Chapter Twenty-Two
I will not panic. I won’t.
“You’re interrupting my prayers,” I say coolly.
“I feel your heartbeat,” he says. “Thump thump thump. Like a little rabbit’s.” His breath smells like onions.
I dare not move with the knife at my throat, but I cast a sideways glance into the busy common room. No one pays us any attention.
The assassin has angled himself to disguise the weapon he holds.
“What do you want?” I ask. Every second I delay gives Titus a chance to reach me.
He moves his oniony breath closer to my ear and says, “I want to fix the world.”
“By putting a knife to my throat?”
“By whatever means necessary.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“It is not for you to understand.”
His grip on my shoulder tightens. I could reach back, put my hand on top of his, call upon my magic. But would feeling my
ice flowing through his veins make him slit my throat? I’m not sure what to do.
“Outside with you,” he says, yanking me in front of him and pushing me down the stairs. I don’t struggle or even protest, because we’re going in Titus’s direction.
At least I hope so.
Two men approach the tavern as we exit. “Say nothing,” the assassin warns under his breath. Then, cheerily, to the men: “I
recommend the chowder.”
“Good to know,” says one.
“Sun and moons be with you,” says the other.
Winfry the Swift is nearly full. Alwin the Pale peeks out from behind, fainter and smaller, but significant enough that the
two moons together have produced an eerie moongloam that turns the streets bluish. Only one more waning and waxing until Sunderday,
the one day per year when the moons are out in full together, lighting the night almost like daytime.
But there is no sign of Titus.
“Where are you taking me?” I say loudly, hoping he’s within earshot.
“Hush, little rabbit.” The knife parts my skin. It’s such a sharp, clean cut that the pain is delayed by several heartbeats,
but when it comes, it takes my breath away. He cut deep, and blood trickles down my neck and wets my shirt.
He pushes me toward the riverbank, keeping to the shadows. The docks are empty now. No one is here to watch me die.
And he will kill me, once he gets what he wants. I’m certain of it. The clarity is like a cool breeze on a hot day, and I take a deep,
satisfying breath. Which pushes the knife even deeper into my skin, but I welcome the pain.
Because if he’s going to kill me no matter what, I risk nothing by fighting back.
“There’s no need to hurt me,” I say, in a whispered voice that I hope seems sufficiently cowed. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Yes, you will,” he whispers back.
“Just tell me. I’ll do it. Anything.”
“You’ve stopped being afraid. Why are you not afraid, little rabbit?”
How does he know that? “Just resigned to my fate, I guess.”
At the riverbank, we turn left onto a boardwalk. Water laps at the wooden piles beneath us, and frogs chirrup their love of
this terrible evening.
The city wall looms ahead, stretching across the water, the river gate closed to boat traffic for the night. The assassin
yanks me left again, toward a large, windowless building.
I hope Titus is watching from the shadows. If not, he may never find me once I’m inside.
I plant my feet and refuse to move, and the assassin grunts with surprise when he collides with my back. A hand grabs my braid,
yanks my head back to expose my bleeding neck to the cool night air. “Do you want to die, little rabbit?”
“Of course not,” I say, my throat straining to make words. “Which is why I don’t want to go into that building with you.”
He chuckles.
“Please, sir,” I beg, raising my hand to my chest as though I’m struggling to breathe. “Just tell me what you want with me.
There’s no need to kill me.” My hand inches toward my throat and the fingers holding the knife there.
“I sense deception in you,” he says, once again shoving me toward the dark building.
I can’t put it off any longer. My hand darts to his, and I call on my magic. Too much, too fast.
He hisses, the knife fumbling from his hands and clattering to the street. I sense him retreat and whirl to face him. He clutches his wounded fingers to his chest, staring at me aghast. “What did you just do to me?”
I should run, but I can’t, because bright-hot, paralyzing pain digs at my throat just above my collarbone. Like I’ve been
burned in fire. No, not fire. Ice. I accidentally brushed my own skin.
The assassin lets his useless hand drop. Rage contorts his face. With his working hand, he pulls another knife from beneath
his cloak, and he launches at me.
A white blur comes from the right, letting loose a roar so deep it makes a hollow drum of my chest.
Titus the ice cat blindsides the assassin, knocking him to the ground. The assassin screams as claws rake his chest. Great
fangs wrap his shoulder, and the cat begins to drag him toward the river.
I don’t know what else to do but follow. The assassin flails, heels digging furrows into the ground, but he’s not leaving
a trail of blood, which means Titus may not have hurt him too badly.
