Assassin's Heart

by Sarah Ahiers

  I wrinkled my nose. My uncle must have truly fallen low if he couldn’t find better accommodations.

  I thought of my own abandoned building. That was different, though. I’d had no choice. Alessio dropped off a roof and entered an alley. I waited another moment before doing the same.

  The alley was empty. Alessio had disappeared.

  I searched the roofs above me, making sure he hadn’t doubled back, but no, the roofs were as empty as the alley. He’d vanished like an angry ghost at dawn.

  I walked farther into the alley, carefully examining the street. There. A sewer grate suspiciously clear of debris and filth. The Saldanas had always used tunnels to reach their home, and old habits died slowly, if they died at all.

  I squatted beside the grate. There didn’t seem to be any lock. I tugged on the bars and it swung up easily, its hinges well oiled.

  I guessed if they were the only clippers in a city, they didn’t need locks.

  I dropped into the tunnel. It wasn’t anything like our tunnels in Lovero. Those had been designed to confuse and kill intruders. This one seemed to travel in a straight line. I trailed my right hand across a smooth surface until the tunnel ended at a ladder and another grate.

  I climbed the rungs and carefully peeked out.

  The grate opened into a small room, similar to the tunnel room in my home. The room was dim, the floor, walls, and ceiling nothing more than the stonework of the tunnel, but past a doorway a fire roared in a large hearth.

  Alessio stood just a few feet away from me. Only my many years of training prevented me from rapidly closing the grate. The movement would attract his attention faster than the slight gap I peered through.

  He stood before a small altar, dedicated to Safraella. He used a knife to cut his finger. When his blood welled up, he rubbed it over a coin and placed it on the altar. It was an old way of worship, but perhaps it was all he knew.

  He left, disappearing into the room with the hearth and fire. I watched quietly. Rushing things would only lead to mistakes.

  Alessio passed in front of the tunnel room. He’d removed his cloak and was unlatching the buckles securing his leather vest across his chest. He stepped out of sight, and I took the moment to slip out of the tunnel, hiding in a dark corner.

  “He didn’t have much,” Alessio said, but from my corner I couldn’t see whom he addressed. I needed to make some decisions about how to proceed. I could simply walk in and announce myself. Or wait until the fire died down and ambush them. No, that would be dangerous, and I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted what I came for, the location of the Da Vias’ home and Marcello’s help.

  I slid to the edge of the doorway, pressed against the wall. In the other room, coins clinked as they dropped into a dish or bowl. A sigh followed, and I could imagine Alessio stretching his arms the way Rafeo used to, when he had finished a job for the night and was glad to be home.

  “Any troubles?” It was a man’s voice, low and gruff. Marcello?

  Alessio hesitated. “No. It’s been quiet these last few nights.”

  Liar.

  “No trouble at all?” Footsteps clicked on the floor of the room.

  “I’ll be right back,” Alessio said. I heard the sound of splashing water.

  Strange. Alessio was keeping me a secret.

  The tip of a knife pricked against my throat and I froze. I turned my head, but the pressure increased and I stopped.

  “Come out slowly,” a voice said from the other side of the doorway.

  I’d lost my advantage.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  sixteen

  I COULDN’T SEE HIM, THE PERSON WITH THE KNIFE against my throat. He hid on the other side of the doorway.

  I stepped from the tunnel room, my hands held before me as the knife pressed on my throat. The light from the great room burned brightly against my eyes. I shut them against the glare until the pain passed.

  The hearth with a fire was in the center of the massive room. The areas surrounding it were broken into sections, each “room” separated by tapestries and silk screens decorated with dancing women, Loveran fountains, and masks.

  In front of the fire rested two chairs and a sofa, as well as a small table where a book lay facedown, its spine protesting the treatment.

  An unmade bed hid behind a tapestry displaying blond and brown wirehaired retrievers, and behind the fireplace sat weapons racks, clipper training tools, and stands. I hadn’t been gone from Lovero for long, but seeing these little reminders of its rich culture made my stomach coil with longing for the home I’d left behind.

