Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
The abandoned house rests against the border of the Thornwood several miles from the city walls. It’s close enough to reach the city quickly, far enough that no one asks questions about who comes and goes in the night.
I arrive first, checking the perimeter. No fresh tracks except mine.
The windows are boarded but intact and the door still hangs crooked on its hinges.
I slip inside and settle against the wall near the window, where I can watch both the door and the forest beyond.
The floorboards creak under my weight. Dust motes dance in the moonlight filtering through cracks in the boards.
This place is one of Kitty’s safe houses, borrowed from a contact who owes her favors. She sent word yesterday that she and Shade wanted to meet up. Typical that they’re late.
The silence pulls me backward in time, to the day I first met Shade and Kitty.
Back to the guild.
I am ten when they bring me there. The Sylverin clan has just been slaughtered and I am newly orphaned, desperate enough to believe the guild has to be better than freezing in alleys.
I learn the truth quickly.
The other children are future assassins, most from old elven bloodlines prized for stealth and precision, though the guild sometimes takes gifted Dunethar, fae and children from Wolven clans too. Every single one of them knows how to hunt weakness.
I practically reek of it.
Small for my age and freshly orphaned, still grieving my pack. One week ago I had a family and a home beneath open skies. Now I sleep inside stone walls surrounded by children who circle me like starving animals.
The bullying starts immediately.
“Half-breed.”
“Monster.”
“Your father fucked a dog.”
They corner me in the training yards, in the sleeping halls, and in the kitchens. Fists and feet and cruel laughter rain down on me. I learn to fight back but the odds never favor me.
I’m scared every single day.
The fear follows me everywhere. Fear of beatings, of keepers who withhold food as punishment, of older students who practice their kills on younger children.
I learn to make myself small, to move quickly through corridors, to eat fast and sleep light, to always know where the exits are.
It doesn’t help.
Then I notice the boy in the shadows.
He is maybe a year older than me, though it’s hard to tell beneath how thin he is. Pale skin, sharp bones and eyes so light gray they look almost white.
Everyone avoids him.
Children step aside when he passes and conversations stop abruptly. Whispers follow him through the halls from students too frightened to say his name loudly.
Shade.
The boy who hides inside shadows.
I know who he really is. Everyone does, though no one speaks it aloud. He is the son of the Nightingale, the master assassin who was captured for treason. She was trying to run away with her lover. They say she is rotting in some prison somewhere in the crypts beneath the guild.
Everyone says her son will follow her path eventually. They say he’s dangerous, unstable, not quite right in the head.
I believe them until the day I see him fight.
It happens in the courtyard during free hour. Ten older boys corner him near the well. I’m watching from the shadows pressed against the wall where no one will notice me.
The boys surround Shade, weapons drawn with the training blades they gave us.
They call him traitor’s spawn and say his mother is a whore who spread her legs for an Aelfheim lord and birthed an abomination. They say worse things too, things that turn my stomach even though I barely understand them.
Shade doesn’t respond or defend her. He stands there with his head tilted slightly, like he’s listening to music only he can hear.
Then they attack.
It is over in seconds.
Ten boys, all older and bigger, all armed. Shade puts them all down without breaking a sweat. He moves like a shadow and without mercy. By the time the last one falls, groaning and clutching broken ribs, Shade hasn’t even drawn a weapon.
When it’s done, he walks away like nothing happened and leaves them groaning in the dirt. The keepers who watched from the windows just laugh and collect their bets.
I make a decision that day.
If everyone fears him, then staying near him means safety. The bullies won’t touch anyone near the shadow boy.
So I start following him.
Not obviously. I’m not stupid. But I position myself near him during meals, during training, during the rare free hours we get. It’s close enough to be under his protection, far enough that he can’t call me on it.
He never acknowledges me or even looks directly at me. But he never sends me away either.
For three months, we exist in that strange orbit. Him tolerating my presence, me using him as a shield.
The bullies stop cornering me or waiting for me in dark corridors. They see me near Shade and decide I’m not worth the risk.
For the first time since arriving at the guild, I can breathe.
Then comes the candy incident.
I find it in the trash behind the kitchens. A small wrapped piece of chocolate, probably dropped by one of the instructors. It’s dented, half-melted from sitting in the sun, but it’s real chocolate.
