“That’s good, right?” Leif asked.
A coldness settled over me. “How long have they known?”
“A few days after he escaped.”
Ice crackled through my heart. The Council knew before I left to meet with Valek and they didn’t bother to warn me.
9
VALEK
Valek’s gaze jumped from Onora to the Commander. Ambrose appeared to be relaxed, unlike his guards who stood behind him with puffed-out chests and stiff backs. They glared at the assassin.
She ignored them as she picked at her food. Onora still wore the dungeon jumpsuit. She’d braided her long brown hair, and her feet were bare. Rough calluses covered her toes and scuff marks scratched her toenails.
“Join us,” the Commander said to Valek.
Onora glanced at him as he sat to the Commander’s right, but she didn’t smirk or gloat. His reaction to her presence flipped between impressed and worried. Had the Commander invited her? Or had she escaped and managed to reach the Commander without encountering anyone?
“Relax, Valek. I stopped your agent...Qamra, is it?...before she could shoot Onora with a dart. I figured since Onora made it that far, she deserved breakfast.”
“I was on my way to see you,” Onora said to Valek. “Unless what you’d told me last night was bullshit?”
The Commander sipped his tea. His eyebrows rose a fraction, inviting Valek to explain.
“Seems this young pup is after my job. I told her if she demonstrates her abilities, shows cunning, resourcefulness, intelligence, and if she proves she is loyal, trustworthy and willing to die for you, then she could have it.”
“And why did you tell her that?” the Commander asked.
“She has plenty of raw talent. Another year of training and she would have beaten me last night. But as I said, there’s more to my job than winning a fight.”
Again, Onora showed remarkable restraint in keeping her emotions under control. If Valek had told Janco he could have won a fight against him, Janco would have jumped on the table and danced a jig.
“Are you thinking about retiring, Valek?”
Was he? He’d been in this business for years. The thought of not having to worry... A nice thought. Of being with Yelena all the time... A wonderful thought. But he wasn’t quite ready. “Not for a while. However, if someone comes along and shows he or she can take my job, I’d be content to let that person have it.”
“Trust is the biggest issue right now,” the Commander said, gazing at the young woman. “Why didn’t you join the military and work your way up through the ranks?”
“Valek didn’t have to go through all that. Why should I?”
“You’ve no idea what Valek did to prove himself,” the Commander snapped. “A protocol has been put into place since I’ve been in charge. I see no reason for you to bypass it.”
A brief flash of fear rippled her calm. Valek remembered a comment she’d made last night about escaping MD-2. “Captain Timmer,” he said.
Onora jerked as if he’d stabbed her with a knife. Her reaction seemed familiar. It reminded him of how Yelena flinched every time she’d heard Reyad’s name. The bastard had raped her and Yelena’d killed him. Saved Valek the trouble of hacking the man into tiny pieces and feeding him to a pack of snow cats.
“Tell me,” he said.
“No. I’ll join the local unit.”
“And challenge me again after the first few training sessions? I think not. Plus it wouldn’t earn you any trust.”
“What can I do to earn your trust?” she asked.
Valek exchanged a look with the Commander. “A series of tests?”
“Do you think she’s worth the effort?” the Commander asked.
He studied the young woman. She had been the first to sneak into the Commander’s apartment, and she knew how to fight. Plenty of potential. Better to keep her close than risk her making another attempt. Perhaps she’d become a valuable member of their team. Stranger things had happened.
“Yes.”
Ambrose dabbed his mouth with a napkin and stood. “I’ll leave it to you, then, Valek.” He left the war room.
“Tests?” Onora twirled a spoon in her left hand, spinning it through her fingers.
“Yes. You’re now an official member of my corps. However, if I find out you haven’t been honest about why you are here, you won’t be locked in the dungeon. You’ll be buried underneath it.”
“An empty threat. You said so yourself—it’s just a matter of time and I’ll beat you.”
“True. But if you double-cross us, you won’t be fighting just me, but the Commander and a couple of my loyal people. You’re good, but not good enough to go against four of us.”
“Not yet.”
Valek smiled. As Janco would say, gotta love the attitude. “And trust goes both ways, Onora. Something happened to you up in MD-2. Something traumatic enough to send you to Hedda. I need to know that and how long ago you started your training. How did you convince Hedda to train you? It’s all part of what needs to be discussed.”
She stilled. “That’s none of your business. I’m here to prove what I can do. My past is not relevant.”
“Your past is what guided you here. It is your motivation, and I need to know everything.”
Onora sprang to her feet. “Why don’t you just prick me with that...poison and make me spill my guts?”
“It’s called goo-goo juice and it’s very effective. Last night you were a criminal. Today you are a new team member. Hard to establish a mutual trust using goo-goo juice.”
She stared at him. “And if I don’t satisfy your curiosity, you’ll use it anyway.”
“If this was about mere curiosity, you wouldn’t be given this chance.”
Lacing her fingers together, she pressed her arms tight to her body. “I’d bet you didn’t have to explain everything to the Commander.”
