“Just a name and nothing more,” Axum confirmed.
“I assume collecting a name from a client is the same as collecting the name of an assassin’s next target.”
“The name is of no concern to you past its collection,” said Axum easily, as if they were discussing the weather and not someone’s life. “I can see you are troubled, so before you refuse me, let me make a few things clear.” He stood straight from his casual lean on the desk. “If you complete your task, upon your return I will tell you everything I know about your parents. If you refuse, you are to leave the Hollow immediately, never to be welcomed back again. This is not an orphanage. You do your work or you go.”
Scorch’s decision was made with disconcerting speed, but really, it was simple. If he didn’t have to kill anyone, and he didn’t have to leave Vivid, he would accept the assignment. Whatever game Elias was playing, it didn’t appear to include telling Axum about their poolside conversation, which meant Scorch had time to speak with Vivid about it again. With a grim smile, he said, “I accept the assignment. I’ll collect the name.”
Axum didn’t reveal much of a response, nodding his understanding like he might have done regardless of Scorch’s answer. “Elanor is half a day’s journey on foot.”
“Then I will leave straight away.” Scorch moved to leave, eager to be free.
“Scorch.” Axum stopped him before his fingers could brush the wood of the door. “You will go alone. Vivid is not to accompany you.”
Scorch laughed through the sinking feeling. “That’s probably for the best,” he said. “I think he’s sick of me.”
When he left Axum, he did a quick sweep of the Hollow. After finding Vivid in none of his usual locations, he headed outside.
Vivid was standing with his back to Scorch, on the far side of the pool, bare from the waist up. It was evident, as he fitted his arms into the sleeves of his cuirass, that he had very recently finished bathing. He’d already dried himself, but the stone around his feet was dark where water had recently dripped from his body. If Scorch had walked but a little faster, he might have encountered Vivid with no pants.
He didn’t doubt that Vivid heard his less than quiet trek down the rocks, but the only indication he gave was a slight stiffening of his back as he approached. By the time Scorch reached him, he was dressed but for the buckles hanging open, and Scorch swallowed roughly at the canvas of his back, pale and painted with silver scars. His eyes fell lower, to the delicate dip above Vivid’s waistline, where his back dimpled.
Whether it was the way Vivid hesitated to reach for the buckles, or the way that, when Scorch moved closer, he bowed his head and let out a tiny sigh, the idea became an invitation in Scorch’s mind, as extraordinary as it was improbable. He touched a hand to one of the free-hanging buckles, and when the advance went undisputed, he gathered the material together and fastened it closed at the small of Vivid’s back. He paused for possible death, but when Vivid did nothing but marginally straighten his back, Scorch continued to the next buckle. He was careful not to touch the skin, knew that would be a step too far. His fingers weren’t as deft as Vivid’s, but he worked his way up the spine until every buckle was fastened, and then, before he rescinded his touch, he let his fingers brush the tips of Vivid’s hair that rested at the nape of his neck.
“Axum is sending me to Elanor with an assignment,” he said, breaking the tension before it broke him.
Vivid turned to face him, his eyes darkening as he took in Scorch’s black leathers. “I told him it wasn’t a good idea.”
“Right. Well, Elias told him it was.”
Vivid’s eyebrow twitched at Elias’ name.
“I’m to go alone,” Scorch added, studying the ground when he could no longer study Vivid’s stormy face. “So.” At a loss of what to do next, he smiled and turned away.
“Scorch.”
So seldom did Vivid speak his name, the sound of it now in his stony cadence sent a thrill of heat up Scorch’s spine. He cast a look over his shoulder at Vivid and waited. For what, exactly, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as if Vivid wanted to wish him luck, or tell him to be careful, or remind him not to be a fool. It wasn’t as if he expected Vivid to say anything to him at all. And in the end, he didn’t. Vivid just stared at Scorch for a few moments, tucked his hair behind his ear, and that was that.
Scorch watched Vivid head up the stones until he disappeared behind the waterfall, and then he started walking. He had a long way to go before he reached Elanor.