  “Keep moving,” the voice said behind me.

  “What’s going on?” Alessio stood in front of the hearth, wearing only a pair of trousers and a pendant around his neck, his damp hair dripping across his bare chest. I looked away from him and tried not to think about Val or Val’s bare skin.

  “Look what I found sneaking about.”

  “How did she get in?” Alessio stared at me with his mouth agape.

  “I came through the tunnel.”

  The knife pressed tightly against my throat. “I don’t remember saying you could speak.”

  “But how did you find it?” Alessio asked me.

  “Alessio!” my captor snapped.

  “I followed you,” I answered.

  My captor inhaled, then shoved a fist into my spine, marching me forward. Did he really think he could handle this situation with a single measly dagger? Time to regain my advantage.

  I dropped, bending backward. The top of my head shoved against his chest.

  He stumbled away, his dagger scraping across my mask.

  I yanked out a dagger of my own. Alessio stared at me, in shock. My captor climbed back to his feet. He turned to confront me.

  My breath caught in my throat. I lowered my weapon.

  It was like seeing a ghost. Tears filled my eyes as I raised my weapon again. I’d given a lot of thought to little Emile, Jesep, and my parents. And Rafeo, who’d died in my arms. I’d grieved for them, but seeing this man before me, this man who could’ve been my father, showed me how much I wasn’t done grieving for them. Showed me I’d never be done grieving for them.

  He resembled my father, but the lines on his face were deeper, his hair longer and grayer, and he didn’t wear my father’s glasses.

  “Is that any way to greet family, Uncle?” I asked.

  “Family? Pah.” He spat to the side and slapped aside Alessio’s offered hand of assistance. “I have no family.”

  I closed my eyes. I’d expected him to be difficult. I just hadn’t expected him to get the drop on me.

  “Uncle?” Alessio looked between me and Marcello. He settled on me. “You didn’t tell me you were related.”

  “It was none of your business,” I snapped. “And you never asked.”

  “You’ve been fraternizing with her?” Marcello sneered at Alessio. “How quickly the apprentice turns on the master.”

  “I haven’t done any such thing.” Alessio scowled at Marcello, then walked to a chair in front of the fireplace and pulled a worn cotton shirt over his head.

  “This is why I said no jobs. This right here.” Marcello pointed at me. “And now you’ve brought trouble back to our home.”

  Alessio sighed and waved his hand in my direction. “Clipper Girl, you can lower your weapon.”

  “A clipper never lowers her weapon while a weapon is trained on her,” I quoted my father, and nodded toward the dagger still gripped in Marcello’s hand.

  “Master, please.”

  “A clipper never lowers his weapon while a weapon is trained on him.” He mocked me.

  Alessio threw his hands into the air. “By the gods, it’s like reasoning with stubborn tigers! Master, I’ll vouch for her. And Clipper Girl, you are a guest in our home.”

  He was right. It
was incredibly rude to draw weapons on the lord of a manor. And besides, I hadn’t come here to fight. I’d come here for help.

  I kept my eyes trained on Marcello as I slowly lowered my weapon. He sheathed his dagger and I followed.

  “I won’t deal with anyone hiding behind a mask,” Marcello announced.

  I hissed. My mask was a holy symbol of Safraella Herself! “You blaspheme.”

  He smiled slowly. “No masks allowed in our home.”

  Alessio sighed. “Clipper Girl, please humor him. I’ve seen your face before, and apparently he’s your family.”

  I hated them. I hated that they had so much power over me, that because I needed them, I had to do what they said. I was powerless, like the night of the fire.

  Just give them what they want. The faster I cooperated, the faster I could get back to the plan. And I didn’t have time to waste. I pushed down my hood and slid my mask to the crown of my head.

  I stared at them, daring Alessio to brave a smart-ass comment, daring my uncle to gloat. A single wrong word and I’d show them what someone behind a mask could truly do.

