Chapter 97 – Dain
DAIN
The assignment dragged. It wasn’t anything difficult or dangerous—merely time-consuming.
I’d warned Azaria beforehand that I might be gone for a few days.
She nodded and told me to be careful, as usual.
I could tell she didn’t like it, though.
Whenever the job took longer than one night to finish, she grew troubled, worried I might get hurt.
Five years later, and she never stopped worrying about me coming back in one piece, despite me never giving her a reason not to.
But this was Tywin’s request, and I never refused the man.
He gave me all of this—the job, the name, the purpose—fifteen years ago. I never let him down.
The assignment took three days longer than it should have. By the time I rode through Tempest’s gates, it was well past midnight, and the only thing keeping me upright was stubbornness.
I should have gone straight to the wing. I should have filed the ledger, left a message for Azaria to let her know I was all right, and collapsed into bed. That was the sensible thing.
Instead, I turned my horse toward the lower quarters and found the Weaver’s Pin—a tavern tucked between a chandler’s shop and a tailor, small enough to stay quiet, large enough to serve decent food at indecent hours.
I’d been here before. Nobody asked questions, the ale was strong, and the lamb stew could raise the dead.
I ordered both, took a table in the corner with my back to the wall, and let the noise of the room wash over me. Low chatter, the clink of cups, someone laughing too loudly near the bar. My shoulders loosened by degrees.
The stew arrived. I ate slowly, letting the warmth settle into my bones, and was halfway through my ale when I felt it: a gaze, steady and unhurried, resting on me from across the room.
I didn’t look up immediately. I let my magic drift outward instead—a brush, enough to read intent without intruding: no hostility, no recognition laced with agenda. Curiosity, and beneath it, something warmer. I looked up.
He was sitting three tables over, a half-empty glass of wine in front of him, watching me with the kind of quiet attention that said he’d been doing it for a while.
Dark hair, a little too long, falling across his forehead.
Olive skin. And eyes that caught the lantern light in a way that made me pause—green, vivid, and quite unusual; the kind of color that didn’t let you glance away easily.
I recognized the insignia on his collar. Healer’s division. One of Myrin’s. He recognized me, too. I saw it in the slight shift of his posture—the way he straightened, recalibrating. Everyone in the palace knew Tywin’s Blade by face, even if most had the good sense not to approach.
This one didn’t have that particular sense.
He picked up his glass, crossed the room, and slid into the chair opposite mine. “You look like you haven’t slept in days,” he said.
“Three,” I replied. “But who’s counting.”
His mouth curved into something subtler, warm at the edges. “Zorander. Healer, Magical Recovery Ward.”
“I know,” I said. “Myrin’s.”
“And you’re Dain. Everyone knows who you are.”
“Unfortunately for me.”
He laughed, low and genuine, the kind that crinkled the corners of those green eyes. “Rough job?”
“The usual.” I took a drink. “You’re up late for a healer.”
“Night shift ended an hour ago. Couldn’t sleep.” He turned the stem of his glass between his fingers. “Thought I’d drink until I could.”
“How’s that working?”
“Terribly. The wine here is awful.”
I almost smiled. “The ale’s better.”
“I’ll trust you on that.” He signaled the barkeep without breaking eye contact.
We talked. Nothing consequential—the kind of easy, undemanding conversation that happened between two people who were tired enough to be honest and awake enough to enjoy it.
He told me about a patient who’d tried to heal himself with a poultice made from kitchen herbs and blind optimism.
I told him about the village innkeeper on my assignment who’d charged me triple because, and I quote, “you look like you can afford it.”
He laughed often. Easily. The sound settled something restless in my chest.
I wasn’t a stranger to this—the quiet pull between two people testing the edges of an evening, seeing where it might go.
I’d been with men before, and women, and had never felt the need to announce either.
Pleasure was pleasure. Connection was rarer, but I’d learned to recognize it when it surfaced.
My magic told me what I needed to know without pressing. He was relaxed and interested. The warmth I’d sensed earlier had deepened into something more deliberate—a slow heat beneath the easy conversation, unhurried but certain. He knew what he wanted. He was waiting to see if I did too.
I did.
“I should go,” I said, finishing the last of my ale.
“Should you?” He held my gaze, one brow lifting slightly.
“Probably.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
It wasn’t. I set the glass down.
His house was a short walk from the tavern: small, clean, with books stacked on every surface.
He lit a single lamp and poured two glasses of water, which told me he was a healer even in the way he ended an evening.
I made sure to reinforce my glamors. My magic tattoos and scars weren’t something I wanted on display.
The only person who saw them fully was Azaria.
I took a few sips of my water and set the glass down.
Then I walked up to him and kissed him first. Slow, unhurried, letting the tension that had been building all night finally settle into something real.
He tasted like bad wine and warmth, and the sound he made against my mouth—low, surprised, pleased—sent heat coiling through me.
His hands found my waist, pulling me closer with a confidence that matched those steady green eyes. No hesitation. No fumbling. Just two people who knew what they wanted and were done pretending otherwise.
We didn’t rush. There was no performance in it, no desperation—only the slow discovery of a body I didn’t know yet, the quiet sounds between breaths, hands mapping unfamiliar skin.
He was vocal in ways that caught me off guard: murmured praise, sharp gasps, my name spoken like a confession against my throat.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed this. Not just the physical release, though that was considerable, but the simplicity of it. No weight, no grief, no responsibility. Just warmth, and friction, and a man whose pulse raced under my fingers because he wanted me there.
Afterward, we lay in the dark, breathing slowly. His head rested against my shoulder, one hand idly tracing the line of my collarbone.
“You’re quieter than I expected,” he murmured. “For a man with your reputation.”
“What reputation is that?”
“Precise. Dangerous. The kind of man who sees everything.”
I huffed a laugh. “I’m off duty.”
“Are you ever?” he asked, and there was something genuine beneath the teasing, as if he actually wanted to know.
“Rarely,” I admitted.
He was quiet for a moment. Then: “You should sleep. You look like you need it more than I do.”
“I should go.”
“You could stay.”
I considered it. The warmth of him, the quiet of the room, the steady rhythm of his breathing. It would have been easy to stay. Easier than I wanted to admit.
“Next time,” I said.
His mouth curved against my shoulder. “I’ll hold you to that.”
I dressed in the dark, moving quietly. He was half-asleep already, curled on his side, lamplight catching the olive tone of his skin.
I paused at the edge of the bed and looked at him. The dark hair had fallen across his forehead. The line of his jaw. Those green eyes, closed now, but I could still feel their weight.
This was the part I hated.
I reached out with my magic, with a precise weave, the lightest touch I could manage. I found the threads of his memory that held my face and my name, and I blurred them. Softened the edges until the features wouldn’t quite resolve, until “Dain” became a shape without a word attached to it.
Everything else I left untouched. The conversation. The laughter. The taste of bad wine. The way his breath had hitched when I pressed him into the mattress. All of it—real, intact, his to keep. He’d remember the night. He’d remember the man. He just wouldn’t know it was me.
It was cleaner this way. The Master Assassin couldn’t afford to leave his face in the memory of every person he let close.
Not in a city full of enemies, not with Torven’s people slipping through the wards, not when the people I cared about could be leveraged through anyone who knew how to find me after hours.
That was the reason. The professional one.
The other reason—the one I didn’t examine too closely—was that it was easier to leave when you knew the door wouldn’t be waiting open behind you.
I let myself out, quiet as a shadow, and walked back through the empty streets toward the palace.
The night air was cool against my skin. I could still smell him: something herbal and clean. I could still see those green eyes, holding nothing but warmth.
I didn’t look back.