Assassin’s Fate

I stood still. The room beyond the locked door smelled bad, a cross between the low tide in Chalced and a dirty butcher’s stall. I didn’t want to enter. I should have run from her when I had the chance. It’s a trap!

‘In we go,’ she said brightly, putting a hand in middle of my back and shoving me into the room. She pulled the door shut behind us.

I moved quickly away from her into a room with walls and floor of stone. The carrion smell and the stink of faeces grew stronger. I wrapped my arms around myself, for the room was chill and dank. There were fat oil-lamps on shelves at intervals on the walls, but their wicks were low and the light illuminated little more than the lamps themselves. I heard something move and the soft clinking of chain. I squinted and saw a barred door and beyond it, a huddled shape. Did she intend to confine me in a cell down here? She’d have to catch me first! I put more distance between us.

‘Come back, Bee! Remember? Candy?’

Yes, she truly thought me that stupid.

Good. Wolf Father’s response was terse. Find a weapon. Kill her. Escape.

Kill her? I could barely frame the thought. I can’t.

You must. That smell is old blood. Lots of it. She brought you to a place of bloodshed. Of killing.

I glanced over my shoulder, gave Symphe a vacuous smile and said, ‘I want to find the people with the candy!’

She was faster than I had expected. In the second I glanced away from her, she crossed the distance between us and seized my upper arm in a tight grip.

Don’t fight her. Not yet. Wait until you know you can kill.

My eyes were adjusting to the dimness. There were other cells. In one, there was someone on the floor, sprawled and still. She walked me past a stone table with metal rings set into the sides and edges. It smelled of blood and old piss. There was a bank of layered benches. Oh. I had seen this place, in Vindeliar’s mind. Here they had tormented Beloved. The dim light hinted at ugly stains on the table and on the floor around it. I felt ill. I feigned a stumble and her hand clenched tighter. I dropped to my knees, testing her strength. She kept hold of me but now I knew. She was fast but not as strong as Dwalia. If I had to, I could break her grip.

Not yet.

‘Bee! Don’t pull away. Soon we will have the candy. It’s so delicious.’

She had moved into the dim pool of light of one of the lamps. It was like a big teapot, with the wick poking out of its spout and two handles like ears to pick it up. She reached up to lift it from its shelf. She did not want to let go of me, so she had to lift it by one handle. It was so heavy that her hand shook and the flame on the wick flared up as the oil slopped toward it. She set it on the floor with the scrape of heavy pottery on stone. She poked at the wick. The flame grew taller and it lit a wider circle around us.

‘Did you bring her?’ Vindeliar’s voice.

‘Did you get the keys?’ That was Dwalia. I shrank back into the darkness.

‘Hush. Yes to both.’ Symphe laughed softly. ‘The keys I’ve had for years!’

My heart thundered in my chest. Had I missed my chance? What hope did I have against three of them? The brighter light reached into the cell and I feared to look. But Dwalia huddled on a bunk, her hands trapped between her knees. I saw her fever-bright eyes and chapped mouth. Infection had set into her lacerated flesh. Vindeliar was in the same cage, hunkered on the floor. He’d taken a beating; his eyes were blackened, his lower lip split. I could see the chain that bound him tightly to a ring set in the cold stone, barely two links between his neck and the floor ring. How his body must ache from that forced crouch. His only alternative would be to lie on the cold, filthy floor.

Symphe’s slender fingers bit deep into my arm. ‘Pick up the lamp,’ she ordered me.

I stooped to obey her but she did not let go of my arm. The lamp was as big around as a milk bucket and heavy. I wrapped my arms around it with the flame away from me and lifted. I did not like how the flame leapt and stuttered. ‘This way,’ she said and pulled me toward the cell. I concentrated on breathing calmly and keeping the lamp steady. It was designed to be left on a shelf, not carried. I wondered how long I could hold it.

Weapon, weapon, there was no weapon. I could break free of her and run, but she had locked the door. Was there another way out? Likely it was locked as well. I needed a plan, but I had no plan. I wanted my father desperately. He would know what to do. The night we had burned the messenger’s body, he had thought it all through, in just a few minutes. What would he do now?

Stop thinking about doing. Just be ready to do.