  “You are Bianca’s daughter, Oleander,” Marcello said. “I can see much of her in your face. Not so much my brother Dante.”

  “Oleander.” Alessio smiled slowly, and no matter how hard I searched I couldn’t find malice or jest in his grin. “One of the prettiest of the poisons.”

  “Lea,” I snapped. “Only my mother called me Oleander.”

  Alessio inclined his head. “Kalla Lea.”

  Marcello glowered, and I agreed. I didn’t approve of Alessio calling me something in a language I didn’t speak.

  “And why have you come here?” Marcello strode to the kitchen. He lifted a carafe of amber liquor and poured a glass. “Has Dante come to his senses and sent you to fetch me home? Surely if you’ve come to end my life you would’ve done so by now. Unless the Saldana standards have fallen so low?”

  I glared at him. Anger seeped through my limbs like hot honey. My cheeks burned and tears pricked my eyes. I blinked them away. “My father is dead.”

  Marcello exhaled through his nose. “I see.” He took a drink. “Was it illness? An accident?”

  “It was the Da Vias,” I spat. “They killed us. Everyone. My father and mother. Rafeo, Matteo, Emile, and Jesep. Even the servants. I am the only Saldana left.”

  Marcello stared at me blankly. Tension coated the air as Alessio glanced between the two of us.

  Marcello looked at the glass in his hand, watching the amber liquid slide across its surface as he rotated it in the light. His breath sounded rapid and harsh.

  He screamed, a loud, guttural noise from deep in his body. He threw the glass across the room to shatter in the fireplace, the liquid hissing and sputtering in the flames.

  Alessio covered his head when the glass soared past his face. He spun toward Marcello. “Gods, Master!” he shouted, but the anger leaked out of him as he saw my uncle’s state.

  Marcello stood unmoving, but his body shook as tears poured down his cheeks, tracing the lines of his face like a river through sand.

  He wept for them. He wept for our Family. Would he weep so easily if he knew it was my fault? If he knew I’d trusted Val, which brought about their deaths? I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling the key tucked beneath my leathers.

  “Gods damn the Da Vias.” His voice hitched in a sob. He sank his face into his hands. “Gods damn them all.”

  Alessio approached my uncle and, when he met no resistance, escorted him to a chair in front of the fire. I followed quietly behind and sat in the other chair while Alessio visited the kitchen and returned to my uncle with another glass of liquor.

  “Drink this, Master,” he said quietly, pressing the glass into my uncle’s hand. There was real tenderness in how Alessio cared for him. They must have been together a long time, only the two of them, a sad little clipper Family in a country where the people feared the night. It must’ve been lonely.

  “So this is why you came, niece?” Marcello’s voice was gruff with tears and grief. “To torture me with memories?” He drank, the liquor splashing against the whiskers on his chin.

  I shook my head. “No. Truthfully, I did not come for you at all. I came for me. I seek help.”

  He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, then returned to staring at the fire. He took another drink. “And what could I possibly have that you would value? Tell us, kalla Lea,” he mocked. “Tell us what it is you need.”

  As if he had the right to be angry. He wasn’t there when our home burned. When Rafeo’s blood spilled across my hands.

  “The Da Vias,” I said. “You’re going to help me kill them.”

  He turned to me, surprise flashing in his eyes. And then he laughed in my face.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  seventeen

  A RAGE FLARED ACROSS ME, SO BRIGHT IT BLINDED ME. I lunged to my feet, the heavy oak chair screeching like a cat in an alley as it slid across the stone floor.

  Alessio jumped to my side, hands at the ready to stop me from grabbing my weapons. But I didn’t need a weapon for this.

  I slapped my uncle across the face.

  The crack echoed dully against the stone walls until the only sounds remaining were the popping of the fire and Alessio’s sharp intake of breath.

  Marcello’s face was streaked red where I’d struck him. He gingerly brushed it with the tips of his fingers before he faced me.