I haven’t tasted chocolate in a long time.
I should eat it immediately and shove it in my mouth and swallow before anyone sees. But I’m twelve and stupid. I want to let it melt on my tongue and savor it slowly.
I slip it into my pocket to eat it later in my bunk after lights out.
Others see.
Word spreads through the compound.
The half-breed has chocolate.
They come for me after lights out. It’s not just the usual bullies but everyone.
Older students come first, looking for easy prey and entertainment before curfew.
Trainers follow after them because some of the instructors think watching children fight over scraps is funny.
Even younger kids join in eventually, desperate to prove they belong by hurting somebody weaker than themselves.
They drag me from my bunk into the courtyard. The night is cold and I’m surrounded by at least thirty bodies. It’s too many to count in the darkness.
I fight back like an animal. I claw and bite and kick wherever I can. One boy takes my elbow to his throat and makes choking sounds. Another gets my nails across his face and blood wells up immediately.
But there are too many.
A fist catches me in the stomach. I double over, gasping. Someone kicks my legs out from under me. I go down hard and then they’re on me like wolves on a kill.
Pain explodes across my ribs from their fists and boots. I curl into a ball, trying to protect my head. Blood fills my mouth. Someone is laughing. Then the pressure lifts.
I look up through swelling eyes to see Shade standing over me. He’s thrown back three attackers already and he’s reaching for a fourth.
It should stop them. Shade’s presence, his reputation. But the chocolate makes these young assassins stupid. They attack him too.
We fight side by side through the night. They keep coming, wave after wave. Some give up after Shade breaks their arms or ribs. Others come back for more, desperate for a prize.
We fight until sunrise.
The chocolate is crushed underfoot in the first five minutes of fighting, ground into the dirt by boots and bodies. Only the wrapper remains, trampled and torn.
By the time the first light touches the courtyard walls, the ground is littered with groaning bodies. My knuckles are split and my ribs scream with every breath. Shade and I stand back-to-back in the center of it all. Both of us bleeding from a dozen wounds. Exhausted but alive.
That’s when the Arbiter comes.
Rowan Shepherd, the Nightingale’s old partner and the only reason Shade hasn’t been killed or sold after his mother’s capture.
He enters the courtyard and takes in the scene with a blank face.
His gaze moves across broken bodies scattered everywhere, then to Shade and me barely standing, then finally to the torn chocolate wrapper blowing across dirt.
Then he sighs.
“Come with me,” he says to Shade.
Shade moves to follow. His steps are unsteady but determined. Shepherd’s eyes shift to me, still standing behind Shade. “Who’s the boy behind you?”
I expect Shade to say nothing and walk past me like he has for three months. We’ve never spoken. Instead, Shade stops and turns his head just slightly.
“He’s my friend,” he says.
Two words that change my life.
Shepherd studies me for a long moment and takes in my half-Wolven features, my split knuckles, the blood running down my face. Then he nods once. “Get cleaned up. Both of you. You’re training with me now.”
That’s how I meet Shade. Over a piece of chocolate and a night of violence.
Shepherd takes us under his protection and trains us personally. Shade and I become friends. For the first time since my clan died, I’m not alone. But it only lasts for a year.
I’m thirteen years old when Shepherd takes him to the Temple of Kvatosh. The god of war demands tribute from full-blooded elves who wish to become true warriors. Time served in the darkness of his domain.
Shepherd warns me before they leave. “Service in the realm of the god of war distorts time itself. It could be months. Could be decades. Don’t wait for him.”
But I do wait.
I keep working, taking contracts, surviving. The guild promotes me to full Grimsbane at seventeen, youngest in a generation. I’ve completed more missions than most assassins twice my age.
By the time Shade emerges, twenty-three years had passed and I’ve killed fifty-three people and served countless other missions.
I’m in the guild hall when Shepherd finds me.
“He’s out,” the Arbiter says, sliding into the seat beside me.
“How long for him?” I ask.
“Six months, he thinks. Says it felt like no time at all.” Shepherd leans back in his chair. “For us, twenty-three years. He’s going to be confused as hell.”
That is an understatement.