Stormshadow (Storms in Amethir Book 2)

by Stephanie A. Cain

  The stone floor of the veranda was suddenly very near and then her chin smacked against it. The impact stunned her. She stared at bright spangles of light in her eyes. She dragged in a breath that seemed to rasp against her lungs. Then she heard someone swear and realized it was her.

  Azmei's hands and feet were so cold she couldn't feel them. But whoever had attacked her would hurt Vistaren. He was a gentle man. Did he even know how to fight? She had never thought to ask. She heard scuffing feet. Someone grunted and swore. She couldn't leave her betrothed--her friend--to fight alone.

  She staggered to her feet. It felt like all the sirens in the ocean were devouring her stomach, but she managed to stand. A shadowy figure grappled with Vistaren. The attacker blended into the night; Azmei had to blink and squint to see him. Vistaren, gentle or not, was holding his own against the attacker, perhaps through sheer size difference, since the attacker looked much slighter than Vistaren.

  Azmei felt absurdly grateful to the attacker for turning his back on her. Some part of her mind suggested it ought to frighten her for some reason--did he think her so badly hurt she was no threat?--but Azmei was just glad he couldn't see her fingers fumbling with her hairstyle to draw the dagger she wore there. Her fingers were so cold they kept slipping, but on her third attempt, Azmei managed to draw the dagger.

  She envisioned herself dashing across the small alcove to disable the attacker. Her body lurched obediently forward when she told it to, but instead of a graceful swoop, Azmei crashed into the attacker from behind. The flare of agony in her back drove a scream from her lips, but the impact also made her attacker grunt. A blade clattered against the stone floor and Azmei realized she had stabbed the attacker in the elbow.

  With the attacker disarmed, at least momentarily, Vistaren landed a solid punch to the attacker's nose. There was an audible crunch. The cry their attacker gave was high pitched. A young boy? Azmei reeled and stumbled backwards in an attempt to keep her balance.

  "Azmei!" Vistaren had grabbed the boy, who was trying to turn his to face his stubbornly not-dead victim. Azmei grinned fiercely into the masked face despite the sticky wetness that plastered the back of her dress to her skin.

  "You're a terrible assassin," she told the boy. He was flailing his shoulders and wriggling with little real effect. Vistaren hooked his arms under the boy's and locked his hands together at the boy's neck. Azmei stumbled forward, lifting a hand towards the mask. He tossed his head from side to side, trying with little success to break away.

  Vistaren's face twisted in a snarl and he jerked one arm. A sickening sound made the boy cry out and go limp. As soon as he quit struggling, Azmei tugged off his mask.

  A cascade of dark curls tumbled free around the bloodied face of Orya Perslyn.

  Azmei gasped and fell back a step. Orya's eyes were wet, but the defiance in them told Azmei the tears were only from the pain of her dislocated shoulder and broken nose.

  "And a false friend," Vistaren growled. He was out of breath, but he stood steady as a rock. Gods, how easily she could love him if it would do any good! To her horror, Azmei felt tears spill over her own cheeks. Why had Orya betrayed her?

  Orya hung her head, but she immediately sucked in a breath and looked up again, straightening as much as she could within Vistaren's restraint. Her dark eyes met Azmei's. Azmei wondered what Orya saw there. She took a deep breath that made her whimper as Vistaren's grip tightened.

  "It was nothing personal," she said. "You're a princess setting up the peace. You had to be stopped."

  "Why? For whom?" Vistaren's voice almost unrecognizable. Azmei felt grateful he wasn't angry at her. She couldn't quite remember why he was so angry at Orya. Her lips and eyelids felt numb.

  "Contract." Orya's gaze was fixed on Azmei's. Could she see how tired and hurt Azmei was? "I don't know who," she continued. "It isn't something I needed to know to get the job done." Her lashes lowered. Azmei thought she saw tears clinging to them. Maybe that was her own lashes.

  "Az!" Vistaren was shouting at her. Azmei forced her eyes open and took a breath.

  "I thought you were ill," she told her friend. "You left with Lozarr."

  "Gods, Lo!" Vistaren paled, and Azmei remembered her realization earlier. He loved Lozarr, didn't he? Or he had, and since Lo couldn't love him back the way he wanted... Azmei swayed and put a hand to her lips. She felt so very odd.

