For all women who have had obstacles placed in their path but have mastered their lives anyway because they never gave up
For all women who have lost family and friends but have carried on regardless
For all women who fight not only for themselves but for the greater good
And last but not least, for all women who believe in true love
Tropes: romantasy – enemies to lovers – found family – strong FMC – shadow wielder
Triggerwarnings: trauma processing – rejection – betrayal
If you also liked: Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Blood and Ash
Prologue
Eiwren brushed an invisible speck of dust from her robe before lifting her chin confidently and looking round with a firm expression.
"My husband and I deny this accusation", she said, brushing her copper-colored hair behind her pointy ears, which spilled down to the steps of the platform around her feet. "You forget that our own child also plays a role in this matter", she emphasized, her green eyes flashing defiantly. The man to her left, his brown hair in small braids, nodded in agreement.
"Divine imprints are not given lightly", Cilian said piqued. Eiwren gave him a placating look and clasped her hand with his. A clearing of the throat to Eiwren's right made her head whirl round.
"You may not have forgotten your child, yet you must admit that the current regent's child has an advantage in the event of a rejected bonding", a man named Laran said. His golden eyes looked pleadingly back and forth between Cilian and Eiwren, finally stopping at the goddess of the five elements.
"You know what pain and agony that can mean", the man said in a choked voice. "You know that very well, Eiwren", said the god of harvest, nature and purity, looking her straight in the face. Eiwren bowed her head slightly. Her eyes glazed over and for a moment she seemed to be lost in past memories. But she quickly regained her composure.
"Our son is strong", the woman to Laran's right continued. "Yet we fear for his death if the bond is not reciprocated."
The woman with the long black hair placed her hand reassuringly on Laran's arm. She was the goddess of the night, of shadows and secrets. Her silver eyes had also taken on a pleading look.
"I can understand your fears", Eiwren returned through gritted teeth as she clawed her nails into the light-colored marble armrest of the throne.
"Nevertheless, fate is already written and cannot be changed", her husband continued. "It cannot be changed."
The face of the god of the sea, peace and destiny remained hard and unyielding. Eiwren stroked the back of his hand with her thumb.
"Calista and Laran are right to fear for their child", another woman intervened. Calista's raven-black hair swayed around her shoulders as she looked to the goddess of war, violence and power, for support. "Or have you all forgotten what happened in the last fateful union?" Her ice-blue eyes looked round. Her dark brown, almost black skin puckered around her mouth as she pursed her lips maliciously.
"That connection was not exactly crowned with success." Kaireal fixed Laran and Eiwren with her gaze.
"That happened a long time ago and nobody was destroyed!", Cilian roared, hammering his fist on the armrest. It was rare to see the god of peace lose his temper. Eiwren squeezed his hand again, entwining her fingers more tightly with his.
Kaireal's twin brother Kaelith also took the floor. "We should let things take their course. Fate is already determined; death will come one way or another when the time is right." The god of dreams, sleep and death ran a hand through his grey beard, which stood out noticeably against his black hair and dark skin.
Evin rolled his eyes. "That's a bit easy for you to say as the god of death, don't you think?" The unassuming man with the brown hair and brown eyes laughed mischievously, as if this was all just one big joke. His braided beard twisted along with his lips as he grinned. "But I agree with Kaelith. We should wait and see what happens." The god of health, family and home took an unhealthy pleasure in drama of any kind.
Sy had his fingertips together and was humming in agreement. His blindfolded eyes and expressionless face showed no emotion. His long silver hair flowed around his body like glistening water. As a god of wisdom, science and logic, he was rarely guided by emotion, so he only contributed to a topic when asked directly and only when he had enough time to gather every last fact about said topic.
"Anyone else want to give their opinion on challenging fate or even intervening in its course?" Eiwren asked in a challenging tone. The woman on Cilian's right raised a dainty hand. Eiwren lowered her head and motioned for the woman with the violet eyes to speak.
"Since the dawn of time, we have ruled the worlds together. For eons of years, we have ruled together, passed judgement together." Her inky black curls danced around her face as she spoke. "That is exactly how we should proceed in this matter now. We vote."
The goddess of deceit, hatred and hope seemed to be having a good day today, as her rather prickly nature didn't seem to have the upper hand today. Medea seemed to be approaching the matter extremely rationally. She leaned forward and tried to look past Sy in the semicircle of stone thrones to Liliana. The goddess with the heart-shaped face, full blonde hair and blue eyes had been chewing on her full lips since the beginning of the argument. She hated arguments and was more the harmonious type. She sighed. She hadn't contributed anything to this discussion yet and now it seemed like it was time to say something.
"Yes", Liliana said and nodded. She could feel the gazes of the other eleven gods on her. "Yes, we should vote", she added. The goddess of love, coming together and birth shifted nervously in her chair. "Would anyone else like to add anything?" Cilian asked the group. No one broke the silence that reigned beneath the stone pagoda.
"Very well", said Eiwren, releasing her hand from her husband's and bringing their palms together. She rose from her stone throne, although she could easily see everyone from the raised platform in the center of the semicircle. "Fate is independent. Although my husband has a certain influence on fate, this is also limited. An intervention in fate is an intervention in the course of time, in the balance of worlds, in the balance of powers. Potential intervention and action can have irreversible consequences that cannot be undone. If fate is to be accepted, vote Yes. If fate is to be challenged, vote No. Abstentions will not be tolerated. Now cast your votes."
Her resounding voice carried far across the stone room.
The five gods to her right and the five gods to Cilian's left raised their left palms upwards.
"Jules", Eiwren called out. A bright white flame appeared in the hand of the man with the short blond curls. The god of art, music and time voted yes.
"Kaireal", Eiwren called out. A black flame appeared in her hand. She voted no.
"Kaelith", Eiwren called out. White flames appeared for yes.
"Calista", Eiwren called out. Black flames circled her fingers for no.
"Laran", Eiwren called out. Also black for no.
Eiwren turned to the five gods seated to Cilian's left.
"Medea", Eiwren called out. White and bright for yes.
"Sy", Eiwren called out. White flames flickered like wild snakes of his palm.
"Liliana", Eiwren called out. She hesitated. A small black flame appeared on her palm.
"Evin", Eiwren called out. White flames for yes.
"Lyra", Eiwren called out. The goddess of light, stars and weather continued to silently give her answer with a bright starlight on the palm of her hand. Her golden gaze rested on Eiwren, disinterested and unconcerned.
Regret and worry weighed down the shoulders of Calista and Laran, for they knew how Eiwren and Cilian would vote. The regent and her husband flashed their palms with bright flames.
Eight of the gods voted in favor, four gods voted against.
"The vote is over. There will be no interference with destiny." Eiwren bowed her head humbly and folded her hands. "We place the lives of our children in the hands of fate itself." She sat back on her throne. She looked anything but pleased. Cilian sought her hand again, clasped it and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. He could feel her trembling.
"I wasn't wrong this time, I promise", he whispered so that only she could hear.
Chapter 1
Linnia
Dozens of torches in metal holders illuminated the faded limestone walls, casting flickering shadows across the ceiling and walls. In the large hall, several wooden obstacles, hiding places and devices with wooden targets had been set up into a circular labyrinth.
I stood at the entrance to the hall under the stone archway and felt the cold wood of the heavy door at my back. Despite the coolness of the room, a single drop of sweat trickled down my spine, sending shivers down my back. This was already my fourth run, and I had almost completed the course flawlessly.
I took a deep breath, adjusted the daggers on my waist and chest harness and then turned over the hourglass on the wooden table next to the entrance. The sand began to trickle.
I ran and drew two daggers from my chest strap as I run, keeping my eyes fixed on the two wooden barriers ahead, and threw them one after the other. They whizzed through the air, describing a slight arc each, to bore into the two targets behind the wooden barriers. Without checking if I had hit it, I sprinted towards the next obstacle, which looked like a very low archway with a narrow slit at the bottom, only passable by crawling or sliding on the ground. Without slowing my pace, I dove through the narrow slit, arms first, and jumped back to my feet on the other side. The next obstacle, tree stumps arranged at staggered intervals and increasing in size, led to a raised platform. That was also quickly overcome.
My breath came in gasps, my heart was pounding in my throat. I leapt into the air and grabbed an iron rod above my head and swung myself to another one two arm's lengths away. In mid-swing, I let go with my right hand and drew another dagger, hitting the target on the platform on the other side. The muscles in my left arm cried out in pain, but I gritted my teeth. With both hands on the rod, I swung myself onto the platform and landed panting on both feet.
A narrow steel cable led from this platform to the next. The platforms were too far apart for me to jump, and to avoid losing any time, I slid across the rope to the next platform with feline agility, arms outstretched. Hauling across with my arms and legs like a tree squirrel would take far too long. I'm not someone who takes a long time. I was fast. Dangerously fast.
I grinned. The penultimate obstacle had denied me a perfect run so far. I had to jump from this platform over a chasm several arm's lengths wide to reach a window set into a wooden-framed house wall. So far, my jumping power had not been enough, and I bit my lip in frustration. Beads of sweat stood on my forehead. I was so damn close to my goal. It is madness always doing the same thing and expecting different results. I thought feverishly and stared with squinted eyes at the seemingly insurmountable obstacle. The platform creaked under my boots. It was too narrow to get enough momentum for the required jump.
From here I could see the entrance door and the small wooden table with the hourglass on it, the sand steadily tickling down. I took a deep breath, pulled a longer dagger from my boot shaft, threw it with all the strength I could muster towards the window, and drove it deep into the wood two arm's lengths below the windowsill. I jumped. I managed to grab the windowsill with one hand, but due to the effort, my hands were sweaty, and I was about to slip. Then my foot found the dagger, and I heaved myself up, panting, over the sill and through the window. Done.
Wooden steps led from this platform down towards the entrance door and the shaky little table. A diving roll over the pressure plate recessed into the floor and I finally stood in front of the hourglass. I reached out my hand and was about to turn it when a click followed by a hissing sound rang out. In the nick of time, I bent my upper body and head backward, so the arrow only grazed my cheek lightly and stuck in a crevice in the wall behind me. I turned the hourglass before all the sand grains touched the lower glass bottom.
A slow, strong clapping filled the large hall. Elden leaned casually in the doorway before pushing off and approaching me. His expression revealed nothing, but pride sparkled in his eyes.
"You've done it," he said.
He sized me up. I must have looked terrible. Many strands had come loose from my braided hair and were sticking to my sweaty forehead. His steel-blue eyes lingered on my cheek, and he raised his hand to wipe away the drop of blood, where the arrow scratched me.
