Amaskan's Blood Read online

  The job is the life. The life is the job. Taumen.

  A single candle burned toward the hall’s end, its wick drowning in melted wax, and her footsteps carried her to it. She didn’t have to pinch the candle as the wick dipped under the weight of the flame. Black covered her as she paused outside his door to listen.

  The Boahim Senate couldn’t touch the Magistrate. Something about his uncle. The fools. Not-so-delicate snorts and grunts from one sleeping with a head cold issued forth. Probably from taking too much Vrint. While the herb would certainly help him with his particular proclivities, it often led to congestion if used too often. Adelei smirked but allowed no laugh to escape her thin lips.

  His door opened readily enough, and once inside, she casually observed him and the room for a moment. A doll collection rested in the corner, which he claimed had been passed down through the family.

  Only if his particular avocation was a family hobby as well. Adelei slid a small dagger from its sheath at her waist. Three more blades adorned her body—two throwing knives hidden in the bound sleeves of her tunic and another dagger tucked into the top of her boot. She easily could have used the throwing knives—quick and efficient in their entrance through his more than ample body—but her orders were to make it slow.

  "Make sure he knows he’s dying." Her orders from the King himself. "What he did to my niece—make him hurt, Master Adelei."

  She shouldn’t relish his fear, but he was a monster. This deserved justice. She gripped the plain dagger’s hilt, sliding his bed sheet away from his face to expose a chest of curly red hair. From the small pouch at her waist, Adelei removed a pinch of Ysbane and sprinkled it on his naked flesh. Boiled, the drug released a potent toxin that caused the body’s muscles to relax.

  Adelei swallowed against the bile in her throat. It wasn’t the job—she’d outgrown that phase long ago—but the vile concoction she’d swallowed to counteract any Ysbane was pitching her stomach about. Standing over him, she sent a silent prayer that the man was stupid enough not to have taken the same measures. His frame sank a touch more heavily into the feather stuffed mattress, and she leaned over him, one hand holding the dagger while the other clamped strong fingers over his fat-lipped mouth. His sea-blue eyes popped open, and he twitched. Many of his muscles were unresponsive to his brain’s commands. With a huff, the Magistrate tried screaming, but her hand muffled it.

  He spotted the simple circle tattoo that marked where her jaw met her ear, and the muffled screams multiplied. “Shhhhh…” she whispered, and she tightened her grip as he tried in vain to turn his head. “Moving won’t help you now.”

  Magistrate Meserre’s gaze moved across her body—a solid sheet of black from head to toe. Her tanned skin was revealed only on her fingertips, which were still pressed against his mouth. The whites of his eyes stood out against the rosy tinge of his cheeks. He tried to roll his body away from her, the veins across his neck and forehead bulging with the effort. Sweat beads peppered his forehead as he caught sight of her dagger, and an acrid odor hit the air as he wet his own bed.

  “I hear you like little girls.” Her voice scratched the air like gravel beneath her horse’s hooves as she spoke. What few muscles worked twitched in response, and his eyes blinked in a rush. The Magistrate slid his gaze across the flat chest and narrow hips before him. When he tried to smile, the Ysbane twisted his lips into a half-snarl, and she forced a laugh at the grotesque expression. He gargled something incoherent before his body shook, the movement more of a convulsion.

  Adelei’s stomach churned at his reaction, but she played her part as she studied him. “Or maybe you only like little girls of the blood. Like Ereina Lhordei.”

  Despite the Ysbane, a slight bulge rose beneath the sheet for a moment before it, too, relaxed. His reaction was enough. His jerky twitches stilled as the realization swept across him. Adelei leaned closer, her skin inches from his. “By the Order of His Hand, King Monsine of Sadai, you are hereby sentenced to death for crimes of… oh hell, being a sick, perverted bastard who likes to break little girls like Ereina.”

  Magistrate Meserre floundered in his sheets as the drug reached his internal organs. His breaths came in muffled gasps as he struggled like a fish buried in sand, and Adelei leaned away from the sight of his efforts. No sign of guilt crossed his bloated features, just fear. Not that it mattered. He was a monster. He deserved it. If he were repentant, he’d get on with it already and die.