“The Commander knows me better than my heart mate. And if I were you, I wouldn’t trust rumor and speculation. I didn’t beat the Commander in our first fight. He won and could have easily killed me. He still can. With his knife or with an order. That isn’t the reason I’m his second-in-command.”
“What’s the reason?”
“Pay attention and you’ll find out. Come on.” He strode to the door.
“Where are we going?”
He nodded at her jumpsuit. “To get you a uniform. Nice touch, by the way, hiding lock picks under your toenails.” Valek mentally added check toenails and fingernails to his growing list of new procedures for the castle’s guards.
She covered her surprise. “Thanks.”
Valek guided Onora to the seamstress’s quarters. Long wooden tables strained under the weight of piles of clothing. Dilana sat in her favorite spot by the window, hemming a pair of pants.
And just like she had done with Yelena, Dilana took the girl in hand and fitted her with the standard plain black pants, shirt and boots the members of his corps wore. After Onora had a stack of clothing, Valek showed her to an empty room in the wing used by his corps.
“Bedding is in the supply closet at the end of the hall,” he said. “Meals are served in the dining room. Report to my office right after supper for your first assignment. If you don’t know the way—”
“I know the way.”
Valek ignored her little dig. “Good.”
“What about my weapons?”
“They’ll be returned to you tonight.”
“And if I take off and disappear?”
“Then you will be considered a criminal again. But I’m thinking you’re not the type to run. And besides, what else is out there? Since the Commander’s been in power, there hasn’t been much work for an assassin, and the few who have survived the takeover have moved to Sitia.”
Then it hit him. Perhaps the man who attacked Yelena was an Ixian assassin. Before the takeover, magic was allowed in Ixia. Valek might have the name of her attacker listed in one of his files.
He left Onora and headed straight to his office. The haphazard stacks of files on his desk and the towers of dossiers on the conference table plus the general disarray might give a visitor the impression that he was disorganized. Not so. The mess had been arranged with care and, within the piles, Valek had implemented a system that would help him find the information he needed without having to search his entire office or suite.
After flipping through a heap of reports under the conference table, Valek located the dossier on known assassins. He settled behind his desk and read. Many of the names were familiar. During his years at Hedda’s school, he’d met a few others who’d graduated.
When he’d first started his training, he’d known only Arbon. The boy had shown Valek around the complex and had answered his questions. Arbon had arrived at Hedda’s a season before Valek and had been working on hitting the target with a bow and arrow, which came after perfecting your aim with a knife. They’d spent hundreds of hours inside the training building together and a friendly rivalry began.
“The knife is supposed to stick in the wood, not bounce off the target,” Arbon said to him during one of their daylong sessions. “Can’t kill the King let alone a bunny with that weak throw.”
Valek ignored the jab and considered Arbon’s comment. His throw had lacked power. He needed to strengthen his muscles. That night, Valek found the weight room. The air reeked of sweat and body odor. A few others worked out in the dim lantern light. He didn’t know if the four men and two women were students or instructors and they didn’t bother to introduce themselves. They mostly ignored him when he headed toward the barbells.
But there was always one big mouth. “Hey, skinny arms, do you want me to call my mother to help spot you?” he asked as the others laughed.
Valek stared at the man. Taller, heavier and with thick muscles, the bruiser would pound Valek into pulp. He kept his sarcastic retort about the man’s mother to himself. But someday, he wouldn’t worry about whom he’d pissed off. As he lifted the heavy weights, he focused on that future time.
The teasing stopped after Big Mouth realized Valek wouldn’t react to his digs and when Valek continued to lift the heavy weights every night despite his sore and aching muscles.
“Gotta respect the dedication,” the big bruiser said.
Arbon scoffed at Valek’s efforts. “You’ll burn out by the end of the warm season.”
Curious, Valek asked, “What happens if someone doesn’t complete the training?”
“Why? You thinking of quitting?”
“No. Just wanted to know where to send you my condolences.”
Arbon’s laughter boomed with a deep explosive sound. “Well, then, you roll up your note of sympathy, stick it into a bottle, seal it and toss it over the cliff. When you hear the splash, consider the message delivered.”
Harsh. But that explained why information about the school had been hard to find. Those who failed became fish food. And those who succeeded kept the location of their home base a secret. In fact, most of the students kept a low profile and didn’t make friends. Valek had no idea how many students trained here, or the number of instructors or graduates, for that matter. The lack of information intrigued more than frustrated him.
Valek’s aim with the knife improved faster than with the stone. Arbon claimed Valek would never catch up to him despite the fact Arbon couldn’t finish the requirements with a dart. It just added more incentive for Valek. After working with the weights, he grabbed a lantern and returned to put in a few extra hours of target practice. A couple of weeks later, he started dimming the light a little more each night. It made sense to him. Assassins worked mostly at night. It’d be rare that he’d be aiming at a victim in the bright sunlight.