I owed this man so much. He had taken me into his guild and had been there for me when no one else was. He was the head of the Assassins' Guild and one of the most feared men in the city, at whose sight any normal man would turn pale. Yet this tall man with the bald head and the red beard on his chin could not hide his fatherly pride for his adopted daughter. It flickered briefly across his face and then disappeared. I lifted my chin to him and met his gaze.
"You're ready, Linnia", he said.
Chapter 2
Linnia
In the city center it teemed with bustling people. Women with baskets on their arms searched for fruits and vegetables at various stalls, haggling with the rosy-cheeked vendors. Children were playing ball on the dusty street, their stained trousers torn at the knees, but they still had a smile on their faces. Between the narrow alleyways, washing lines were hung from window to window, on which holey clothes fluttered in the wind like colorful flags. The air was heavy and sweet, smelling of spices, smoke, and tobacco, just a taste of what the marketplace had to offer. Large fire pits roasted meat and fish, loudly offered by their respective vendors.
I loved this city with its small houses and cottages adorned with colorful shutters and flower boxes beneath the windows, sparrows on the roofs, and its grand fountain at the heart of the marketplace. The marble statue within the fountain depicted the goddess Eiwren, a delicate, pregnant woman. Her arms were raised to the side, and five spheres floated above her upturned palms, as if she were juggling them. They represented the five elements: fire, earth, water, air, and arcanum. Her femininity was veiled by vines, some of which coiled around her graceful body. Her bare feet stood in the water of the trickling fountain, where lotuses bloomed in every season. Her other attributes, fire lily, dandelion, and cherry blossoms were placed as a crown atop her hair. Goddess Eiwren was revered as the most powerful of all gods, which is why she alone received the place in the heart of Eldervale.
I turned away from the fountain and let my lowered gaze sweep over the bustling crowd. The sun was not yet high in the sky, but it already mercilessly beat down on the heads of the inhabitants. I pulled the hood deeper over my face and headed straight for the smithing quarter. Between barrels and troughs filled with water and hay, wooden huts stood with one wall open to the street. My destination was the rearmost hut with a yellowed sail as an improvised awning. Inside the dim wooden hut of weaponsmith Hon, the coals in the furnace glowed, bathing the interior in an orange light. Hon was just lifting an unfinished sword from the coals with tongs and letting it hiss into a barrel filled with water.
“Greetings, Hon.”
“Assassin.” Hon wiped his black hands on his apron and twirled his beard.
“I have everything ready that you ordered.”
He lifted a jute sack from under the table behind him and dropped it on the counter with a clatter.
‘I knew I could count on you.’
Hon showed his yellowed teeth.
I swapped the sack with my order for a sack full of coins and was already on my way towards the street.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do”, Hon called after me.
“Where would be the fun in that?”, I muttered with a grin and had already disappeared into the sparse shadows of the midday sun between the dirty alleys.
Chapter 3
Linnia
With a clay jug filled with water and a pouch containing nuts and dried fruit, I sat on the roof of the imposing mansion of the Love Servants’ Guild. The stars above twinkled like fireflies, and the moon illuminated the quiet streets, bathing everything in a silvery glow. I let my legs dangle over the gable and put a few fruits into my mouth. From up here, the tallest building in the city, one could oversee a vast part of the city. Only one building was taller, and that was the white palace, the seat of the Queen. It stood slightly apart from the city on a hill, bathed in a ghostly light by the moon.
The metal sign of the guild above the entrance door beneath me squeaked in the wind. A gentle breeze blew strands of hair into my face as I lay back on the roof with crossed arms under my head, gazing up at the stars.
I sighed.
Revolution was in the air. The city stood on the brink of change. When you looked at the quiet streets, the warm candlelight in the windows of the houses, and listened to the splashing of cisterns and fountains, you wouldn’t think that there was so much wrong in this city. Although the inhabitants of Eldervale strived and worked hard every day, it was rarely enough for sufficient food, a house, or clothing. The city grew poorer, the residents struggled to survive, while the palace seemed to thrive, and the Queen slept in her comfortable bed. But what could the people do about it?
The Queen was a Fae, of stronger blood, and the King a normal human man, like most citizens of this city. There were few Fae, as they were born from the union of an immortal Fae god with a mortal human, and such unions rarely resulted in children. Offspring between two gods was even rarer, as there were only twelve gods. But when such Fae children were born, they often inherited not only immortality but also the abilities of their divine parent, albeit in a weakened form, yet still powerful. No one knew the Queen’s powers and thus her divine heir, and that was her best weapon. She didn’t need to show how powerful she was and what lurked within her because her sharp fangs and pointed ears marked her as someone of powerful blood, and no sane person wanted to be subjected to her whims and her magic. And so, she had ruled her people for many years.
With fear of the unknown.
Little was known about the King. At rallies, he stood like a faithful dog beside the Queen, laughing, waving to the people from the balcony, and drinking from his golden cup. When she spoke to her people, he remained silent. She definitely held the scepter, and no citizen of this city hoped for support for the humans from their human king. It seemed he didn’t care what happened outside the palace walls as long as he could sit on his padded throne while a servant fanned him. At least that’s how I imagined the life of the King, while all the merchants and farmers spent countless hours every day hauling carts and horses laden with their wares and crops to the border to sell their goods to neighboring countries, to earn something extra and somehow make ends meet. The royal house did not provide for its subjects, levied high taxes on them, and did not care whether families had enough to live on. The cruel and ruthless reign of the Fae queen has widened the gap between Fae and humans more than prejudices ever could. I hated the Fae. They brought nothing but evil upon the world.
I stood up, cursed, and spat. Anger flushed my face, and my fingertips tingled. I stared at the palace again, narrowing my eyes. Any other human or Fae would be better suited as ruler. The time for change is near.
‘”Just get cozy in your safe castle”, I grumbled.
“One day I’ll get my hands on you. Just when you least expect it.”
Chapter 4
Linnia
“Why don’t you wear a dress for a change?”
Mirieth eyed my black cloth trousers, which were tucked into matching leather boots, with disgust. She wrinkled her little nose and tossed her long brown hair over her shoulder. Her big brown eyes narrowed into slits, and she pursed her full lips.
“You look silly, Linnia. Women don’t dress like that.”
I groaned and rolled my eyes.
“Good to see you too, Mirieth.”
Ignoring her teasing, I turned and walked ahead into the neighboring garden of the Love Servant’s manor. Mirieth was still standing in the doorway, as if she didn’t know whether she wanted to follow me or not. Finally, she pulled the knob and let the door slam noisily into the lock, as if to emphasize her opinion of my choice of clothes and followed me into the garden.
I headed for a palisade of ivy and roses, their heavy flower heads swaying in the light breeze and providing shade. Mirieth caught up with me and looked at me disparagingly.
“Spit it out, sister. Why did you want to see me? I have customers waiting.”
She smoothed out the folds of her dress once again and checked the ample neckline of her dress, which allowed me to see almost to her navel.
“Mother hates it when I waste precious time, and you know it!” she said snappishly.
“You mean valuable money, don’t you?” I shot back.
Mirieth narrowed her eyes again and stared at me with her lips pressed together.
“Now that you’ve lost your value to this family, I have to get double the money!” she snarled.
I hated this debate, and I hated even more that she called it “family” for which she offered her services to all men and women throughout Eldervale. I was not part of this supposed family. Ravenna, the guild leader of the Love Servants’ Guild, became my foster mother after I was left on her doorstep as an infant. No one in her trade would give away a young infant if it could grow up to be a beautiful young girl who could earn them a lot of money.
So Ravenna, who was heavily pregnant at the time, took me into her guild of love servants and put me in a nursery with Mirieth after the birth of her daughter. We were to be sisters from then on.
I turned towards one side of the garden and pointed my finger at the well, which formed the center of the garden with its ornate wooden roof.
“I’ve never belonged to this family, and after this day at the latest, nothing connects us as a family anymore!” I shouted.
This well, this garden, this day had changed everything.
We were taught music, literature and history from an early age and we loved to spend our breaks from lessons outside, away from the stuffy library in the basement. One afternoon we were playing ball in the garden, and I threw the ball past Mirieth, which landed on the rotten cover of the well, which was supposed to prevent leaves and branches from falling into the well and contaminating the water. However, the ball had found a gap in the planks and had fallen into the well. While trying to retrieve the ball, I broke through the rotten wood and fell. After a nerve-wracking rescue operation, I sat on the sickbed in the healer’s room with the red ball and waited for the healer to finish dressing my wound. When I fell, a piece of the rotten wood had drilled into my collarbone and left a nasty wound. But the wound was dressed and would heal, the ball had not been lost and I was wearing a dry dress again, my hair was braided. I was just 7 years old and thought everything was fine again. Mother would probably scold me a bit more, but the incident would soon be forgotten.
How wrong I had been.
Ravenna had pushed the door open, ignored me completely and looked questioningly at the healer, who had just screwed the jar of healing ointment shut again. I didn’t understand what his slow shake of the head would mean for the rest of my life. Ravenna had turned round without a word and left.
“You’re no longer flawless, there’s no money to be made from you.”
That was the last sentence she said to me. Words spoken with disgust that stabbed me in the heart like daggers. The last words with which she threw me out the door with nothing but my clothes on my body and shooed me away.
I didn’t understand why Mirieth was so angry with me. I hadn’t done anything to her. She hadn’t been expelled, I had. After I had to go, she became the most sought-after love servant in the whole city and earned royally. Ravenna adorned her ears and neck with pearls, necklaces and precious stones, she wore the finest clothes. She loved her status and her life, which earned her beauty and her mother’s favor.
Mirieth had never looked for me or asked how I was. Never wondered what had become of me. In the beginning, I had visited her in the garden whenever I knew she was on a break but was immediately expelled from the property by other love servants as soon as they spotted me.
“Don’t show your face here again!”
“You don’t belong here anymore!”
“Go away girl!”
Mirieth had always just stood there quietly and let it happen. She had eventually just turned round and gone back into the house, leaving me alone on the street. I wandered the streets for many weeks, filthy, until Elden picked me up and took me to the Assassin’s Refuge, where a new life awaited me. And a new family. My family.
I touched my scar on my collarbone, ran my finger over the raised area of skin and sighed. Eleven years had passed since then.
“I don’t know what you want from me, Linnia. I have my way, and you have yours. I don’t question mother’s decision because I agree with her. She’s right about you. You wouldn’t have got anywhere anyway.”
Over the years, I had built up an impenetrable shield against which her sharp and hurtful words would bounce off. Every now and then, a nasty word found its way past the barrier and stabbed me right in the heart.
She straightened her corset and wiped invisible dust from her lace sleeves. She looked up and let her eyes wander over my trousers again.
“I just wanted to see if you were okay,” I tried one last time.
