Assassin's Blood

by Marina Finlayson

  “How’s her magic?”

  They both turned to look at me, and I folded my arms. “Pretty much non-existent.”

  She smirked. “Surely you’re just being modest. You managed to find us, after all.”

  “She’s only half fae, Nuah,” Ash said.

  “Really? Which Realm?”

  “Spring,” I said shortly.

  “Then perhaps you can fix this.”

  She lifted her hand, and a shower of pine needles—as brown and withered as if they’d been lying on the ground for six months—rained down on my head from the tree above. Her magic had a faint cinnamon smell.

  The branch withered before my eyes as she pulled the vitality from it, but I did nothing. Willow could have breathed life back into the tree, but I knew full well that I didn’t have that kind of power. Impatiently, I moved out of the way, but the shower of dead needles followed me. “You must be Winter.”

  “Guess again. Autumn.”

  An ominous creak was my only warning. I looked up in time to see the branch, now thoroughly drained of life, split away from the tree, and I leapt aside as it crashed to the ground. I gritted my teeth, though I longed to snatch up my staff again and belt her around the head.

  “Try not to break Ash’s new toy before he’s even had a chance to play with it,” Mezzi said.

  I loved the way they spoke about me as if I wasn’t even a person. I’d had to put up with some casual racism in the mortal world, but human slurs that targeted the colour of my skin were nothing compared to a certain kind of fae’s disdain for those without magic.

  Nuah looked at him, her eyes wide in fake innocence. “I was only testing her. If she’s Spring, shouldn’t she have some control of plants?”

  “Have you tried her with knives?” Mezzi asked Ash.

  “Not yet,” I said before he could answer. I was sick of them discussing me as if I wasn’t standing right in front of them. “How about a challenge?”

  “Against me?” His eyebrows rose in surprise.

  The woman scoffed. “You think you stand a chance against a full Viper?”

  “Don’t be so hasty, Nuah. It’s not as though she’s challenging Evandir, is it? We all know knives are my weakness.” Mezzi offered me a knife. Its blade looked deadly sharp. No practise weapon, this one. “I could do with the practice. What do I get when I win?”

  “Who says you’re going to win?” For a brief moment, I considered attacking the three of them with my new weapon, before sanity prevailed and I followed him to face the targets that Evandir had been throwing at with such skill before.

  “Best of three?” He let fly his knife as he spoke, and the blade thunked into the heart of the figure painted on the target.

  “Sure.” I aimed for the head and left my knife quivering in the target’s eye.

  Mezzi strolled over to the target and removed both knives.

  “A little further away?” he asked as he handed mine back to me.

  I nodded and followed him until we were double the distance from the target. Much further and we’d be better off with bows than knives, but I still landed a respectable throw—a little closer to the ear than the eye, but still good.

  Mezzi’s knife hit the red dot that represented the target’s heart again, so close to his previous throw that the blade probably slotted right into the same hole it had made the first time. And knives weren’t supposed to be his strong suit?

  This time, when he handed my knife back, I took an extra moment to draw a deep breath and centre myself. This time, the knife would hit that eye exactly. I’d spent years honing my knife skills, though admittedly, I hadn’t been as diligent in practising in recent years as I could have been. Since we’d been living in the mortal world, it had seemed a better use of my time to practise guitar than knife-throwing.

  I drew the knife back, the blade balanced between the tips of my fingers, and the world narrowed to that painted eye. But just as my arm began to move, something hit me in the back of the head.

  My throw went wild. The knife didn’t even hit the target, but landed in the dirt off to the side, throwing up a puff of dust as it skidded to a stop. I whirled around, my hand going to my head, as a rock clattered to the ground. My head stung like a bitch. I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover blood, but my fingers came away clean.

  “What was that?”

  Nuah smirked at me. “A little test of your concentration.”

  Behind me, Mezzi’s knife thudded into the target. Another perfect strike, right into the heart.

  I narrowed my eyes at Nuah. “You threw a rock at me?”

