The Silver Siren (9 page)

I slowly crept backwards and retraced
my steps to the open pavilion I had seen as we came into the
village—the one filled with racks of weapons. It was mostly dark. A
warm light spilled out of one side of the closest home, and I could
see shadows moving behind the screens. Bypassing the occupied side,
I ended up in an empty training arena. I closed my eyes and felt a
moment of helplessness.

No, I would just have to keep
searching.

Silently, I went to the dark side of
the courtyard and slid open the door. Thankful for how quiet the
rice paper doors were, I kept low to the ground and closed the door
behind me. I waited. I needed to start checking rooms, looking for
weapons that had been put away. On my third door, I hit the
jackpot. I took only what I thought I would need to escape: knives,
blow tubes, grappling hooks, shooting stars, and a bow and
arrow—everything an assassin needed.

Everything I needed.

Armed, I made my way to the towering
pagoda that was Kael’s prison. Thankfully, the multiple ledges
would give me plenty of help scaling the tower. It had been a few
seasons since I used a grappling hook, and it took two tries before
I was able to secure it and start my ascent. I left my bow and
arrow on the ground. The bow would do little good in such a small
room. At each floor, I paused and listened outside of the window
before I moved on and up.

On the fifth floor I spotted Kael,
chain-bound in the corner of a small stone room. Each floor had
guards posted, and Kael’s floor was no exception. There were
two.

My hand felt into my pocket searching
for the blow dart and removing the protective cork. I had chosen
the ones dipped in blue, knowing those were the sleep darts, from a
previous lesson from Kael. My fingers fumbled with the dart and it
slipped through my fingers, falling fifty feet to the
ground.

I froze and tried to calm my nerves
down. I had to be less careless.

A blindfold covered Kael’s eyes. He
was gagged, looking like he was asleep, but I could tell he was
feigning. His legs were a little too stiff. He probably knew I was
outside of the tower and was ready to act, to help if
needed.

Taking aim, I blew. The guard closest
to me slapped his neck.

“
What the…?” He pulled the
dart out of his neck. “Sound the alarm…esca—” He fell over. The
other guard turned to attack me.

I was already over the window ledge
and had another dart loaded. The blowpipe was knocked from my hand
by the second guard, and I launched myself at him. We rolled across
the floor. I was hoping to knock him to the ground and wind him,
but now I was on the bottom fighting for my life.

Kael’s training kicked in, though. I
wrapped my arms around his hands, ducked rolled, and wrapped my
legs around his head and squeezed. Knowing I wasn’t going to win,
and quickly losing the upper hand, I pulled the extra dart from my
pocket and stabbed his neck.

A few long seconds later, the second
guard went slack.

Out of breath, I ran to Kael who now
sat up in the corner, tense and alert. My heart went out to him. I
reached for his blindfold when a shadow passed over the opened
window. I turned and ducked as a shooting star whipped past my
head. Another SwordBrother in head to toe black, had crawled in the
window that I came in. Where had this one been, on the roof? Had he
come up from another floor? I had the element of surprise on the
first SwordBrother and luck was on my side for the second, but I
don’t know if I could take a SwordBrother in a one on one
confrontation.

I stood in front of Kael protectively,
a knife in each of my hands. I bent my knees, balancing my weight
evenly, and made myself relax. The other SwordBrother cocked his
head when he recognized my technique and he mirrored my stance.
Even behind the face mask, I could have sworn he smiled at
me.

I attacked.

He blocked, hitting my arms with his
and deflecting each of my blows.

I aimed a stab.

He blocked again and reversed the
move, so I had to leap back as he forced my own knife toward my
torso. It was then that I noticed his lack of weapons, which only
irritated me. Could I kill a defenseless SwordBrother? I realized
how stupid that statement sounded, since there was no such thing as
a defenseless SwordBrother.

I needed to end the fighting and end
it now, before others came and I would be doomed. Taking my knife,
I tested its weight and threw it toward his chest. The SwordBrother
rolled and came up closer to me, but I didn’t care about the knife
or about hitting him. I could see Kael struggling against his
bonds.

The knife was merely a distraction. I
concentrated on my gift, on his life. In seconds, I could see my
foe’s heart, his inner light beating. I closed my eyes and reached
for the light, beginning to extinguish it.

The SwordBrother stopped in his tracks
and fell to his knees clasping his chest. He moaned slightly, but
that was the only sound he made as I continued to pull, drain him,
destroy him. His arm reached out toward me, as if asking for help,
but I refused. The familiar anger that was my constant companion
surfaced and whispered to me to be quick. Hurt him. He had tried to
kill me; he was going to die.

My mind was so focused on my target
that I didn’t hear the sound of chains loosening behind me, or the
quiet footsteps as Kael escaped his bonds and put his hand on my
shoulder.

“
It’s okay, Thalia.
Release him.”

“
No! We need to escape. I
don’t want to be killed. I only came here at your request. Not so
that we would be murdered.” The man moaned and leaned on his hands
trying to crawl toward me.

“
Thalia, look at
me.”

My neck whipped to look at the person
touching my arm. Deep green eyes stared at me. It wasn’t Kael, but
his brother Alek. I saw the empty chains and the blindfold and gag
lying on the ground.

“
It was a
test?”

“
Yes, one that Kael
thought up himself—to prove your strengths to us and to prove your
bond.”

“
But where’s Kael?” My
mind didn’t comprehend what was happening, and I still had my hold
on the SwordBrother whose arms were shaking in pain as he tried to
hold himself off of the ground.

“
Thalia, release him
now!”

Alek’s warm hands pulled mine down,
and I released my hold on the man in front of me, but it was too
late. He fell to the ground. In that one second of hesitation I had
felt his heart—once bright and pulsing with energy—stop.