“But I don’t want to see you, Linnia. Nobody here wants that. Let it go.”
With these words, she turned on her heel and strutted back to the house with her chin up, her skirt billowing energetically around her legs. A tear rolled down my cheek and dripped onto the floor of the garden where I had spent half my childhood with my sister.
Thunder rumbled in the distance; dense clouds wept above me as if they understood my feelings. I inhaled the heavy scent of the blooming roses once more and let my gaze wander over the sea of flowers. And said goodbye.
Chapter 5
Linnia
“You’ve done all you can. You have to let her go. You can’t go on like this for ever.”
Naliah brushed her blonde, curly hair behind her ears and let her gaze swept broodingly over the treetops. I nodded silently and followed her gaze, savoring the warming rays of the evening sun as they warmed my face. The air was filled with the buzzing of bees and the scent of resin and herbs.
I had known Naliah since my early childhood. Often, I had sneaked out of the manor house when the library lessons felt suffocating, drawn to the outdoors and the woods. That’s how I found Naliah, wading in knee-high water at the edge of a stream, with her sleeves rolled up and the hem of her dress soaked, looking for water mint. We immediately understood each other. We spent hours and hours in the neighboring Eldervale forest. We collected herbs and flowers, learnt the language of the birds, learned to read tracks, played in the flower meadows, splashed in the brook and fell asleep exhausted under the shade of willows, our heads resting on soft moss. Years passed this way. I had been sent away from the House of Love Servants and taken in by the Assassins’ Guild. Naliah had been with the Healers’ Guild since birth, like her parents before her.
“You don’t owe her anything. Don’t put a burden on yourself that you don’t have to carry”, Naliah broke the silence.
I nodded again, watching the sun retreat wearily behind the mountain peaks, to make way for the moon. In the forest village of the Healers’ Guild, all the buildings were built into the crowns of the Giant Trees and therefore offered a wonderful view of the sunset. I leant my head against her shoulder and inhaled her vanilla scent. Naliah played with the pendant on her necklace, lost in thought. A chamomile flower molded in resin, a sign of her belonging to the Healers’ Guild.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, you know?”
“I know.”
The sun sank behind the highest mountain peak, taking not only the light but also the warmth with it. I shivered.
The guild’s wooden tree houses were built into the crowns of the gnarled branches, connected by suspension bridges, verandas and balconies. Steps wound their way down the thick tree trunks or far below the canopy. Countless lanterns hung from vines on the branches, illuminating the forest village in the approaching evening darkness.
With a sigh, I squeezed her hand in farewell and became one with the shadows.
Chapter 6
Linnia
Click clack.
I opened the knife.
Elden slammed his fist on the heavy oak table and stared at Nil with a demonic look.
“It will be done as I said! Linnia goes alone, no discussion!”
“You let her run into the knife on their own, without a backup!?” Nil shot back, and poison seemed to spray from his eyes. He leaned forward in his chair to meet Elden’s gaze without flinching. There was only about two feet between Elden’s red beard and Nil’s prominent chin, both of them talking at a rapid pace, their voices growing louder and louder.
“Is it about getting some of the glory and honor, or does it still bother you that I have appointed Linnia as my successor?”
Oh yes, Nil didn’t like this news at all. He was two years older and had joined the guild a few years before me and yet Elden had chosen me.
I grinned in the shadow of my hood and continued to play with my switchblade.
Click clack. Click clack.
I let the blade snap back into place.
“I have a problem with you being blinded by your fatherly feelings for her. Instead, the skills of a successor should be more important!” he snapped.
Click clack.
I opened the knife.
Elden sucked in a sharp breath and leant back in his chair. Nil relaxed his fisted hands and sat back in his chair, finally intimidated by Elden’s piercing gaze. Maybe he’s not quite so stupid after all. The guild leader sat at the head of the table and seemed to be mentally stabbing Nil for his rebelliousness. Nil sat to his left, arms folded and staring angrily at the tabletop. I sat in the opposite side of him and when I looked for his gaze, he narrowed his eyes angrily. All he had to do was stick his tongue out at me and the picture of a defiant and spoilt child that I had drawn of him in my head would be complete.
“I’d be very, very careful what you say next, Nil. You can quickly find yourself with a knife in your throat for statements like that.”
The calmness with which he said it showed everyone that the time for rebelliousness was over. Nil’s eyes found Elden’s again. I paused for a moment with my knife, letting a few moments pass. Silence fell over the heavy oak table.
Click clack. Click clack.
I let the blade snap back into place.
Both pairs of eyes found me.
I still haven’t said a word, listening silently to the conversation. Elden trusts me, just as Nil distrusts me. Either because he thinks he’s better suited than me and I wouldn’t be able to complete the task, or because he simply wants to take the credit for himself and not let this opportunity for his advancement pass him by.
“We’ve already discussed the procedure. You should prepare and run the necessary errands”, Elden now said to me.
Nil pooled a dagger in a crack in the oak table and muttered, “She’s going down either way, you’ll see,” into his non-existent beard.
Click clack.
I opened the knife and threw it with a twist of my wrist, pinning the black sleeve of his hood to the table.
Nil shrieked and dropped the dagger from the pinned hand with which he had defaced the innocent table. His eyes grew wide, and he stared at me with his mouth open.
“I am prepared”, I hissed. “And I can assure you, better than you could ever be. You should put more emphasis on your supposed skills instead of your loose mouth, then you might have seen the knife coming sooner.”
With a smug grin, I took my knife from him. I stood up, turned round and left the council chamber. Now it was Elden’s turn to grin. I was no longer his little foster daughter. I will take up the legacy of the guild and this commission will stand as my certificate of accomplished advancement. Despite the age difference, Nil has not yet been given the opportunity to prove himself. But he won’t let the opportunity pass him by, I could see that in the look on his face. I’ll have to take that into account.
Click clack. Click clack.
Chapter 7
Linnia
In the morning, my hair was already sticking damply to the back of my neck under the hood pulled over my face. Although I only stayed in the shade of the houses and porches, taking advantage of the cool, narrow alleyways and passageways, the summer heat crept through every layer of my light leather armor. The small water bottle on my belt already felt suspiciously light.
I climbed over a badly plastered wall at the back of a house in need of renovation, swung myself over the roof and leaned against a sloping chimney that was sure to be rained into as soon as the clouds started pouring water again. But it had been a long time since the last rain. The heat was building up between the crooked houses made of stone and wood, making the cobblestones shimmer in the sun and causing the water level in the fountains and springs to drop steadily. The inhabitants of Eldervale kept their heads down, sought shade under the trees and only left the house when it was necessary.
But today that was the case, because tonight the Summer High is being celebrated. The god Laran is prayed to send a good harvest, despite the lack of water during the hot months that afflicted the whole of Tamenium during the summer. Many prayers were also dedicated to Lyra, that she may grant rainy weather so that the fertile fields of Tamenium’s capital do not become drought-stricken soils. Despite the heat, the residents are very busy, decorating the town with garlands and flags and wreaths of flowers. The paths outside their own front doors were carefully swept, all the smelly rubbish removed.
At nightfall, men, women and children dressed in white and adorned with flowers will parade through the streets, singing and praying to Laran and Lyra, accompanied by instruments. After the Queen’s annual self-congratulatory speech, which she will deliver from her balcony to the crowd of people as she does every year, she ends the festival with a short ride through the streets and alleyways of the city.
I knew all the winding streets, the alleyways with their walls, lattices and windows, every porch, every chimney, every lattice and every fence. Nevertheless, I had been walking all morning before sunrise along all the possible routes that the Queen could take on her white horse, memorizing them, drawing a map in my head. Although it was more like I was tracing the map over and over again.
A dog howled in a neighboring street; another answered it a few streets away. A group of women were busy placing bunches of candles on the roadsides and window ledges so that they could be lit for the start of the festivities in the evening hours. The children sat on the stone steps of the houses and plucked petals from their green stems and filled baskets after baskets to later scatter them on the streets during the procession. Throughout the city, the candles and flowers were also renewed in the altars of the gods and niches of the statues, especially those dedicated to Laran and Lyra were presented with a wide variety of offerings.
I couldn’t get much out of all this. I found it hard to believe in something I had never seen before. I wasn’t a believer, I preferred to trust in my own abilities and actions rather than trusting that some supernatural, overpowering being would sort out the world’s destiny. There were certainly the stories that were told about the gods, stories of people who were supposed to have interacted with them, who had seen the gods, to whom they had appeared, who had spoken to them. You would think that they really exist and that you should show humility. But I couldn’t understand why there should be beings with such immense power who feed on pleas and supplications, sacrifices and tears and only fulfil wishes if they please and otherwise make people suffer in this world?
I shook my head slowly. Nevertheless, this festival offered me the opportunity to get a good shot at the Queen. If the gods might not provide rainy weather and a good harvest, they would at least provide an opportunity for change.
Chapter 8
Linnia
Singing and drumming filled the sultry evening air, accompanied by flute playing and children’s laughter. The sun drew the last orange light into the abyss, leaving the city and the surrounding countryside in a velvety black. The streets and alleyways were filled with people celebrating, people praying, people paying homage to the gods. The procession was already in full swing, just in time for the first stars to appear in the heavens. No cloud darkened the sky, and the stars shone brightly, as if Lyra, the goddess of light, stars and weather, was already giving her approval.
I kept my gaze fixed firmly on the palace gate. Even from this distance, from my vantage point of a rooftop, I could see that it was still closed. The white walls of the palace shimmered in the light of the moon and stars, a stark contrast to the dark sky beyond. The bell tower chimed ten times. Then the gates opened, and soldiers lit torches along the palace wall, dancing points of light in the night. Instead of the white horse on whose back the Queen usually sat, flanked by a parade of soldiers and guards, an opulent palanquin made its way down the hill towards the town. With strained faces, some sixteen servants lifted the heavy palanquin on their shoulders, the Queen, heavily adorned with jewels, sitting on a mountain of cushions. Despite the monstrous size of their means of transport, the royal entourage moved quite swiftly. I realized with horror that the Queen would never fit through the narrow alleyways she had used for her tour in recent years. She would not reach the turning point, once around the statue of Eiwren in the market square, unless she walked the last stretch, which I highly doubted. This means that from now on, nothing will go as I had planned. As I had planned for weeks. I was forced to improvise.
