by Carol A Park
He was staring at her with his piercing eyes.
She could lie. She could say nothing. But he would know, somehow he would know, or find out.
She looked past him to a point over his shoulder and mentally reinforced the wall. “I was recognized.”
He frowned. “I see. And how did that happen?”
“I let my hood down outside. After I eliminated the target. I was hot. I needed some air.”
“Foolish. Get used to discomfort.”
“Yes. I realize that now.”
“And you took care of it?”
“I did.” Her eyes flicked back to him.
His eyes narrowed, as if suspecting she was twisting the truth. “How?”
She drew her dagger from its sheath and laid it on an end table. It was crusted dark red-brown with dried blood. “He suffered a fatal mugging.”
Elidor’s hand relaxed. She hadn’t noticed it tense, but she was certain it had been poised to draw his dagger should he discover she had deceived him.
“Who was it?” he asked.
She resisted the urge to lower her eyes to her lap. Instead, she met Elidor’s squarely. That wall would stay up. Temoth help her, it would never come down again. “Boden. The apothecary’s apprentice at the shop I used to frequent.”
Elidor shook his head. “That damn apprentice,” he growled. “I knew that would come to trouble.”
She remained silent.
When she didn’t respond, his mouth turned downward, and he pinned her with his eyes. “I trust you have learned through this that there is no one—no one—whom you must not be prepared to kill to preserve the integrity of a job,” he said. “Even if it be your own flesh and blood.”
“I have no flesh and blood left,” she said, empty of anything but weariness. “Save, perhaps, my sister. But she’s most likely dead at the end of a slaver’s whip, so you needn’t worry about that.”
“You must not be so careless in the future. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Very well.” He stood up. “Clean your blade and rest. I have a more complex job for you to begin tomorrow. It’s time you started bringing together everything you’ve learned.”
He moved to leave but stopped at the door and turned his head to look back at her. “You have done well.”
She flicked her eyes to him, inclined her head, and he left her alone.
Her mouth was cottony, her head groggy, and her face tight with unshed tears—but she made no move toward her room. Instead, she stared at the dagger.
All she felt was dead inside at the sight.
She had killed more than one person last night. She had left the last of her former self lying there at Boden’s side.
Part Two:
Sweetblade
Chapter Eighteen
Three years later
Light from the parlor filtered out through the shutters into the garden beyond, just missing where Ivana hid in the shadows. The room erupted in laughter as some drunk minor noble aimed to make himself look better than his peers.
She rolled her eyes, sighed, and sank back against the wall. Perhaps the worst part about lying in wait for the right opportunity to end someone’s life was having to listen to all their drivel beforehand. The preening, the fawning, the compliments and lies…
Noble or commoner, rich or poor—it didn’t matter. It was as though the lives that swirled about her day after day were one long parade of masquerade guests.
She straightened up. Her mind was wandering again. The last time that had happened, she had lost the opportunity and target, and nearly the entire job.
Finally—finally—chairs scraped against wood and some of the voices drifted away as people filtered out of the room. This party had lasted well into the wee hours of the morning.
A quick peek through the crack in the shutters confirmed that her target was still in the room and moving toward the garden door.
She slid to the side, farther into the bushes.
Her information indicated that after parties like these—and after his guests were gone—he would often exit through the garden door to tryst with his lover, who would wait breathlessly for him to emerge.
The body of his lover already lay behind the bushes, her eyes staring sightlessly toward the sky. He would be surprised tonight.
The door to the patio opened, and he was whistling, no doubt drunk and feeling pleased with himself for a successful dinner party.
“Telina?” he whispered.
When there was no response, he frowned and stepped forward, past where Ivana hid.
Ivana stepped in behind him, and before he had the chance to turn at her presence, she had put one hand over his mouth. A few quick stabs in the back, and he had joined his lover behind the bushes.
No one would notice he was missing until late morning when his servants would finally attempt to rouse him from drunken slumber. At that point they would go to search for him in the extensive garden—knowing his habits—and find both he and his lover sloppily stashed behind the bushes right next to the patio door.
In terms of ease of planning, this was a relatively simple job. She didn’t have to make it look like an accident. She didn’t even have to make it look like a robbery gone wrong or some such.
The Conclave had wanted to send a message to someone, and they would get it.
Ivana wiped her blade on the cuff of the man’s trousers, stepped around the pool of blood, and slunk along the hedges, through the outer gate of the garden, and into the alley behind his house.
What had this man and his lover done to offend the Conclave? Spies for Xambria perhaps? Suspected rabble-rousers? Political opponents? Or, she thought wryly, his wife—whose beloved brother was a priest—found out.
It didn’t bother her anymore. But she still hadn’t reached the point when she never wondered.
She rubbed at her arm as she hurried toward the closest safe house to change out of her blood-spattered clothing before sunrise. The scars still itched on occasion. There had been no fresh cuts in over two years. At some point along the way, it had ceased feeling as though it were necessary.
