Assassin’s Fate

My anger is not for you. I felt as if my body vibrated to that immense thought. I gripped Per’s hand so tightly he exclaimed in surprise. I heard what they said. They enslaved a serpent and kept it in misery to make a foul potion.

They did. Vindeliar drank it. Then he could make people do as he said. I was shaking all over. I wanted not to feel his immense anger. My sadness already filled me. There was no room for his fury. I tried to placate him. Per killed him. Per killed Vindeliar, and I killed the woman who gave it to him.

But my thoughts didn’t quench his anger. Like oil on flames, I’d fed his fury. Death is not enough punishment! He took it, but others made it. Yet avengers come. I do not wish to leave until I see Clerres toppled to rubble. I will not flee like a coward!

I heard Per gasp. I heard shouts from crewmen but what I felt drove all other sensations away. I fell to the deck as a great emotion rippled through the ship. The deck did not rock and heave; still I clung to the planks fearing that what I felt would be enough to throw me into the sky.

‘He’s changing!’ someone shouted, and Per gave a wild, wordless cry. Under my hands, the planks of the deck lost their grain and became scaly. A terrible dizziness whirled through me and heaved my empty stomach. I lifted my head, sick with terror. Where my father’s form had been, two dragon’s heads now wove on long, sinuous necks. The larger one was blue, a smaller one green. The blue one swivelled to look back toward us. His eyes spun, orange and golds and yellows mingling in pools like molten metal. He spoke, his reptilian lips writhing back from white pointed teeth. ‘Per! Avenger of serpents and dragons!’

I was still on my hands and knees. Per was looking up at the figurehead, his teeth bared in a smile, or a grimace of terror. I heard running footsteps on the deck behind me and Lant abruptly pulled me to my feet.

‘There you are! I was so … Bee, come with me. We need to get you out of the way!’

I bristled, but Per said, ‘I’ll take her to the cabin.’ He pulled me away from Lant, who was gaping at the figureheads, and led me across the deck, dodging running sailors. I let him lead, paying no attention to where we went or how. Disaster was in the air. I wondered if I would ever be safe again. If I would live through the day.

Per tried to deny it as he opened the door to a small, tidy chamber. ‘We’re going to get away, Bee. Once we are out of the harbour and the sails fill, we’ll be clear. Paragon flies through the waves. No one will be able to catch us.’

I nodded, but did not feel any relief. The ship’s passions sliced through me like broken pieces of bone in my flesh.

‘Just sit here. I wish I could stay, but I have to go help,’ he told me. He backed toward the door, patting the air with both hands as if that would calm me. ‘Just stay here,’ he begged me, and shut the door as he left me there. Alone. I swayed where I sat. I could feel the ship resisting his crew. They wished to flee; he did not.

It was a small cabin. Untidy, but not dirty. A small window. Two stacked bunks and a single bunk. A woman’s clothing scattered on the floor. An array of items set out on both lower bunks.

I sat down on the bed, pushing aside a shirt to make room. Buck-blue, my father called this colour. When I moved it, a faint fragrance awoke as three candles tumbled from inside it. Battered candles, impregnated with lint and dust, and cracked. But I knew my mother’s work. Honeysuckle. Lilac. The little violets from our stream that fed the Withy River. I gathered them into my father’s shirt as if I bundled a baby. I held them and rocked. Were they all I had left of my parents? A strange piece of knowledge grew in me. I was an orphan now. They were both gone. Gone forever.

I had not seen him dead, but I felt him dead in a way I could not define. ‘Wolf Father?’ I said aloud. Nothing. The loss struck me with numbing force. My father was dead. He had journeyed for months to find me, and we’d had less than half a day together. All that was left to me were the things he had carried so far with him, things he had judged necessary. Such as my mother’s candles.

I looked at what he had brought. I wiped my face on his shirt. He would not have minded that. I moved a pair of weather-stained trousers and saw a familiar belt beneath it. And beside it, my books.

My books?