I used several roofs and archways to reduce the distance to the royal palanquin. The clay tiles beneath my feet cracked under my quick steps, but the city, humming with song and music, had no ear for a young woman on the roofs of its houses that night. I had found a favorable position, next to the chimney of a popular pub called the Mossy Maiden, which lay at the junction of two wide main streets. A family of pigeons had built a nest on the chimney and ducked deeper into their nest as I took up position beside them, taking my bow from my shoulder and bringing it into position. Once again, I checked the sky for clouds, trying to assess the available light and possible wind. The procession came closer and was quickly surrounded by people celebrating. Grains of wheat and flower petals were thrown into the air, the music swelled, and new songs were sung. The people were gripped by euphoria and danced more and more wildly in the streets. From where I was sitting, I could see the Queen throwing herself into the air and arrogantly surveying the crowd. She didn’t seem to realize that the cheers weren’t for her. She seemed to miss the fact that the hands were raised to the sky and the earth and not towards her palanquin. Or she tried not to realize that no one was paying attention to her. I could well imagine that she was using the procession to get some of the cheers and praise from the people. None of the people here would have any reason to rejoice outside of the festivities.
From the left, I saw the leading team of guards turn onto the main road of the crossroads, followed by the royal palanquin. Glass beads and golden braids swayed in time with the servants’ steps on the palanquin’s shady roof. Beads of sweat stood on the palanquin bearers’ foreheads, rivalling the sparkle of the monarch’s glittering dress.
I pulled a feathered arrow with a barbed point from the quiver and put it on the string. Hon’s latest invention. Out of the corner of my eye, I checked the banners hung between the alleyways for wind, but they hung still and barely moved in the muggy night air. My gaze fell back on the Queen on her swaying platter, raised above the heads of the celebrating crowd. Time seemed to pass more slowly, I perceived everything in slow motion. I tightened the bowstring, pulled back my arm and brought it to my cheek. I breathed in. Held still. Aimed. I aimed at her ample cleavage under which I could see her heart beating. Exhale.
Then time went back to normal and seemed a lot faster. As my fingers detached themselves from the string and the arrow shot forwards, I was knocked aside with a violent push. I staggered and slid across the roof on my stomach, then over the edge and just managed to grab hold of the gutter with one hand. I felt my fingernails splinter. At the same time, there was shouting and screaming, and people scattered in all directions. I tried to look over my shoulder. Royal guards were trying to pull the Queen off the palanquin and onto a horse. An arrow was stuck in her eye and she shrieked ominously, drowning out the roar of the fleeing people.
All this had only taken a fraction of a second. I had failed. The Queen was not dead. She was alive. She was alive and screaming so loud my ears rang.
I pulled myself over the edge of the roof and struggled to my knees. A man with his hood pulled down over his face stood on the roof, looking down at the chaos at his feet in the streets below. Anger flared inside me, and I pulled a dagger from the shaft of my boot, ready to throw it. Before the weapon could leave my hand, the man said:
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I recognized the voice.
Nil.
Damn!
“Do you realize what you’ve just done?”, I shouted, stunned.
I made no effort to keep my voice down, as no one heard, saw or otherwise noticed me in the commotion. The guards searched the streets for the culprit of the attack, throwing citizens to their knees, tearing at shirt collars and beating men and women to the ground.
“You have failed. I guess you’re not ready after all”, Nil said with a sardonic grin, pulling his hood lower over his face and disappearing into the night.
I sucked in the air and certainly turned red in the face, because I was angry. So angry. I wanted to murder, I wanted to kill, and not just the Queen.
Damn it, the Queen!
It took me a few moments to spot the Queen again in the waves of people and guards. Blood stained her cleavage and her glittering dress, which now shone in a macabre red color. Her crown sat crooked on her head; her eyes widened in fear. A single guard pulled the queen onto the horse like a sack of flour, letting it mount on its hind legs. The crowd, harassed by the other guards, parted, hands held protectively in front of their faces to avoid being hit by the swinging hooves. The horse, rider and Queen sped off. I threw the bow over my shoulder, put the dagger back in my boot and ran off, not taking my eyes off the horse’s head between the lanes. My feet flew over roofs, ledges and balconies. I took shortcuts over window ledges and beams, even making streetlights work for me. With the neighing of the horse and the whimpering of the Queen in one ear and the whistling wind in the other, my chase ended at the edge of the city. The flat terrain rose and led through a dark forest into which the horse had just disappeared. With one last glance back towards the town and the palace, I turned back towards the forest. I frowned.
Then I took up the chase.
Chapter 9
Linnia
The light from the stars struggled to penetrate the thicket and the dense treetops. Under the branches of the trees, you could barely see two horse-lengths away. I slowed my pace and waited for my eyes to adjust to the low light. The air smelled of cedar and resin. There was no obvious path leading through the forest, at least I couldn’t make one out, it was just too dark for that. The rider must have chased the horse blindly over hill and dale. They couldn’t have got very far, because the forest got thicker and thicker the further you ventured in. I listened and gritted my teeth with exertion. A dull pain shot through my upper jaw.
I heard a snort in the distance. I walked slowly towards it, paying attention to every step I took. My legs were shaking and my thighs cramped with every step after chasing the horse on foot. Almost silently, I approached the white horse, a beautiful hot-blooded mare that had found a green clearing between low-hanging willows and was grazing. A red trickle of blood stained her white coat below the saddle. The reins hung down carelessly, as if the rider knew the horse would not stray far from this tasty patch of green. The white and red guard’s uniform lay carelessly in the grass along with his spiked cap. My eyes had become accustomed to the low light, and I ventured further into the heart of the woods.
It felt as if an invisible force was pulling me in a certain direction. I gave in to it and followed it, letting it carry me through the wild green of the forest, but still remaining vigilant. My footsteps merged with the sounds of the forest. Fireflies danced in the air and made the forest seem less gloomy. But I wasn’t fooled by this. The moment I reached a clearing that led to a castle perched on a stone plateau, the sounds of the forest died away. It became dead quiet. Not a leaf stirred in the trees, the calls of the eagle owls in the branches and the rustling of the mice in the bushes fell silent. I pressed myself against the trunk of the nearest tree and held my breath, touching the scratchy bark with my hands and face and trying to listen to the heartbeat of the forest.
The building in front of me was made of large dark stones, a large stone house with four turrets with battlements, surrounded by a wall with embrasures, and a large wooden entrance gate set into a stone arch in the wall. The castle lay in darkness, as if it had been abandoned for decades, covered in ivy and moss. No sound reached my ears. The danger wasn’t over yet, but I couldn’t identify what triggered the feeling of danger in me. I breathed in and out slowly, forcing my heart to beat more calmly.
A new scent mingled with the scent of resin and conifers. A hint of cinnamon tickled my nose. A split second later, a gloved hand pressed down on my mouth and a strong man pressed my arms and upper body against a hard chest. My startled cry was stifled by the hand on my mouth and panic was already trying to nestle in my chest like an annoying parasite. Heat shot up my cheeks. I swallowed down the rising fear, hunched forwards, then leapt back again and rammed the back of my head into my attacker’s face, which was rewarded with a grunt. The grip loosened slightly, giving me enough legroom to bring the steel-reinforced heel of my boot down on my attacker’s foot. As I turned on my own axis, I pulled two daggers from my boots and aimed one at the throat and the other at the stomach of the man facing me. But he also had a dagger pointed at my throat. So we stood facing each other, both with our knees bent and a sharp blade at our necks. Time seemed to slow down again.
In front of me stood a man with black hair that fell into his forehead and framed his steel-grey eyes. The golden sparks in his irises seemed to glow in the dark night. His breathing quickened, as did mine. I could hear his heart beating against his chest, but maybe I was wrong, and it was just my own. His eyes stared at me so unblinkingly that a tingle ran down my spine. His eyes travelled to the blade on my neck, where a delicate drop of blood was already making its way to my collar. His gaze quickly travelled back up my neck, lingered briefly on my lips and found my eyes again. I felt his warm breath on my lips. I felt heat in my hand, as if the blade was made of hot iron. Blood ran from one nostril over his mouth, which was twisted into a grin. At least he was bleeding too. I narrowed my eyes into slits and channeled all my rage into this staring contest that was getting silly.
“Careful Glimmer, I’d hate to see a scratch on that beautiful face.”
His deep smoky voice crept under my skin like heat.
“Do you mean my face or yours?”, I asked back.
To emphasize the point, I pressed my blade a little harder against his throat and scratched the soft skin under his chin. This only elicited a wider grin from him. My eyes widened when I saw the pointed canines. A Fae was standing in front of me and he was holding a knife to my neck. As a trained assassin, I’m not completely outmatched, but it wouldn’t be easy either. Usually all beings with Fae blood are very well trained. At least that’s what I’d heard. I’d never seen a Fae up close before.
“You should put your knives away or you’ll hurt yourself,” he said, not without raising an eyebrow.
He lowered his hand with the knife and took a few steps back. I immediately took my chance, lunged and was about to throw my daggers. One left my outstretched arm and dug into his shoulder. The next thing I knew, I was pulled off my feet and pushed roughly against a tree, the second dagger falling out of my hand. The Fae stood a few arm’s lengths away. Dark clouds of smoke coiled like snakes around his body, on the ground and around my arms and legs, pinning me to the tree.
“You seem to be quite serious about this,” he growled.
He stepped closer and a grin stole onto his lips again. The smell of cinnamon and resin grew stronger as he got closer, until I could see the color of his eyes again.They were a dark grey and the golden sparks were gone. His voice was also much darker and rougher, as if it was straining him to speak. I stared at the dagger in his muscular shoulder. He pulled it out like it was just a toothpick and threw it into the grass. His nose was no longer bleeding and the cut on his neck had already healed. With his enhanced Faeblood healing abilities, I probably wouldn’t have stood a realistic chance either way. Not against a presumably well-trained Fae warrior who could command the shadows.
“Who are you and what do you want from me?” I squeezed out, putting all my burgeoning anger into my voice. He did not deign to answer, but looked at me with a frown.
“Now will you promise to behave yourself if I put you down now, or do you have more daggers hidden in your boots?”
I nodded, but not without continuing to look at him angrily.
As if he had seen the accepted defeat in my contrite face, he let me down. He turned round and simply walked away. I quickly picked up the daggers from the grass and put them back in my boots. I straightened up and ran after him, still confused by everything that had just happened.
“Wait!”
I could barely keep the anger that was still simmering out of my voice. He stopped, continued to turn his back on me and only turned his head slightly so that I could make out his pointed ears under his tangled hair.
“Where is the Queen? Where have you taken her?”
He was the only person here in this dense forest, so he must have been the guard on the horse.
Now he turned round after all. Could this man say anything without that confident grin?
“Follow me and I promise I’ll satisfy your curiosity.”
Chapter 10
Ares
A figure in black leather and a hood was wandering through the trees. She was delicately built and very agile, so I guessed she was a young woman. I had noticed her out of the corner of my eye when I had pulled that wretched bitch of a Queen from the palanquin onto the horse and made off. She followed me like a shadow over the rooftops of the city without slowing down. Shortly afterwards, she had already discovered the horse and, unfortunately, our refuge. I couldn’t let her go now, because she had already seen too much. I couldn’t take the risk of the location of our secret hiding place becoming public.
