by Megan Derr
Or so Myra hoped. His best and oldest friend didn't deserve to suffer because he'd been loyal enough to help.
At least they were alive. If he'd done nothing else right in this whole miserable fucking day, he'd kept Sarrica and Allen alive, and he'd saved Jac and Charlaine.
With that, he finally dropped off to sleep.
*~*~*
It was someone kicking him, and the searing burn of sunlight, that woke him. Myra stared blearily, sore and aching and still tired, up at the woman. She knelt and set aside his breakfast, then helped him sit up and tied one of his arms to his legs, leaving one hand free to eat and the rest of him too knotted together to have any chance of getting himself free.
Breakfast was more old bread and a watery quick porridge he'd always despised. It tasted like wet sand and dirty water—but it was also energizing, light, and easy to prepare, even without a fire. He gulped it down as quickly as he could, gnawed his way through the bread, and handed back the empty bowl.
"Stay with him and pack up while we find a suitable place for launching," Ryan said.
The woman huffed but obeyed, briskly retying his arms and resetting the bell trap before striding off to clean the dishes and pack up most of the camp.
Myra lay back down on the bedroll and stared up at the sky through the trees, listening to birdsong and rustling leaves. He turned his head at the sound of footsteps drawing close and sat up as the woman sat near him again. "So why is a woman dressed as an assassin?"
"That's not any of your business, traitor."
"What do you want, then? I doubt I'm so beautiful you came to stare at me until they return."
She laughed, but though she tried to make it derisive, she couldn't hide all of her genuine mirth.
"What do you want?" The woman looked away. Whatever she was after, she was still fighting asking for it. Myra stifled a sigh. "What's your name?"
She opened her mouth, clearly intending to tell him that wasn't any of his business either, then snapped it shut. After another moment, she said, "Kimberly Bartona." She hesitated another moment, scowling at the trees on the far side of camp. "I was a last-minute replacement. I have passed all my tests and was granted permission to become an assassin with my family's blessing. But there wasn't time to finish everything before we were sent out."
To say that was odd was to call the ocean a lake. Myra had never heard of an assassin being so desperately needed that they were willing to add one to the team before they'd finished their rites—especially while they were 'still a woman'. Myra had been eager to complete his training and rituals, because in Soltorin it was the closest he'd ever come to being treated like the man he was. But he'd known other assassins, from families without sons, who had been devastated, even distraught, to give up being women, though they'd always hidden behind honor and pride. And sometimes fear. Those who chose to become assassins had their breasts removed—which was a loss to some, a bonus to others—could not marry or be mothers, but they were also given neither home nor inheritance as were the men. They were forever caught between the two extremes, often denied the privileges of both.
If they were willing to sully a kill team by adding a woman, then numbers must be low. Iron Moon was in trouble. That explained why they were still angry with him twenty years later. Any wrong that could be made right would bolster the clan. They must have been ecstatic to learn he was still alive and a traitor. Myra's mouth flattened. "So did a plague devastate numbers? Did too many 'leave' the clan to live a different life?"
"Why do you say it like that?" Kimberly asked, the words snapping out.
Ah. That was it. Sadness washed through Myra. "Did you have a brother or sister who went before the clan leaders and said they wanted to leave?"
She looked at him, then looked away, throat working. "Yes. A brother."
"Your family threw a quiet dinner party, he said farewell to friends, you escorted him to the edge of the territory and wished him well. He promised to write, was excited and happy, and your parents were nothing but loving and supportive."
"Yes." The word was barely audible, her face drawn.
Myra sighed. "Yet you've never received a single letter, and when you ask your parents where you can send one to him, they're evasive."
"Yes."
"He's dead. You're with the clan or against them," Myra said as gently as he could. "That's why I left the way I did—with all the blood and violence they wanted me to use for the clan. Your brother was killed the first night he made camp. His body was burned."
"You're a fucking liar," she hissed, surging to his feet. For a moment it looked like she'd attack him, kick and hit, expunge all the rage—and pain—choking her by way of beating him as close to death as she could get away with. At the last she pulled herself back. "A traitor's words are worthless," she finally spat.
Myra said nothing, only went back to staring up at the sky through the trees.
Kimberly returned to her own bedroll on the opposite side of camp, putting her side to him so she could watch but also have a modicum of privacy. From the pouch at her back, she pulled a small book—the kind all assassins kept, ostensibly to store coded information that was too complicated to easily remember. Many also used them to hold mementos, tokens, other personal effects. The life of an assassin often meant a life of travel, as it could take anywhere from weeks to years to carry out a job.
The clans hadn't always been assassins. Even now, not all of them were. They'd started as advisors, scouts, occasional spies. They'd been valued for their expertise in world matters, as the whole clan spent large sums of money to educate and train a precious few. Somewhere along the way, as times became hard and Benta made things even harder, it was the rare, darker elements of the clans that had taken precedence, until the rest of what they'd done had been lost. No doubt there had been some sort of honor and moral code in it to begin with. Maybe once the clans would have refused to kill someone like Sarrica, who did far more good than bad. But 'once' and 'maybe' didn't mean anything to Myra.
