Oathbreakers' Guild (The Rose Shield Book 2) Page 8

  “Advice you should have heeded prior to enlisting us in this misadventure.” Piergren dropped to a seat, elbows on his knees as he leered at her.

  “You forget, Vianne; she doesn’t bear a choice.” Dalcoran shook his head. “We are different. We may choose Ellegeance or our guild over an individual’s orders. We’ve sworn our primary oaths to nebulous entities where interpretation and consensus matter, not to distinct humans who might render rash decisions based on ambition or emotion. She will never enjoy such luxury.”

  “We all killed an innocent,” Piergren said. “We all stole a life for no reason at all but to prove we could carry out a vile act if necessary.”

  Vianne met his eyes, refusing to look away from his challenge. She had killed a stranger at a tipple house. Popped his brain like a plum, tossed a few coins to the table, and left him face down as if deep in his cups. She’d walked out, bathed, and started wearing white. No death since had been so hard.

  “How many of us refused to slay a soul since?” Piergren persisted. When none of them replied, he narrowed his eyes. “Not one of us, as I expected. We have all killed since then, haven’t we, when the need arose? It’s not so hard to pinch a life when it interferes with our vision of Ellegeance, when we are swaying events to our guild’s satisfaction, when others stand in our way. Are you telling me that all the victims of our guild were guilty?”

  “Piergren is right,” Tunvise said. The old man hadn’t fully recovered his health, another topic for conversation Vianne wished to forestall. “Her oath to the heiress is complicated by her insistence that she bears a choice.”

  “What do you propose?” Vianne asked.

  “I propose we assist her through this hurdle,” Piergren said, “for Ellegeance and the guild.”

  ***

  Catling reported to the guild’s intimate meeting hall, expecting to defend her defiance to the four doyen. The door slid aside when she tapped the panel, and the scene’s strangeness gave her pause. The only doyen in the room, Piergren-Rho, waved her in.

  “Catling, close the door, would you?”

  The door sealed with a soft thud. “Piergren-Rho, my respects.”

  As she bowed, she eyed the young woman lounging in a chair with her legs tucked under her, a goblet of wine dangling from her fingers. A year or two older than Catling, she was a servant from the tenth tier, a laundress with a fall of chestnut curls and smooth curves. She smiled with half-lidded eyes, fluttered a hand in Catling’s direction, and giggled at her state of partial undress.

  The man’s influence clogged the air, love and pleasure twisting a noose around the woman’s throat. “I’ll return at a more convenient time,” Catling said, intending to march to Vianne’s quarters and demand she stop the impending rape.

  “Stay,” Piergren ordered. He leaned over and kissed the woman’s upturned lips. His dark hair hung loose and hid their faces as he reached down and caressed her cheek. The wine goblet hit the floor, slopped, and rolled. The woman slumped, head bent against her shoulder. A leg slipped from the chair, foot slapping the ruby puddle beneath her.

  Catling stared at the loose body, her words spilling with her breath. “Did you kill her?”

  “Asleep,” he replied, his fingers exploring the slack face. “You will kill her.”

  “No, I won’t.” Catling retreated toward the door.

  “Shield her or she’s dead.” He stood beside the laundress, facing Catling, the fire in his eyes daring her to stop him. His influence changed; Catling sensed the presence of death, the woman’s breath laboring in her sleep. Furious, she slapped a shield over his victim, protecting her.

  Catling jolted as a seed of pain bloomed in her head. At the same moment, the woman, now shielded from Piergren’s manipulative touch, awoke to find his hand on her face and her body exposed. With a cry of panic, she struggled to extract herself. Piergren gripped her arm, holding her to the chair.

  “Shield her or she’s dead,” he repeated.

  Pain arced down Catling’s neck, her muscles contracting. She held the shield, leaving herself vulnerable as the woman in the chair cried and begged, digging at Piergren’s wrist with her nails. Catling sank to the floor as her joints twisted, fear flooding her thoughts. Piergren loathed her; he’d torture her, bereft of pity, and her only means of escape entailed shielding herself and letting the woman die.