I followed the woman to the clearing in front of the refuge, where she pressed herself against an elm tree and almost blurred into the shadows. She seemed to be scrutinizing the overgrown building to see if it was still inhabited or not. Shimmering copper-colored hair flowed from beneath her hood, contrasting sharply with the darkness of the forest. An invisible hand seemed to want to pull me in her direction and I found it hard to resist the urge to simply run to her.
I could only make out part of her silhouette, but I noticed the delicate, shimmering aura around her head. Ordinary people didn’t have the capacity to feel several emotions at once. Their auras were usually monochrome and easily revealed the current emotional state. The woman’s aura, however, hit me like a swirl of colors. Red, orange, turquoise but also white. Like a filigree, colored halo, they told me that this was no ordinary mortal, but a Fae.
As she was about to walk further towards the building, I stepped out of the shadows behind her and pressed her back to my chest, my hand covering her mouth. Her hood slipped down, revealing her shimmering hair in which the sparse moonlight refracted. A sweet citrus scent clouded my head for a moment, and I was tempted to bury my nose in her fragrant hair. Her aura briefly changed completely to turquoise fear, but immediately blurred into glowing, angry red. She leant forward, shot back again and rammed the back of her head into my face so hard I could hear it crack. Blood ran warm and sticky from my nose. I hadn’t expected so much resistance and she immediately took the opportunity to ram her heel into my foot. The next moment we were facing each other like two cats of prey circling each other, each with their blades drawn at the other’s throat.
I had never seen eyes like these before. A light brown color, surrounded by a green ring. They were so big and engaging that it was impossible to look away. I could have sworn that time slowed down for a moment and the moment dragged on. A tug ran through my body and her intense gaze seemed to burn my skin. Her eyes darkened a shade as she narrowed them into slits and stared angrily at me. They gloomed like marbles of liquid resin.
“Careful Glimmer, I’d hate to see a scratch on that beautiful face”, I said. The nickname came to mind as her pupils fixed me like glowing coals. I could feel the tingling heat emanating from her.
She actually asked me if I meant her face or mine. I laughed inwardly at such quick-wittedness. Her voice was firm and melodious at the same time.
When I noticed the drop of blood on her neck and the tender cut didn’t heal right away, I was momentarily confused. Was she human after all? Or had she not yet completed the selection process? I couldn’t recognize the characteristic elongated canines or the pointed ears. Since there was no accelerated healing, I could seriously injure her.
I managed a grin as she increased the pressure on the blade at my neck. Her eyes grew wide, and her aura showed all the colors that nature produced, so that not a single emotion could be distinguished from another.
“You should put your knives away, otherwise you’ll hurt yourself”, I tried to cover up my confusion.
I felt my resistance disappear completely and let go of her, putting some distance between us. As agile as a cat, she threw her knives as if she had never done anything else in her life and despite my quicker reaction time, I was unable to dodge the first throw, and the dagger dug into my right shoulder up to the shaft. Before she could throw the second knife, she was pushed against the nearest tree by my shadows. Her eyes showed pure rage.
“You seem to be quite serious.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at me. I approached her. It took me years to get used to the fact that both humans and Fae were an open book to me when I read their auras. It always felt like you were entering a personal area where you had no business being. Now it’s as much a part of me as breathing. I was even more surprised when I noticed a soft pink tinge around the knife thrower’s face. It completely threw me for a loop. I couldn’t figure her out. On the contrary, she confused me. She was a danger to my guild, to my people. And yet, my urge to snuff out her life continued to fade. Her thirst for murder, however, only seemed to grow stronger.
I pulled the dagger out of my shoulder. I could already feel the wound closing.
“Now will you promise to behave yourself if I put you down now, or do you have more daggers hidden in your boots?”
She managed a nod. She didn’t look like the kind of woman who would easily lose her tongue. Still, her glowing cheeks had not escaped my notice.
I turned away and walked towards the refuge. I knew she would follow me because I had something she desires too. I also needed to buy some time. I had to come up with a plan to take her out without killing her, even though I knew that wasn’t possible. Her clothes and fighting style didn’t look like she was self-taught, but rather like she had professional training. I suspected she belonged to another guild. Other guilds meant enemies.
“Wait! Where is the Queen? Where did you take her?”
My plan to eliminate anyone who threatened to thwart my plans, quickly turned into improvisation. I was able to see the feelings of others, but I wasn’t sure myself what colors were surrounding me at the moment, and it was all triggered by this fearless, angry woman.
“Follow me and I promise I’ll satisfy your curiosity”, I said.
Then let’s find out who you are, what you know, and what you’re up to.
Chapter 11
Linnia
I didn’t like spontaneity. I was used to making plans and sticking to them meticulously. And yet I was now about to follow a strange man, who had just held a dagger to my neck, into a dark, narrow hole in the ground.
Through a trapdoor set into the forest floor, followed by a damp and musty smelling tunnel, lit by torches, one entered the interior of the castle. I surmised that the main gate was deliberately left unused to keep up the appearance of an abandoned building that needed no further attention. Once you saw the castle from the inside, you realized that it was at best weathered on the outside, as the interior of the rooms and corridors clearly showed that this shelter had been regularly maintained. I followed the Fae up the last set of stone steps, which ended in a large hall with several wooden doors leading off from it. The stranger walked ahead calmly, as if he was so sure that I wouldn’t lunge at him with a dagger after all. What a fool.
“Where are we?”
“I’m sure you’ve already figured that out.”
“I’d like to make sure and hear it from you.”
He stopped in the center of the hall, turned and stood just a foot’s width in front of me, looking deep into my eyes.
“You’re standing in the middle of the main lair of the Dealer of Secrets.”
I audibly sucked in the air. I was in dangerous territory. Hostile territory. In the territory of a rival guild. With a dangerous man. My suspicions were confirmed. Nobody knew where the Secret Dealers’ Guild was operating from, but Elden had taught me everything he knew about the other guilds, because that was part of my training.
Know your opponents, or rather your competitors.
Our guilds liked to get in each other’s way from time to time. While they earned their money with the blackmailed information of the victims, I earned my money with their deaths – unfortunately, both guilds often got a contract for one and the same person. In past history, my guild has often eliminated a target from whom the Secret Dealers would have liked to extract information. I’ve often heard Elden ranting and raving in the council chamber after meeting with the leader of the Dealers of Secrets to accuse each other of interfering in the other guild’s machinations. It was not uncommon for a target to die after sensitive information had been extracted from them, which meant that our guild missed out on the reward. Faeblooded humans are rare, but those with shadow powers are known to be very popular in the Secret Dealer trade. It needs no further explanation—with the ability to walk through shadows, you can definitely earn a lot of money in that arrogant bastard’s guild. They are also known as Shadow Runners, as they can sneak up on their sources of information almost invisibly in order to obtain exclusive information. As far as I knew, the secret dealers rarely killed their sources, only if there was no other way. But it happens.
Was the Queen here? Was she still alive? Probably, because a dead Queen can hardly tell you her stories.
“You brought the Queen here to give you information?” I asked incredulously.
„You kidnapped her to get information? State secrets? For money?“, I asked with a healthy dose of disbelief in my voice.
“I’ll make you an offer. You give me some time with the Queen, because I have some important questions for her that I would like to have answered. After that, you can do whatever you want with her. Dead people rarely talk much, so I need her alive first, little assassin. So don’t even think about using your knives or I’ll have to use mine. Do we have a deal?”
Which guild I belong to is probably no longer a secret to him either. I reluctantly attributed this to his profession. Although this commanding tone is already getting on my nerves. Not to mention that self-congratulatory grin. The annoying nicknames were so superfluous. But actually, that wasn’t a bad deal. We both got what we wanted. He got his money for his information; I got my money for the death of the Queen. And the people of Tamenium would finally be free from her rule, which would be the real prize of this whole thing.
He scrutinized me with a raised eyebrow. He seemed to hold a high rank within the guild, for he didn’t seem to fear any consequences from the guild leader, even though he let a member of another guild into their guild house. There was no written law forbidding the elimination of other guild members, it was more of a kindly request between the guilds to keep the peace despite the competition. But peace had always been fragile in times of need. Everyone was just trying to survive here.
I jutted out my chin and looked him deep in the eye.
“It’s a deal. On one condition. I want to be there for the interrogation.”
His eyes swept over my face, still scrutinizing me and lingered briefly on my lips, leaving a tingling heat behind. He turned abruptly away and towards a heavy wooden door.
“Thanks for the arrow, by the way, Glimmer,” he said teasingly over his shoulder.
“It was the perfect distraction. I was actually pleased that you weren’t as accurate as I would have expected from a trained assassin.”
I briefly felt like I was going to burst. I swallowed the words with difficulty as they licked their way across my tongue like bitter bile. I disliked this man less and less with every word. A nasty grin stole across his face, his pointed canines scraping across his full lips as he looked over his shoulder again to check I was following him.
“Firstly, don’t call me that! My name is Linnia, not Glimmer. Secondly, I could shoot an apple off your head from a hundred horse lengths, …”
One of the heavy wooden doors swung open and a man with cropped hair poked his head through the door.
“She’s in The hole waiting for you, Ares.”
“Thanks, Kae.”
Kae disappeared back inside the door. Ares turned to me at the door and held out a hand.
“No knife games alright? Stay in the background.”
“Alright.” My ass.
I put my hand in his and shook it. His hand was warm and my skin tingled where it touched his. He held my hand a moment longer than he should have before letting go and I followed him into the room behind the door.
Chapter 12
Linnia
A staircase led to a torch-lit vaulted cellar with no windows. It smelled of mold, metal and stale air. The floor was made of hard, dark stone with a grid embedded in the floor to allow liquids to drain away, which I didn’t want to think about at the moment. The Queen sat on a chair above it, chained in heavy iron. A dirty piece of cloth had been shoved into her mouth. The arrow had been removed, and her eye had already healed, but it was now cloudy and milky white. Only the dark, crusted blood on her chest and dress indicated that I had wounded her at all. Her black hair was disheveled and no longer as regally coiffed as it had been a few hours ago, but the Queen still radiated power, defiance and pride.
Ares gave me a look that told me to stay in the background, took another chair and sat opposite the Queen.
Kae stood behind her and took the cloth out of her mouth.
To be honest, I had no idea what it would be like to be part of the interrogation. Just in case, I kept a throwing knife hidden under my sleeve and never took my eyes off the Queen.
“Welcome to The hole, Your Highness,” Ares said mockingly and indicated a bow while sitting on the chair.