Good. I have questions.
Titus pulls him over the side of the boardwalk and beneath the docks, where he tosses the assassin against one of the piles.
I slouch to keep my head from hitting the wooden planks above me. It smells musty down here, and water laps at my boots.
I wait for Titus to change back, but he doesn’t, just paces at the water’s edge, his fiery eyes fixed on the assassin. Maybe
he doesn’t want to reveal himself.
So I proceed alone. “Why did you come after me? Was I to be your second kill for the Deathsworn?”
The assassin’s head bobs as though he’s concussed. It’s too dark beneath the dock to read his face, but I sense his fear.
He coughs wetly. Did Titus puncture a lung?
“I care nothing for the Deathsworn.”
“But your tattoo . . . your earring . . .”
“I serve a higher power.”
Titus growls, and I don’t know if it’s meant for me or the assassin.
“Tell me about this higher power.”
“He’s the savior of the Sunderland. Soon you will bow before him, as will every living being.” His voice takes on an edge
of mania. “He is the king of the covenant, foretold by Titus the Great. He will make the world whole again and ascend to godhood.
Then he will rule forever with the strong arm of fairness and justice, and all will be at peace.”
I blink at him, trying to take it all in. “Well, that’s . . .” The weirdest horse hooey I’ve ever heard. “. . . very inspirational. Was it this savior of the Sunderland who wanted me dead?”
He scoffs. “Not you. You’re just a way to get to your companion, the fox pretender.”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“Little rabbit, you are a terrible liar. When the king finds you—”
The assassin never finishes. Instead, he gasps, his good hand flying to his chest. His entire body bucks once, twice, and
then he’s as still as a stone.
I stare, unsure what to do next. Crickets chirrup, something splashes, and fishing boats knock gently against their moorings.
Moonlight casts blue shards over the water.
It’s a beautiful, peaceful night, and I feel almost out of my body for the strangeness of it, as though beauty and calm shouldn’t exist in this moment.
“He hurt you,” says a fully human Titus in my ear, startling me.
“It’s nothing,” I say, staring at the assassin. He is clearly dead, his eyes open but blank, his chest unmoving. “What took
you so long?”
“I was delayed.”
I wait for him to elaborate.
Instead, he asks, “May I?” He points to my neck.
“You may.”
His warm fingers brush my throat, and I hiss with unexpected pain.
“You gave yourself frostbite. In spite of your solace. You must have used a lot of magic.”
“I was clumsy.”
His fingers gently probe the frostbite wound, then move toward the cut just below it. “No, you were smart,” he says. “But
I need to address these right away.”
Here it comes, that beautiful, burning warmth, so bright and glorious I could bask in it forever. The stinging disappears,
my heartbeat slows. My lips part, as I pant with the intensity of feeling my skin knit together.
“That should do it,” he says. “If you get frostbite again, find me immediately so I can heal it. And I mean immediately.”
I turn to him. To avoid deeper water, he has moved into my space, and I feel his breath on my forehead. “Why? It was a small wound.”
“You’ve killed two people now. With your Gift.”
“No! You killed this fellow. With your ridiculously giant fangs. You dragged him—”
“I was very careful. In fact, I healed one puncture wound as I was dragging him, just to be sure he would survive.”
I gape at him. “You healed him while you were the cat? How much magic does that take? How are you on your feet right now?”
“It took a lot of magic,” he concedes, looking sheepish. “Just about everything I had.”
“That’s why I had to do the questioning. You couldn’t change form again right away.”
“Yes.”
I stare at the dead man. “All I did was freeze his hand.”
Titus’s hand comes up to grip my shoulder, and he regards me dead-on. Not even the darkness beneath these docks can quench
that amber gaze. “Bria, if you’re going to wield your Gift effectively, you have to start by acknowledging how powerful it
is.”
“It’s barely more than a jongleur’s trick.” As the words hang in the damp air, I hear their absurdity.
“Every human body contains an enormous amount of lifeblood,” Titus says patiently, like a teacher to a recalcitrant student.
“That lifeblood carries sustenance, air, water, everything you need to survive. I know this because I can see it. When I heal
someone, I feel their lifeblood pulsing through their body, nourishing them. Do you know what causes blood to flow through
the body?”
“The heart?”
“Exactly. What do you think happens when you freeze part of the human body?”
“It gets really, really cold.”
“You freeze some of that blood. And when a bit of that frozen blood breaks away and travels to the heart, the heart stops.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“I suspect your Gift could also cause a frozen clot to move into the brain. But so far, both times it’s been the heart.”