  She held the shield, no longer listening to the woman’s weeping, her own screams ringing in her ears. Influence knifed through her, carved her skin, flaying and searing the flesh from her bones. Piergren smiled, rapt, jaw hard, eyes like pools of ink. The woman gaped at her, knowing her own death approached, only moments away.

  “I’m sorry,” Catling wailed and shifted the shield. Her pain ceased, and the woman slid from the chair. She crumpled to the floor. Dead.

  Catling closed her eyes, panting where she lay, the memory of pain shuddering through her. Tears squeezed from under her lids and dribbled down her temples, the urge to sob lodged in her chest. She released her shield and shuddered at the subtle layers of pleasure and love sweeping her senses. “No,” she cried, pulling her shield back over her like a shroud.

  The doyen squatted beside her and stroked her hair. “Now you fully appreciate your flaw. You understand what is at risk. You’ve learned your final lesson, Catling. You are not as powerful as you think.”

  Her hand snapped out as if to swat his touch away. She gripped his wrist and blasted a hole through his heart. The doyen clutched his chest, a flash of horror contorting his face. He fell backward, rolled to his side, and died.

  She blinked at her hands, disbelief assaulting her awareness and catching her breath. Her shield in place, she’d influenced. For the first time, she’d exerted both powers simultaneously. A little smile tugged at her lip, and she tucked that secret up her sleeve.

  Piergren lay beside her, his eyes and mouth open. On her feet, she staggered toward the door and clutched the back of a chair to steady her trembling. She had killed an innocent woman and a man in the prime of his life.

  She had passed her final test.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Darkest Night.

  Kadan drew his hood over his forehead. Mur-Vallis lay far enough south to suffer the chill winds of the Fangwold Mountains before the other provinces. Harvest painted the countryside in shades of gold and umber, and morning frost transformed the pastures to twinkling glass.

  He paused on the Blackwater docks. Despite the river’s glistening beauty and the welcoming majesty of his home’s tall timberlands, he missed the swamp’s pungent scent, the gloom of moss-laden caliph, and hummocks of white witchwood. Even with the untold challenges of the past six years, he missed Ava-Grea and his friends. He dreaded the calculation in his uncle’s steel eyes.

  No moons graced the sky, the sweep of stars bright with superstition. What more perfect night to kill?

  Minessa and Catling would refuse the trial, but he’d no such option. His uncle required his obedience for a service steeped in death. Whatever Dalcoran had alluded to when he offered Kadan an escape from this duty, it hadn’t come to fruition, not yet. He wouldn’t jeopardize the opportunity should it arise; he needed to pass this test. They’d tasked him with the role of assassin, and he’d play the part.

  The docks abutted the warrens’ markets. Beneath the tiers, the dark underworld sprawled in a labyrinth of musty alleyways and ramshackle walls, none of it Founder-made but the three giant pylons supporting the tiers. Kadan wandered into the warrens of wood, stone, and dank mud-formed walls.

  He ambled through the alleyways, uncertain who he’d kill. An innocent but not a child, someone he could maneuver into the shadows and leave behind without raising suspicion. He wanted to finish it before he faltered. He’d armored his heart, but it was an armor smelted of illusion, and he didn’t expect it to last.

  The raucous sounds of merriment caught his attention, and he followed them to the Ship’s Fate, a low-ceilinged tipple house deep in the warrens. A Cul
l Tarr figurehead of the coupling god marked the wide room’s center, its arms and legs tangled in a sinuous embrace. He idled at the bar, sipping a drink, careful not to blunt his influence as he studied the crowd. Chipped tables wobbled on crooked legs while patrons tossed cards and dice for coppers. Men and women slugged down mugs of tipple. They swilled cups of spike, burning their throats and dulling their heads. No one who’d arrived solo stayed that way for long.

  “Do I know you?” The woman’s voice tickled his ear.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Though nearly double his age, she was attractive, willowy with fiery red hair down to her waist, a brush of gray at her temples.

  “Would you like to?” He offered the stool beside him.

  “If you buy me a tipple.” She sat, angling her head. “I’m Farrow.”

  “I’m no one.” Kadan shared a smile. “From Se-Vien until recently.”

  “A nameless stranger. How mysterious.” She laughed. Tiny smile lines creased the corners of her eyes and the sides of her mouth. She was one of those women whose lips were naturally red.

