Assassin's Curse (41 page)

“Make sure our young guest is comfortable until her sister arrives,” Master Dykara said.
 
“And send no message to the Countess until we have both of her granddaughters.”

“As you wish,” Mave replied, scooping up the unconscious body of the young witch like she was a sack of potatoes.

Jeda awoke in the back of a bouncing wagon as it rolled along a country road.
 
He was disoriented and felt groggy, like someone had drugged him.
 
With that thought, his eyes flew open and he sat up, wincing slightly at a lingering pain in his shoulder.

Gelda, that sneaky….

“Now before you get all riled up, you should know that shoulder of yours is as good as new.”

Jeda looked over to see the old woman smiling at him.
 
“You knocked me out again.”

“Course I did,” Gelda replied.
 
“It was for your own good.”

“Where are we?
 
How’s Keisha?”

“Like I told you before, we are going to Constantine.
 
Everything is under control.”

Jeda looked around the inside of the wagon.
 
Keisha was lying comfortably on a makeshift bed opposite Jeda while Gelda sat between the two of them.
 
He looked to the front of the wagon and saw Natasha and Kala sitting and driving the wagon together.

“How long?”

“Well, you’ve been out for the better part of a day and we’ve been on the road for a few hours.
 
I suspect we will get to Constantine by nightfall.
 
They should be waiting for us to arrive; I sent a bird ahead before we left.
 
My sisters should be able to help Keisha.”

Jeda sat back and closed his eyes.
 
He was exhausted from the ordeals of the last few days, but at least his pain was manageable.
 
If they were to arrive in Constantine tonight, then Jeda saw no better choice than to simply ride along in the back of the wagon.
 
The rest would do him a world of good for what he had planned.
 
He sat back and tried to clear his mind to rest, but was interrupted by Gelda.

“Young man, I have a few questions I would like to ask you.”

The politeness of Gelda’s words caused Jeda to become instantly alert and he sat back up again, looking at her through guarded eyes.

“Oh, stop being so suspicious.
 
Are you really going to stare at me like I’m going to steal your soul?
 
How about a little trust?
 
I’ve had your life in my hands on two separate occasions and have felt the bonds you hold inside yourself.
 
As a matter of fact that is what I want to talk to you about.”

No matter what Gelda said, Jeda had a hard time relaxing around her, but not for the reasons she seemed to think.
 
Jeda never forgot who killed Miriam all those years before and, with Gelda recently revealing she was the girls’ grandmother, the last thing Jeda wanted was a heart-to-heart conversation with the powerful, old witch.
 
She may have been old and friendly, laughing and joking with everyone she met, but she still scared him silly.
 
There was just too much power behind those smiling eyes of hers.

“What do you want to know?”

Gelda sighed at the tension in Jeda’s voice.
 
“Fine, if that’s the way you want it.
 
While I was healing your shoulder, I discovered a second bond deep within your mind.
 
I couldn’t reach, though I tried my damnedest, but I do believe I recognized the aura surrounding it.
 
Do you remember anything about your mother?”

“I told you the first time we met that she died giving birth to me.
 
The only other thing I know about her is that she was a witch, just like you.”

“Not like me,” Gelda replied.
 
“She was not like me at all.”

“How would you know?”

“I know because she was the strongest elemental witch of her time and my closest friend.
 
I actually introduced her to my brother, who later became her husband.
 
His name was Jacob and I loved them both dearly.”

“Jacob?”

“Yes, Jacob: my dear brother, and your father.”

The facts began swirling around in Jeda’s mind faster than he could grasp them.
 
If Gelda was the twins’ grandmother and Jeda’s aunt, then Miriam had told him the truth about being his cousin that fateful night so many years ago.
 
Jeda hung his head in his hands, not able to look at the old woman.

“Life can be so cruel,” Gelda said.

Jeda looked up.
 
His voice was choked with emotion.
 
“How could you let me go with the girls--your granddaughters--so long ago, knowing what a monster I was?”

Gelda threw her hands up.
 
“What choice did I have?
 
I felt my daughter inside you when I healed you the first time we met.
 
You had her bond with the girls and I could not wrest that from you.
 
Besides that, both the Black Coven and the assassin guild were after you and the girls and, if you had stayed with me, one or the other would have eventually found you and taken the twins away.
 
I couldn’t let that happen.
 
I am an old woman and I would not have been able to hold them off for long.
 
The only safe thing to do was send them away with you and hope no one would find you.”

“But, I was a heartless assassin paid to kill people.”

“True, but it was the guild and their cruelness that made you like that.
 
You were not born that way.
 
I could feel Miriam’s bond affecting you even after only a few days, and the love you were feeling toward the girls.
 
I knew that, with time, you would love them as much as Miriam had.”

Jeda stared at the old witch.
 
It was time to tell the truth and suffer the consequences.
 
“But you don’t know what really happened that night.”

Gelda sat quietly, waiting for Jeda to continue.

“I killed her,” Jeda continued softly.

“I thought as much.”

“I’m so sorry, Gelda.
 
I had no idea who Miriam was.
 