She took that as a good sign.
A small crowd gathered on the street ahead of her, half a dozen blocks away from Elidor’s. It was too early for most people to be out and about, so the commotion was surprising.
Naturally, she slowed to see what was happening.
Two horses with tack bearing the Watch’s insignia were tethered outside a line of rowhouses, and a Watchman stood outside one door, keeping a stern eye on the curious crowd.
“What’s happening?” she asked the first person she came to, a plump woman loitering near the back.
“They say there’s been a suicide,” the woman said, nodding as she spoke. She leaned toward Ivana and lowered her voice. “But I say there’re too many Watchmen about for that. Who really knows?”
“Oh my,” Ivana said, putting one hand to her chest to feign shock.
“I live across the street,” the woman continued. Apparently, Ivana’s reaction had encouraged her to speak further. “Over the bakery. My sister runs it.”
“Who was it?” Ivana asked, mostly out of her own curiosity.
The woman shook her head. “That whole row—all four of them—is owned by a woman who rents rooms to boarders. Could have been anyone; they’re in and out every couple months.” She clucked her tongue. “It’ll be bad for business, mark my words.”
Ivana nodded, murmured a polite assent, and then moved away.
Elidor was sitting in the front room reading, no doubt waiting for her return. He didn’t look up when she entered and hung up her cloak. “Well?”
“It’s done,” she said.
He closed his book and set it aside. “Full report then.”
She debriefed him each time she handled a job herself. The further she had gone in her training, the more he let her take care of all the parts of a job, from meeting with their handler to any res
earch needed to the hit itself to collecting payment. She didn’t know when exactly he would consider her apprenticeship complete—at which point the government or Conclave would move her somewhere else, whether somewhere else in Cadmyr or somewhere else in the Empire. But the more responsibility she took for a particular job, the more details he wanted to know.
And he was a critical master. He dissected her every decision and move for its merits and errors, despite the relative success of the jobs—and none of them had truly been failures, in the sense that she had been caught, or that the job had been compromised.
But nothing less than perfection was good enough for him.
So she sat down and spent the next half hour relating everything she could remember to him.
“You cut the timing far too close,” Elidor said when she had finished.
“I didn’t expect the party to go quite so long.”
“This is something you struggle with. Since you had already eliminated his lover, what was your plan should it have chanced going till daybreak?”
His meaning was clear. She would have had no choice but to find a way to finish the job before sunrise, lest it be compromised.
“The party would not have gone that long,” she answered.
He pressed his lips together. “And how do you know this?”
“Because his lover was waiting for him. He wouldn’t have left his planned tryst till morning.”
Elidor narrowed his eyes at her, silent for a moment. He didn’t like to be contradicted, but over the years, he had begun to trust that she understood more about human nature than he did, to her benefit and his loss. “It still would have been wise to have a plan.”
“For someone who is constantly badgering me that I need to think more quickly in a pinch, you are very set upon having backup plans.” After backup plan. After backup plan.
“The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“I had a backup plan. Just not for if the party went too long. Because it wouldn’t have.”
“No excuse.”
She would lose this argument. He didn’t understand. Instead, she inclined her head. “Yes, Dal.”
He stood. “Very well.”
That was it? He usually found at least two or three elements of her execution or planning to nitpick at. Granted, it wasn’t as many as it used to be, but only one?
“Dal?” she asked.
“You’re done, for now. I’ll let you know the next time we have a job you can take.”
He walked to the door of the room, stopped and then went back again to retrieve his book.
“Dal,” she said. “Instructions for until then?” He usually assigned her some other task in between jobs, whether that be more training in a specific area, research to help him with one of his jobs, or mundane tasks like restocking the pantry and cleaning.
“Study something.” He left the room.
She tilted her head. Study something? While she was happy to comply, that was vague for Elidor.
Something was bothering him.
Well. There was no point in trying to wrest it out of him. If he wanted to tell her, he would, and if he didn’t, he wouldn’t. If there was a way to manipulate or coerce him, she hadn’t discovered it yet.
She headed to the kitchen to mollify her grumbling stomach.
Chapter Nineteen
Two weeks later, Ivana ran across another unusual gathering of people, this time on her way back to Elidor’s from a run for that night’s dinner: a crowd huddled around the public notice board for their neighborhood.
Ivana slowed her steps, curious as to what had, once again, attracted so much attention.
The crowd was mixed: women jostled for position, craning their necks to try to see around the men in their way, while children slipped through legs to make their way to the front. By the troubled expressions on the faces of those who turned away, Ivana assumed it wasn’t a notice announcing the dates of the next traveling circus.
She clutched her groceries closer and squirmed her way through the crowd. One advantage to being trained in stealth was that she could slither to the front of any line easily.
