out, get out!

  Cruel, cold laughter rings in his ears. No, son, not yet. We have work to do.

  Firesse sees the change in his eyes. She beams and stands, offering a hand to Calum. He watches in horror as he reaches out and accepts, rising against his will. Firesse has somehow detached Calum from his own body, forcing him to watch through his eyes as Drake manipulates him like a marionette. A cold, slimy feeling slinks through his limbs, and as much as he tries to fight it, he can’t so much as wiggle his pinky toe.

  Drake is utterly and completely in control.

  He follows Firesse out of the tent. It’s night, so he should feel the cool kiss of the breeze on his skin, but all he feels is the slimy, oily evidence of Drake’s possession. He glances about the camp. The five clans who had gathered for Ialathan are still in the valley, their tents dotting the landscape in concentric circles around where the massive bonfire had once burned. In the time since he and Kaius had left, the elves had begun to arm themselves. A few yards away, four elves sit in a circle and craft bows and arrows. At the next tent, several elven women sharpen swords and daggers they’d stolen from Beltharan and Feyndaran soldiers, the royal crests still etched into the pommels.

  Although Calum’s stomach sinks, Drake pulls his lips into a smile. A shiver of his father’s perverse excitement dances down his spine as he scans the valley of elves preparing for war.