  Lazily, she lobbed a pebble at me, and I sidestepped angrily. This one was much smaller than the first one. I was going to have a king-sized headache from that little stunt. She was lucky I didn’t still have that knife in my hand.

  “Assassins work in difficult conditions. You have to be able to hold your focus despite distractions. Clearly, you’ll need to work on that.”

  “Or you were just afraid I was going to show up your friend.”

  She glanced at the target, where Mezzi’s knife still stood proudly embedded in the heart. “Oh, I don’t think there was much danger of that.” She smiled at Ash. “I hope she’s better with the bow. You’re not regretting your decision, are you?”

  He balled up his shirt and used it to wipe his face. “She’s only half fae. You can’t expect miracles.”

  “Fancy a bout? It’s been weeks since I’ve ground your face into the dirt.”

  Mezzi laughed. “Don’t rile him up, Nuah, or it might be your pretty face that gets dirtied.”

  Ash showed her that savage grin, the one that looked more like a snarl. “Another time, perhaps. We need to get cleaned up.”

  He jerked his head at me, in a clear sign that I should follow him, and strode off. Seething, I trailed after him. I was not a dog to be ordered to heel.

  My fingers crept again to the sore spot on my scalp as I followed him back through the trees. Was that a lump forming? The skin wasn’t broken, but it burned like fire. Distraction, my arse. She had enjoyed that.

  That was one Viper I wouldn’t mourn when I brought them all down.

  16

  Back at Ash’s house, he led the way straight to the empty bedroom. “This will be your room.”

  Really? “I thought all the apprentices would stay together.”

  There wasn’t even a lock on the door. Evandir’s comments about bonking his apprentice made me even more uncomfortable, now. Not that Ash seemed the type for a little apprentice-bonking. That would be too much fun for someone who seemed so dour. Even so, I wasn’t sure how I felt about living in his pocket. Having him constantly hovering at my shoulder would limit my opportunities.

  “Adepts and their apprentices live, train, and work together. We’ll be spending a lot of time together.” He looked as happy about that as I felt. “Bathroom’s that way. You need to get cleaned up and dressed for dinner.”

  I gestured at my dusty, sweat-stained T-shirt and jeans. “This is all I have.”

  He flung open the wardrobe door in an impatient gesture. Someone had been busy while we’d been at the training grounds—presumably the silent servants. An array of black clothing hung there, though it had been empty when I’d checked this room earlier. Some were made of soft and stretchy material, obviously intended for training clothes. That would have been more comfortable than tackling Ash in my jeans and T-shirt. Others were more tailored, meant for everyday wear. Shirts, pants, a jacket, two pairs of boots. I opened one of the drawers and found socks and underwear, too.

  It all looked about my size, which was kind of creepy, as if someone had been sizing me up, mentally taking my measurements. Was it Ash? Had he been staring at my boobs, thinking, Yep, 36C.

  On another shelf in the wardrobe, writing materials were stored—blank notebooks and pens. I was pleased to see they were modern human pens, not the quills beloved of the more old-fashioned fae. But that suggested there was some s
tudying in my future.

  And then I noticed a row of books on what had been an empty bookshelf when I’d checked this room earlier. My textbooks, presumably, with titles like The Poisoner’s Handbook, and several texts on anatomy. I noticed Foramund’s Treatise on Herbal Remedies among them, looking in much better shape than the one that I’d accidentally stabbed back in the main building.

  Thoughts of stabbing brought back my poor showing on the training grounds against Mezzi, and I rubbed at the sore place on the back of my head where Nuah had hit me with the rock. Bitch had enjoyed that.

  “Is that troubling you?” Ash asked immediately. He didn’t miss much. “Let me see.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, but he pushed my hand out of the way and probed the area with unexpectedly gentle fingers.

  I stood there, fuming. If he hadn’t cared enough to stand up for me while she’d been lobbing trees and rocks at me, I wasn’t inclined to accept his solicitude now.

  “There’s no lump,” he said once he was satisfied. “You should be fine.”