  Orya let out a noise that was half laugh and half sob. "Lozarr's fine. He came back to the ball. She won't be, though."

  For a moment Azmei thought Orya meant she had harmed Arama. Then she saw Orya nod at her. Oh. Azmei was the she Orya meant. "Poison?" she mumbled.

  Orya looked oddly stricken for a woman who had tried--successfully, it seemed--to kill her. "It was because of my brother," she blurted. "He isn't like the others. I didn't want him to--"

  She broke off, her eyes widening. "Huu..."

  Azmei looked down and saw a crossbow bolt lodged to the fletching in Orya's chest. Vistaren was shouting for Azmei to get down. He dragged Orya down with him and then seemed to realize she was dead. He let go of her and crawled towards Azmei.

  There was a lot of shouting now, but it was hard to hear through the roaring in her ears. She was dying. What a stupid, pointless way to die, she thought in annoyance. Ambushed by a friend.

  She was lying on warm, wet stone, her face only inches from Orya's. And Orya wasn't quite dead after all. Her chest was heaving and shuddering, her eyes so wide Azmei saw the whites around her pupils. Orya was trying to form words with bloodied lips. Azmei couldn't hear her, but she could read at least one word.

  Yarro.

  Azmei closed her eyes. She didn't want to watch Orya die. They had been friends, however false Orya proved to be.

  Oh, Gods, Razem would never forgive her for this. Someone was tapping her cheeks, but her eyelids were just so heavy.

  "Azmei. Az!"

  She couldn't. With a sigh, Azmei let go.

  PART FOUR - STORMSHADOW

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Death was like an ocean. It rocked her, soothing with the swells and creaking. Azmei kept her eyes closed. Did the dead have eyes? She was content to be rocked by death. Perhaps the afterlife was an eternal sea voyage.

  Gradually, though, she realized there were other noises besides the slap of water and the creaking of boards. There was a voice, calm, emotionless, but someone penetrating her fog of death. She wanted to swat it away like a mosquito, but her limbs would not obey her. Or perhaps she didn't have limbs. She was probably a disembodied spirit, floating directionless on the seas of eternity.

  "I know you hear me. I saw your eyelids flutter." The voice seemed amused. "The peacehealer said you would wake today. It's why they brought me to you. Time is short. There has been a great deal of confusion in the days since your death."

  Oh, good. Confirmation of her death meant she could perhaps rest forever.

  "No, little one, wake. Wake." That was a different voice, one that boomed and whispered all at once. Azmei whimpered without meaning to. The mosquito voice broke off while the booming one laughed.

  "Az!" That urgent call was Vistaren. She smiled. Her betrothed, whom she loved, Or...

  No, not love.

  "Wake," commanded the whisper.

  Or not only love. Friendship. Respect. Companionship.

  "Az, please. Try. For me." Vistaren pleaded. "For our kingdoms."

  "WAKE," whispered the thunder.

  Azmei woke.

  The first thing she realized, with a flash of stupid disappointment, was that death had seemed like an ocean because she was on a ship. She sighed and opened her mouth.

  "Glack," she managed, which sounded nothing like the 'Good evening,' she had intended.

  With a wordless exclamation, Vistaren pressed a glass to her lips. She drank greedily until the amused voice that had first roused her said, "Enough."

  Vistaren looked over at a shadowy corner of the cabin. When he looked back at her, a rueful smile on
his face, she saw he had a spectacularly purple bruise around one eye.

  "I'm fine," he said. "We captured the second assassin before she got away. She had a lame foot, if you can believe it. Though--"

  "Enough." The voice cut him off. "I came as you requested, but my time is not cheap. Let me speak with the princess alone."

  To her shock, Vistaren nodded. He squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek. Then he withdrew. Who was this man, to speak so to princes and be obeyed?

  "You may call me Tanvel," the man said. "Prince Vistaren went to great lengths to find me, though he may not have succeeded, had Captain Thorne not taken pity on him." The man called Tanvel shifted in place but did not come out of the shadows.

  "Who are you?" Azmei rasped.