****
The journey was longer than half a day, but maybe Scorch was walking slower than average on account of his tighter than average trousers. He reached the town at dusk, and because his time was ample before his meeting with the stable hand, and no one was around to tell him no, Scorch let the sound of fiddle music lead him to the local inn.
His track record of visiting inns may have been bothersome, but it was the past’s bad luck that made Scorch optimistic. Occasionally, a single drink among simple folk should be possible without inviting disaster.
He entered the inn and found it decently full, with one seat left at the bar. Accepting that as a good sign, he needled through a few dancing couples and plotted himself on the stool. It was no time at all before the barkeep was resting his elbows on the bar and asking for Scorch’s order with flirtatious, heavy-lidded eyes.
Scorch ordered a cup of spiced wine and, when he paid the man, their fingers touched in a way that could never be construed as accidental. The barkeep was attractive and well built, with a handsome beard, but Scorch could not have pulled his hand back faster. He smiled kindly to make up for his blatant rejection, and the barkeep shrugged, disappearing for a few minutes, and returning with Scorch’s wine.
Bothered by his own reticence, he drank it quickly. He could have had the handsome barkeep bent over in the kitchen by the time the last of the wine ran sweetly down his throat, but he lacked the desire. Almost immediately after finishing his drink, he regretted it. His head began to spin and he leaned his forehead down on the bar.
“Not feeling well?” the barkeep asked, patting Scorch’s shoulder.
Scorch mumbled and strained to look up. The barkeep was leaning down, and the lidded eyes Scorch previously took for seductive, now read as ominous.
“It’s okay. Why don’t you just rest your eyes for a while?” whispered the barkeep in his ear.
Scorch groaned into the sticky wood of the bar, because he was a fool and no one had been there to remind him. He tried to keep his eyes open, tried to move, to cry out, but it was pointless. All he could do was curse himself as the world tipped, and then he was slipping into unconsciousness.
He’d been drugged.
****
The leaves rustled under the panicked weight of his breathing, and he was afraid the bush was trembling as badly as he was. He was afraid they were going to find him.
He stared through the scant spaces of bare branch, his vision blurred with tears. Amid the struggling, black-outfitted bodies heaved and ripped and burned. His mother’s cry was an echo of his father’s. Scorch covered his nose and shut his eyes.
“Scorch.”
He opened his eyes and a slight figure stood in the camp clearing, topless, his white and silver back to him, pale and vulnerable as flames crept up his spine.
He tried to call his name, but his throat was full of smoke. He tried to escape from the bush, but his feet were frozen with fear. All he could do was watch as dark hair smoldered and curled and turned to ash.
The voice called out to him again, and there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t save him.
He couldn’t save him.
“You do love to talk when you’re unconscious.”
Scorch flickered to awareness when icy water hit his face and drenched him to the bone. He gasped and opened his eyes. Through a soaking stream of hair, he was not at all surprised to see Elias standing with an empty bucket in his hand and a smile on his face.
“Do y
ou think Vivid will thank me for ridding him of you?” He tossed the bucket and its landing made a muffled noise. Scorch followed its trajectory to a pile of hay, and then scanned the wood-plank walls lined with tools. They were in a barn.
“I take it you’re the stable hand I’m supposed to be meeting,” Scorch muttered sourly.
“He was the stable hand,” Elias said, pointing to a man beside him who Scorch identified as the barkeep. “I’m the one who’s supposed to kill you.”
Scorch laughed. “If I had a coin every time I heard that.” He took stock of his bondage: his wrists were bound and strung above his head with ropes, his ankles were tied together, and his chest was wrapped, adhering him to the barn’s loft ladder. He gave his wrists a tug and the rope bit at his skin. “Our conversation last night, it was a test, wasn’t it?”
“And you failed.” Elias rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. His flat stomach flexed beneath his open vest. Scorch wondered how he’d ever thought Elias attractive, when everything about him was so repulsively reptilian. “Axum had high hopes, but you bashed them. And now I’ll be bashing you.” He moved so suddenly that Scorch struggled against his bindings, but Elias only extended a hand to cup his face. He thumbed across Scorch’s scar, from temple to jaw, his gaze hot-blue. “With all your scars, I thought you would be wiser.” He chuckled, and it was like glass in Scorch’s ears. “But you can’t always read a man by the scars he bears. Take Vivid, for example.”
