Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3)

by Nilsen, Karen

  I grabbed Safire’s hand and squeezed it so hard she gasped. “That’s exactly what I need, little witch. Thank you--you just saved us all. Now, did Peregrine think anything else of import?”

  She cast her eyes down, biting her lip. “He wants you and Merius dead. And Sullay out of the way. Something about Sullay and a . . ." she struggled for the word, putting her hand to her head. "A proxy, I think was his word. I wish I could remember--his thoughts seem to be going all blurry suddenly, like a dream slipping away when you wake up. A nightmare's more like it." She shuddered. "I only hope Merius never finds out.” Her hand slipped from mine and started worrying at the blanket again. Eden’s hell cat Deliah, who hissed and spat every time she saw me, suddenly leapt on the bed. She trotted over to Safire and started rubbing against her hand.

  “I thought I told you to get rid of that . . . that godforsaken thing.” I stared as Deliah, the same cat who had tried to bite off my toe the other night, started purring when Safire absently petted her black fur.

  “She’s not a thing. She’s the best judge of character I’ve ever seen.” Eden offered a saucy grin as I glared at her.

  “She reminds me of Talia, Selwyn’s mother--that‘s what you should have named her.” Deliah looked up when I spoke, her eyes scrunched to glowing green slits as she hissed, digging her claws into the blanket I’d pulled over Safire. "I'll return in an hour to escort Safire back home--I have to meet with someone," I said abruptly. That damned cat dared spit at my back as I turned on my boot heel to leave.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  As was customary, I had left a candle on the table beside the door to my chambers. This I lit from the wall sconce before I unlocked the door and entered, holding the candle high so I wasn’t fumbling about in the dark. The air seemed oddly refreshing, like a breeze on a rainy spring evening, not the pent-up air of a closed chamber. The drapes moved in a draft from a window I was certain I had closed when I left earlier. I set the candle down. My sword hissed as I drew it. The tense silence hummed in my ears.

  “Put down your blade. I won’t hesitate to use Ursula’s Bane on you, you know.” The largest assassin stepped out from the shadow cast by the pigeonholed rack that loomed above my desk.

  I chuckled. “Getting to be quite an expensive night for you--first you use it on Peregrine, then Safire, now me. Being a trained assassin, surely you have other skills you could use to disarm me.” Rare to see a burly assassin like this one--the profession tended toward thin, short men who could fit in tight spaces and move quickly. Of course, it was rare to see an assassin at all and live to tell of it.

  As if he had read my mind, he said, “You won’t live to find out what other skills I have, old man, if you don‘t sheathe your blade.”

  “Why, is it making you nervous?”

  “Only nervous for you. I don’t want to harm you, but I could if you became too irksome. His Majesty didn’t say we had to leave anyone else alive aside from your son and the witch, so you‘re fair game.” He lowered himself on to my desk chair, the leather cushion creaking under his bulk.

  “Did I invite you to sit down?” I snapped, glancing behind me in case his companion lurked in the corner near the door.

  “I’m the only one here,“ he said, not looking up. “The man who was with me in the garden is guarding the witch, and our companion has been watching your son all evening.” He actually pulled out a small, thin dagger and began to clean under his fingernails.

  I lunged forward, the tip of my blade coming to rest under his chin, an inch from the large artery running up his throat. He glanced at me then, his dark eyes cool gleams. Aside from a few scars and a slightly hooked nose, he had a remarkably unremarkable face, the kind of face that soon slid from the memory. From what I had seen of the assassins, they all reminded me of those lizards from the Sud Islands, the ones that could change color and pattern to match their background, quite a useful talent for a warrior to have. Chameleon men.

  “That’s better,” I said. “Look at me when you talk to me, damn you.”

  “You stubborn graybeard.”

  “In your line of work, shouldn’t you be wearing gauntlets?” I asked, finally sheathing my sword. "You’re the fool who didn’t know how much Ursula’s Bane to give a witch. She remembers you gave it to her. She remembers a lot of what you said, and she was awake again before an hour had passed. I won’t hesitate to write to His Majesty Rainier, tell him how you botched it.”