  “I am Justice: Amaskan judge in the face of your crimes. I seek justice for all those harmed by your sins,” she whispered the words from the Book of Ja’ahr. He smiled at her, though how he managed through the drugs, she didn’t know, and she placed a hand on his hardening stomach. “You laugh, Magistrate, but today is special. Today, I am also Vengeance. Did you know it was the King’s own niece you broke?”

  A gargle and then a hiss issued forth from his throat. “Yes, His Majesty sent me personally to ensure that your death is slow. Painful. Well, not that slow by the look of things. Maybe I used too much.” She laughed at him, but inside she wanted to flee.

  It wasn’t right. Amaskans weren’t murderers; they weren’t common assassins seeking vengeance. Watching him fight for each gasp of air was difficult, and her stomach heaved, leaving behind the putrid smell of bile to tickle her nostrils. Magistrate Meserre watched helplessly as her knife moved across his skin, marking his body with the sigils of the Thirteen. Whoever found him would know his crimes and know justice had prevailed. The release of blood heralded the release of his bowels, and after too short a time, the release of his soul.

  If the bastard even had one. Adelei wiped the blood clean from her dagger with the Magistrate’s own white silk sheets. Bastard had died too quickly.

  She’d been ordered to make it last, but it seemed he’d been a coward to the end. Adelei closed her eyes a moment and whispered, “Anur, forgive me my vengeance.”

  Risky to take the time to pray, but her conscience required it. She crossed the room and listened again for sounds though she expected none. Several minutes’ walk had her free of the house and down the back alley, the sight of his body burning fresh in her mind.

  At the street corner, she ducked behind a bush and pulled a moist, white rag from the bag she’d tossed beneath the bush earlier in the evening. She clinched her eyes shut as she scrubbed her face and ground her teeth from the burning sting. Odorless though not painless, the oil on the rag removed the grease from her face and hands.

  She continued scrubbing until the white fabric’s corner came away clean, although she left a smudge or two on her forehead and cheek. Too clean a face and she’d stand out in the dirty cloak she had retrieved from the now empty bag. Goat piss stained the cloak’s bottom corner. Adelei’s nose twitched as she drew it closer to her body and raised the hood to cover her bald head.

  Adelei didn’t hide as she made her way across town toward the inn, but she didn’t advertise her presence either. She took notice of the boot heels scraping on the cobble or a cough from an ambling night guardsman. Anything that meant someone other than her was out and about in the predawn hours. As she passed through another dark alley, her footsteps echoed, and she slowed her pace. The echoes slowed, but a moment too late, and Adelei ducked around the corner of the bakery, dropping to her heels in one swift motion. The crates out front masked her shadow, but the second shadow didn’t join her. Instead, whoever followed her stopped just out of sight around the building’s brick edge.

  A black pebble skittered across the road and came to rest three inches from her feet. A second one and then a third joined it moments later. Adelei leaned against the crate beside her.

  “You heading to the inn?” a voice hissed. The Amaskan stepped around the corner, his hood casting deep shadows across his face. He angled his pointed chin to expose the circle tattoo at the jaw joint. Neither his voice nor the marking told her his identity, only that he could be Amaskan.

  He studied her as much as she did him: both stood with
more unease than their relaxed shoulders conveyed as they stood feet apart with their weight resting on their toes. Their dark-colored outfits appeared identical, though his sleeve bore a slight tear near his wrist, and his hand, curled up within the layers of his breeches, surely must have rested on knives of his own. When their gazes met, neither smiled.

  “Anur’s blessing this night,” she said. The hand on his blade twitched, but he said nothing, and she repeated the question, this time with the correct deity. “Asti’s blessing this night.”

  “May blades find evil in its height.”

  Three tests passed. Adelei removed her hand from her pocket and suppressed a chuckle as he mimicked her action. Across the street, a dog barked. Someone shouted, and the sound was silenced. “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “There’s been a change in plans.” Adelei frowned, and he continued, “Is the job done?”