Alek’s words rolled over and over in
my mind until comprehension dawned. I stared at my hands in horror
and then back to the body that was on the floor.

Alek ran forward and yanked off the
mask.

And I saw Kael’s pale lifeless face.
Not breathing, eyes closed.

“
No!” I screamed and
dropped to the floor in despair.

I watched as Alek listened to Kael’s
heart and touched the side of his neck searching for a pulse. He
pulled back, clearly distressed. He shook his head. Strong arms
seized me and I was jerked back to my feet. The small room was
instantly filled with other SwordBrothers. Two had come down out of
the rafters, others climbed in over the ledge, the door opened and
more filtered into the room. There were so many, and I hadn’t even
seen them.

My mind had been so numb, I’d barely
registered the impossible odds of escaping and the cruel test
they’d played on me. I had failed.

And I’d killed Kael.

Bile rose up in my mouth and the room
spun. My knees went weak, but I couldn’t fall. My captors wouldn’t
let me.

Tears finally burned in my eyes as I
realized the consequences of what I had done. “Kael! No-o-o!” I
hiccupped. This was not what was supposed to happen. He was
invincible. He could take on a whole army, but he couldn’t protect
himself from me, and I had attacked him in the most vulnerable
spot. His heart.

“
Let me go,” I cried. “Let
me go to him.” It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t touch him, be with
him. I pulled against the two holding me, but Alek turned his eyes
to me, blazing with anger and tears.

“
No, take her away. Take
her to the pits, and make sure she doesn’t come back.
Ever.”

A higher pitched feminine scream
erupted over my shoulder as Gwen rushed forward and threw herself
on Kael’s body, crying hysterically. Great heaving sobs wracked her
body, and I just stared at him.

At Alek.

And I knew that I had forfeited my
life.

Chapter 11

The
pits were just that. Pits. Deep dark holes in the ground. I looked
up and could see the stars shining bright, teasing me with their
twinkling light, but from far away. I walked around the pit and
tried to reach across but I gauged it to be at least ten feet. And
the walls must’ve reached one hundred feet high. They were smooth
stone, no cracks or crevices to provide foot and
handholds.

My father once mentioned places like
the pits, but he said they were called oubliettes, places of
forgetting. An appropriate place for me as all I wanted to do was
forget what I had done. After I had paced the small area back and
forth, I finally collapsed in exhaustion and tears. My voice echoed
up the shaft as I cried my heart out.

Pain, unending pain assaulted
me.

I kept wiping my hands on my shirt,
trying to wipe away the sin I had committed. Murder. I’d murdered
Kael, and I truly knew I deserved to die.

I was a monster. I should be
exterminated.

This wasn’t really a prison. I knew I
could escape from a hole. The question was, without Kael, did I
want to?

I was deep into my own self-hatred
when a shadow fell over me and a rope plopped on the ground next to
my leg. The rope moved back and forth as someone began to descend
it. I didn’t care, and they didn’t deserve my attention. The weird
rock formation on the wall next to me became extremely interesting,
and I decided it required all of my attention. The shadow stepped
away from the rope, and I could hear the sound of the rope being
pulled back up.

Oh well. I had company. At
least I wouldn’t die of boredom. The figure moved to stand in front
of me. I recognized her when she kneeled in front of me with a
condescending expression. I took my earlier words back. I think
I
would
rather
have died alone than face her.

Gwen. The woman Kael had once been
engaged to and probably still loved. I pretended the tall beautiful
SwordBrother didn’t exist and went back to examining my
rock.

Gwen swatted my leg, prompting me to
acknowledge her. It didn’t matter. I could ignore one woman. I
could see her lips were moving and she was speaking, but I didn’t
comprehend one word.

Her brows furrowed and her mouth
formed a slim line. She prodded me again with her hand, and I
rolled my head and glared at her, mimicking her solemn face. She
stood up and I could see her mouth form words. She looked like she
was yelling at me. I didn’t care. I really just wanted to close my
eyes and wish away the annoying woman.

Then I caught the motion of her black
boot as it pulled back to kick me in the side. Now that I wouldn’t
allow. Her boot came forward, and I lunged forward and clenched it.
I hit her behind the knee, twisted her foot, and pinned it under my
arm, forcing her to fall backwards and roll to her stomach. I had
full control of her, a great pressure lock on her foot, and I
smiled.

“
Don’t kick me,” I warned
her. “Don’t you ever kick me.”

Her eyes widened in shock, but I
didn’t see awe. I saw determination. Gwen screamed against the pain
and pushed herself off the ground into me, forcing her leg to bend
horribly. She gained enough footing to grasp my braid. She yanked
and I saw white blinding stars.

I kicked out with my feet and wrapped
them around her neck and squeezed.

Her hand snaked up and gave me a palm
strike under the jaw. I lost the upper hand as we rolled again in
the dirt.

Kicking and using every trick that I
knew, I fought her.

Voices called down to us, but I
couldn’t hear them over the beating of my frantic heart. All I knew
was the fight. I pummeled the woman and took my own punishment.
This wasn’t about killing or injuring her; this was a fight about
honor, and somehow we both understood that. It lasted another five
minutes.

We were equally matched.

Gwen stood up and wiped at her
bleeding lip. She was covered in dirt and scratches, and her cheek
was already starting to swell.

My head was pounding and something
warm slid down my cheek. And my eye was hurting. However Gwen
looked, I probably looked worse.

“
Are you done wallowing?”
she said, leaning down and resting her weight on her
heels.

“
I’m not
wallowing.”

“
I wouldn’t blame you for
wallowing; you almost killed Kael. You probably should have been
left down here for days not hours.”