  “You do that, and we’ll take your son and her one night. You’ll never see them again.”

  “Cur,” I muttered. “You can threaten to seize Merius and Safire all you like, but we both know that if you did so now, before she‘s borne at least a couple healthy babes, His Majesty would set your fellow assassins on you.”

  He leaned forward. “Get this straight. If you involve the witch in any more of your plots, if you allow your son to dive off the parapet with that crazy contraption--”

  “What contraption?”

  “That thing he calls a glider,” the assassin spat. “I don’t think His Majesty anticipated how much trouble we’d have with this assignment. I’m used to killing people, not guarding them, and these two . . . the palace guards and the Midmarch city watch warned us about them, but I really had no idea.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how they’re still alive, honestly.”

  “He’s building another glider?” I said. “Damn him.” I found my hands clenched in my pockets, the urge to start pacing like an itch on the soles of my feet. I forced myself to focus and stay in place in case the assassin tried anything.

  “You should mind your son better. And that witch--I don’t know what your plot is with Bara, but don’t you dare let her near him again. You were lucky we hit him so quickly with the Ursula’s Bane tonight and managed to get him up to his chamber without anyone seeing us. We may not be so lucky next time."

  “There won’t be a next time,” I said quietly. I hated to think what Peregrine might have done if the assassins hadn’t intervened when they did. “Thank you for what you did tonight,” I continued aloud.

  “You're welcome,” the assassin said, less gravelly, perhaps even a bit mollified by my honest gratitude. “If she goes to any more balls, any event at court, your son should go with her. He watches her better than we can--the mind bond between them makes him doubly alert to any threats, and his skill with a blade . . . we’ve all observed him at practice enough to dread trying to subdue him. You took some care with his arms training.”

  “Thank you. I only wish I’d done a better job teaching him some sense.”

  The assassin chuckled, a raspy, cheerless sound. “At least this assignment hasn’t been dull.”

  “Why did you administer the Ursula’s Bane to Safire?” I asked softly, figuring this was my best opportunity to catch him off his considerable guard. I was surprised I'd gotten him to talk at all--Merius had reported that the assassins hardly said a word to him or Safire. But this one--I doubted this one had always been an assassin. He had the gruff manner of an old soldier, likely picked for this particular assignment because he was large enough to beat me or Merius in a fistfight if it came to that--after all, even assassins didn't have access to an endless supply of Ursula's Bane. So perhaps he and I had something in common, that certain camaraderie among soldiers. Whatever it was, hopefully it would get him to talk.

  He froze at my question. “The Bane won’t hurt her or the child. His Majesty ordered it himself. The Lady Undene said it will strengthen whatever abilities the child may have.”

  “How can they be so certain of that?” I asked. “Have they been experimenting on other pregnant witches?”

  He held my gaze for an instant longer than he should have, and I knew my arrow of a question had hit some mark, not the bulls-eye, but close. He confirmed my suspicion by abruptly breaking eye contact and standing then. “You mind what I said. We don’t want to seize them, but we will if they continue to take these insane risks.”

  “I understand.”
The words were barely out of my mouth before he vanished through the open window, the drapes flapping in his wake the only sound he made. I glanced out the window before I closed it, but he was nowhere in sight. I shook my head. My chamber was on the third story. He must have somehow gripped the window ledge, swung himself over to the rain spout, and clambered down to the ground. I never would have expected such silently deft work from a man of his height and bulk.

  After the window latch clicked securely into place and I drew the drapes closed, I paused near my desk, holding the candle high as I glanced over the letters there and touched the lock on the secret compartment. Everything seemed in its place, but a trained assassin had been here--breaking into the compartment would likely be a bit of fun to him, especially if he could make it look like no one had touched it. Normally my steward Randel would have been nearby and have investigated if he heard any odd noises. However, I had sent him off to search the coast again for Whitten, now that drunken lout had had a chance to let down his guard and take up with another tavern wench somewhere. Of course, if Randel had surprised the assassin breaking in, the poor man would likely have gotten a hefty dose of the Ursula’s Bane. He already suffered enough in my service without waking up to the worst hangover ever. Besides, why was I worried about the assassins going through my private papers? They already knew the worst, that Safire was a witch and had exposed my son as a warlock.