Scorch rolled his eyes. “I was waiting for you to bring him up.”
Elias’ fingernails cut into the skin of Scorch’s cheek. “You have seen his scars, haven’t you? One look at them and he appears unconquerable, strong to have lived long enough for all those pretty wounds to heal. But do you know how Viv got them?” Elias’ teeth flashed. He looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“This might surprise you, but Vivid isn’t much for sharing,” Scorch sneered, but hidden beneath his veneer of disinterest, his curiosity soared.
“It wasn’t an epic fight or a heroic turn. He didn’t slay a great beast.” Elias’ fingers pinched at Scorch’s chin and gave it a violent shake. “He was just a little boy, unlucky enough to be caught by the Priestess’ Monks and taken to the mountain temple. When you see his scars, you might think of bravery and strength, but I think of a crying, pathetic, bloody mess that would have died if Axum hadn’t taken him in. The one you follow around like a dog is no more than a broken child with ruined skin.”
Scorch’s lungs felt constricted. Fire thumped through his veins and made his skin slide against the ropes. He wanted to burn Elias’ words, but he also wanted to hear more. He had waited so long to know more about Vivid. Hating himself, he said, “Vivid was the elemental tortured by the High Priestess all those years ago, wasn’t he?”
“Apparently, she wanted to see how an elemental reacted to pain when they’d not yet come into their power. How she knew what he was, I don’t know. He was only five when Axum brought him home from the Hollow’s mission to the temple. Axum could have killed the High Priestess that day if he’d not wasted time and bodies saving that whelp.”
“How do you know all this?” Scorch asked. His body was keyed up, taut as a bowstring.
“There are a few benefits to having one’s father be the Leader of Assassins,” Elias said.
Scorch gaped. “Axum is your father?”
“Shocked?”
Scorch considered the man before him, his cruel eyes and ugly heart. “No,” he decided. “It explains why you’re so jealous. Your father preferred the whelp to you.”
A puff of smoke tendrilled from Elias’ nostrils. “Vivid is nothing to me. He is,” he gave Scorch’s hair a tug, “something to you.” Scorch tried to turn his head, but Elias yanked at his hair to hold his attention. “He was tortured as a tender, innocent child by human hands. Will you still not join Axum?”
“I’m being tortured by an elemental as we speak,” Scorch replied, “but I still don’t make the mistake of thinking all your kind is crazy.”
Elias slammed Scorch’s head against the ladder and it bounced off a wooden rung with a vision-skewing crack. “Our kind.”
“I’m not like you.” Scorch focused the heat in his body and sent it to swelter beneath his rope bindings.
“You are exactly like me,” Elias said. The fingers in Scorch’s hair were scalding, and he was glad fire couldn’t be used as a weapon against him. “We are Fire, you and I. You should have let me teach you. You should have wanted me to teach you.”
“I didn’t want you. I wanted Vivid.” Fire couldn’t hurt Elias, but it could damage the ropes that trapped Scorch’s body. He pushed against the singed rope, breaking through the binds and surging forward. He knocked Elias to his back and landed on top of him, kicking his ankles free of the rope in time to feel hands clasping his arms. He was hauled off Elias and thrown across the barn, where he landed in a pile of hay beside the bucket. The barkeep was right behind him, swinging at Scorch with a heavy fist. Scorch rolled and shot to his feet, landing a kick in the barkeep’s back and sending him face-first into the hay.
A blast of heat hit Scorch between the shoulders and the smell of burning filled the barn. He spun around. Elias’ fingers were smoking and Scorch’s black leathers were on fire, melting and falling away from his chest in ashy clumps.
The barkeep’s hands wrapped around Scorch’s neck from behind, and Scorch clutched at the choking grip, letting his power flow from his skin into his attacker. The barkeep screamed and released him, staggering back as his shirtsleeve went up in flames. Scorch snatched the sword hanging from his belt before he scurried through the barn door, his flailing arm setting fire to a hay bale on his way out.
