“I’m afraid you have no choice,” she said to Selena, bolder now. “I don’t wish to force your hand, but I will if I must with an official decree. To disobey means demotion from the rank of Paladin, perhaps even exile from the Temple. These Bazira are closer to the Western Watch than at any time in recent memory. We cannot have the Bazira establishing strongholds so near. War will certainly come again if our dark brethren are allowed to land the Shadow Armada on our shores.”
“And if our armada could deal with the Bazira alone, I would undertake the mission myself,” Archer Crane said and Selena heard the longing in the man’s voice. “But their magic is best fought with your magic. You know this.”
“What will the Bazira consider the murder of two of their own if not an act of war?” Selena asked.
“You need not concern yourself with the ramifications,” Justarch Osten said. “You need do as you’re commanded. The safety of the Western Watch must come before any trifling moral objections on your part.”
Selena recoiled as if slapped. Moral objections? The wound breathed its icy breath, a moral objection from the god for the life she had taken. The Justarch regarded her with undisguised repulsion. He had no idea what he was asking.
“The two Bazira are esteemed among the Shadow face’s ruling body. Bacchus especially,” Admiral Crane said. “We, the Alliance, feel that the benefit of their absence outweighs the risks.”
Selena clenched her jaw. “High Reverent,” she said to Celestine, “the last time I took life unprovoked…”
“Killing the invading Zak’reth was hardly done without provocation,” Taliah said. “This is no different.”
“No different?” A sudden, uncommon fury welling in Selena. “With all due respect, you haven’t the slightest notion,” she said. “I killed hundreds of innocents with that spell meant for the Zak’reth and now bear the mark to prove it.”
Her hand went to her chest with a half-mad intention of ripping aside her tunic to show them the wound. The chamber hushed. She could feel them craning in to see. But she let her hand drop. Only Skye and Ilior had ever seen the wound and she intended that no one else ever would.
Celestine cleared her throat. “Yes, of course, of course,” she said. “Taliah, Paladin Koren is correct. We cannot hope to understand the pain she has suffered and continues to suffer in service to us, the Alliance, and to Lunos. But it’s with your wound in mind, Selena, that Skye’s plans bear the most fortuitous fruit.”
My mouth went dry. “What do you mean?
“It is Skye’s decree that you kill these two Bazira, Accora and Bacchus,” Celestine said, “because she believes doing so will close your wound.”
The bathhouse in the basement of the dormitories was empty. A servant typically lit the fire and drew the water from the well, but Selena took up the bucket herself. She had to be alone for what she intended to do.
Close your wound…
She had left the meeting in a daze, hearing nothing but that promise resounding in her head. Ilior had been waiting for her at the atrium as promised, but she couldn’t speak. She had told the High Reverent that she needed one night to meditate, to pray to the god for guidance in this matter. That was only partially true. Selena’s heart quaked in fear at taking life unprovoked. She knew all too well the god’s wrath. But Skye had the god’s ear like no other. If what she said was true…
When the bath was drawn, Selena stood alone in the bathhouse. Dripping water echoed on the stone floors, while steam from the bath water curled up in gentle tendrils. Her wound exhaled, and she shivered.
Whatever they ask of me, I won’t Summon. Never again. The price is too high.
Selena stepped out of her sleeping dress and into the bath. The tingles were sharp; the water was near scalding. The water came just below her breasts, wetting the bottom lengths of her pale blond hair that she kept draped over the wound.
Selena washed herself, and her long hair with powered soap that left the water chalky. Every inch of her skin had known the touch of the washcloth but one. She took a deep, tremulous breath and pulled her hair over her shoulder to lay the wound bare.
Her gaze went to it immediately, mesmerized. Blackness. A black crescent moon, stark on her pale skin. Not the black of a tattoo or bruise, the blackness of a shadow, a starless patch of night sky. Blackness that had depth. That breathed.
She stared at it, and her hand rose limply, as if on strings, to trace its crescent shape. The draft over her fingertips was colder now that there was no clothing to muffle it. She felt the smooth ridge where her skin ended and the black nothingness began. Her head cocked to the side. She watched as her fingers touched the edge of the wound and then vanished into the great void where there was no bone or muscle or beating heart to count the passing moments…
I ran inside the house. My father’s travel sack and hat were in the foyer. He’d come home! With my heart pounding with joy in my chest, I clambered up the winding stairs. The big house seemed empty, but I heard something in my parents’ sleeping quarters. As if someone had dropped a sack of flour onto the floor.
I slowed my steps. I could feel a tingle over my skin, like cold breath. I pushed open the door and stepped into a nightmare.
My mind wouldn’t comprehend the whole of what I was seeing. It was too much. My vision shattered into pieces...The knife was silver. The blood was red. The body on the floor wasn’t moving. My mother’s eyes were filled with tears and madness.
“Selena…You’ll be all right,” she told me and then thrust the knife under her own ribs...
Selena jolted, sloshing water over the side. Always the worse memories, she thought, as sobs choked her. And that one, the worst of them all.
She blinked, and shook her head to clear it, confused. Something was wrong. Her arm was held in an awkward position. She looked down. Her entire hand was gone, lost inside the wound.
Selena thrashed and a scream tore from her throat. She ripped her hand from the hole in her chest, out of the endless blackness bored deep inside her where no heat lived. She held up it up before her, staring at it with wide eyes, her breath hitching and her heart pounding in her ears. It was rimed with frost from the tip of the fingers to the wrist, coated with shimmering ice crystals, as if she’d dipped it in diamond dust.
No, not again…
“No, no, no,” she whispered. “How long have I…?” She plunged her hand into the bath water. Muted tingles told her it was no longer scalding hot, but lukewarm.
“No. No more. Please. I can’t take it any longer. Please…No more…”
She scraped the frosty crystals off her skin, rubbing frantically long after they had melted away. She gathered her hair and yanked it down over her left side, and then wrapped her arms around her knees. She sat for long moments, rocking and adding her tears to the quickly cooling water.
And when the water was cold and she began to shiver in earnest, she threw her head back in a silent wail of anguish that no one could hear.
One Last Job
Isle Kabak
The assassin was being followed.
He kept his pace slow, almost strolling, and listened. Two sets of steps dogged his; he could distinguish their quicker pace from those of the thin, desultory crowd that shuffled around him. They stopped when he stopped. They quickened their pace when he did.