Two-Faced (Assassin at Court Series Book 1) Read online

  Chapter 26

  I hated the fact that my body tingled with little bolts of electricity at the nearness of Zander. There were two of us and one horse. I had no doubt Zander would have liked to be anywhere else except pressed behind me on it, but we could not afford to waste time doubling back into the city for another one. We galloped through the forest, determined to cut the ride time in half. The Prince did not speak a single word to me the entire time. I received the message loud and clear that he did not wish to speak to me anymore than he had to.

  I respected his wishes. I only spoke to him as we neared the safe house to warn him of the booby traps. I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell him of my worry at not yet running into Jacob with Kiera in tow. I also knew he did not want to hear anything I had to say so I kept my mouth shut.

  My unease further increased when we arrived at the safe house. Its surroundings were quiet and free of guards that should have been posted around the perimeter. A sweep of the inside of the house confirmed what I already knew. It was empty.

  Zander sagged against the wall. “She’s not here,” he said in a defeated tone. “How am I going to tell my parents I let her be taken? My little sister is more than likely dead.”

  My arms ached to reach out and hug him. I hugged myself instead. “She is not dead,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

  “How do you know that?” He eyed me suspiciously.

  “Samael is a part of this just as much as Krishna is. Samael is the one who sent the men after you. He may be a cutthroat bastard but he is not into harming innocent young girls.”

  Zander shook his head in despair. “You cannot know that for sure.”

  “I can.”

  “How?”

  I took a deep breath. I could refuse to tell him or come up with a contrived explanation, but I had lied to him enough. I would keep no more secrets. “When I was thirteen I found myself alone and on the streets. These men tried to assault me. They would have succeeded if not for the guild master. He did not know me, he had no reason to save me, but he did. Sometime afterwards I asked him why he did it. He said it was because hurting innocent women and children was a line he did not cross.”

  Zander looked at me with an odd mixture of emotion on his face that made me fidget in discomfort. He started to say something then stopped. “If Keira is alive, how do we find her?” He asked instead.

  “We go to Arythmia and find Samael. We question him. If he doesn’t readily give up the information, we torture it out of him.”

  Chapter 27

  If we rode non-stop we could make it to Arythmia in a little more than a day from where we were. However, it was unrealistic to think that either the two of us or the horse we traveled by could do so without neither food nor rest. I tried to convince Zander of such but his fear for Keira placed him beyond reason. An hour into our ride I felt him sag against me. I twisted around to see blood oozing from beneath his bandages.

  “Shit!” I cursed aloud. We were in the middle of the damn forest and his wound had opened back up. I brought the horse to a stop and lowered myself then Zander to the ground. His skin felt like an inferno beneath my touch. I said about a dozen more shits inside my head. I removed the bloody dressing on his neck to reveal what I already knew. The flesh beneath bubbled up puffy and red. Foul smelling green fluid seeped through the amateur sutures I had put in. The site had become infected. This was so not good. We were in the middle of nowhere, there was probably a price on my head as well as his by now, and I needed clean water and another medic kit I did not have if Zander had a hope in hell of making it through the night. And even if I had those things, he still likely would not make it. What he needed at this point was a physician. I looked around us in search of something. I knew there was nothing around that could help me. It was one of those knee-jerk reactions you did in desperation. I couldn’t even lift him back onto the horse to try to go in search for help. He outweighed me by at least sixty pounds. I was only able to get him down with the help of gravity. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to lift him back up on the horse. I started breathing in quick, panicked breaths of air. My heart beat like a caged animal trying to break through my chest. My lungs ignited in flames and I got the sudden feeling that I was drowning. My vision blurred into darkness.

  I opened my eyes to foreign surroundings. The bareness of the too bright yellow walls helped to give no indication of my location. I lay in a small, rectangular bed that was about as hard as a bed of nails. When a man’s face I did not recognize appeared in my view I instinctively reached for my knife. It and the sheath at my waist were missing. I sprang to my feet in a fighting stance, prepared to use my hands as a weapon.

  “Sorry, Miss. I did not mean to startle you,” the old man held out his hands in surrender. He spoke to me slow and non-threatening like someone trying to calm a mental patient might do.

  “Who are you? Where am I?” I did not relax my stance.

  “The name is Jefferson and this is my home.”

  The smile he gave me was broad and toothy. I finally relaxed my defensive pose. Now that I was fully aware I could tell that he was no threat. His hair was peppered black and white and wrinkles covered his exposed skin. He stood hunched over, his spine curved by old age. More than his elderly appearance, it was the gentle, compassionate look in his eyes that made me believe he meant me no harm.

  “Where is Zander?” I asked in a panicked tone. The last memory I had was of me sitting on the forest floor with him feverish in my arms and now he was nowhere in sight. My heart raced in my chest when the man did not immediately answer.

  His blank look turned to one of confusion and then comprehension. “Oh, you mean the young fellow I found you with. He is resting up in the next room. That was quite a nasty number somebody did on his neck. Y’all are lucky I found y’all. He wouldn’t have made it through the night. We’re all even luckier the Missus is a nurse.”

