“What if I don’t like either of those choices?”
“Unfortunately for you, the choice is not yours. Your fate now lies in the hands of Ashovar.”
13
Ashovar? I glanced at him in surprise. Who’d died and made him God? Why did he get the deciding vote? He looked as unhappy as I was at this turn of events.
Celebrach chuckled at the look on my face. “Take her away,” he said, waving the dagger dismissively. “Come tell me at dawn what you’ve decided.”
Ashovar’s hand closed around my upper arm, and he hauled me bodily out of the chair, propelling me toward the door.
“Let go of me,” I snapped as soon as we were out in the corridor again.
He glanced down at me. His eyes reminded me of a shark’s—cold, brutal, and utterly devoid of emotion. I thought he would ignore me, but a moment later, his hand dropped to his side. I shrugged my arm, rotating the shoulder a little. Everything was still in working order, thank goodness. I’d taken surprisingly little damage, considering I’d been fighting someone bigger and heavier than me. It was almost as if he’d been going easy on me.
This whole thing had taken such an unexpected turn. Why had I followed him inside? It had seemed like such a good idea at the time—as all the really terrible, bloody stupid ideas did. I’d had a few in my time, but this one took the cake. Was I mad? Or had I just let my eagerness to punish the assassins overtake my common sense?
Obviously they would have the very best wards on a sith like theirs. Concealment meant everything to them; it was their stock-in-trade. And there I’d gone, happily waltzing in on the heels of an actual trained assassin, thinking that just because I was invisible, I was undiscovered. I may as well have followed a mountain lion into its den. I glanced at his forbidding profile again. Or leapt into a tank full of great white sharks.
“What is your name?” Those hard grey eyes flicked me a cool glance. “Your real name. I’ll know if you lie to me.”
Oh, yeah? The shark was a walking lie detector as well? My newly awakened common sense warred with my instinct to flip him the bird. Common sense won out.
“Sage.” It was a common enough name, even outside Spring. Fae did love their plant names. “And yours is Ashovar.”
I don’t know why I said that; my brain must have been running on pure adrenaline. This was hardly the time for making conversation. But there’s nothing like the threat of imminent death to make a person start babbling inanities.
“Only Lord Celebrach calls me that. My name is Ash.”
See? Another plant name. Or maybe it was a cold, grey, burned-out kind of name. That seemed fitting. “Where are we going?”
He led me through one of the doors on the lower level that I hadn’t dared to open during my explorations, which revealed another corridor. At the end of that was a large, airy room full of plants, like a conservatory. He opened a glass door onto the night and gestured me through. “You are going to the cells. Where I am going is none of your business.”
Fear jumped into my chest and took a stranglehold on my lungs. I took a couple of shallow, frightened breaths, just to prove to myself that I still could. Cells didn’t sound hopeful. Nobody stashed a person they were intending to make their apprentice in a cell. My legs trembled as the fight or flight response kicked in.
Fight or flight? Why not both?
I stepped up to the doorway, caught the door frame, and pivoted into a roundhouse kick straight to his solar plexus. I didn’t care how fit he was, that would slow him down a little.
He doubled over, and I heard the grunt as all the air was expelled from his lungs, but I took off running and didn’t look back. He had longer legs than me, and I needed to wring every bit of advantage out of this head start.
I burst around the corner of the building and quickly got my bearings. The gate was that way, along the paved path. My boots pounded in a frantic rhythm on the stones. A moment ago, my legs had felt like jelly, paralysed with fear, but new strength flooded my body as the possibility of escape nurtured a tiny flame of hope in my heart.
All too soon, I heard his feet thudding on the path behind me, but the gate was closer. All I needed was enough time to wrench it open and slip through. I felt sure that once I was back in the mortal world, the worst of the danger would be past.
I just had to get to the lift a couple of seconds ahead of him and then I could disappear on the city streets. Assassins weren’t the only ones who were good at sneaking around dark alleys. I could even open a gate into the Wilds to escape him if I had to, once I was free of the wards on this place. But it all depended on making it out of here first.