Money had been the primary reason for the change. Few people wanted wisdom or reasonable solutions to their problems. Plenty of people were willing to pay to make a problem go away. And Soltorin, Odon and Jithinir had badly needed money: for the fight against Benta, then holding out under Benta rule and finally throwing Benta out. Soltorin and their shadowy clans had best been positioned to make that money, even if it came at great cost. But in the aftermath…
Instead of trying to rebuild themselves into what they wanted to be after breaking free of Benta's hold, they had chosen to continue festering. They continued with practices enforced by Benta, with Bentan customs, even food and music and such brought over from the mainland. Even Bentan naming conventions remained. They let the world call them the Triumvirate, instead of by their individual names or at least Soldonir. The Triumvirate council, instead of saying 'no, enough' had chosen to broker a deal to murder the best High King and Consort Harken had probably ever had.
The attempt on Sarrica and Allen's lives had probably taken years of work, from drafting the initial plan, finetuning it, embedding killers in the dancing troupe and more.
Myra had endured countless plays and novels and other fanciful tales of assassins—brooding heroes, wily heroes, ruthless, tormented killers who only wanted to live an honest life.
But as with most things that fiction loved, the reality was duller and grimmer. Most of an assassin's work, at least the sorts of jobs given to the clan, entailed waiting, watching, waiting, watching. The kill itself took only a moment, but figuring out how to reach the target could take ages. A storm builds for days and is over in minutes, as the clans said.
Myra would have bet anything Kimberly kept a drawing of her brother in there, or some token he'd given her before he left to start a new life free of the clans. Laughter bubbled up in Myra, but not good laughter. The kind of laughter that turned into sobbing because if he didn't laugh or cry, he'd start screaming, and that had somehow always seemed far w
orse.
When all the chaos surrounding his heroic saving of the life of the imperial crown prince had died down, he'd laughed like that. Laughed and cried and puked up everything he'd tried to drink to calm himself down.
The silence stretched on, weighted with everything she didn't want to believe and everything Myra didn't want to think about.
So he tried once again to turn his thoughts to happier things—happier times. What was everyone back home doing? Poor Piru. He wasn't quite ready to take on the full weight of being head secretary. He'd almost been there. Myra had planned to loan him out to the Duke of Chassis when his lead secretary went on maternity leave to give him a taste of running a large, busy office without having to run one quite as overwhelming as the imperial office.
But if anyone could adapt and master quickly, it was Piru. Myra had trained him diligently. Piru would flourish.
Did Sarrica miss him? Was he worried? It was impossible to be friends with his boss, but Myra had liked to think they were some professional approximation of that. Myra had gone to Harken with every intention of faking his own death and starting a new life on a completely different continent, but his plan had fallen away once he'd come to know, as well as any cadet could, the commanding, drawing presence of the imperial crown prince. He'd never met anyone like Sarrica, had not met anyone like him since. Whatever rulers followed, there would never be another Sarrica.
Pantheon, please let Sarrica be taking care of Charlaine and Jac. He would never—
"Did you mean it?"
Myra turned his head, his carefully gathered happy thoughts scattering like a sack of spilled beans. "About your brother being dead? Yes."
Her face clouded. "You have to be lying."
"I killed my father. I killed another assassin simply for standing in my path to freedom. I gave myself up to save my friends. I've denied nothing. Why would I lie? The way they murder their own for wanting to leave is one of many reasons I hate the clans."
"How do you know that's what happens?"
Myra sighed and sat up, resettling his feet carefully so he wouldn't jar the bells overmuch. "I snuck out one night. I was young—ten, eleven. There was a little pond where I liked to watch the glowflies, and sometimes a fawn and its mother would come to drink. One night while I was out there, I heard voices, and followed them through the woods. I arrived just in time to see them kill a woman who'd left the village that very day. Not long after they killed her, the woman she was running away with from another village showed up. They killed her as well. Burned the bodies right there. I've never gotten that smell out of my nose. I wanted to run, but I didn't dare draw attention to myself. When I was eventually able to leave, I cried all the way home. There was no one I could talk to, that much I knew. So I kept my silence. I started watching more. Seeing more. It didn't take long before I knew two things: that I wanted to leave and doing so would come at great cost. But the clans do excel at teaching patience and sacrifice."
Kimberly made a rough noise and did not reply, only surged to her feet and vanished into the woods.
It was a perfect chance to run away. Even if she heard the bells, she wouldn't be able to return immediately, and once he was in the forest, getting away would be relatively easy. He might not be as good as he'd once been, but he hadn't let his skills entirely languish either. First, from fear and habit, then from habit and needing a good way to expend the frustrations of the day.
But he was also exhausted and had neither weapons nor provisions, and the forests in this area were not exactly filled with friendly woodland creatures. He might escape, but the elements would get him long before his kidnappers. No, as much as he wanted to try, for the present he was better off where he was.
Several minutes later, Kimberly returned—and seemed relieved that he was still there. She pulled out snacks for both of them but didn't say anything, only dropped the food at his feet before retreating again.