  “It is.”

  She dug the heel of her soft shoe into the dirt at her feet. Great. The King must have sent him to ensure the Magistrate had died slowly. A bead of sweat on her forehead trickled down the side of her face, but she made no move to wipe it away. Instead she ignored it completely and cast a bored look down the street toward the inn.

  He caught the motion and nodded in the inn’s direction. “You’re to return to the Order at once.”

  “Too risky to travel at night. Leaving town now will draw only unwanted attention.”

  When his hand reached for his belt pouch, she tensed. Adelei ignored the piece of parchment he retrieved, and her gaze moved directly to the gold coin between two of his fingers. Not merely gilded as some Sadain coins were, but solid gold and bearing only circles in the markings. When he held it up, she swallowed hard.

  He was an apprentice to the Masters. Why was he sent way out here? Why was he sent after her?

  “Your orders are to return at any risk,” he said and palmed the coin. Adelei took the parchment and unrolled it with unsteady hands.

  Return with all haste. -B.

  One simple line in handwriting she recognized. Master Bredych. She nodded to the man and muttered, “Anur’s blessing.”

  Her nerves itched to shoot down the road at a dead run, but that would bring more attention than her exit already would. Instead she snatched one of the discarded broken bottles from the bakery’s porch and tucked herself back behind the stack of crates.

  Why risk two Amaskans in town just to get her home a day earlier? Out of sight, she unwound the wrapped fabric from her waist and arranged it as a veil, wrapping it around her head and chin. The corners were tucked into the top of her skin-tight tunic, and she dragged her fingers across her jaw to make sure her tattoo was well-hidden from view. She gave her head a good shake and adjusted the veil until convinced it wouldn’t come loose.

  Swift fingers removed a crimson sash tucked into one of her boots, which she wrapped around her waist to give her outfit some color. She couldn’t do anything about the tunic’s tightness—she’d have to hope nobody paid it much mind with the noise she was making. She would have changed clothes anyway as the streets grew too wide to hide in, even at this hour, but she hated the next part. Drawing attention to herself was not her strong point.

  She’d arrived in town a regular sword-for-hire. It was how she had intended to leave as well. Adelei stepped out from behind the crates and mimed taking a swig from the bottle. There were eyes on her, but she didn’t know if it was the Amaskan or someone else.

  For all she knew, the apprentice was off checking her handiwork. She swallowed hard and wished the second swig of air she took from the bottle was something real, something potent to drown the confusion she felt.

  Adelei stumbled further down the open road until she neared the inn’s stables, where she faked another drink of the “potent liquid” and tripped on a jagged piece of cobble with a loud belch. She allowed herself to stumble over her own feet before stopping in plain sight of the stable hands inside. “’Scuse me,” she muttered and followed it with a forced hiccup.

  A stable hand no older than ten poked a bucktoothed head around the archway. His grin lacked intelligence, but one look at her demeanor and he returned to brushing a sable-colored mare. “Just a drunkard,” he called out to someone she couldn’t see, and she grinned beneath the façade.

  Her fingers fumbled at the heavy wooden door, which she allowed to slam into her backside, and Adelei pitched forward. The few face down in their own ale paid her little mind. The barkeep glanced once at her and returned to pouring another glass for a bushy-haired man with cheeks as red as Adelei’s sash. Another mimed drink and another stumble as she reached the lip of the stairs. She continued her charade until she was safely in her own room and the door bolted shut behind her.

  The window was closed and locked, just as she’d left it, and her saddlebags stowed under the crooked wooden-frame that served as a sad excuse for a bed. She shucked off her soft shoes in trade for her travel boots. Nothing else was unpacked—everything ready to go at a moment’s notice.

  Adelei retrieved an extra throw blanket from the mouse-infested chair in the corner and stuffed it under the bed’s lone covering. It wouldn’t fool anyone at close glance, but it might slow someone down from a distance. She removed the bright sash and tossed it into her bag. If she had to, she’d leave it behind. Nothing in the travel bag would give away her identity, and everything inside could be replaced, though she winced at the thought of parting with her bracelet. It was a simple thing, woven of simple grasses in square patterns, but it was the only token that remained from her childhood, from her time before the Order.

