The Misbegotten (An Assassin's Blade Book 1) Read online

  Guards came around occasionally and handed me wooden bowls filled with what looked to be white vomit. I asked them what it was, and they always said, “Food.” If that was food, it was time to start looking into the benefits of starvation.

  Few people joined me, aside from a man who wept occasionally and one who lamented about angels and demons. The latter was my opera singer and I his audience.

  He would break the shroud of silence by preaching about good and evil, and I clapped and egged him on. It’s not the crazies who talk to themselves nor the whimpers of those distraught and lost that sap you of your soul in a dungeon. It’s the silence — the bitter emptiness, a void in which you start to lose your grip on what’s real and what’s an illusion. As long as people talked, even if they spouted nonsense, I was at ease.

  Even laughs were had. Sometimes when the preacher of good and evil would speak of the heavens, I would tell him demons and devils were afoot and that I could see them. He gave some valuable advice about my situation, such as, “Don’t let your feet fall into the hellish fires, or the demons will bite off your toes.” Wise advice indeed.

  My friend continued with his talk of evil well into the night, or morning, or afternoon… time had little meaning down here. The only thing that finally silenced him was the familiar pitter-patter of boots kicking along the stiff dirt floor. Odd timing, since a guard had given us some vomit — sorry, food — a short time before.

  Something sounded different in those footsteps that drew nearer. They moved swiftly, marching headlong into the darkness with purpose.

  “A demon approaches!” my preacher friend said.

  Could’ve well been a demon, if such things existed. Shavings of menacing orange slowly reached into the blackness and extinguished it, thrusting it back.

  “Repent!” the preacher cried. “Repent, and may the angels come! May they smite this foul spawn and lift us into the heavens!”

  A slender figure bathed in the warmth of fire approached. She leaned her torch close to my face and hooked a strand of raven hair behind her ear.

  “Aren’t I too pretty to be a demon?” she asked.

  “My, my. What a treat. They send Sybil Tath to check up on me. Or are they calling you a Verdan now, given you and Chachant have shacked up together for quite a while?”

  Sybil Tath was the eldest daughter of Edmund Tath, king of Eaglesclaw and lord of one of the five great families.

  She closed one of her big eyes and scrunched up her face, deep in thought like a playful child. “Hmm. No, I don’t think it works like that. But if you’re so interested in what they call me, I’ll be sure to send word via the messengers when the wedding concludes.”

  “So the promise of a wedding lives,” I said. “You know, people were starting to ask questions. After seven years of playing stuff-my-keep under the sheets together, word was getting around that you two would never marry. That maybe even… well, I’m not one for rumors, but people were getting the wrong idea about Chachant. That maybe he preferred a harsher touch, a few bristles on the face of his lover, something to stuff his keep.”

  I became suddenly aware that Sybil held something in her other hand. A bag of some sort. She clutched it tighter, similar to when some drunk clutched his mug tighter right before driving it into my face for spilling his ale.

  “Who are these ‘people?’” she asked.

  “I’m not good with names, unless I killed you, fucked you, or drank with you before. Or, in your case, met you twenty bloody times.”

  “Twenty-one now, huh? I betcha it’ll be the best meeting yet, too.”

  “It scares me when people say things like that.”

  She heaved a sack at my feet. The contents inside clangored like clashing steel. She knelt and fiddled with something in her pocket.

  “I’m freeing you,” she said.

  A clasp around my ankles clicked and relaxed.

  “In that case,” I said, “I should inform you I only insult those I’m very good friends with.”

  “Mm hmm,” she murmured.

  She unlocked the clasp around my wrists, then unwound the steel chains from the pillar. As she worked hastily, the fog of her warm breath drifted into my hands and fingers and cheeks, thawing my flesh and bones. It smelled like a crop of flourishing mint.

  “Get dressed,” she ordered.

  “Does Wilhelm know about this?”

  “He does, although he does not agree with it. But I need your help, whether you killed a stable boy or not.”

  “For the record,” I said, dressing myself with my leather armor and wools from inside the bag, “I didn’t.”

  I straightened out my boys, which is another way of saying I sheathed my blade and the dagger Sybil had kindly returned to me.

