Assassin’s Fate

I can’t. My lips were smashed and bloody. My teeth felt loose and sore in my gums.

You can. Because you must. Chew your hands free and untie your feet, and we will go. I will show you where to go. There is someone kin to us not far from here. If I can wake him he will protect you. If not, I will teach you to hunt. Once, your father and I lived in these mountains. Perhaps the den he built for us is still tight. We will go there.

I didn’t know we were in the mountains! You lived in the mountains with my father?

I did. I have been here before. Enough. Start chewing.

It hurt to bend my neck to reach the bindings on my hands. It hurt to press my teeth in hard enough to bite the fabric. It had been a nice shirt the morning I had put it on to go to my lessons with Scribe Lant. One of the maids, Caution, had helped me to dress. She’d chosen this pale-yellow blouse and over it she had tugged a green tunic. The colours of my house, I realized suddenly. She’d dressed me in Withywood colours, even if the tunic had been too big for me and hung on me like a dress, nearly to my knees. I’d worn leggings that day, not the padded trousers my captors had given me to wear. The wet trousers. Another sob rose in me. Before I could choke it back, I made a sound.

‘… awake?’ someone asked by the fire. Alaria, I thought.

‘Leave her as she is!’ Dwalia commanded harshly.

‘But my brother is hurt! I can feel his pain!’ This from Vindeliar in a low and woeful voice.

‘Your brother!’ Dwalia’s words dripped with venom. ‘Trust a sexless lout like you to not be able to tell the Unexpected Son from some White’s by-blow. All the coin we spent, all the luriks I wasted, and that girl is all we have to show for it. Stupid and ignorant, both of you. You think she’s a boy, and she doesn’t know what she is. She can’t even write and pays no attention to her dreams.’ A strange gloating filled her voice. ‘But I know she’s special.’ Then the fleeting satisfaction was gone, replaced with a sneer. ‘Doubt me. I don’t care. But you’d best hope there’s something special about her, for she’s the only coin we have to buy our way back into the Four’s good graces!’ In a lower voice, she added, ‘How Coultrie will crow over my failure. And that old bitch Capra will use it as an excuse for anything she wants to do.’

Alaria spoke very softly. ‘So if she is all we have, perhaps we should try to deliver her in good condition?’

‘Perhaps if you had caught her instead of falling to the ground and rolling about moaning, none of this would have happened!’

‘Do you hear that?’ A desperate whisper from Reppin. ‘Did you hear that? Someone just laughed. And now … do you hear those pipes playing?’

‘Your mind is turned, and all because a little girl bit you! Keep your foolish words to yourself.’

‘I could see the bone! My arm is all swollen. The pain thuds through me like a drum!’

There was a pause and I heard the fire’s crackling. Stay still, Wolf Father warned me. Learn all you can by listening. Then, with a touch of pride, See, even with your poor cow’s teeth, you have taught her to fear you. You must teach all of them to fear you. Even the old bitch has learned some caution. But you must drive it deeper. These must be your only three thoughts: I will escape. I will make them fear me. And if I have the chance, I will kill them.

They have already beaten me just for trying to escape! What will they do if I kill one?

They will beat you again, unless you escape. But you have heard, you have value to them. So they probably will not kill you.

Probably? Terror swept through me. I want to live. Even if I live as their captive, I want to live.