  "An interested party." His voice was clipped. "Your Captain Thorne came to me the moment your ship docked. He feared for your safety and believed his skill and resources might not be enough to protect you." The voice warmed with amusement. "He demonstrated great wisdom in coming to me. My code would not allow me to accept his contract to protect you if I had already accepted one to end your life. From the moment I took his coin, he could be confident the biggest threat was not working against him."

  Azmei allowed herself a slow blink and had to force her eyes open again. Where were Thorne and Guira? Was Orya truly dead? She seemed to remember watching her friend die. What had Vistaren meant about a second assassin?

  "Listen carefully!" Tanvel's voice sharpened. "You have a difficult decision to make in a very short time."

  Azmei cleared her throat and croaked, "I am listening."

  "I do not know who took out the contract on your life," Tanvel said. His voice was low and tense. "The hired killers were Perslyn, from your own kingdom, but they have no true allegiance. The second one killed the first to silence her. She was captured, and let slip that if you lived to marry Vistaren, there would be an all-out assault on the Kreyden District. I believe your brother went to the Kreyden front when you left Tamnen?" Azmei must have paled, because he said, "Exactly. We thought it best to consult you before announcing you had lived." He sighed. "They did not attempt to frame Vistaren, which is odd in itself. That is what I would have done, were I tasked with destroying any hope of peace between your two countries."

  Azmei mulled this over. Who would benefit from her death but not Vistaren's? Someone from Amethir? But that made no sense: he'd already told her he needed an heir.

  "--are not paying attention!" Tanvel's voice cracked across the cabin.

  "I'm sorry! You woke me from my rest and you are telling me all these things I can't remember!" It hurt to talk so much. "Where is Guira? Where is my handmaid?"

  "Your handmaid is dead."

  The words were a blow that made her recoil as if from a slap. The movement spiked agony through her lower back.

  "She sacrificed her life for yours, trying to stop the second assassin. Do her the courtesy of behaving as though that matters."

  "Sirens take you," Azmei choked out. "I loved Guira."

  There was a bare instant of silence from the dark corner. "Then honor her by living."

  "Who are you?" she demanded.

  "I am a Diplomat. That is all you need know."

  She barked out a laugh. "I have met Diplomats. They are nothing like you."

  "Of course they are. They answer to the Diplomatic Council and are schooled to be inhuman creatures of logic." There was a glint of white as if he had smiled, though she couldn't tell through the shadows. "I am a Shadow Diplomat, schooled to be an inhuman creature of death. I answer to no one but the Shadow Council and my god."

  "Your god?" she burst out. "What god would allow his followers to become assassins?"

  "The god of peace." He chuckled. "There is no peace so complete or permanent as that of death, little princess."

  But Guira, whispered an anguished part of her mind. She took a careful breath, feeling herself tremble.

  "You said I had a decision to make," she recalled.

  "You do indeed. At the moment, there are very few who know that Princess Azmei still lives. Your handmaid was killed. Captain Thorne was injured in the fight. He will recover, but he need not know his efforts to save you were successful. Captain Dzornaea and General Algot know you live, as you are currently guarded on their ship, where no one would think to look for a Tamnese princess. Your betrothed, you have seen. No one else knows. We have let it be believed you died." He tilted his head. "It seemed wise. To send one assassin is determination, to send two, fervor. The gods know how many more assassins your obsessed enemy might send against you. There is a storm brewing on the horizon, little princess, and no stormwitch born can avert this maelstrom."

  Azmei closed her eyes and took a fortifying breath. "So I am to decide whether to remain dead or to make a miraculous return, I surmise," she said. "But to what end, if I am dead?"

  "It need not be forever," Tanvel said. "You will recover in safety under the care of the peacehealer. You will hide until I am able to learn who laid the price on your head." His teeth flashed briefly. "Prince Vistaren is paying me well. I will discover and neutralize the threat."

  Why would Vistaren pay him? Azmei wondered. And how long would it take for him to 'neutralize' the threat? "I thought you said you answer to the Shadow Council," she said. "Why would you work for Vistaren?"

  Her eyes must be adjusting to the darkness. She thought she could see an approving gleam in his eyes. "The Shadow Council is the ruling body of my order. We are dedicated to preserving peace--or bringing peace, by force if necessary. We only step in when our daylight brothers and sisters fail." His teeth flashed again, and this time she was certain that he had smiled. "I think you will agree that someone trying to kill you is a failure of the peace process."