  “Your weapon is light,” she said.

  “Made of pure ebon. What’s the saying? Light as air, cuts like… well, since there’s nothing that cuts quite like ebon in this world, the simile hasn’t been completed. Maybe I’ll have you one crafted, as a thanks for freeing me. Of course, that depends on where you take me.”

  I wrapped a small pinch of fur around my neck.

  “Last I heard,” she said, “it would take half the Edenvaile vault to buy enough ebon for one sword.”

  “I know people.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Speaking of the Edenvaile vault,” I said, “Mydia and I never got to the point of discussing payment for information on your little king slayer problem. Now I’m not a stickler, Sybil. Since you freed me, I’m willing to part with whatever knowledge I have for a… mm, let’s say, discounted price.”

  Sybil grabbed the empty bag from the floor and compressed it against her chest. “I would rather have your eyes and ears than what’s between your head right now. Trust that you do not already have information that could help me.”

  “Is that what Chachant wants as well?”

  “Does it matter? He’s not here. And I promise you will be rewarded handsomely, so long as you are in agreement that forty thousand is a handsome payment.”

  I cleared my throat. “As in forty thousand coins that glitter gold? Well, then, what are you waiting on? Lead the way.”

  A whistling voice pierced the cold air. “I hear ’em! They skitter and scatter down the halls, mingle amongst us! The demons are here, friends. The demons have come.”

  We passed by the preacher man, who shook his skinned head in disappointment.

  I shrugged and said, “The gods rescued me.”

  Sybil’s hissing torch carved out an orange-lit ramp of dirt that ascended quickly to the surface. We followed it and emerged into the slightly less cold air that coasted through the openness of Edenvaile.

  The night sky resembled a placid lake whose pinpoints of winking light were the celestial equivalent to mosquitoes and sundry insects nipping at calm evening waters. It was a welcome sight, after being stuffed underground for days.

  A temperamental wind brewed up around us, hawking and hunting for some sign of life to bury in a five-foot snowdrift.

  “They’re supplied and ready to go,” Sybil said, motioning to two horses. She pulled her wool cowl down, tied it in place, and put a foot on the saddle strap.

  I touched the mare with a chestnut face and golden eyes. My Pormillia. She nuzzled my palm affectionately.

  “I saw her in the stables,” Sybil said. “I remembered her eyes from your most recent visit.” She heaved herself onto her horse. “Come, hurry.”

  We rode off for the gate, which was curiously opened. After we put it behind us, it closed with a thud.

  We rode east for a while and then south at daybreak. During a quick breather to let the horses regather themselves, Sybil told me she knew a place we could rest comfortably. Comfort wasn’t as much a concern of mine as getting answers to what had transpired in Edenvaile and why exactly the lover of Chachant Verdan had freed me in the dark of night. She had been obtusely vague, but she’d assured me I would receive the answers I desired. A
nswers and, even more importantly, a mountain of gold.

  Around midday, we reached the toes of Mount Kor, near the southern tip of Rime. Here the snow lay as fine dust along the jagged rock and among bearberry and arctic moss.

  Sybil circled around for a while. She eventually led us into a small cavern buried inside the descending mountain. The roof was painted the color of wheat, scarred with chalk lines as if someone had taken a dagger and scraped it all up. After walking into a cavern once and having a spider the size of both my hands fall on my head, I had a tendency to inspect ceilings with the thoroughness of a rock hound inspecting gems.

  “It’s warm in here,” I said, feeling myself begin to sweat. “Oh, shit. Did I die and go to…”

  Sybil laughed. She got off her horse. With a few hand signals, the beast sighed and lay down.

  “It’s a hot spring,” she said. She dipped her finger into a wide natural basin, shored with smooth rock, and flicked it at me.

  The hot sprinkles of water chased away the cold in my bones, which evacuated my body in the form of shivers.

  I rubbed my hands in anticipation and climbed off Pormillia. Sidling up to the edge of the water, I knelt, opened my mouth and allowed the slow-rising steam to pour through me.

  “I promise you,” I said, unbuttoning my coat, “this has nothing to do with primal needs.”