  I gave a bitter chuckle, the scar over my heart pinching in a sudden, sharp pain. So she was with Merius’s child, a son she had said. I knew the witch too well to doubt her word on such matters. Arilea had suffered too many stillbirths for me to count goslings before they hatched. However, Safire wasn‘t Arilea, and we would be fools if we didn‘t start planning now for the possibility of a healthy child. There was no way in hell that demon king would ever get his stubby fingers near my grandchildren. I’d cut off his hands first. Damn it, neither Safire nor the child she bore was his experiment.

  What had happened to the king’s other witches? I knew there had been others from the assassin’s odd response to my question. Were they dead? Perhaps barren like Undene? I doubted the king would be investing so much coin and time in Safire and Merius if he had been successful with his other witch breeding experiments. Going by the evidence, what I remembered of that fateful day in King Rainier’s library with Rainier and Undene, the vague hints Undene had dropped, there was something special about Safire. A creature of instinct, Undene had called her, able to call on her true nature without conscious thought at times of duress. What did that mean, exactly? Her true nature? Whatever it meant, I hoped to hell and back they knew what they were doing. If anything happened to Merius or Safire or their children, I wouldn’t hesitate to assassinate a king.

  Chapter Eight--Merius

  Corcin, Eastern Cormalen

  May, 3 years ago

  I stuck the pen in the inkwell. The quill bobbed for an instant in the ink and threatened to topple over before I righted it against the thick lip of the well. Then I rubbed my cramped hand, listening to the frantic scratch of Rankin’s pen against the foolscap. He paused suddenly and muttered, “Hmm, that seems odd,” before dipping his quill in ink and then marking out the line he had just written before he continued on, his speed at translation rivaling the fastest scribe at court. I glanced from my one blotched paragraph to his several rustling sheets, the cramp in my hand returning with a pang.

  “You’re certainly quick, sir,” I said.

  The reflection of the candelabrum flames glanced off his spectacles as he looked up. “I’ve been translating ancient Corcin since before you were born, lad. Besides, you had arms practice today as well as taking notes at council--I’m surprised your hand hasn’t fallen off yet.”

  I grinned and grabbed my quill again, rattling the crumbling parchment before me as I flattened it so that I could read the faded script. Of the ancients, all were weir. Of the ancients, all had their own weir element. Weir element? I squinted at the parchment, barely noticing when ink dripped out of my quill and blotted the line I had just written on the foolscap. Sea water under the crescent moon to weirfish, mud and quartz under the noon sun to weirhorse, full winter moonlight to weirwolf, high wind over moving water to weirhawk, engulfing fire to weirflynt . . . I wrote, my hand faltering. My eyes skipped over the parchment, hardly able to absorb what I was reading enough to translate and then write it down on the foolscap. Of all the weir elements, fire is the harshest master. The deadly pain of fire leaves the weirflynt, once weir, always weir. Other weir merely shift in the presence of their element. The weirflynt dies in the presence of fire, and then comes alive again, a true immortal. Thus the power of the weirflynt eclipses all other weir. “What the hell?” I muttered, glancing between the parchment and my translation.

  “You have something?” Rankin asked.

  “Maybe--here, see what you think.” I thrust my foolscap across the table.

  His gaze darted over my few messy lines of writing before he held out his hand for my part of Talus’s scroll. He glanced from the scroll back to the foolscap several times before he lifted his eyes and met my gaze. He wore his wide-eyed severe owl expression, a sign that he was either about to chide me for the faultiness of my translation or launch into an excited lecture about what he’d just read.

  “Merius, if this is true . . . do you realize what this means?”

  “That all the old ones were shape shifters. But if that’s the case, why didn’t they shift shape to escape the Sarneth overlords’ invasion?”

  “I’m sure some of them did--perhaps Safire’s belief in mermaids isn’t so far off the mark after all.”