  “Are you bonded?” he asked. “Any children?”

  Her eyes shot open. “My, you do get right down to business, don’t you? No and no. And you?”

  “No and no.” He waved to the barkeep, and the man delivered Farrow’s poison.

  “What brings you to Mur-Vallis, my new friend?” She sipped her drink.

  “Seeking the right person to spend a little time with.”

  “That seems hard to believe.” Her eyebrows arched. “You’re attractive. Don’t tell me all the women in Se-Vien are bonded with children.”

  He glanced at her and frowned, wishing she’d walk away and knowing she wouldn’t. “I’m looking for someone special, probably someone like you.”

  “My, you are the sweetest thing, Stranger, but aren’t I a little old? There are plenty of young women in Mur-Vallis eager to have their legs greased for a few whole coppers.”

  The meaning of her words almost slipped by him. “Is that how you get by?”

  Her smile slid from her face. “I used to have another friend here. Not a lover, though I won’t say we didn’t find a little comfort now and then. He disappeared seven years ago, and for all I know, he’s dead. I have a life here, even so, and I do what I must to survive.”

  He peered into his full cup and breathed. Talking to her was a mistake. He hadn’t wanted a name let alone a story. She wasn’t going to leave him, so he got up and walked away.

  Outside the Ship’s Fate, she caught up with him. “Did I say something wrong? You seem like a good fellow. I only jested when I said I was too old.”

  Hauling in a breath, he turned to face her. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong, and you’re not too old. The problem is I’m not a good fellow.”

  “I’ll grant you, you’re an odd one,” she said with a wink, grasping his hand and giving him a tug toward a set of stairs. He looked up. The twisted steps led to the floors crammed between the Ship’s Fate and the bottom of the first tier. “Come with me.” She tilted her head, coaxing him with a smile.

  Kadan studied her face, branded it into his mind’s eye. He followed her up to her room and into her bed. And when she slept curled in his arms, he snuffed out her life.

  ***

  Compared to the height and breadth of Ava-Grea, Mur-Vallis felt small, crowded, and shabby. An ugly place in his youth, his older perspective did it no favors. Everywhere Kadan looked, the people seemed subdued, ensnared by poverty in the warrens, entrapped by their ruler’s temper in the tiers. He sighed as he climbed the circular stairs, his misery shading the city in a thunderhead of hopelessness.

  He paused when he reached the city’s gardened peak, the seventh tier where his uncle, High Ward Algar, ruled by blade and noose. Algar’s residence stood central, surrounded by a courtyard of potted trees and rimmed by the quarters of his advisors and influencers. When Kadan’s father died, his uncle had taken him and his mother in, a debt Algar would never let them forget.

  What Kadan had done sickened him. Each memory roused the bitter taste of bile. He’d rolled Farrow off his arm, pale and limp, red hair falling across her open mouth. He’d tucked her in her bed, hiding any sign of a companion. She had fallen asleep and died for no reason. No reason at all.

  He wasn’t an assassin, was he? Could he bear a life of coercion and death? Algar had taught him entitlement and cruelty, and the lessons had almost stuck. Almost but not quite. Algar demanded more than Kadan could give. His uncle couldn’t force him to stand on the first tier and render the crowds drunk on death. The man could threaten, but he couldn’t compel Kadan to send children skipping from the tier’s ledge with a rope around their necks.

  Even if he granted his allegiance, Kadan could claim his higher oaths. His uncle’s violence damaged Ellegeance and tarnished the guild, and Kadan would tell him so. Then if Algar demanded his vow, he’d give it and do him justice, as long as they both understood that Kadan couldn’t be the man his uncle expected him to be. Could he?

  Stars blazed across the moonless sky, dawn yet hours away. He entered the residence through the front door, greeted the guards, and crept through the rambling hallways to the chambers he shared with his mother. In a few days, he would move to his own rooms within the influencers’ hall, the privacy a luxury he’d relish.

  The door to his mother’s quarters slid open. Luminescent tubes, shaded in blue, glowed dimly over an elegant salon, his youthful paintings adorning the walls as if time stood motionless with her confines. He’d expected emptiness, silence. Instead, his mother spun toward him, still wearing the black jacket and underdress of mourning. Her face paled to the color of ash, lip swollen and blond hair in disarray. She inhaled a sob and hugged him.