  “No thanks to your friend,” I said. “You might have stopped her after she tried to drop a pine branch on my head.”

  “You needn’t sound so resentful.” His tone was cool. “You’d be in a worse position if I had. It would have made you look weak, and you can’t afford to show weakness here. You’ll find mineral salts in the bathroom,” he added. “Under the sink. Add some to the bath water so you won’t be so stiff tomorrow. You’re very out of shape.”

  I bristled. Out of shape? Me? “I can run for an hour without stopping.”

  “Congratulations. But you are nowhere near Viper standard. That’s why we work with sword and staff so much, even if we never plan to use them. This is a physically demanding job, and nothing less than perfection will do.” He cast a critical eye over my body. “You have a long way to go.”

  “I’ll be fine as long as you get your friends to stop throwing things at me.”

  “Let it go, Sage. The Vipers are a wolf pack hungering for fresh meat. If I play sheep dog and protect you, they will see you as prey.”

  “So I’m a lamb to the slaughter?” Great.

  “Only if you choose to be. I can make you a wolf, but you have to trust my methods.”

  “I’d rather be a dragon than a wolf,” I muttered. Then I could burn the lot of them.

  “We’re expected in the dining room at eight,” he continued, ignoring me. “It’s traditional for new apprentices to be introduced to the Nest. You don’t have a lot of time.”

  He swept out of the room, and a moment later, his bedroom door closed firmly.

  I sighed, pulling a black shirt and matching pants from the wardrobe. There was nothing fancy enough for a formal dinner, so I guessed dressing up wasn’t expected.

  The strange turn my life had taken wasn’t lost on me. Who would have thought, twenty-four hours ago, that I’d be wondering what to wear to a meeting of the Night Vipers? That I’d be their newest apprentice? It was crazy, but it was an unparalleled opportunity. Had any outsider, in the whole history of the Realms, had such access to their organisation? I was perfectly placed to take them down from the inside—as long as I survived the experience.

  I shut the bathroom door behind me and started running hot water into the tub. Maybe others had had such an opportunity before me, but they’d been caught and killed. A shiver ran over my body despite the warmth of the room.

  I couldn’t afford to think about such things or I’d lose my nerve, and then I really would be in trouble. I found the mineral salts in a jar under the sink and added a generous scoopful to the water. It clouded over as they fizzed and dissolved. The only way forward was through—through all the obstacles that playing the part of an eager apprentice assassin was bound to throw in my way. My life depended on my acting skills. Hopefully, a few days would be enough. As soon as they gave me the ability to open their damned gate, they wouldn’t see me for dust.

  I sank into the tub, hissing as the hot water scalded my skin, and lay back. What would Willow think if she could see me? What would Raven?

  Well, not that I’d be letting Raven see me naked, of course. That man didn’t need any encouragement. But he was probably well and truly worried about me by this time. As Willow would be, too.

  I breathed deeply of the steamy air and tried to squash a twinge of guilt. I was doing the right thing; I was sure of it. I just wished I’d had the chance to get them a message before I’d been trapped here.

  The bath was deep, the old-fashioned freestanding type with bronze clawed feet. The floor and walls were tiled in black, and the lighting was dim, leaving shadows lurking in the corners of the small room. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the sensation of the hot water working the kinks out of my abused muscles. It had been a while since I’d had such a thorough workout—I’d been slacking off since Allegra had left. She’d been my regular sparring partner.

  I was certainly not out of shape. Heat that had nothing to do with the water temperature swept through me. How dare Ash look down his nose at me? Nowhere near Viper standard indeed. My body was a well-oiled machine. Just because his was damn near perfect, with those rock-hard abs and sculpted chest. He knew how to use those muscles, too. His sword technique was excellent, and he’d already bested me a couple of times unarmed.

  Not that I’d be taken by surprise again. And I knew some dirty tricks that might surprise even that ice-cold assassin. But it didn’t matter how perfect his body was; there was something missing inside him, a cold hollow where a heart should be. Or a soul, perhaps.

