Drake steps forward and spreads a map of Beltharos on the table. “The king’s highway is the only direct route from the capital to the Islands, and Ghyslain’s soldiers will have to follow it if they don’t want to risk crossing the flooded rivers and losing half their supplies. That means we’ll have a rough idea where they are most of the time, and scouts can confirm their location. Luckily, since we don’t have cavalry, we can move much more stealthily about the sector. We don’t have the numbers to attack in force, so we’re going to do what the Daughters do best—strike from the shadows.”
“We’re going to divide the army,” Firesse continues. “You and the Daughters will lead a few groups, and Kaius, Myris, and the other Firsts will command the rest until we meet up outside the capital. It’ll be easier to evade the Beltharan troops and city guards if we’re separated. Plus, smaller groups will allow us to use the natural features of the land for cover. That’s my people’s specialty.”
Illynor purses her lips in thought. “How will you ensure everyone arrives in Sandori at the same time?”
“We’re going to plan the routes before we split up. If an attack goes sour, that group will get out and move to the next position as quickly as possible. We’ll have to select a meeting point outside the city.”
Illynor points to a spot on the map. “I have a contact outside Knia Valley—that’s the last village between here and Sandori. Look for our emblem on the sign of the locksmith’s shop and leave a note with the man inside. We’ll find you.”
“You really think this will work?” Firesse asks, practically bouncing in her chair. Her mask slips and Calum can see the young girl she should have been—uncertain and hungry for approval. Then she remembers where she is, that she’s supposed to be their confident leader, and she stills. “I mean, of course it will work.”
“As long as you honor our deal, you have our aid,” Mother Illynor vows.
After discussing a few more details—which houses the Daughters will share, when they will help train the Cirisian soldiers, what supplies they had brought—Firesse dismisses them so she may speak with the Guildmother in private. Drake is the last to leave, and he is halfway to the house he shares with the Strykers when a bird squawks loudly overhead.
A raven soars through the sky and perches on the post of the nearest dock. It cocks its head as Drake approaches, its beady eyes following his every move. Drake spots the small metal canister affixed to one of the bird’s legs and grins. “Do you have a message for me, friend?”
It squawks again.
He flips open the lid of the canister and pulls out the rolled piece of parchment. The bird takes off immediately. His lips curl into a smirk as he scans the short, hastily-written note.
Do not engage the Cirisians under any circumstance. Reinforcements are on their way. Do. Not. Engage. Await further instructions.
—Master Adan
Drake laughs and crumples up the paper. If he squints, he can just barely see the raven in the distance, a perfect little spot of darkness against the blue sky. “If only you’d flown a little faster.” He drops the note on the ground and grinds it into the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “Maybe the king’s men would still be alive.”
17
Mercy
“Have we done it? Is this all we needed for the cure?” Nynev breathes, staring down at the drawing of Cedikra in her hands.
“No, but it’s a very, very good start.” Mercy steps carefully over the broken glass littering the floor and reads over the huntress’s shoulder: “‘Cedikra. Found in the Cirisor archipelago and the southern rim of Gyr’malr. Poisonous, but may be used to cleanse infections and reduce inflammation with the addition of starvay blossoms to neutralize the toxins.’” She pauses and looks up at Niamh. “Starvay blossoms? But they’re useless. They’re no better than weeds. You could go out to the plains and pick hundreds of them without making a dent. If this works . . .”
For a moment, they simply stare at each other in disbelief, Atlas’s soft snores rumbling in the background.
Then, Tamriel grins. “You always said we’d find something,” he murmurs, stooping to kiss the top of Mercy’s head. “I should have believed you.”
“Is this the part where I get to say ‘I told you so?’”
He laughs. “I suppose it is.”
“I told you so.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Nynev gestures to the door. “Niamh’s working with the healers as we speak. Go. I’ll stay here with the guard.” She moves to the desk and pulls out the box of potential cures Mercy and Niamh had made days before, the vials clinking as she lifts it out of the drawer. “Take these, too.” Nynev shoves them out the door, practically slamming it on their heels.