“How nice of you to honor us with your presence, Runah.”
The Queen smiled wickedly.
“Your arrogance will cost you dearly, sweetheart.”
My stomach clenched when I heard her call Ares. However, he didn’t seem to mind at all, because he wasted no time and immediately began the interrogation.
“Where are you taking the abducted men and women? Who are you selling them to?” he asked through clenched teeth.
The Queen looked disinterestedly at the cracks in the ceiling before answering.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my dear. I’m afraid you’re not really going to get anywhere here.”
A snake-like grin appeared on her face again. She shook her bound hands once as a test.
“Be so kind as to take off my shackles, they’re certainly not necessary. I’ll be very well-behaved, I promise.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. Ares also ignored her request. He clenched his hands into fists so that his knuckles turned white, and I saw his jaw twitching from the side.
“Answer my question, Runah.”
Runah leaned back in her chair casually, yet with all the grace of a prisoner, and yawned.
“You’re boring me. Why don’t you show me some of the ways you get information in this guild? I’m curious to see what you’ve got, guild leader.”
I drew in a sharp breath. Ares was the guild leader of the Shadowwalkers? Glancing at the door, I checked the only exit from this cellar dungeon and my empty hand searched inconspicuously for another throwing knife in my belt. What had I got myself into here? My impulsiveness had once again led me to do something rash, namely to walk straight into the lair of a rival guild and get into a fight with the guild leader.
The Queen’s eyes darted to me and she tilted her head.
“And who exactly are you? I have a feeling you don’t belong here.”
Her healthy eye pierced me like an arrowhead, as if she were trying to penetrate my innermost core.
Before I could say anything, Ares jumped up from his chair.
“Kae, your cue!”
The Queen’s sharp gaze left me and followed the men as they exchanged.
Ares swapped places with Kae. He now stood behind the Queen and Kae took the chair in front of her. What was happening now? Were they going to torture her? Driven by curiosity, I wanted to take another step forward, but Ares noticed, and his eyes found mine.
Stay in the background.
I blinked. I stumbled back until I felt the cool dungeon wall against my back. I had heard his voice in my head. Like a feather, it brushed through my thoughts, light and delicate.
Perhaps I had only imagined it.
Ares had already turned away from me again, as if nothing had happened. He nodded to Kae, who was sitting on the chair.
I thought I saw the Queen’s healthy and empty white eyes take on a lifeless look. “Where are you taking the men and women, Runah?”
Kae sat with his back to me, his hands on his thighs, and asked the question in a disturbingly calm voice. The Queen jerked her head, her pointed ears twitching.
“They are being shipped across the sea to the Hornkapp Islands.”
The Queen’s voice sounded strained, as if she were uttering the words against her will.
Little was known about the islands far out in the western sea. They were too far from the mainland for trade to take place, so it was not even known wether anyone claimed the land for themselves.
Ares stiffened behind the chair and dug his fingernails into the back of the chair. The Queen clenched her fists. The tendons in her neck stood out as she tried to turn her head away from Kae, but her eyes couldn’t break the connection with his.
“Who are you selling them to?”, Kae asked, his voice as calm as if he was reading a shopping list.
“I’m not selling them,” she pressed out, as if in pain.
The Queen growled and her head jerked again. She pulled at the chains, but her expressionless gaze remained fixed on Kae.
“Who do the slaves have to serve? Why are you kidnapping your own people? For what…?”
Kae’s voice grew louder, more heated. The Queen’s head jerked back abruptly as she arched her back and laughed. She lowered her head again, but kept her eyes closed.
“That was really clever, my dear. But you’ll have to try harder”, she said with closed eyes.
“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to leave now. We can continue this pleasant conversation another time.”
Events seemed to be unfolding rapidly. Suddenly the chair was empty, and she appeared on the stone steps leading to the exit. She stumbled and fell awkwardly onto the steps as her hands were still tied behind her back. I could still see Ares’ shadows trying to pin something to the chair, but it was no longer there. Ares and Kae sprinted off, while Runah lay huddled on the steps, laughing. Driven by instinct, I bent my arm back and hurled the knife towards the Queen. My dagger plunged into the gap between two steps where the queen had been writhing a fraction of a second ago.
All that remained were the heavy chains of her shackles and a ghastly laugh that slowly died away in the moldy air of the vault.
She had escaped.
Chapter 13
Linnia
The high windows of the main hall were covered with dark cloths so that no light could penetrate outside. The only light was provided by the crackling open fire and an opulent chandelier with candles that occasionally dropped a drop of wax onto the large wooden table below. Ares sat at the head of the table in a large carved wooden chair with his name engraved on the back. Ares Callanear. Kae sat to his right in the seat with the name Kaelan Villareil. I had taken a seat to his left in a chair with the name Fable Burlow engraved on it. The other eight chairs with names were empty. The atmosphere was tense and there was a sour odor in the air. Nobody said anything for a long time. Kaelan had his head in his hands and was staring at the tabletop as if the solution to all our problems had been carved there. Ares swiveled a whisky glass in his hand and swirled the liquid. Kaelan was the first to break the silence, which dragged on like thick slime.
“I should have concentrated more. She made me so angry that I blinked and then I broke eye contact and then…” he blurted out.
His face looked agonized, and his shoulders slumped.
“Stop it Kae. This isn’t your fault. She had never revealed her powers before, no one could have known she could teleport. At least we’re a bit further along. All we knew was that she was a half-Fae. Now we at least know with relative certainty that Jules must be her father.”
Jules was the god of the arts, music and time. Since teleportation was a leap through time, Ares’ explanation made sense to me.
“Her healing was impaired and slowed, even her eye could not heal completely. I was sure she wouldn’t be in full possession of her powers if she tried to escape or use her powers”, Kae answered.
“That was true,” Ares replied. He put the whisky glass down on the table and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“Otherwise, she wouldn’t have waited so long to teleport, or she would have made it straight back to the palace and not needed two pathetic attempts.”
“Shouldn’t we get out of here as quickly as possible?” I blurted out.
“If she’s made it back to the palace, her soldiers are probably already on their way here.”
Ares’ gaze looked dull, the only sign that he was struggling with this defeat.
“I clouded her vision on the horse with shadows and only cleared it in The hole so she could look Kae in the eye. She doesn’t know where the lair is. She probably made it straight into the palace from the stairs, so she won’t have a clue where we are.”
Somehow that only slightly reassured me, but Kae and Ares didn’t seem to give it a second thought. The guild leader turned to Kaelan again.
“We’ve found out even more, thanks to you. We found out a long time ago from various sources that people were disappearing at regular intervals and used as slaves. Now we know where they take the kidnapped people. From her answer, we can also assume that she uses the slaves there herself for some purpose or makes them available to someone else but does not accept any money. Which in turn would mean that she gets something more valuable than money in return.”
“But we can only speculate at the moment,” Kaelan added to Ares’ comments.
He was still a little slumped in his chair, but his blue eyes were filled with confidence. Ares nodded.
I would like to add more to this conversation, but I had no more information than what I had witnessed today. They seemed to know as little about the Hornkapp Islands as the rest of the mainland population. During the conversation, a different thought began to take hold in my mind. Of course, the Queen had to be eliminated at some point. After all, I had accepted this contract and the Assassin’s Guild was expected to deliver. Elden expected me to deliver. Elden must have been wondering where I’d got to. Nil had probably already run to him and told him what had happened on the roof. In his own version, of course. I still had to take care of that too. But I understood the sense and necessity of putting an end to the Queen’s machinations. Even if that meant putting my loyalty to my guild and my foster father on the back burner. Which didn’t mean that I was neglecting my duty. I just put it off a little longer so that not only the guild’s purse would benefit, but the whole country.
“Is everything all right with you?”
Ares and Kaelan looked at me with a penetrating gaze. I hadn’t even realized that I had drifted off in thought and my brows had furiously drawn together.
“Yes.”
I tried to organize my thoughts.
“Apart from the poor people, who has the interest, and more importantly the money, to hire and pay the Assassins’ Guild and the Dealers of Secrets to squeeze and kill the Queen?”, I asked.
“We also accepted the contract on the notice board, just like you probably did.”
There was a notice board in every town in a rather dodgy and inconspicuous place where every guild could accept contracts anonymously. Even the payment after the job was completed was usually anonymous, which is why you rarely knew from who the job came from in the end.
“All right, let’s add that to the list of unanswered questions,” I sighed and frowned.
“Are you going to tell the Assassins’ Guild where our hideout is?”, Kaelan asked me suddenly, staring into my eyes with undisguised curiosity.
“Are you just using your hypnosis to elicit the truth from me?” I asked, startled and trying not to look him in the eye, which wasn’t that easy.
Ares laughed softly.
“No,” said Kaelan, who was now laughing too.
“I have to actively use the Veritas if I want to tease the truth out of someone. Just because you look me in the eye doesn’t mean you’ll end up spilling your deepest secrets.”
Carefully, I took down the hand I had been shielding my eyes with and dared to look into the icy blue eyes of Ares’ friend.
“No,” I said honestly.
“I think that, on the whole, both guilds have the same goal. To take down the Queen somehow.” I meant what I said. I made a decision.
I bit my lower lip as I searched for words.
“We should be working together rather than against each other. Even if that might not have worked out so well in the past.”
I felt my lips begin to tingle and a soft heat brushed over my skin as I noticed Ares’ flaming gaze resting on me, brushing over my lips.
Kae cleared his throat. Ares turned away abruptly and picked up his whisky glass again, and I had to straighten my weapon belt, which hadn’t slipped in any way.
“We should be able to manage that,” Ares said.
That was probably the end of the matter. The Assassins’ Guild and the Shadowwalkers were working together. Now I just had to teach Elden that. I was supposed to take over the guild one day, but I was certainly not authorized to enter into cooperation with another guild without my master’s knowledge. But that should be a problem for the Linnia in the future, not for the here and now.
Silence fell again over the great hall with the large chandelier on the ceiling. Only the crackling of the fire could be heard. Both parties at the table let the agreement they had just made sink into their consciousness. Change was in the air, indeed. It seemed as if much more was about to change that had originally been considered unalterable.
Kaelan picked up the thread again, as if the question of co-operation had never really been on the table anyway and as if it had only been raised for formality’s sake.
“We could try to get into the palace. Now that she’s weakened, it’s like she’s sitting there on a platter.”
“Too many guards and unpredictable variables,” Ares brushed the suggestion aside gruffly.
“How are you so sure she’s weakened?” I asked in between, as I had probably missed this detail.
Her eye had healed, but not completely. She also had problems with teleportation.
“Because we know,” said Ares tersely.
“We have the information from the Black Hand.”