  I kicked off my boots.

  “Nor am I attempting to draw the ire of Chachant,” I added, removing my socks.

  With some manipulation of a buckle, my belt fell away from my waist and down around my ankles.

  “And I certainly am not a ne’er-do-well who wishes to rape you,” I explained, undoing my pants and kicking them across the way.

  My leather jerkin clonked against the ground.

  “And I have no interest in forcing Mother Nature to play the role of voyeur,” I clarified, balling up my shirt and sending it to accompany my pants.

  I slid a couple fingers beneath the band of my skivvies and nodded.

  “So with all of that said, I hope you take no offense, but I’m getting naked.”

  And I did get naked. And I lowered myself into the hot spring, and I closed my eyes as the shivers descended all the way to my toes. The scalding water burned like fire, but, oh, it was a good pain.

  I stretched my hands along the edge, submerged up to my chest. “Ohhh,” I said with a pleasant sigh, “this — this is good.”

  A plop pried open my eyelid, and I watched as a bare Sybil Tath settled into the spring.

  She caressed a wet hand up her arm and around her shoulders, washing away the grime. “How long do you think the walls of Edenvaile could withstand an assault from Braddock Glannondil’s armies?”

  “That… is a strange question to ask.”

  Sybil splashed a cupped hand of water onto her face. “Chachant is convinced Braddock is behind his father’s death.”

  Suddenly the water didn’t feel so warm anymore. “Your lover can’t possibly be thinking of trotting off to war against a man with three times the army.”

  “What would you do if someone killed your father?”

  “Write the good man a letter, thanking him.” Of course, that was impossible, given I was the one who had ended his life. A bit of revenge for a childhood of black eyes, busted eardrums and a mother who walked about with a disfigured face till the day she took one punch too many. “But even if my father was a king who I loved dearly,” I explained, “I damn well wouldn’t mindlessly accuse the most powerful man in the world of assassinating him.”

  Sybil tilted her hair back into the spring, wringing out the oils. “I disagree. It’s a hazardous accusation to make, granted, but not mindless, given Braddock’s proposal.”

  “Did that proposal suggest poisoning a king with a flowing white beard and bushy brows? In that case, yes, it may just be probable that he did indeed poison Vileoux, along with half the northern lords.”

  Hair still soaking in the water, her eyes slanted toward mine. “He proposed to unite the five families under one crown. The Danisers agreed, but Vileoux rejected it. My father followed Vileoux, and the Rabthorns never officially made a decision.”

  Clearly, I needed better spies. Or more of them. This proposal should have reached my ears the moment it left the Glannondil kingdom of Erior.

  “Why one crown?” I asked.

  “It would prevent further destabilization of the realm if all five families allied together. There were various scenarios under which it would operate, from a more liberal arrangement where each kingdom would retain its local sovereignty, to a firmer hand that would…” She searched for the proper words — the proper diplomatic words.

  “That would finger each kingdom,” I said, “and if the kings and queens didn’t scream in orgasmic glory when Braddock told them to, why, he’d march on their lands and annex them for treason. Am I close?”

  Sybil lifted her head out of the water and leaned back against the rock edge. “More or less.”

  I thoughtfully scratched my itchy beard, flinging dandruff into the spring. There weren’t many ways Braddock could benefit from cutting down Vileoux Verdan. Unless he wanted to…

  “How’s the North reacting to Chachant’s claim to the throne?” I asked.

  “Poorly,” she said blankly. Not a muscle in her face twitched. That’s how Sybil Tath was. She only allowed you to glean what she wanted, never her true feelings or thoughts. It was quite maddening.

  “I imagine,” I said. “Twenty-year-olds aren’t given much respect.” I thought about everything she’d said and ran through a scenario aloud. “So Braddock puts Vileoux in an early grave. Chachant ascends to the throne. He’s got the face of a baby and the kingly experience of one, too. The infamous apostates that are the northern bannermen see this as their opportunity to make good on their own claim. Chaos erupts in the North. Braddock marches in to pacify it, puts a puppet on the throne. Now he’s got the Danisers and this new king behind him. Rabthorns will get in line, weasels that they are. In the end, your father’s resolve will weaken, and Braddock gets precisely what he desires. Makes sense. But there’s a problem with the theory.”