Tamriel glances helplessly at the box she’d shoved into his arms, then down the hallway. “I still have to meet with my father about Fishers’ Cross.”
“Go on. I’ll speak with the healers.”
After he leaves, Mercy wanders the first floor of the castle until she finds a guard who can direct her to the room where the healers are working. It had once been a grand dining hall, but now the massive lacquered table is covered in papers, vials, jars, bundles of dried herbs, and bright, colorful pills and powders. All of the red-and-gold brocade chairs are shoved against the far wall, half of them bearing stacks of ancient-looking medical books like those in the infirmary. Tabris and three other healers are huddled at the end of the table. They mutter amongst themselves and point to passages in the books spread out before them.
Niamh is standing beside them, a foot of space between her and Tabris. Even with the makeup hiding her Cirisian tattoos, she looks unbearably uncomfortable in the presence of the old men. She jumps when she sees Mercy. “Oh, thank the gods,” she sighs, startling the healers out of their argument. “Please tell me you have good news.”
She holds up the paper with the drawing of Cedikra, and Niamh’s jaw drops.
“Is that . . .?”
Mercy nods. “One step closer to the cure. We even have a sick guard downstairs for you to study. We can test the treatments on him once he’s rested.”
Niamh lets out a sharp breath, relief softening her features. She closes her eyes, a hopeful grin playing across her lips. “Then let’s get to work.”
Over the next few hours, they haul crates and chests of Cedikra from the infirmary with the help of some off-duty guards and begin preparing more possible cures. They start with recipes from Alyss’s notes—what little they can decipher from the scribbles—and move on to poultices and tonics from books of medical treatments. By the time they break for dinner, their hands aching from peeling, slicing, and mashing the strange fruit, Mercy feels truly hopeful for the first time since leaving the castle so many weeks ago.
“I can’t believe we may soon have a cure,” Niamh murmurs as they dine on plates of roasted rabbit swimming in sweet plum sauce. She nibbles on a leg, then licks the thick sauce off her fingers. “I cannot wait to be home . . . although I must say I will miss the food.”
“It is magnificent, isn’t it?” Mercy says, then frowns, unable to keep her worries at bay for long. “We still don’t know how much Cedikra is needed to cure the plague, though. I doubt we have enough to cure all the sick in Sandori, let alone Beltharos.”
“Still, a limited supply is better than no cure at all. The king can send ships to Gyr’malr to collect more, can’t he?”
“He can,” she concedes, “but the trip may take more time than we can afford.”
Niamh drops the piece of rabbit she’d been eating onto her plate, half of the meat still hanging from the bone. “I don’t have much of an appetite anymore.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I haven’t been eating much since we left the Islands.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s . . . It’s Isolde,” she sighs. “I miss her so much, it physically hurts. She was my first friend after Mama brought Nynev and me to the Islands. She was my
first . . . everything.” She blushes and lowers her voice, glancing sheepishly at the healers seated at the opposite end of the table. None of them seem to be the slightest bit aware of the girls’ presence, each of their noses stuck in a book while they eat. “We just . . . I just left her behind. She was in shock; she didn’t even know what was happening. If something went wrong, if the wound was more severe than Adriel thought or if it got infected . . . I would never forgive myself for leaving her like that.”
“I’m sure she’s fine. Dayna didn’t mention anything about her in the note she sent. No news is good news, right?”
“I suppose,” she mutters, but she looks so heartbroken Mercy aches for the poor girl.
She nods to the plate of half-eaten food, desperate to take Niamh’s mind off Isolde. “Tell me more about that. If you can’t die, do you still need to eat every day?”
“I can still starve, I just don’t die from it. Two years ago, after Firesse changed me, I tried to starve myself. That was . . . before Isolde came to stay with me.” She looks away, her eyes haunted. Mercy flinches. So much for distracting her. “I was certain I wasn’t meant to stay in this world. I could . . . I could feel that something was wrong, so I stopped eating. The hunger, it—it consumed me. It was all I could think about. I was like a wild animal.” She shudders. “That’s how Isolde found me. She nursed me back to health—back to myself—and hasn’t left my side until now.”