  “What is it?” Kadan asked. “Why are you awake? What happened?”

  “Your uncle requires your presence immediately.” She pressed him toward the door, her thumb and fingertips forming their round signal for danger, a gesture so instinctive he doubted she noticed. “He heard you’d landed and didn’t know where you were, and I didn’t know. I couldn’t find you. He’s livid.”

  “He wants me now?”

  She wiped her eyes. “He said as soon as you arrived. Something’s happened. He raged at me, furious that you weren’t here.”

  “I’m not his shadow. Nor am I your responsibility.”

  “It isn’t up to you.” She shook him, her body trembling. “Please, Kadan, don’t make him any angrier than he is.”

  “I’ll go,” he said calmly. He held her arms, pushed her a step back and soaked her with peaceful pleasure, countering her natural fear with love. “It will be fine. I’ll be fine.”

  Her shoulders dropped, and she breathed. “Yes, of course. I don’t know what I was thinking. I felt such a panic.”

  “Go to bed; it’s nearly morning. We’ll meet for our midday meal when you wake.”

  “Yes, I’d love to, Kadan.” She smiled, watching as he slipped from the room.

  The door slid closed, severing his influence. Her panic would rear up, and there was nothing he could do to soften it. The lovely mother of his youth had frayed into a tattered memory. He strode down the corridor and climbed to the third floor where Algar kept his rooms. Composing himself, he knocked.

  “Enter, Kadan,” his uncle barked.

  Kadan stepped inside, bowed, and dusted the man with ease. “My respects, Uncle.”

  “Have a seat.” Algar gestured to a chair in front of his desk. Wine stained his long jacket, his dark hair disheveled and ice-gray eyes bloodshot. He tossed a letter to Kadan and sank onto his chair, staring at nothing. “Read it.”

  Without a word, Kadan reached for the letter, unfolded it, and smoothed the creases.

  It is with sincere sadness that I write to inform you of your son’s death. A fine and respected man, Marcer-Mur lost his life on the twelfth of Harvest in an accident in the yards. I assure you we made every effort to heal his wounds, but the damage to
his body was beyond our best influencer’s skills. Be comforted to know he died while engaged in his passion for the sea. He will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved him.

  My deepest regrets, Glain-Rho, High Wardess, Rho-Dania

  “This is sad news.” Kadan placed the letter on the desk. “I have fond memories of Marcer.”

  “I held visions of him ruling all of Ellegeance.” Algar tapped a knuckle against his chin. “The heiress would have found him kind-hearted, wise, and talented. A proper king.”

  “Ellegeance would have benefitted greatly from his rule,” Kadan said. It mattered little now that Algar’s dreams were illusions. Marcer had loathed his father and foiled every one of Algar’s ruthless plans when he fled Mur-Vallis. He’d lacked the ambition to rule and chosen a simpler life, bonding with a fisherman’s daughter and building ships. “Gereld will surely rise to the occasion.”

  Algar’s eyes flashed. “Don’t patronize me, Kadan. Gereld is a drunk. He pours gold down his throat like wine. He gambles and whores in the warrens, and one day he’ll be gutted for cheating the wrong man.”

  The outburst required no reply. Kadan sat in silence as his uncle poured himself a goblet of wine, shaking the overturned bottle to extract the last dregs. Algar drained the cup, pushed back from his desk, and turned to the window, staring at the pale pink of dawn. “You will inherit Mur-Vallis, Kadan. You’ve done all I asked. Imagine the power you’ll wield when that day comes—the authority of a high ward with the command of influence.” He swiveled to the desk and tossed a sheaf of ivory documents in his direction. “The order for Justice to make it so.”

  The papers slapped the desk as the announcement drummed in Kadan’s head. He had expected a different conversation, a severing of ties, shouting, and perhaps a worse pounding than he’d suffered as a child. “Your decision honors me, Uncle.”

  “You’ve finished your trials?”

  The question furrowed Kadan’s brow. Of course, his uncle would know of the trails. He nodded, refusing to provide details.