I left the path and pounded across the grass, taking a more direct route. The gate loomed ahead of me, filling my vision. It was closed but not barred, and had a simple latch mechanism. I could do this.
Ash had also left the path in pursuit of me so I couldn’t hear his footsteps as well anymore. I risked a glance behind me; that was a mistake. He was far too close, and panic threatened to steal my breath away.
From somewhere deep inside, I tapped a new reserve of strength. I thought I’d been running as fast as I could already, but now I found a new pace. I hoped it was enough to pull away from him and gain me those precious seconds I needed at the gate, but I wasn’t risking another look behind me, so I ploughed on, heart thundering, the sound of my rasping breaths filling my ears.
I all but slammed into the gate, not wanting to lose time decelerating. I grabbed the latch and twisted, but it wouldn’t move.
Fear clawed at me as I tugged. Shit, shit, shit. What was wrong with it? There was no lock; there was nothing to stop it moving. I heaved at it madly, splinters tearing at my skin.
Moments later, heavy hands caught me by the shoulders and spun me around. Ash towered over me, breathing hard, and at last I saw some emotion in those hard, grey eyes. He was furious.
“Where are you going in such a hurry, Sage? I thought you wanted to be an assassin.”
I stared up at him, panting. The true gravity of my situation descended on me, and suddenly, I could barely draw breath as fear crushed my lungs.
I was trapped here. Trapped in the midst of my enemies, with no weapons and no way out.
“You are a fool,” he spat. “Did you really think it would be that easy? That the gate would open for you as easily as it did for me? Tell me the truth. Why did you come here?”
He said he could tell if I lied. The question was, did I believe him? My body ached, and my heart still pounded. Despair’s insidious tendrils snaked around me like the vines of one of Willow’s spells. Suddenly, I couldn’t have run another step if my life had depended upon it. My legs were heavy, and my feet felt like lead.
What could I say? Might as well go with the cover story that Lord Celebrach had so conveniently supplied. “I came here to be an assassin.”
Fury still smouldered in those eyes. “I don’t believe you. Why are you running if that’s what you want?”
“Because you said you were putting me in a cell. I thought you’d decided not to take me as an apprentice. The rumours I heard about joining the Vipers never mentioned you might kill me.”
“Not everyone has what it takes to be a Viper.” The bastard wasn’t even breathing hard, though I was still panting. “But there’s no point running. You’ve seen too much—the only choice is to stay or die. Even if you did manage to escape, we’d only hunt you down and kill you.”
Awesome.
I faced him, shoulders back, though inside I wasn’t feeling so brave. My fate rested in his hands. What would it take to make this man agree to have me as an apprentice? There didn’t seem to be any other options—apart from death, which wasn’t a choice I could get behind.
If I could convince him to take me as an apprentice and earn his trust, I would be able to get out of here eventually. Eventually. My heart quailed at the thought of a long separation from my friends, trapped here among my enemies. Willow and Raven would be worried about me.
Hell, even Rowan would worry if I just disappeared without a goodbye. But surely once I was an apprentice, this damn gate would open for me and the problem would be solved. I’d be out of here in no time.
That made me feel better. And while I was here, I had an unparalleled opportunity to explore every weakness of the Night Vipers’ organisation and memorise every last detail of this infernal sith. It wasn’t all bad news.
But first I had to convince Ash of my sincerity. So far, his claim to be a human lie detector appeared to be spot on. That just meant I had to up my bullshit game.
“So apprentice me. I’ve been training all my life. I’m only half-fae, as Lord Celebrach so rightly guessed, so I’ve had to make up in brains and muscle what I lacked in magic. I will be the easiest apprentice you’ve ever had to train.”
He was standing so close I could have kissed him with only the slightest movement of my head. Was that an option? Would that be more likely to advance my case or work against me? I would happily clutch at any straw that weighted his decision in my favour, though trying to fake a romantic moment with this cold man felt like mission impossible. Might as well try to make love to a statue.