Myra let her be. She was a potential ally, but wouldn't be if he pressed too hard, too fast. For the time being, it seemed most prudent to let her keep making all the first moves. Sadly, his best chance at escaping would be once they were in Soltorin, unless he got lucky when they reached their waiting ship—but more than likely it'd be a smuggler ship, small and fast and light, shifting contraband between Soltorin and Delfaste.
He was just starting to drift off again, because sleeping was infinitely better than the unending, weighted silence, when the others finally returned.
Ryan spared him a look, then snapped his gaze to Kimberly. "We've found a place. Let's finish packing up camp and head out. We'll make camp there, replenish supplies and head out at dusk. If we push hard, we can be at the meeting point by morning."
"Good," said one of the other men in the group. "This has already taken far too long, especially given—"
"That's enough," Ryan snapped.
"Especially given you failed your mission?" Myra asked, ignoring the look of fury Ryan shot him.
"Pack up and move out." Ryan strode over to Myra and bound him for travel. "Did he say anything?" he asked, looking briefly over his shoulder.
Kimberly slowly shook her head. "No, sir. Nothing at all. Just slept and cloud-gazed the whole time. I find it hard to believe this is the man who killed your estimable father."
Ryan laughed, bitter and mean. "Eliza—"
"Myra—"
"Eliza here was once quite the assassin, there's no point in denying that. He looks like a soft, pathetic Harken now, but back in the day…back in the day I was proud to call him first sister and then brother. A pity his strong skin hid a weak core."
"Weak is blindly doing as you're told without ever questioning what you do—especially when what you do is murder."
Ryan sneered and hauled him to his feet, throwing Myra over his shoulder as he said only, "Let's go."
Myra closed his eyes in an effort to stave off the nausea that would come from being carried around so for too long.
Feeling a prickle along the back of his neck, however, he dragged his eyes open to find Kimberly watching him pensively. He met her gaze a moment, then let his eyes fall shut again.
Was he building an alliance? Too soon to tell. If all he did was put another fracture in Iron Moon, he would count that a victory. It might be his last victory, but it wouldn't be a bad one to die on.
Closing his eyes again, Myra tried to bring up happy thoughts again as they trudged drearily on.
Chapter Eight
"So what's your type doing on a ship without all the rest of them around?"
It took Charlaine a moment to sort the question out. The matter wasn't helped by the sailor's thick Gearthish accent tangling around informal Harken. But he'd sorted out far more difficult accent-language combinations, and Pantheon knew how many times he'd been the difficulty. "I'm not acting as a merc. This is a personal matter." He threw a card down on the pile in the middle of the barrel serving as their table and drew one from the central stack.
"What's your girl got to do with it?" asked the second of the three sailors he was playing with. This one had a tooth with a cheap sapphire in it, an affectation of sailors and pirates who harkened from Treya Mencee, and his dark skin meant he was likely from one of their colonies.
Charlaine's mouth quirked at the thought of Jac's reaction to be called anyone's girl. "She's not my girl; she's a friend. We're looking for another friend, who is also her lover." Or would be, damn it. Charlaine would see them happy together, if that was what they wanted, especially after this nightmare.
"Good luck finding them in Soldonir," said the first one who'd spoken, throwing down a card of his own and taking another from the face down pile. "If Soldonir wants you, it gets you." He shook his head and sighed, motioning for the next man to take his turn.
"What do you mean?" Charlaine asked. "I know they're somewhat xenophobic."
The third sailor snorted as she threw down two cards and took one more. "What sort of fancy palace word is that? If you mean they hate
everybody not them, yeah. About the only ones they hate more are those of their own who leave. We had a mate, retired few months ago, came from Jithinir. Was terrified every time we made port. Wouldn't leave the ship. Said it was his life if he was recognized. Had all kinds of wild stories about people he'd known who didn't escape or were found later. Some of those stories will shrivel up your dick, no mistake."
Putting that image out of his head, Charlaine looked over his cards, shook his head, and motioned for the next sailor to go.
Thank the Pantheon he was only playing Four Corners with sailors for whatever cheap coins they all had on them. He barely had to pay attention to the game, or their rambling, to keep up. Most of his attention was on Myra. On everything Myra had never told him.
Everything Myra had suffered, and was suffering, in silence. How miserable had his life been in Soltorin? It was hard to picture the man he'd known as a well-trained assassin. Myra was a force to be reckoned with, but a killer? Maybe only when it was time for the census.
Someone indicated it was his turn, and Charlaine shook his head again. They all eyed him, trying to gauge if he had four corners or was bluffing. "So your friend from Jithinir was able to retire?"
"Aye," said the woman sailor. "Lives in Gearth now, raising sheep or some nonsense." She threw her cards down. "I surrender." She took a swig of the bottle at her side, which looked to be spiced rum rather than her ration of beer. "Tanaka is his name. We still see him sometimes, when we make port there. Think we've bought some of his dumb sheep." She snickered.
"Tanaka? That's not a Triumvirate name."
"You mean it's not a colonial name," said the first man, cold contempt in his voice. "No, Tanaka threw out his Bentan-style name the moment he joined up. Got all his Harken papers with Tanaka on it. Never even told us what his old name was. We never cared."