  I let out a relieved breath. “Can I see him?”

  “Of course little lady. Right this way.”

  “Jefferson!” An elderly woman with silver hair and large spectacles scolded her husband when we walked into the room where Zander lay. “That child should not be out of bed.”

  Jefferson waved her away. “Relax, Martha it was just an anxiety attack. Nothing a little rest and relaxation does not cure.”

  “Exactly,” she glared at him. “Dear, you should really lay back down for a while.” Her expression softened when she spoke to me. I decided I liked her. She reminded me of my own mother aged about twenty years. She had the same fiery spirit and strong nurturing instinct.

  “I promise to go right back. I just want to make sure my…friend is okay,” I assured her.

  She nodded at me in satisfaction. “He will be. The wound at his neck was infected something bad and he was hotter than a firecracker, but I cleaned it out and re-stitched him up. I gave him a tonic to bring the fever down. It finally broke about an hour ago. He’s been in and out of consciousness, but he should come back around soon.”

  “Thank you,” I said in genuine gratitude.

  Martha looked like she wanting to say something else, but she did not. “Come on. Let’s give them a bit of privacy,” she said to her husband while tugging him out of the room.

  I pulled a chair from the corner of the room up to the side of the bed Zander lay in. The five o’clock shadow he had grown along his jaw line only served to make him look even more attractive. It gave his usual classically handsome features a sexy, rugged edge. I briefly wondered what it would be like for him to kiss me with the facial hair. Would it tickle my face as his slid against mine? I shook my head to free my mind of the daydream playing itself out. I would not torture myself with dreams that would never come through. Zander wanted me out of his life. The only reason I was still in it was because he was desperate to find his sister. Once I helped him, he would expect me to flee the kingdom.

  “I never wanted to be an assassin,” I told an unconscio
us Zander. “I wasn’t born into a world of glittering balls and extravagant titles. I was born a part of the Common People. If this were fifty years ago before the treaty of civil unrest I would belong to the lowest caste. My family did not have much. We actually didn’t have anything at all. We were a family of four in a two room shack who sometimes went hungry for a couple of days because we could not afford to pay the local High Noble’s taxes on our land and buy food in the market. But we were happy. My mother kept a smile on her face no matter how desperate things got and my father labored for what little money we did have in the mines until he was bone weary. Regardless of how tired my father was or how hard he worked that day, he always came through the door with a smile on his face too. My brother’s name was Charles. He was three years my senior. He doted on me and indulged my every request from teaching me to string a bow to having a pretend tea party with a pretend teapot and cups. When I was thirteen, they all fell ill and died. Our water supply was contaminated. I went to bed one night and woke up the next morning completely alone in the world. The same local High Noble my father toiled away for decades for, had me kicked out of my home the day my family died. A week later I was sleeping on the streets in a back alley of Arythmia’s low society. That is when I met Samael. I woke up to a trio of men ripping away at my soiled and dirty clothing. I yelled and kicked and screamed but they paid me no mind. Samael heard my cries and came to my rescue. He killed them all. Afterwards, he took me home with him and gave me the first meal I had had in days. He had his servants help me bathe and clean up and allowed me to stay the night in a spare bedroom. The next morning he gave me a choice. I could go back to living on the streets or I could join his Assassin’s Guild. I would like to say I hesitated in making a decision, but I did not. A young girl in low society with no family or place to stay is a very vulnerable thing to be. Really bad things can happen to you and nobody would take notice or even care. I got lucky once with Samael. I knew if I left his home and continued living as I was, I would not get lucky a second time. I accepted his offer to train as an assassin and the warm bed, square meals, and protection that came with it. I never enjoyed making a kill. It was not until I learned to live my life with a cold detachment toward the things I did that the guilt stopped gnawing away at me. Then I met you and that cold detachment went out the window. You were the kill I could not complete. Even before I fell for you, I had doubts if I could complete the job. You were too good. Your light was too bright to snuff out. You are set to inherit the kingdom and I know I will not be around to see it but I think you will bring about the change this kingdom has needed for a long time. The change the civil revolt was supposed to bring about but fell short at accomplishing. You are kind and compassionate and have the ability to relate to and care about the common person regardless of the high station you were born into. I know I have to disappear after we find Kiera, and I know you will force me from your mind. But I will never forget about you. I died the day my family did and you brought me back to life. You pulled me out of the darkness and showed me there was still good left in the world. I love you Zander and I will carry you in my heart for the rest of my life.” I was crying by the time I finished saying the words I needed to say but would never get the chance to if he were awake. I laid my head on the side edge of his bed. My hands rested on the bed as well. They accidentally brushed against his. When I went to pull them away, I felt his hands close around mine and squeeze them tightly. I pulled my head up in surprise. Zander was awake and staring into my eyes with a look that spoke a thousand things at once.

  Chapter 28

  I promised Martha that I would return to my bed and rest, but I did not. I remained in the chair I pulled up to Zander’s bedside. I could not bring myself to leave his side. He had not said any words to me out loud, but the look he gave me before he drifted back into unconsciousness said he understood my actions. It was a far cry from forgiveness, but the naïvely romantic girl inside me whispered that maybe he someday could.