  Sybil turned an eager ear toward me.

  “Patrick Verdan,” I said. “He’s got the true claim and from what I hear the backing of many northern lords.” Patrick had abdicated years ago, leaving behind his rightful heirship to the throne, but he still had the Verdan name. And he was the eldest.

  “That’s not the problem,” Sybil said matter-of-factly. “The problem is Vileoux Verdan isn’t dead.”

  “That,” I explained, holding up a finger, “would be more than a problem.”

  Sybil gently propelled herself through the water, the sharp point of her nose pricking the steam as she floated over to the opposite edge. I caught a quick glimpse of her back before she turned.

  “What is that?” I asked. “That mark on your back.”

  “A tree. I saw it in a dream once. Isn’t it beautiful?” She turned and treated me to the entirety of the tattoo’s elegance.

  Beautiful… was not the word I would have used. No, it didn’t look beautiful or artistic or grand. It looked… well, very, very real. As if I could reach out and touch its trunk that grew sideways and suddenly surged high into the air. As if I could hang from its boughs of thick, knotted branches and smell its bounty of yellow flowers. I blinked and shook my head, drawing myself back into the present.

  “Anyway,” I said. “Vileoux, er—”

  “Isn’t dead,” Sybil said. “I saw his supposed dead body before Chachant did. Before anyone, except the guards. As I walked past his quarters, there was a loud bang, as if someone had fallen into a dresser or bedpost. I waited there as the guards called for him. There was no answer. They waited and called again. No answer. Eventually, they kicked in the door… and there he was, on the floor, stench of red wine in the air.”

  “Sounds like a lush fell and hit his head,” I said.

  She waved a finger in the general
direction of her mouth. “His lips were black. Dried, burnt black… awfully terrible looking. His throat, what I could see of it, was sooty, no pink at all.”

  I wiped a condensed layer of steam from my forehead. “Oils of camadan seed produce similar effects, but not as dramatic and certainly not as quick. And I don’t know of any willing participant to take camadan-oil-spiked-wine to the face.”

  “Willing participant?”

  “You told me Vileoux wasn’t dead, so I’m assuming someone played his part.”

  “It was Vileoux who I saw dead in his room. It was Vileoux who I saw buried in the bitterly cold sarcophagus. I know the man. I know him!” she insisted. A rare glimpse into her emotions, or a calculated move to rouse me? “I’ve slept in his keep for seven years. It was him, and I am not mistaken.”

  “Fine,” I said, hoping to temper her temper. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “When Chachant made way for Vereumene, I went into the ossuary to beg Vileoux — his spirit, if it remained — to help Chachant. To instill tranquility into his heart, lessen his hunger for revenge.” She touched my shoulder, as if for support, or perhaps to steady me. “I bent over his sarcophagus, nudged the top ajar so I could see his face… there was nothing, Astul. It was empty. He had left.”

  “Or someone had taken him,” I pointed out.

  “Semantics,” she said. She lifted herself out of the water and onto the ledge, airing out her naked body.

  “Well, those are quite different things, you know. Leaving on your own accord, or being forced to—”

  “Listen to me,” Sybil said seriously, cutting me off, “I saw something the night Vileoux — or his body, whatever — went missing. You’ll think I’m mental, but… I saw fire in the sky. It was a bird bathed in flames.” Her eyes narrowed, and she forced a heavy swallow down her throat. “I swear upon my life.”

  “Which way did it go?”

  “This way.”

  Silence captured us. Prior to about ten years ago, claiming you spotted a flaming bird in the sky was enough to have a savant start chiseling into your skull, hoping to pop whatever strange fungus or parasite had clamped onto your brain. But then the conjurers arrived, or rather appeared, and with them unnatural abominations that they both created and controlled. Mostly ridiculous things, really — two-tailed squirrels, lions with the teeth of a man, rotund ravens who couldn’t soar for more than a few seconds without having to perch and catch their breath. Hadn’t ever seen or heard of a flaming bird, but if it existed, it was undoubtedly born into this world from the minds of conjurers.