  “Get out of my home,” he said quietly.

  “How dare you.” My voice scratched against my throat. “You weep for my Family, my Family, and rage at the Da Vias, but when I call on you for help, you laugh in my face? You are not a Saldana. You were not there when we needed you the most. You gave away your name when you murdered your own uncle.”

  “I said get out!” Marcello screamed.

  I raised my hand to strike him again, but Alessio grabbed my wrists, dragging me away. He was stronger and taller than me. And I was full of grief and rage, and Father always said strength comes only with a cool mind and heart.

  “Come.” Alessio pulled me toward the entrance, not roughly, but with a firm grip.

  I yanked my hands away from him and jerked my mask down so he couldn’t see the tears struggling to fall from my eyes. “I know the way,” I snapped.

  He followed as I entered the tunnel room and lifted the grate.

  “You shouldn’t come back, Lea,” Alessio said. “And—”

  I slammed the grate behind me, cutting off whatever he planned to say. I didn’t care to hear it. Damn them both to the dead plains.

  I ran through the tunnel, trying to burn the anger and pain out of me with every step. I flung myself into the darkened alley.

  The sun would be up in an hour or so, and I needed to get home.

  Home. If I ever had another one. Would I ever be able to return to beautiful Lovero and live the life I’d once had?

  There was no turning back, now that I’d started down this dark path. I had to continue on. I had to kill the Da Vias.

  I reached my safe house, feeling the stretch and pull in my shoulder as I climbed to the safety of the roof.

  I sat on the edge of the roof, mask pushed to the top of my head, knees pressed against my chest, and tried not to think about how badly things had gone. If I hadn’t been so quick to anger, so quick to let grief consume me, maybe I could’ve convinced my uncle to help. Instead, I’d been brash and bold and entitled, and there was no way he’d help me now. And I needed him. I couldn’t face the Da Vias alone, not if I actually wanted to succeed.

  I dropped my head onto my knees. Rafeo . . . what do I do now? I blinked rapidly at the tears welling in my eyes. I wish you were here. You’d know how to fix this.

  Across the canal flashes of white between the buildings illuminated the ghosts prowling the streets. They were
terrible, the ghosts. I knew this firsthand, but in the earliest hours of the morning, when everything was still and with enough distance between us, they had a sort of beauty about them as they floated quietly on their way.

  Back home I used to sit on the roofs whenever I was upset and couldn’t bring myself to go home. It was how Val and I had started our secret relationship. During the plague there were so many common asking us to release their loved ones. And I’d spent the night sneaking through open windows, finishing people who were delirious and coughing up blood, finishing children or babes still in their cribs, and though I knew it was a mercy I performed, the children always weighed the most heavily on me.

  I couldn’t go home, not and face my cousin whose parents were dead, my brother whose wife lay feverish in her bed as she slowly succumbed. And so I sat on the roof and watched the stars quietly until I heard a noise behind me. I turned and saw a figure standing on the other side, lost in his thoughts. After a moment I realized his shoulders shook not from the cold, but from tears.

  I’d tried to leave quietly, to let him have his privacy, but he heard me and turned. I recognized his mask right away—Valentino Da Via—and though his mask hid his face, his eyes were lined with red.

  We stared at each other for what seemed an eternity.

  And then I realized my own throat was tight, and tears slipped quietly down my cheeks.

  “I just couldn’t go home yet,” I said to him, my voice breaking.

  After a moment he’d nodded, and we’d sat side by side, watching the stars, listening to the sounds of the sea, saying nothing. And everything.

  I swallowed and took a deep breath. Yes, everything was my fault. Again. But this time I could fix it. I would win over Alessio and then return with him to Marcello and ask him to reconsider. I would make my case. I would not let Marcello anger me. With Alessio on my side, I would urge him to see reason and to help me kill the Da Vias.

  The sun crested the horizon, turning the twists and bends of the canals golden with its light.