The guild assigned me the contract and I carried it out.
 
I have spent the last 10 years trying to make up for that night.”

“I know.”

They sat in the back of the rumbling wagon, each lost in their own thoughts of what could have been, of what might have been, and of what should have been.
 
Jeda closed his eyes and tried to block out the details of that terrible night.
 
It happened so long ago, but the remorse and regret at his part in Miriam’s death still gnawed at his soul.

Long hours passed until a voice from the front called back, “We can see the city.”

***

The guild’s fortress in Constantine was located a few miles outside the city, nestled in the deep forests along the northern road.
 
It was built set back from the main thoroughfare to keep it hidden from casual observation, but there were multiple trails leading to its front door for those persistent or foolhardy enough to seek out its denizens.
 
The outside of the fortress was nondescript in its plain architecture, but anyone with a critical eye for defense would see the strategically placed arrow slits and murder holes along the battlements.

The fortress was multileveled, with more floors hidden belowground than the three stories that could be seen from the outside.
 
Past the main doors was a grand foyer, built to impress and imbue the strength and wealth of the guild, where all visitors were met and led to small, discreet offices to conduct business of a more private nature.
 
Beyond this façade of civility lay the inner sanctum where the guild members lived and trained in their deadly arts.
 
No one was allowed into the inner sanctum of the fortress; any would-be trespasser or interloper who attempted to enter would find
themselves
faced with a labyrinth of halls and passageways that seemed to turn back upon themselves.
 
These mazes of corridors were built to confuse and disorient all visitors, friendly or otherwise.

Deep in the bowels of the fortress was a dark and windowless room with a single table and chair decorating its center, and a thin sleeping pallet strewn in one corner.
 
The floors on this level were lined with mazes of long, dark corridors filled with cells and long-forgotten rooms.
 
Down this deep, the rooms were used for
reflection
and the art of
persuasion
that the guild was sometimes called upon to perform.
 
Sounds this deep echoed off the
stone walls
, making the smallest seem as loud as the lost screams of tortured souls that could occasionally be heard.
 

It was in this room that Mave sat, the one lone candle reflecting eerily off his eyes.
 
When he lived in the fortress, this was the room he called home.
 
The candle was set on the table and gave off a weak glow of light that barely reached the far corners.
 
There was no sound to be heard but for his sword being drawn across a sharpening stone.
 
The sound was both eerie and soothing to Mave as he pondered his next moves.
 
He tried to order his thoughts in a strange attempt to convince himself that what he planned next was for the good of the guild and not just
himself
.
 

They have grown weak in their old age.
 
First, there is that bitch countess.
 
She has been hounding the guild for years and the masters have done nothing to put her in her place.
 
Yet they banish me to a southern hellhole for failing to appease the old crone while they grow fat and comfortable from the gold she has heaped on them.

Mave looked up at the sound coming from the far corner of the room.
 
There was a slight movement in the dark shadows and he got up to investigate.
 
The masters had said to make the young witch comfortable, so Mave had thrown her down on his sleeping pallet in the cold, dark room.
 
She was beginning to stir, but was still unconscious and he moved back to his sharpening.
 
The sound of the sword against the stone became more pronounced as he continued.

The covens will strike against us soon and they do nothing about that.
 
The masters believe that prophecy nonsense about these twins and grow fearful in the face of magic.
 
They choose to hide in the shadows in the hopes the witches will forgive and forget, but they never will.
 
I won’t let our house,
my
house, come to ruin because the masters see magic shadows in the dark.
 
Witches are such a pain in the ass.

The sword strokes against the stone came quicker.

Then there is the traitor.
 
The masters insist on still calling him a ‘brother’ after all the disgrace he has brought down on us.
 
They don’t consider what their inactions have done to the reputation of this house.
 
We have become a joke in the eyes of the world and that perception will be the death of us.
 
It all began with Jeda and I will end this by finishing him.

They have grown weak: old men always do.

Mave ran the sword’s length down the stone quickly and powerfully as he heard the whimper coming from the corner again.
 
The distraction caused him to misjudge the edge of the sharpening stone and the sword slipped off and cut into Mave’s thumb.
 
He sat there irritated as he watched a small line of his blood run down the sword and drip on the floor.
 
He had not cut himself sharpening his swords in countless years; he reached for a rag to wipe clean his blade as he got up to deal with the interruption.

***

The feeling of suffocation was overwhelming.
 
She had to break free and tried to claw her way up from the depths of the dark pit in her mind.
 
If she could only find her way up, somehow grab something substantial and pull
herself
free, then she knew she would be OK.
 
The darkness threatened to drown her as it tried to push her down farther into the cloying, black pit of nothingness and she heard herself scream as she fought her way up.

***

Mave walked to the corner again and saw the girl was finally coming out of the forced unconsciousness that the Darkshade plant induced, but he was in no mood to listen to her whimper and thrash around.
 
He got ready to dose her again, but as he hovered over her, she opened her eyes and stared up unknowingly at him.
 
In her weakened state, she was more pathetic than Mave could stand and it prompted him to act.