  “I wish she’d stayed in tonight, the stubborn witch. I wanted her here, just in case we ran across something like this,” I grumbled. “But that still doesn’t answer my question. Why didn’t the old ones shift shape and hide in their animal forms from the invaders?”

  “It doesn’t sound quite that simple.” Rankin glanced over the foolscap again. “In all the stories and myths I’ve read about shape-shifters and selkies, conditions have to be just right for the change to happen. For instance, it has to be the full moon in winter in order for a weirwolf to shift. A woman can only become a mermaid in salt water under the crescent moon, not fresh water. As I said, I imagine that some of the old ones were able to shift to escape their invaders. However, likely many more got ambushed in a place where their particular weir element wasn’t available. And their weir form might disguise them for awhile but it couldn’t shield them from the more advanced Sarnethian iron-tipped arrows and sharp blades. Weir does not equal immortal.”

  “Except for this weirflynt, whatever kind of creature that might be.”

  “I wonder.” Rankin clasped his hands together under his chin, staring down at the scrolls and foolscap scattered before him. “Does Talus make any other reference to fire coupled with weir, aside from when he writes flynt?”

  “None that I’ve noticed so far. Didn’t you say earlier that flint with an i and flynt with a y may still be related even if they’re not the same thing? Perhaps weirflynts were creatures who not only shifted in the presence of fire but could produce fire--like we use flint to make sparks or this Talus uses his unseen flint to control fire from a distance.”

  “Dragons, perhaps,” Rankin murmured.

  I tilted my head--had I heard him right? “Dragons? But there’s no evidence . . .”

  “You accept the existence of weirfolk but not dragons, Merius?” He posed his question in the quiet, cool tone of academic inquiry, as if I were one of his barometers that had just demonstrated a fascinating fluke.

  “These other weir creatures Talus mentions,” I gestured at the parchment before I cracked my knuckles. “These other creatures--fish, horses, hawks, wolves--they’re all mortal creatures that exist alongside us to this day. Why should the weirflynt be any different from the others?”

  “Because he states it is, right in this bit of text you translated.” Rankin jammed the tip of
his index finger down on the parchment to emphasize his point. “The weirflynt dies in the presence of fire and then is reborn--no other weir creature he mentions does that. He states the weirflynt is an immortal creature with powers beyond that of other weir--it stands to reason it would be something mythical like a dragon, not some ordinary everyday animal like a horse or fish.”

  “So you believe in dragons?” I demanded.

  “I believe in the possibility that they once existed and perhaps still do in some far flung corner of the world.” Rankin leaned back in his chair, gazing at me over the tops of his spectacles. “What is it, Merius?” he asked softly.

  I sighed, tapping my toe on the floorboards under the table. “I don’t know, sir. I’m just having a hard time believing what he’s written.”

  “No one’s asking you to believe it, lad--just keep an open mind. You don’t have to believe in something to study it--in fact, lack of belief indicates objectivity in approach, the aim of every true scholar.”

  I didn’t respond at first. I didn’t know how to respond. So instead I gazed at the parchment, the edges blurring as I lost my focus on external things and concentrated. Some awareness inside, some necessary understanding, kept eluding me, a maddening idea on the edge of consciousness that flitted away every time I tried to grasp it.

  “I don’t think I can be detached about this, sir,” I said finally.

  “What are dragons to you? Why should you care so much whether they exist or not?”

  “I don’t know. I just know suddenly I do care. I care a great deal. I don’t want them to exist. I don‘t want them to have ever existed.” I guffawed suddenly, a raucous sound in the midst of all our careful debate.

  Rankin didn’t laugh or even smile but merely continued to gaze at me with that disconcerting detached intensity. “Fascinating.”

  I had a sudden vision of Safire, right before she had spun around and dragged Lady Rankin out of the studio earlier tonight. She hadn’t found my lack of belief fascinating--she had found it infuriating, judging from her blazing eyes and the high color in her cheeks. The witch--I still didn’t understand why she had flown into such a fit over what I said. Perhaps it was because she was with child--being pregnant made her moody.