The notice plastered to the board had large, bold writing across the top, and then a smaller explanation underneath:
WATCH ALERT
The public is advised that the death of a local tradesman’s daughter in the third district has been ruled a murder, perpetrator unknown. The Watch and family are requesting that persons having information regarding suspicious behavior or other evidence immediately report to your district Watch.
Ivana stepped back, and the writhing crowd gave way so that someone else could take her place.
Interesting.
In a city of over two hundred thousand people, there were bound to be murders, few of which had anything to do with Elidor, Ivana, or the other few assassins who worked for the Setanan government in various places around the Empire. In fact, the majority were overlooked altogether. No one cared about the random beggar or whore who ended up in a ditch somewhere after all.
Most people went about their business willfully ignorant of such things, as long as it didn’t affect them and their families—or their livelihood.
In this district, the second district, which was neither part of the slums nor overly wealthy, violent crime was uncommon. Even so, the Watch didn’t post a notice every time they suspected a murder.
Certainly, some of the attention had to be because of the identity of the victim. A merchant family would have enough power and means to demand justice. But what was done was done; why draw such attention to it, and so soon after the incident? Could the request for information not wait until next week’s paper?
Ivana shrugged it off. If it were important enough, she was sure she would hear about it sooner or later.
Almost two weeks later, Ivana stepped into a cobbler’s shop in the sixth district and inhaled deeply through her nose.
Leather.
There was something warm and earthy about a cobbler’s shop. From the musty smell of leather to being surrounded by shades of brown, it simply felt comfortable.
The cobbler was in the back of the workshop, humming to himself while working on a pair of shoes. “Be there in a moment,” he said without looking up.
She waited with her hands clasped behind her back until he finally put the shoes aside, stretched, and came to the counter.
“May I help you?” he asked.
She set her pick-up slip down on the counter and glanced around the shop as though bored.
The cobbler glanced at the slip. “Ah,” he said, his eyes flitting over her once. “Yes. Needed resoled?”
She nodded, and he bent down under the counter, lifted out a pair of boots, and set them on the counter in front of her for her inspection.
She picked one up and looked it over, sliding her hand around the sole on the outside and then into the boot.
She felt the tight roll of paper in the toe and pulled out her hand. She did the same to the other boot, and then opened her coin purse. “Looks to be in order,” she said.
She paid him for the repair—and then some—and with a nod, tucked the boots into her satchel and headed back to Elidor’s.
Not directly, of course. She stopped at a bar in the fifth district for a drink. Meandered over to the ninth district to pay her respects at the temple of Yathyn. Wandered down to a milliner in the first district to feign interest in a hat that she didn’t end up purchasing, but she took a half hour to converse with the milliner about the merits of adorning hats with ribbons versus flowers.
It was sunset by the time she reached the public square nearest Elidor’s again.
And a crowd surrounded the notice board. Again.
She stood on tiptoes to read the newly posted notice over the heads of those near the front.
WATCH ALERT
The public should be aware that two more murders occurred in the past twelve days. Though they occurred in the fourth district, they are believed to
be linked to the previous. The Watch is doing everything it can to find the perpetrator; however, the watch urges anyone with information to step forward. Meanwhile, women in particular should be careful at night.
Three murders now?
Ivana stepped aside, feigning interest in the board, but really wanting to hear the circulating whispers.
Unlike the previous time, when the crowd surrounding the notice had been characterized by the silence of shock, a low murmur ran through the crowd—rumors being exchanged, worries being aired.
“I heard they all happened exactly at midnight.”
“I heard they were all found in their own homes; don’t know what good it does to warn us.”
“But I heard they were found outside.”
“Someone told me the last one was a man.”
“No, they were definitely all women.”
“Fereharian, I hear.”
“Why do you suppose the Watch thinks they’re related? Who are they?”
“Sick, that’s what I tell you, sick. To think, our own daughters!”
Rumors were only that—rumors. They had to be taken with a grain of salt. Everyone claimed to have inside information, and yet half the information contradicted itself.
Still, it was never wise to ignore chatter completely. A stalk of truth usually grew among the weeds.
Today, Ivana’s thoughts swirled around one of the statements in particular: the rumor about the women—and it seemed a safe assumption that the victims were women, given the Watch’s warning—being Fereharian.
Cadmyr had a larger population of Fereharians than say, Fuilyn or Venetia, and the cities were more diverse, but it had to be more than coincidence that the victims had all been Fereharian. As she gazed out over the crowd, perhaps one out of every ten faces was the distinct bronze of her own skin. Another tenth were Fuilynian, another two-tenths, perhaps, from Donia or Venetia, and the remaining were from the three original regions: Weylyn, Arlana, and Cadmyr—or some mix thereof. If the rumor was true, that made it more likely that Fereharian women were being targeted rather than being victims of random choice.