“I have never trained an apprentice. I vowed to Lord Celebrach that I never would.”
Well, that wasn’t good news for me. He gestured for me to start walking, and we headed back across the grass toward the distant buildings. He took no account of the difference in the length of our strides, so I had to hurry along in an undignified trot to keep up with him.
“You don’t like apprentices?”
“I don’t like people.”
Well, he was in the right line of work, then. Getting to kill people every day must bring a smile to his flinty face. No. On second thought, I doubted he ever smiled.
“Couldn’t I be apprenticed to one of the other assassins? Why does it have to be you?”
“Because those are Ishitil’s rules.” He smiled at me, and I revised my previous estimation. He did smile occasionally, but it was a savage baring of teeth and not an expression of pleasure or happiness. “It’s a kind of punishment. If you are stupid enough or bad enough at your job to allow someone to track you back to the sith, then the burden of what to do with them falls on you.”
“Oh. Do you get many apprentices this way?”
“No. Most of us choose to redeem our shame by killing the intruder.” Again, he offered me that horrifying smile. “Unless we are particularly short-staffed, in which case Lord Celebrach strongly recommends that we choose the path of apprenticeship.”
But Lord Celebrach had made no such recommendation in my case, which meant they were in no great need of new apprentices. My tongue darted out, licking suddenly dry lips. This was not looking good.
“How many apprentices do you have at the moment?”
“Only one.”
He could have been lying to put me off. In which case, it was working. A little desperately, I said, “I’m already skilled with guns, knives, and the bow. I can use a staff, and I’m also pretty good at hand-to-hand combat.” As he had seen. I’d managed to take him down, hadn’t I? There couldn’t be too many people who could say that. If I was honest, my success was probably only due to the fact that I’d caught him completely by surprise, but still, as far as I was concerned, it counted.
“If it comes to hand-to-hand combat, you have failed as an assassin.” He gave me a chilly glare. “The aim is to strike at your target without being seen and escape undetected. And you won’t be using that gun again.”
“Usually, they’re excellent against fae. They never expect modern weaponry—they’re too old-fashioned.”
That gun had served me well when his Night Viper friends had broken into our sith, intent on killing us all in our beds. Although this probably wasn’t a good time to brag about how many of his mates I’d killed. I changed tack. Might as well try to see what information I could get out of him. If I was still alive when the sun came up, it would be useful.
“Not that it worked so well against you and Lord Celebrach,” I continued after a moment. “How did he do that?”
“You assume he did it? What makes you think it wasn’t me?”
“Why? Are you an Air fae?”
He frowned. “You ask too many questions.”
“That’s because I love learning—and I’m good at it, too. It would hardly take you any time to train me.”
We passed the practice ground where I’d seen Evandir throwing knives and the other men wrestling, and he led me into a separate building beyond that. It had no windows, at least on this side. Inside was a large room where wooden practice weapons were stacked in racks against the walls, but he didn’t stop there. Men’s voices came from further down the corridor, and he checked his stride for the briefest moment.
I glanced at him curiously. Why the hesitation? His expression gave no clue, and he continued on as if the brief moment of doubt had never occurred.
The sound of water running came from an open door just ahead, and the voices echoed inside. I wrinkled my nose; the place had that locker room smell that was common to gyms everywhere.
Evandir appeared in the doorway, clad in a pair of dark pants, his chest bare, towelling his blond hair dry. He must have just stepped out of the shower. His eyes lit up with interest at the sight of us. Up close, they proved to be a startling green.
“What have we here, Ashovar?” he asked.
So much for only Lord Celebrach calling him Ashovar. Judging by Ash’s frown, maybe only people who were trying to piss him off called him Ashovar. I’d have to remember that.
“She followed me back.”