“You cannot beat me with fire,” Elias yelled as the barn around them began to blaze.
Scorch’s assassin leather fell away completely from his torso and chest, and he was sweating profusely from the heat coiling inside. He felt a prickle at his shoulder blades but ignored the urge to change. Elias was right; no amount of fire would win him this fight. He brandished his blade with a smile. “I don’t need fire to beat you.”
A plank of wood crashed from the ceiling and landed in a fiery heap between them. Scorch staggered back. A second later, Elias was jumping through the dense smoke, twin daggers shining in his hands. Scorch sidestepped, his sword slicing through the air toward Elias’ middle, but the assassin crouched beneath the weapon and swept out his leg, knocking Scorch off balance.
They scrimmaged on the floor of the barn as pillars of fire and smoke raged around them. Soot clogged Scorch’s eyes and tears streamed down his face as he struggled to blindly beat back Elias’ blades with his sword, but rolling around on the floor wasn’t conducive to impressive swordwork, so as soon as he was able to get a foot between them and kick Elias away, Scorch hurried to his feet.
“The best of the guardians is no match for the best of the Hollow,” Elias cried.
The ceiling moaned. It wouldn’t be long before the entire barn collapsed on top of them, and while the flames couldn’t kill Scorch, he was pretty sure a structure collapsing on his head could.
He eyed the barn door, backing up as Elias stalked forward. “Good thing the best of the Hollow isn’t here,” he said, dropping into a roll to avoid Elias’ blades. As soon as his feet were back under him, he rushed through the open door.
The cold night air was a blessing to his lungs. Behind him, the barn lurched, and right before the roof collapsed, Elias escaped, throwing himself at Scorch, his blades spinning and hacking, moving so fast that Scorch could barely breathe from the effort of keeping them at bay.
Elias’ white hair glowed golden in the firelight, and the air surrounding them was thick and hazy with smoke. It had been some time since his swordwork was tested so ardently, but his muscle memory protected him, and he proved his worth repeatedly, every time Elias stabbed and Scorch blocked. His body pumped adrenaline into his muscles, and his breath, which had come so quickly
in the barn, was steadying as their fight intensified.
Scorch’s reach was farther than Elias’, and his step larger, and though Elias was smaller and faster, Scorch wasn’t slow. He began to gain ground, forcing Elias back, making him struggle to fend off his sword. He could win. He was going to win.
Suddenly, his shoulder flared with pain, and he flinched, not enough to drop his sword, but enough to loosen his grip so Elias could knock it from his hands and kick it toward the burning barn. Scorch ran for it, but the pain in his shoulder sharpened, and he was taken to the ground by the twisting of the blade buried in his shoulder.
“That was my favorite shirt you set on fire,” the barkeep bellowed, pulling out the knife he’d stuck in Scorch and kicking him.
Scorch’s face hit the grass, and he felt his nose crunch and gush blood. He was on the verge of lifting his head when a shiny black boot planted itself on his neck. He grabbed at Elias’ legs, scratching at his ankles, trying to push him off, but the boot crushed harder and Scorch stilled. He knew how vulnerable the neck was, knew how easily Elias could break it whenever he wished with just a bit more pressure.
“Axum will tell Vivid his protégé ran away,” Elias announced above him. Scorch knew if he could see his face, it would be wearing a slithery smile. “The assignment was too much for his guardian morals and he disappeared into the Viridorian wilderness, never to be seen or heard from again.”
“He won’t,” Scorch gasped into the blood-soaked grass, “believe you.”
“He might not believe me,” Elias concurred. “But guess what? He won’t care.”
Scorch shut his eyes and tried to imagine Vivid’s face when Axum told him the news. Would it be unmoving? Would his eyes flash? Would his lips thin? Would his nostrils flare? Would he say nothing and simply turn away, accept his next assignment and forget about the idiot guardian he’d met in the Circle? Would he not care at all?
The Sun Guardian Page 26