  Azmei narrowed her eyes. "By that reasoning, your very existence is a failure of the peace process."

  He laughed. "I knew you were beautiful, but no one told me of your cleverness. My order is a very old one, princess. You cannot expect me to distill it into a sentence of explanation."

  She sighed. Her back gave a nasty twinge that reminded her how much healing she had to do. She didn't even know how badly she was injured, but if she had been asleep for days since the attack, she imagined it had been a very near thing. "Very well," she said at last. "You're right--I cannot allow the war in the Kreyden District to escalate, not with Razem commanding there. I will remain dead, at least as Princess Azmei. But I will not remain hidden with nothing to occupy me. I wish to learn about your religion of peace."

  He arched an eyebrow. "I thought you did not approve."

  "Did I ever say that?" She coughed and felt her back seize up. "I look forward to learning," she grunted. She had to pant instead of breathing deeply. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to show how badly it hurt.

  She heard the barest whisper of air moving past her eyes. A hand rested briefly on her forehead. "Then I look forward to teaching," Tanvel breathed.

  When she opened her eyes again, he was gone.

  Vistaren was unhappy when he arrived for their next visit. By then Azmei had met the peacehealer--yet another perplexing institution of this complicated religion of peace, but by far her current favorite, since the man was able to ease her pain and explain her injuries--and dozed off for a time.

  When she woke again, breathing without pain in time to the rise and fall of the sea swells, it was because Vistaren had tapped on the door and was peering into the cabin.

  "Come in," she said. "I am sorry I cannot rise to greet you."

  "Don't be ridiculous," he said. There was a downcast look to his face, but his voice was affectionate. Azmei wondered if it was their shared survival of the assassins' attack that made him comfortable with her, or if it was merely that she knew his secret now.

  "The peacehealer says you'll have a long recovery."

  She nodded. Orya's knife had cut muscles as well as piercing a kidney, which she had nearly lost. Without the peacehealer, she gathered, sh
e would not have lived. She knew there was no such advanced healing in Tamnen. She wondered if it were a skill one could learn, or if it were a gift of their peace god.

  "Will you return to Amethir with us? We're staying long enough for me to be outfitted in mourning clothes." He twisted his lips in a grimace. "I've made certain none of the tailors bought Perslyn fabric."

  Azmei sighed. "She said something about her brother. I--"

  "I don't care." Vistaren's gaze was hard. She remembered how deliberately he had dislocated Orya's shoulder and found herself glad they were not enemies. He was a gentle man, and peaceable enough, but she suspected his temper, once roused, was implacable.

  Azmei touched his hand. "Don't be angry. What's past is past."

  His expression relaxed as he looked down at her. "I'm so sorry about Guira," he said. "She seemed like a wonderful woman."

  His words threatened the cool shell of denial she had built around herself. She closed her eyes. "She raised me after my mother died. Have I ever told you about my mother?"

  Vistaren shook his head. "Tell me now."

  He held her hand as she talked about her mother's illness and death, which led naturally into the way Guira had stepped in, not as a replacement for her mother, but to serve her as she had served her mother. She told him about the many times Guira had nagged her to set aside her books and work on embroidery or calligraphy or some other more feminine art. At some point her words became tears and Vistaren stroked her hair as she wept for Guira. Eventually, Azmei slept.

  Azmei spent another week on the Dawn Star. As soon as she was able to sit propped up, Arama took a pair of scissors to Azmei's hair, trimming it close to her head. She saved the hair, promising to have it woven into a wig for when Azmei no longer had to hide. Azmei didn't tell her how free her cropped hair made her feel.

  Vistaren, Arama, and Lozarr spent what free time they could keeping her company. Vistaren was finishing his negotiations with the tax protesters, but he visited Azmei every evening. They went through the translated book of hero tales together, with Vistaren pointing out where he thought she had not quite grasped the intricacies of Rona and Fann's relationship. He gave her a copy of The Four Daughters of the Storm, though she didn't read it right away. She wanted to save it for when she had nothing left of Amethir but the book. While she was with Vistaren and his friends, she wished only to enjoy their company.