  The window opened easily and without sound, and she leaned out with a deep breath of air. She hiccupped again and allowed herself to drop the already broken bottle. It rolled down the sloped roof and shattered when it hit the cobbled street. “Oops.” she muttered and cast a glance at the streets below. If anyone noticed her “accident,” they didn’t give evidence to the fact, and she ducked back inside the window.

  Her foot twitched. What could possibly be so wrong as to risk detection? Dammit, Bredych. Someone might have seen her leave and put two and two together.

  Adelei leaned out the window again. Nothing moved. In the bar room downstairs, two men argued before falling into a raucous laughter. She held her bag out first and eased it down until it rested against the rooftop. When still nothing outside moved, she swung her legs over the window’s sill and lowered herself just as carefully until her rear rested against the wooden shingles. One foot at a time, she inched her way forward until she and her bag sat at the roof’s edge.

  When a patron banged his way out of the inn, she clenched her hands into fists and held her breath until he’d moved a few buildings down. There were no doors on this side of the building. Only one lone window lay below, shuttered in preparation for the storm that loomed in the clouds overhead.

  She had picked this night for the darkness. Because of the storm. She hadn’t thought she’d be traveling in it. Traveling now meant abandoning her horse, or she risked losing the drunkard pretense, but someone would retrieve the mare later when it was safe to do so. Another Amaskan. Possibly one of the merchants the Order dealt with regularly.

  A gust of wind whipped a tree limb against the building, and she used the sound to cover the ones made when she dropped to the ground below. The bag landed before her, and she rolled when her feet hit the cobble. A stone dug into her shoulder, and she winced when she rose to her feet.

  This better be important, Master. That’s going to bruise.

  She traveled on foot until she reached the last farmhouse at the edge of town where she “borrowed” a horse and saddle from the sleeping family. Ten silver left behind in the stall would more than replace the old gelding, though she’d shorted them on the saddle. It was all she had, so it would have to be enough.

  The spotted horse bore the muscles of a working farm horse, and she scratched him between the ears. You’re not exactly built for a fast run through a
forest, but you’ll have to do.

  Once saddled, she secured her bag and led him from his stall and out into the night air. He didn’t buck when she mounted him, though his gate shifted here and there, unsure of his new rider. Both Adelei and the horse eyed the forest. The clouds overhead didn’t rumble, not yet anyway, and she urged the horse forward and into the night.

  Here’s hoping we aren’t seen, old boy. I don’t relish a run through the woods this evening.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The City of Alesta, Alexander; 255 Agaen 21st

  Princess Margaret’s hand shook a moment before completing its movement toward the apple slice resting on the solid oak table in front of her. She stared at her father a moment longer before taking a bite of the fruit.

  “You have said nothing of the news, my sweet,” King Leon said, his fingers twirling his apple core, its leftover juices leaving small trails of liquid on the table. His brows furrowed in concern, which Margaret dismissed with a shake of her head. Instead she pictured Prince Gamun Bajit of Shad and smiled.

  “The news is welcome to my ears, Father. I was lost in thought of my future and ask forgiveness for my silence and the concern it caused you.” His face relaxed as he tossed the apple core into the bowl. He stood and stretched his arms above his head. Her father’s six-foot frame and muscular bulk had provided a protective shelter since her earliest memories.

  Except when she’d been sent away.

  She blinked the memory from her mind, returning to the prince. At age twenty, she rarely sought her father’s embrace but knew it was there should she need it. I hope Prince Bajit is as safe. And as tall. A grin decorated her graceful face, and she smoothed away the smile-lines. The face of a princess. Our children might resemble the handsomeness of my father. It would please him, I think, to see that.

  “Lost in thought again, little lamb?” King Leon patted her hand.

  Margaret nodded and took another careful bite of her apple. “Father, tell me again about Prince Bajit.”