“From the Black Hand?” I asked somewhat stupidly, because I didn’t immediately understand.
The Black Hand, or rather the Poisoners’ Guild, had been operating in the city for many decades. Rumor has it that they can only be found in the sewers and tunnels beneath the city.
“We’ve been working together for a few weeks. The Human King is no longer alive.”
“Belladonna,” Kaelan added with a nod.
The King is dead. In fact, he hadn’t been seen for months, neither on the balcony nor in his private garden, where he had passionately tended to his roses with secateurs and a watering can.
I slumped back in my chair.
It just changed everything.
Chapter 14
Ares
“Here’s the guest room.”
I pushed open the door to one of the tower rooms and went inside, with Linnia following close behind. I showed her a small but comfortable bed with a canopy next to the tower window, the adjoining bathroom and a wooden wardrobe with a change of clothes. The room also had a small bookshelf, a small bedside table and an upholstered bench. Linnia went to the window and drew back the dark, heavy curtain, looking out into the dark forest.
“Keep the curtain closed when the candles are on. Otherwise, the light will escape”, I said as I watched her survey the room.
She strode through the room as if she had never seen such a sparsely furnished room before. Or lived in one. I liked the way she reverently ran her fingertips over the lace on the bedspread, over the dark green tassels on the canopy of the bed, the spines of the books with their golden letters and the copper bathtub.
“Do you like it?” I asked her. For some reason, I wanted her to feel comfortable.
She belongs to another guild. She is the enemy. Right?
Linnia smiled.
“I’m only here for one night. The bookshelf would be too small for longer.”
Her eyes flashed mischievously. Deep down, I knew I would do whatever it took to see that smile as often as possible. I shook my head to get rid of these thoughts that I didn’t understand where they had suddenly come from.
You let the fox into the wolf’s den.
She placed one of her daggers prominently on the nightstand. The blade reflected the candlelight like a silent warning.
“Thank you, Ares.”
“You’re very welcome, Glimmer.”
If only she knew what saying my name did to me. My skin grew hot and my head felt suspiciously drained of blood. I should leave.
“If you need anything, my chambers are next to the Great Hall”, I said quickly without waiting for her reply.
And with that, I was out the door before I could be tempted by her eyes as brown and golden as honey and her delicate aura of green curiosity and white peace.
Chapter 15
Linnia
With the flick of a lever, hot water fell from a copper pipe into the tub below, enveloping the room in clouds of steam. I heard the water rushing through the pipes and wondered where exactly it was coming from. With a waiting jug of cold water, I was able to cool the bath water down enough so that I didn’t burn my skin. With a sigh, I sank into the bath. I found fragrant soap and bath salts that smelled of pine needles and spent what felt like an eternity trying to detangle and wash my red mane with my fingers.
Scrubbed clean and with rosy skin, I got out of the bath and slipped into an oversized white linen shirt that I had found in the wardrobe in the bedroom. It reached down to my knees but was pleasantly soft against my skin. I washed the remnants of the dusty rooftops and the forest from my leather clothes in the remaining bath water and laid them out to dry on the upholstered bench. I brushed my teeth and trudged barefoot back into the bedroom.
I checked that the curtain was properly closed, grabbed the candle from the bedside table and inspected the books on a slanted shelf against the wall. After finding some unknown romance novel, I crawled under the soft duvet with it. The book on my lap showed a princess on the cover and a knight kneeling on one leg to ask for the hand of his great love, the beautiful princess.
Had the human king really been the Queen’s heart mate? Nothing in their interactions had ever suggested that she had his heart. No public displays of affection, hugs, kisses, hand-holding, not even a friendly smile. All I and the people had ever seen was disinterest at best. And yet the Queen was now weakened after the death of the human King.
One was born into the world of the Fae or half-Fae with certain powers, which only manifested themselves after selection. The pointed ears and elongated canines also developed during this time, and once this transformation is complete, they no longer age. Fae have reached the peak of their powers after selection and good training, learning and control. The only way to gain powers beyond that is to find your heart mate. This connection greatly strengthens one’s own powers, and in some cases, soulmates can share their powers through their bond. They share a common pool of strength, so to speak.
However, this shared power remained denied to the Queen, as she had bonded with a human. Her heart mate had been a human being.
The heart does what it wants, fate decides what it wants. It was common knowledge that the Queen cursed fate and therefore despised and forbade all shrines and altars to the god Cilian. Cilian was the god of the sea, peace and destiny and was said to weave the threads of individual lives and even heart mates. Fae felt much more intensely than humans, but they also hated and loved much more. This meant that love could not only make them stronger, but also more vulnerable. If the heart mate died, then part of the power that once bound them together also died, making the Fae vulnerable. Once an immortal being suddenly becomes vulnerable and open to attack.
Was this what had happened to the Queen? Had the King’s death robbed her of some of her strength? Elden once told me that this was why many Fae never loved and kept their feelings deep inside so as not to make themselves vulnerable.
To forbid yourself something that every person wants at some point – to be loved by someone – just so you don’t become vulnerable? That seemed very barbaric to me.
I had been brooding over this story for too long that I felt a headache and a throbbing in my jaw, accompanied by a metallic taste in my mouth. I put the book down on the bedside table, stuffed a knife under my pillow just in case, because you never know – blew out the candle and let princesses and knights lull me to sleep.
Chapter 16
Linnia
Apart from a little blood on my pillow, the night and morning had been quiet. However, this wasn’t the first time, so I didn’t waste another thought on it. After breakfast, Ares asked me if I would like to be taken to the edge of the forest so that I could cover the distance to the town more quickly. As long as I could make out the sun, which was slowly making its way through the dense branches, I could find my way back anywhere based on the position of the sun. Nevertheless, he instructed Kaelan to take me to the edge of the forest and disappeared in the opposite direction himself, as he still had something important to do.
“Kaelan, no matter what I say, you’re still coming with me, am I right?”
“Orders are orders,” he said with a grin, bending back a branch so it wouldn’t whip me in the face.
Perhaps Kaelan is also supposed to ensure that I never reach the city again. Perhaps Ares has changed his mind and come to the conclusion that guilds cannot unite.
“Is he this caring to everyone?”
I didn’t know why I cared so much, but now the question was out.
“He is the leader of a guild. It is his duty to look after the members of the guild – he would give his life for one of us, and we would give ours for his. But looking after someone also means showing them the way. Even if it might not be necessary,” Kaelan added after I overtook him and hopped over a narrow stream.
“And please call me Kae. The last time I heard Kaelan was when my mum scolded me and tried to throw a slipper at me.”
I had to giggle because I just liked the idea of a grown woman throwing a slipper at Kaelan too much.
“All right, Kae. Can you tell me how long Ares has been guild leader?”
We crossed small meadows, dense forests, streams and hills and quickly the way back seemed much further than the distance it had taken me to get from the town to the guild house.
“For about three years. He had had an unusually high increase in strength after the selection, which made him stronger than all the other guild members, including the guild leader at the time, even though he was a descendant of the god Kaelith. Ares took over the position because the old Lial had been alive for many centuries and had grown tired of working in the guild. He had only been waiting for a worthy successor and after training Ares, he retired to the countryside to devote himself to his passion of growing vegetables.”
I looked puzzled. Kaelith had been the main god about 30 years ago. One of the gods held the reign of the Great Twelve for 100 years and then had to hand it over to another of the Twelve. The age was then named after the deity who had just reigned. During the reign of Kaelith, the god of dreams, sleep and death, Lial must have been very strong. About 30 years ago, a few years before I was born, Kaelithhad given up his reign to the goddess Eiwren, which is why the history books now spoke of the Eiwrenian era. There were words that were three times as long and came off the tongue more easily, if you ask me.
“So is Ares descended from Eiwren?” I asked, frowning, because I had never heard of shadow powers coming from the goddess of the five elements.
“No,” said Kae as he climbed over a fallen oak tree.
“But Ares has two divine parents. That automatically makes him stronger than any Fae with only one divine father or mother.”
Before I could ask further, he added:
“But it’s not for me to reveal his parental relationships. You’ll have to ask him that yourself. We’re here, by the way.”
He bent back a few branches of a hazelnut bush, revealing a view of an open plain, the city on the horizon and even further beyond, the white palace towering over the city. Only now did I realize how far I had been following Ares for the past day without realizing how much distance I had covered. Now I also understood why Ares had insisted that I spend the night in the hideout.
“Thank you for your company Kae.”
I held my hand out to him. He ignored it and pulled me into a tight hug.
“See you soon Linnia, take care of yourself. You’ll get word from us.”
He slipped back into the forest, and I walked the last stretch into town.
Chapter 17
Linnia
On the long journey, I had plenty of time to think about how I wanted to break the news to Elden. I had imagined various possibilities for his reaction. These ranged from forbidding me to take any further action, kicking me out of the guild, accusing me of treason, to far worse things.
To be honest, anything could happen. The only thing left for me to do was to present the weighty arguments to him and hope that he would see the sense, not only for the guild but for all the inhabitants of the city and the country, of not killing the Queen until the human trafficking had been stopped. Even if that meant a large amount of money slipping through the guild’s fingers. I was also denied the opportunity to rise within the guild as long as the Queen was still breathing and did not die at my hands. That would also be very distasteful to Elden, as he had been preparing me for this mission of legitimization for years.
I had to deal with all of this as soon as I came face to face with Elden. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the mere thought of it.
My foster father had been a kind but strict father. He had given me fatherly love but had also trained me more rigorously than any other pupil in the guild. I had to train and practice longer, harder and more often. Archery, pugilism, weapon handling, poison mixing, healing, tracking, navigation on land and water, sneaking, hiding, sprinting and sneaking without making a single sound. It had cost me sleep, tears, blood and sweat. He molded me from a rough diamond, made me sharp-edged. My body alone is a weapon. If I could get my impulsiveness under control, I could also claim that my mind was also a weapon. But not everyone is flawless, and neither am I. May my impulsive reactions and responses in heated conversations be limited, especially when I have to talk to my guild leader, to whom I owe everything I am today.
The entrance to the Assassins’ Guild was located in the old and dilapidated temple of the goddess Kaireal, the twin sister of the god Kaeilith. She was the goddess of war, violence and power. There had not been a transnational war for a long time, which is why new temples were rarely built for Kaelith. This one at least had to be many decades old. The ancient construction of the temple itself alone bore witness to its age. Built of heavy white marble, the roof supported by tall pillars. The temple building was enthroned on a small hill somewhat off the beaten track in the old temple district. In the meantime, new temples had been built for the Great Twelve, which formed a new temple district a little closer to the city center. Tearing down the older temples from past eras was seen as a desecration and so the old temple complexes were left to nature and decay.