“Are you going to keep her?” Evandir’s gaze ran over me appraisingly and then he called back over his shoulder. “Mezzi, come and check this out. Ash has a prisoner.” He reached out to stroke my cheek. “Shame she isn’t a pureblood. She’s a pretty thing.”
I knocked his hand away, glaring at him. Just let him make something of it; I’d be only too happy to wipe the smile off that too-handsome face. They were talking about me as if I were a stray dog, and I’d had enough. “My blood is every bit as good as yours.”
“Indeed?” The smile was frostier, now. “Perhaps we’ll get to see your blood all over the stones tomorrow. What do you think, Ash? Keep or kill?”
Another man appeared, clad only in a towel wrapped around his waist and still dripping water, presumably Mezzi. He was the man who had laughed with Evandir after the wrestling match. “Ash won’t take an apprentice,” he said. “He always swore he never would.”
I loved how they were discussing my fate as if I couldn’t hear every word they were saying. Did these people have no hearts?
No, of course they didn’t. What was I thinking? They were assassins.
I shrugged. “It would be your loss. I’d be the best damn Viper you’ve ever seen.”
Evandir laughed. “She’s a feisty one, Ash. She might make a good playmate. That’s one thing to be said for apprentices—they’re good bed warmers.”
“Not everyone is as free with their apprentices as you are,” Ash said.
“Why not?” Evandir turned away, as if he’d lost interest in the conversation, and resumed rubbing his hair. His next words were muffled by the towel. “Training an apprentice is extra work, and seven years is a long time. You may as well get some payback for your effort.”
Seven years? Would I have to remain here for seven whole years? I glanced up at Ash, but his face was the usual cold mask. I could glean nothing from it. Calm down, Sage, of course you won’t. I’d find a way to get out of here sooner than that. My friends were counting on me.
Water was pooling around Mezzi’s feet. “Have you decided yet?”
“I have until dawn,” Ash replied.
He tugged me on, and we resumed our march down the corridor. We passed a door bound with strips of iron. That was an odd thing to find inside a sith. I wondered what was behind it and why it needed iron’s extra protection. But a moment later, Ash
unlocked a heavy wooden door ahead of us, and I became more focused on my immediate situation.
It was a cell, as promised, and a tiny one, barely big enough to accommodate the thin mattress that lay on the stone floor. A bucket stood in one corner, presumably to take care of bodily functions. There was no window and no other door. It was enough to give a person claustrophobia.
Ash pushed me, not ungently, into the tiny room, and I went because there was nothing else I could do. Should I fight him? And after him, Evandir and Mezzi and every other assassin in this place? And even if, by some miracle, I managed to defeat every one of them, there was still no way out of the sith. Not for me. It made no difference whether I was locked in a cell or not; I was just as trapped.
I turned to face him, and all my bravado fell away. “Please don’t kill me. I know you’ve never had an apprentice and you don’t want one, but I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll be the best damn apprentice anyone ever had. I’ll make you proud, I swear. Just please, please. Give me a chance.”
He stared at me in silence, that cool gaze giving nothing away. Then he closed the door. The key turned in the lock, leaving me to await my fate in total darkness.
14
Faelight blossomed at my fingertips, then bobbed into the air like a soap bubble, lighting the small cell.
There wasn’t much to see, no more than I’d glimpsed from the doorway. Grey stone walls surrounded me on all sides. I rapped a few with my knuckles, but the walls were just as solid as they appeared and cold to the touch. A chill radiated out from them into the small room, and I soon wished for warmer clothing.
The mattress hid no secrets—not that I had really been expecting to find the entry to a secret tunnel underneath it, but it never hurt to look. The whole floor was depressingly solid and as icy as the walls. The only other thing in the room was the bucket which, surprisingly, was bright blue plastic with a white plastic handle, incongruously cheerful and modern in its bleak surrounds. Not exactly what I’d been expecting in the stronghold of the fae assassins. Clearly, they had no objection to utilising modern technology in some cases, even if they turned up their noses at guns.
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