When Niamh looks back at her, absently tracing the line of her grotesque wound through her sleeve, Mercy slips an arm around the girl’s shoulders, giving her a tight squeeze. “You’ll see her soon enough,” she promises.
18
Tamriel
When Tamriel rises the day of Elise’s execution, the sky outside his bedroom windows still glitters with stars. His body is heavy with exhaustion—his father’s emergency council meeting the day before had run late into the night—but there will be no rest for him until the plague is cured and Firesse’s army defeated.
Elise jolts awake when two guards escort Tamriel into the dungeon. The chains binding her wrists and ankles jangle when she rises and moves toward the door of her cell. When she steps into the light of Akiva’s torch, Tamriel remembers how painful it had been to see Mercy locked in the very same cell, how her fingers had curled around the iron bars, his blood still caked in her fingernails. He had thought it would be less painful to see Elise in her place, knowing all her crimes, but he’d been wrong. They’d grown apart over the years, but she’d been one of his few true friends during his painful childhood.
“Your Highness.” Her soot-covered dress is wrinkled from lying in the dank stone cell, her bare arms studded with goosebumps. “Have you come to take me away?”
“I have.”
He tries to squash the pity which rises inside him when Elise flinches, shame and resignation flitting across her face. Criminals are not allowed to be given final rites upon their deaths—leaving their souls doomed to wander the In-Between for eternity—but the sorrow in Elise’s eyes is so profound Tamriel cannot stop himself from asking, “Shall I send for a priestess?”
Although the guards do not say a word, he senses their surprise. Elise’s eyes widen a fraction.
“How can it be that you still find it within yourself to show me kindness?” She shakes her head, knotted tendrils of long blonde hair dancing with the movement. “I damned myself when I wrote that cursed signature on the contract. Today I pay the price, even if it costs me the reunion with my love in the Beyond. What of Atlas?”
“He’s resting in the infirmary.”
She offers him a shaky smile, tears welling in her red-rimmed eyes. “Thank you.”
At a nod from Tamriel, Akiva passes the torch to the other guard and unlocks Elise’s cell. Her chains rattle against the floor as the guards lead her out of the dungeon.
“There is one more mercy I must ask of you before we depart, Your Highness,” she blurts when they step into the hallway. “May I say goodbye to my brother?”
Elise bursts into tears the moment she sees Atlas lying in the infirmary bed, the sheets tangled around his long legs. His forehead still glimmers with sweat and his eyes are bright with fever, but he’s conscious. Mercy, Niamh, and Nynev are working on possible cures at the desk, while the healers attend the three infected guards who currently occupy the other cots; Mercy had had them brought in to serve as test patients. When Elise runs across the room and collapses at her brother’s bedside, a shadow passes over Mercy’s face.
“She does not deserve your kindness,” she mutters when she slips past him to apply a thick red paste to the rash on a guard’s arm.
“Elise?” Atlas croaks. He blinks up at Elise, brows furrowed, uncertain whether his sister is a creation dreamt up by his plague-addled mind. When he lifts a blistered hand to touch her face, she lets out a choked sob.
“I’m here.”
“I thought I’d never see you again. Why are you crying?”
Elise looks at Tamriel sharply, clutching her brother’s hand. “You did not tell him?”
He shakes his head, and Elise lets out a soft sigh of relief.
“Elise?” Atlas rasps again. A bout of painful-sounding coughs crackle through his lungs. “You’re not sick, are you? Why are you here? And wh—why are you crying?”
“Because I’m leaving, Atlas. I have to go away.” Her lower lip begins to tremble. “I’ve made some terrible, terrible mistakes, and I’m trying to set them right.”
His face contorts in confusion. Tamriel can almost see the gears in his head turning, trying to make sense of what he’s hearing through the haze of disease. “When will I see you again? Soon?”