By the time Valek caught up to Arbon—both working with throwing darts—Valek was sleeping only four hours a day. No one had set a schedule for him, so he slept during the afternoons. Also there were no lessons in fighting or how to be an assassin. On occasion an instructor would arrive to test his aim, but otherwise no one bothered them.
“This is impossible,” Arbon said. He stood about thirty feet from the target, but his dart didn’t reach.
Valek’s efforts to strengthen his muscles showed as he had struck the bull’s-eye at thirty feet, but at forty feet the lightweight dart nose-dived five feet short of the target.
“Is this the last weapon?” he asked Arbon.
“I think so. We’ve done stones, knives, arrows, crossbow bolts and now darts. What’s left?”
“Chains, whips, nunchucks.”
“You practice with those on a dummy. I’ve seen the practice area. It’s in the building along the edge of the cliff.”
Valek hadn’t spent too much time exploring the complex. He considered it a waste of time and energy. He’d been given a task and would accomplish it so he could move on.
After Arbon gave up for the evening, Valek continued to throw the darts. No amount of force made any difference. He mulled over the problem. Perhaps there was another way. Valek picked up a crossbow and tried using a dart instead of a bolt.
The force of the string destroyed the dart before it could launch. Valek laughed for the first time since his brothers’ murders, and the burning pain that had seized his heart for the past year died down for a brief moment. He returned the weapons to the wall and left the training building, which Valek suspected was only used for the new students to see if the boredom and repetition would drive them away.
A warm breeze blew from the east for a change, carrying the dry scents of pine and earth. Even though it was the heating season, the chilly damp air from the Sunset Ocean kept the temperatures low.
He strode to his favorite spot along the cliff, where large gray boulders jutted over the ocean far below. From this height, the crashing water sounded muted and mild. The white tips of the waves glinted in the bright moonlight.
Smaller gray rocks covered the ground between the path and the outcrop. As Valek crossed them, he concentrated on keeping his weight evenly distributed so the stones wouldn’t crunch under his boots. Success was spotty, but tonight he managed only a few cracks.
Grabbing a handful of the rocks, he settled on the edge. His feet dangled and he tossed a bunch of the stones out into the darkness. After a couple of heartbeats, a distant plunk sounded. He absently rubbed two of the rocks together as he pondered the problem with the darts. Nothing sparked. Not even from the heat generated between the stones. However, the action had scraped away the dull gray and revealed a darker color underneath.
Valek pocketed the two rocks and headed back to the target room. On the way, the wind rustled the long green stalks of bamboo that lined the complex’s paths. A hollow wooden ring mixed with the shushing of the leaves. He stopped and cursed his stupidity.
After fetching a knife and a lantern from the training building, Valek cut a piece of bamboo from the plant and brought it to his room. Hedda had called it a cell, and if it’d had bars, he’d agree with her. The tiny space held a cot, a table, a chair. It had no windows, a dirt floor and no place to build a fire. By sleeping in the afternoon, Valek stayed warm, but he wondered what he would do in the cold season. Arbon stayed in a cell two doors down. The other three rooms in the one-story structure that resembled a long shed instead of a building were empty. Again Valek thought isolating the new students had been done for a reason.
He worked on his piece of bamboo until the sides were smooth and straight, and the inside was completely hollow. Sap coated his fingers and the blade of the knife, but he was careful to keep the sticky substance from getting into the center of the bamboo.
Once he was satisfied with it, he retur
ned to the target room to test out his new blowpipe. Starting at the first red mark, he loaded the bamboo with a dart, aimed, then blew out a quick puff of air. He smiled. Much better.
When Arbon arrived after dawn, Valek hid his blowpipe. The boy had once again shaved his hair close to his scalp. White skin shone through the black stubble and looked odd on top of his round face.
“Did you get any further last night?” Arbon asked.
“To sixty feet,” Valek said.
“Liar.”
“How about a bet?”
“All right. What’s the bet?”
They both owned nothing of value. “How about if I hit the target with the dart, you owe me a future favor, and I’ll owe you one if I don’t?”
Arbon agreed.
Valek stepped up to the sixty-foot mark, whipped out his blowpipe and hit the bull’s-eye.
“That’s cheating!” Arbon cried.
“No, it isn’t. I never specified how I’d accomplish it.”
“But—”
“But what, Arbon?” Hedda asked. Clothed in black, she stepped from the dark corner of the room.
Valek wondered if she’d been there all night. Did she often hide there? His heart rate increased.
“The task was to...” He stuttered to a stop as Hedda moved closer to him.
“To what?” she asked.
“To hit the target, sir.”
“Exactly. Did anyone tell you not to improvise?”
“No. No one told us anything!”
“Are you not satisfied with the training?” A cold flatness settled on her narrow face.
“I’m...I’m...fine.”
“I see.” She turned to Valek. “So, King Killer, you’re still here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s see what you can do from the last mark.”
He grabbed the weapons and demonstrated his skills, hitting the bull’s-eye with the stone, knife, arrow, bolt, but not the dart. He didn’t have enough air to send the dart that far.
“How would you make it go further?” she asked.