  “Dearie, I think he is sleep for the night. You should really get some rest yourself,” Martha gently said from the doorway.

  I shook my head no.

  She walked over to me and gave my shoulders a comforting squeeze. “I know you’re worried about him, but he should be alright. Come on. Let’s get you some rest. He should be more alert in the morning.”

  Her tone was soothing and gentle, yet firm. I knew this was an argument I could not win. I resignedly followed Martha out of the room.

  She lied. He was not better or more alert in the morning. Overnight he took a turn for the worse. The fever returned and rendered him completely unresponsive. I stayed by his side the entire day and he did not wake up once. His affliction did not improve on the second day either. By the third day I was so wrought with worry that I started helping Martha with chores around her tiny home to keep from going insane. I cleared the table, washed the dishes, cleaned the floor, and dusted the furniture. When I ran out of things to do inside I wondered outside and helped Jefferson in the garden where the couple grew most of the food they ate.

  He toiled the soil with a metal rake while I uprooted the weeds with a weeding fork.

  “I like to keep busy with my hands too when I’m stressed. It helps to keep the mind at ease,” he said as he pulled the rake back and forth across the dirt.

  “Do you think he will wake up?” I asked in a desperate tone.

  “Martha can give you a better answer than me. I am and have always been just a farmer.” He stopped moving his rake. He rested his weight on the top part of it and peered down at me. “Do you want to tell me what’s eating you up?”

  “I’m sorry?” I kept my eyes focused on the weeds in the ground.

  He shrugged his shoulders and started moving the rake again. “You don’t have to tell me. This old man was just trying to lend a listening ear, but if you don’t want to tell me fine. Everyone is entitled to secrets.”

  “What if the secrets hurt someone you love?” I asked quietly.

  “Then you come clean, apologize and move on.”

  “And if they don’t forgive you?”

  “That’s their right. Especially if they loved you back.” He did not judge me. The words were spoken matter-of-factly.

  I think his lack of judgment is what made me confide in him. “I did more than keep a secret. I lied to Zander and pretended to be somebody I am not. I confessed my deceit eventually, and now he hates me. I don’t think he will ever forgive me.”

  “That young man may not forgive you, but he does not hate you. The times he was alert after we found y’all in the forest and brought you back, all he asked about was you. He even tried to get out of bed against better judgment to see for himself that you were okay. The only reason he did not make it to your room is because his body would not physically let him. When he tried to stand up, his knees buckled.”

  Jefferson leaned beside me in the dirt. He patted my hand like a father would do to soothe his upset daughter.

  “Do you think love can be enough to force forgiveness?” I asked him.

  “Like love, forgiveness cannot be forced. It has to be freely given. But I don’t think it is possible to love somebody without eventually forgiving them. You might stay mad with them but you will forgive them. The very definition of love is to be patient, kind and not easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs.”

  “His fever broke and he is awake! I think for good this time,” Martha shouted at us from the door.

  I jumped to my feet and ran into the house. My legs almost gave out from the intensity of the relief that washed over me when I saw Zander standing in the kitchen. He looked strong, healthy and whole again. Before I realized what I was doing I ran across the space that divided us and flung myself into his chest. I felt him stiffen and let out a startled gasp in surprise when his arms closed around me instead of shoving me away. I looked up at him at the same moment he looked down at me. Our eyes met and he looked at me with empathy rather than contempt.
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br />   “I hate to break up the reunion, but you both need to eat,” Martha’s voice sounded from behind me. “Grab a plate from the table and fill it up.”

  “Thank you for dinner, and your hospitality, but we must leave soon,” Zander said to Martha and Jefferson near the end of the meal.

  “But you just recovered. You need to rest up a bit before you go,” Martha protested.

  Zander smiled warmly at her across the table. “With all due respect, I have taken too much time resting already. I have an urgent matter I need to attend to and I cannot afford any more delays.”

  “Is it the same urgent matter that got you that nasty cut in the first place?” Jefferson eyed the spot on his neck that had now knitted into a pinkish scar.

  Zander cleared his throat, unsure what to say.

  “Yes,” I spoke for him. “Bad men took his sister and we need to find her.”

  “That is not something a couple of kids should be taking on. You need to alert someone for help.” Poor Martha looked frantic at the thought of the two of us chasing after criminals. She thought we were a couple of common kids who had gotten into a situation that was over their heads. I wondered what she would say if she knew the Crowned Prince of Anthame and an assassin sat at her dinner table.

  “My sister may not have time for help to arrive. I need to find her and save her before the bad men kill her,” Zander was already pushing away from the table.

  Jefferson squeezed his distraught wife’s hand then stood up with him. “At least let us provide you with a second horse and supplies.”

  Zander and I protested at the same time and probably for the same reason. Martha and Jefferson had helped us enough. Their little farm provided everything they needed to live a comfortable existence, but the elderly couple still did not have much. Neither one of us wanted to take any more from them than they already had given.