“Not for a very long time, I hope. But I need you to promise me something before I go.”
“Anything.”
“Speak to Mother and Father. Fix everything broken between you. Take care of them for me, won’t you?”
“But—” he begins, realization of the meaning behind her words finally dawning on him.
“Just promise me, Atlas. Please.”
“I promise.”
Someone knocks on the door—Akiva, telling them it’s almost dawn. Tamriel extends a hand to Elise and she rises, gently kissing Atlas’s cheek before stepping away from his cot.
“Goodbye, brother,” she whispers.
“No, not yet. Elise? Elise!” Panic flashes across Atlas’s face. “Don’t go—not yet.” He begins thrashing, trying to rise, to chase after her. Niamh and Nynev dart forward and hold him down.
“I’m sorry,” Elise murmurs when they reach the door. Behind them, Atlas lets out a grunt when Mercy injects him with a sedative. He slumps back onto the pillow. Elise hangs her head, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, and follows Tamriel out of the infirmary.
19
Mercy
Despite the plague sweeping the city, a huge crowd has gathered in Myrellis Plaza to witness Elise’s execution—nobles, commoners, slaves, workers. Mercy, Niamh, and Nynev are standing among the sea of bodies a short distance from the platform atop which Ghyslain, Tamriel, and their dozen guards are positioned. Ghyslain is dressed in finery, his diadem sitting low on his brow, the gems sparkling in the early-morning sun. Beside him, Tamriel’s face is impassive as he stares at the stage which had been erected before the fountain in the middle of the square. A lone wooden block sits atop it. The prince’s expression does not change when two guards lead Elise up the steps and onto the stage. Whispers rise from the crowd at the sight of her chains.
“Serenna Elise LeClair has confessed to conspiring to kill the prince,” one of the guards booms, cutting through the voices. “The sentence for treason is death.”
“Pawn of the king!” someone shouts. Mercy turns sharply, eyes narrowed as she scans the crowd, searching for the source of the outburst. Guards disguised in roughspun tunics and pants are scattered in a loose circle around her and the sisters, keeping an eye out for danger without drawing undue attention to the prince’s elven pla
ything, as the courtiers like to call her. They frown at one another, hands moving toward the blades hidden in their sleeves and the waistbands of their pants.
Her gaze lands on two finely-dressed nobles in the middle of the square: Elise’s parents. Seren Pierce’s face is pale and full of anguish as he gapes up at his daughter, studying her as if he does not recognize the woman standing before him. Beside him, Nerida sways and clutches his arm, her eyes glassy with tears.
A burst of sunlight breaks over the rooftops lining the Plaza. The guard drags Elise into the light. “The Creator will see you pay penance for your crimes. Have you any last words?”
She swallows tightly and shakes her head, her gaze fixed somewhere above the heads of the people waiting to watch her die. Mercy can see how much it costs her not to look to her parents for comfort, and the Assassin within her rejoices at the sight. Let her see how much her crimes have cost her.
The guard leads her to the execution block and helps her kneel. He blindfolds her and leans her over the block as Master Adan strides up the steps, a massive axe in his hands. The crowd begins to buzz in anticipation, and Elise jerks back in terror, sensing what is to come. One of the guards forces her back down, her long, graceful neck stretched out before the Master of the Guard. When Adan lifts the axe high overhead, the crowd sucks in a collective breath.
For a moment, time seems to stop.
Then the blade drops in a whistling arc.
Mercy’s eyes are trained on Tamriel when the axe falls, cleaving through flesh and bone. The prince’s expression is still hard, unreadable, but his hands clench into fists when someone lets out a bloodcurdling shriek, the sound so raw and grief-filled that it’s nearly inhuman. Nerida has fallen to her knees on the dirty stone street, her hands shaking over her mouth as she lets out wave after wave of wracking, wailing sobs. Pierce kneels and wraps her in his arms.
Born Assassin Saga Box Set Page 88