  I’d take him down with the rest of them, without a second thought.

  I thought longingly of the bed in the small second bedroom as we entered the dining room. It had been a while since I’d lived on a completely nocturnal schedule, and my body clock was insisting on sleep. I just had to make it through “dinner” at breakfast time, and then I could collapse.

  Early morning sun set the tall stained-glass windows afire, making the room look even more like something out of a monastery, though the pictures in the glass were fanciful flower designs rather than biblical scenes.

  I looked closer at one particularly colourful one, of huge blood-red blooms and curling vines. A rabbit’s head peeked around one of the flowers. No, wait. The rabbit was … inside the flower?

  Oh, gross. The vines were twined around the rabbit’s struggling body, delivering the victim to the waiting flower. Other flowers, which I’d thought were buds, were actually already closed around writhing bodies, presumably devouring them.

  “Nice décor,” I said to Ash.

  Without answering, he took a seat at one of the long tables and gestured for me to sit next to him. I looked around with interest. Apart from the colourful windows, the room was austere: stone walls, stone floors, all in the same cold grey. Four long tables stretched the length of the room, and I guessed the bench seats could probably seat thirty people at each table—maybe more, if they didn’t mind getting up close and personal with their neighbours.

  At one end of the room was a smaller table set perpendicular to the others. There was no one at this table yet, though the others were filling as black-clad figures kept entering through the same wide doors we’d come through.

  A man took his seat opposite us and nodded to Ash, then studied me with naked curiosity. I stared back, holding his gaze until he looked away. Was he an assassin, too? He didn’t have the blank-eyed stare of a servant, so I had to assume so.

  More people kept coming in until the tables were a little more than half-full. Servants began bringing in food, but no one ate, as if they were all waiting for a signal. Grace, perhaps? Who did Vipers pray to anyway? Surely not the Lady. She was a goddess of life, not death.

  There weren’t as many people here as I’d expected, considering the size of the sith. Some of them could be out on jobs, I guessed. Or dead. I looked down, hiding a fierce smile as I remembered those who now slept beneath the earth of Willow’s garde
n. I’d killed Vipers before. I glanced at the still figure at my side. And I’d be happy to do it again.

  A small door behind the head table opened and more black-clad figures filed in, Evandir and Nuah among them. Bringing up the rear was Celebrach, and as soon as he entered the room, conversation stopped and everyone at the long tables got to their feet.

  Celebrach strolled to the middle seat at the head table, which had a higher back than the others and huge claws carved into the ebony arms. His companions spread out along the high table, taking the other seats, though the one to Celebrach’s right was left empty. Was whoever usually sat there dead? Out on a job?

  “Who are these people?” I whispered to Ash. If they were important, maybe I should target them first. If I could take a couple of them out before I escaped the Vipers’ sith, it could throw our enemies into disarray.

  “The Adepts,” he said briefly.

  At a gesture from Celebrach, the Adepts took their seats, and everyone else sat, too, though he remained standing. Like everyone else, he wore black, though his coat looked like velvet instead of the more practical cloth the rest of us wore. Rings of silver and gold glinted on his fingers, but otherwise, his appearance was plain enough. The most striking thing about his ensemble was the dagger that hung at his side.

  It was the twisted dagger that usually resided on the stand in his office. It had no sheath, hanging from a silver loop on his belt. It was probably hard to find a sheath to fit such an oddly shaped blade. I shivered, remembering the deathly chill of its kiss on my skin.

  “A new apprentice has run Ishitil’s Gauntlet and joined our number,” Celebrach said. He didn’t have to raise his voice at all; the acoustics in the room were excellent, the sound reverberating off the stone walls. “Ashovar will have charge of her training.”

  Whispers started at that, and everyone looked at us. There was speculation on some faces and amusement on others.

  “Before we begin our meal, let her name be entered in our rolls.”

  Ash stood, nudging me to stand, too. A servant brought out a large and extremely old-looking book bound in black leather, laying it reverently on the table in front of Celebrach as we approached.