The old temple of Kaireal was locked with a barred gate to protect the marble statue of the goddess from vandalism. The people who paid homage to Kaireal either placed their offerings in front of the gate on the stone steps or used the newly built temple in the city.
I pushed open the provisionally secured gate after glancing over my shoulder to make sure that no prying eyes were looking in my direction. However, people rarely came to pray in the old district, as evidenced by the few dried flowers on the steps.
I squeezed through the opening and closed the gate behind me again. Pale light fell into the temple through a hole in the roof and illuminated the imposing statue inside the otherwise empty hall. Kaireal was carved from a single block of marble, a woman with a spear strapped to her back, bow and arrow in hand, the string drawn and ready to sink it into the prey or victim. She wore a hint of cloth on her body, so delicately carved into the stone that it had to be silk. She also wore light armor over her right shoulder and chest and her expression spoke of victory and power. At her feet, Amaryllis and carnations were carved into the stone. Next to the flowers formed from white marble, a real and recently plucked plant lay at the feet of the goddess. A fern frond of a rich, bright green color. The fern stood for secrets and something that lay hidden. I picked it up and put it in my chest strap. I paused for a moment, stroked the tip of my finger over the arrowhead of the statue and said, “Honored be Kaireal”, as was customary.
Then I approached the hole in the ground behind the statue, which just about allowed a human to slide through into the ground below. I kept wondering how Elden managed to disappear into this hole with his giant form without getting stuck.
A sprawling city stretched out below ground, built from the same white stone as the temple on the surface. Light-colored limestone and white marble. A city sunk underground, a city sunk in time, called Atlantis. Connected rooms, corridors and halls. Even before I joined the guild, Elden had commissioned the expansion of the lair, or rather its excavation. After what felt like every fourth turn, a corridor or room led to a dead end buried in earth, which was excavated and developed piece by piece over many years to create additional living space and training rooms. Since then, an ingenious ventilation system has also been developed to channel the smoke from the countless candles and torches upwards via inconspicuous ventilation shafts.
A gentle breeze blew through my hair and raised my goose bumps again. I stood in front of the heavy door of the council chamber and braced myself for whatever was waiting for me on the other side.
Chapter 18
Linnia
Naliah always knew what to say in a certain situation and how to say it. I was sure she would be able to conduct this conversation better than me. She rarely lost her patience and always managed to be friendly and polite in every situation. The complete opposite to me, because I just said whatever came into my head and rarely thought about whether I should say the thought out loud or not.
As a child, I still thought that perhaps she had learnt this in her healer training, because you should also be friendly and patient with your patients. Until I met the head of the healer’s guild, who brashly chased me out of the tree village after I had slept in the trees with Naliah for three days in a row because I didn’t want to go back to the love servants.
I couldn’t stay here forever; I had obligations after all. The Great Healer, who was also known outside the village as “The Great Mother”, certainly didn’t want to mess with Ravenna. Leading a guild already demanded enough strength and time, there was no need to start a feud with another guild.
The Great Mother ran her guild with a gentle rigor but was kind-hearted and pious. Naliah was completely kind-hearted and rarely showed any motherly severity, and only when I didn’t have various wounds from my training sessions properly treated by her. Nevertheless, I kept sneaking into Naliah’s bed under the branches and after a few months The Great Mother pretended she hadn’t noticed and didn’t mention it any further. From then on, I spent every free minute with Naliah in the tree village or with her in the forest.
After her lessons, she taught me everything she had learnt about medicinal herbs and poisons, about treating wounds and healing broken bones. She taught me the language of flowers, showed me what they meant and how to communicate with them. We started to leave messages and small clues for each other. I usually put them in the treehouse for her and she would put an answer next to them so I could find them while she was still in class. Naliah rarely ventured out of the shelter of the trees into the city, so we tended to use the tree village and the surrounding forest as an interface between our two different lives. Covert communication was a lot of fun back then, but later it became an important part of daily guild life, because not everyone should be able to read your messages, especially if they contained more than “I love you”, “take care of yourself” or “my guild leader is daft” – just what kids wrote to each other.
After I joined the Assassins Guild, flower language was used a lot. It was not uncommon for a guild member of the Assassins’ Guild to need a healer. The healers’ lair was not secret, like that of most guilds. Most of the population knew that the healers had retreated to the shelter of the trees and avoided the big cities. However, the healers did not like it when sick people were dumped at their feet or went to them as sick people themselves. The healers were called, and they came to you, and only if you needed longer treatment you were taken to the tree house, where several healers attended to all ailments. It was not uncommon for Elden to send me out to leave a message for Naliah for the Healers’ Guild so that a healer could come to the Assassins’ lair. A message sent by post, carrier pigeon or messenger could all too easily be intercepted. This meant that no third party had to find out about the Assassins’ headquarters and the actual location of the tree village remained a mystery in the vast forest.
Flowers were not only pretty to look at, could heal or kill, no, they could also speak.
Chapter 19
Linnia
At first glance, the council chamber was empty. The candles in the heavy, gilded holders on the walls were almost burnt down and spread little light. Elden was not sitting in his chair at the head of the table but was poring over a map of the known land of all Tampiel on the wall, which had been pinned into the stone at the corners. He plucked at his beard with one hand, the other leant thoughtfully against his side. His broad stature obscured most of the map, but I recognized small pinheads dotted around certain areas on land and sea. They led from Tamenium across the waters to the Hornkapp Islands. The door creaked on its hinges as I let it fall into the lock behind me.
“I’ve been waiting hours for you to finally come back,” Elden grumbled over his shoulder without turning round.
Without responding, I asked, “Has the rat told you a fairy tale yet?”
I knew he didn’t like it when I called Nil that name when I was mad at him, which was practically always the case because he’s been like the older brother to me for years, but he acted like my annoying little brother.
Elden turned round and walked towards his chair.
“Actually, the fairy tale was very interesting. I wonder what’s true and what’s not. And whether it has a happy ending. Even if a happy ending means a royal death.”
He sat down and placed his feet on the tabletop, folding his hands on his stomach. He raised an eyebrow questioningly, the unspoken question hanging in the air like a sour stench.
“The Queen is alive. For the time being. She was detained and questioned but escaped. Her current whereabouts are unknown, but she probably made it back to the palace.”
Elden said nothing, his face an expressionless scowl, which told me to continue.
“She has revealed her powers. She is capable of teleportation. However, she is weakened and not in full possession of her powers.”
Pause. I tried to fathom in his face what the information I brought him would trigger in him. But he didn’t reveal anything, as if it wasn’t new information for him.
“You drove an arrow into the Queen’s eye instead of her heart and then had her in custody and preferred to gossip with her instead of doing the job you were told to do? To be more precise, you accepted the job on a binding basis, but I see you didn’t fulfil it.”
His eyes bored into mine. I stood up to him, my mind racing. I tried to organize my thoughts, tried to tame my heated words that were building up behind my tongue.
“What was the result of your questioning?”
Without taking my eyes off him, I raised my arm and pointed my finger at the map on the wall.
“It seems to me that it would be superfluous to tell you something you already seem to know.”
I didn’t like being made to feel like I was being kept in the dark. I stroked the fern in my chest strap.
Once again, Elden looked at me with a fixed gaze, but one corner of his mouth twitched barely noticeably. He heaved his hulking body out of the chair, circled the table and stood in front of me.
“You were with the Shadowwalkers.”
That was not a question. He knew it. It sent shivers down my spine. My life hung between becoming a successor to the guild or being expelled in disgrace or even death.
I straightened my head, tried to keep my composure, considered my next words.
For years I had been trying to find out who I was. Who I could be. Who I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be a love servant. I knew that even as a small child. I liked my life as an assassin, though. I liked my job. I felt a terrifying satisfaction when I blew the life out of murderers, rapists and soldiers of the Queen who extinguished defenseless people like the flame of a candle. For years, I only took on contracts that interested me. I snapped up all the bad guys who no longer had a right to exist, forfeited through shameful deeds. I didn’t care about the money. It was about making a difference. To stop the evil in the world from spreading like vermin. Now I had the opportunity to cut off the head of the queen of vermin – the Queen herself.
That felt right. And that’s what I want to be, that’s what I want to do. I want to be a part of this movement, this liberation. I remain the Assassin of Eldervale, the protector of the little man, the women and children. I continue to watch in the dark alleys and chop off the hands that grab breasts. I continue to watch on the rooftops and drive knives into the necks of fathers who beat their children. I continue to watch on balconies and windowsills and cut off the balls of cheating husbands and leave them whimpering in their own blood.
But now it was time to use the skills I had learnt for a greater cause that would benefit not just Eldervale, not just my guild, not just Elden or myself, no, but all of Tamenium and all guilds, all people who have been oppressed, exploited and abducted.
That’s what I want to be and that’s what I want to stand up for. I have been searching for my destiny since I was born. And right now, it felt like it was being handed to me on a silver platter. Take it here. Go for it. I wonder if Cilian had a hand in it.
“Yes. We joined forces briefly because it was the wisest thing to do in this situation. The information we received is of enormous importance-“
“You joined forces for a short time?” he interrupted me, stretching out the second word.
I raised my chin defiantly, my whole body radiating defense.
“Yes, because as a guild, we shouldn’t just think about our own wallets, we should also think about everyone else. The Shadowwalkers do that.”
Ares said he’d accepted the job from the noticeboard, like myself, but I could sense from the way he was grinding his jaw and clenching his fists during the questioning, that his motivation was more than just money. My instincts when it came to human emotions rarely led me astray.
Elden audibly sucked in his breath. Then he abruptly raised his arms. I closed my eyes and anticipated the burning pain on my cheek. Elden hadn’t even raised a hand to me, unlike Ravenna, who had used this kind of chastisement almost daily. However, I was sure that today would be the day that I would feel Elden’s anger at me and my misstep firsthand.
The next thing I knew, I found myself in a hug. Elden held me to his chest in a vice-like but fatherly way. I widened my eyes in confusion but returned the hug. I only became more confused when he released the hug, placed his huge paws on my shoulders and said in a conciliatory tone:
“You have proven your physical, fighting talent many times on the course, in the training hall and on the shooting range. Your final test was to prove your strong mind. Your gut feeling, your intuition. I had to see that you could make your own decisions. Sometimes it’s not easy to make the right choice, but it’s part of leadership.”
Was it just my imagination, or were his eyes shining a little more than usual?
“You have to know when to fight and when it’s time to retreat, you have to know when you’re superior and when the other person is stronger, you have to know when to give up smaller goals for bigger ones and when to fight for yourself and when for others.”
Realization must have shown on my face, because he smiled.
“You’ve passed the test. You always have been, but now I can make it official. You are worthy, Linnia Cordova.”
Chapter 20
Linnia
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