The Heir of Ash and Smoke

Chapter One Introductions

"One kills a man, one is an assassin;

one kills millions, one is a conqueror;

one kills everybody, one is a god."

Adan Byrd never liked taking orders, especially from men. Not once in her eight and twenty years has she ever enjoyed the pastime. If it didn't mean the immediate loss of her head and the unleashing of her long kept secrets she would have told them all to go to hell a long time ago.

Her thick, long honey blonde plate smacked her in the face as she swung from rooftop to rooftop in the Loch.

The High King Cias Dreadmore had ordered her to find a captain of a slave ship.

She scoffed at the simple errand. Something that should have been accomplished by a simpleton, not her—the kings personal assassin—even if she was only a slave.

He had also noted that he wanted this particular parcel brought back alive. Something she was not prone to do.

Cias had never once asked her to hold back, he preferred when she was his loyal bloodhound. He wanted her salivating at the blood letting she would brutalize on his order. She would do anything he commanded, if only she he would not look to closely behind her carefully secured mask.

Adan landed on soft feet on the hot burnt orange shingles of a brothel's roof.

The hood and mask that covered most of her face did not help the beading sweat that dripped down her spine.

It was always hot in the Lymia, but midsummer was the worst.

Adan never had a problem with heat, but on days like today she longed for cold winds and the lush white snow from her homeland.

The home that she never let herself think of for more than a moment. The past wouldn't do her any good.

Adan listened to the sounds of the Loch.

Always busy and filled with sounds of traders, bustling brothels welcoming new arrivals, and the sounds of the sick and dying.

The Loch isn't just the docks, but home to the slums of Lymia's capital, The City of Bones.

Where it housed the less wealthy of the city.

Cias pushed most of the poor and sick to the outskirts of the city.

They're all slaves in one form or another, they could not refuse his order as their King, and Master.

She always saw the Loch as the heart of the City of Bones, the truth of what the High King had brought to its shores.

Cias wasn't always king, though he fought hard to erase that thought from peoples memories.

He rewrote history, his victories in battle and his burning of ancient libraries.

Most notable of them was well before Adan's time.

He named himself High King over a hundred years ago and has held the title ever since.

He managed it with his keen mental gifts, with a simple curl of his silver tongue.

No one had the power to disobey Cias Dreadmore.

His Magical heritage was strong, and ripe with rot.

His son, Darius did not fall far from that decaying tree.

Adan did not know who she secretly loathed more, her king, or his psychopathic son.

Both of them own and held the invisible leash on her life.

Adan slipped closer to an open window, listening for the sounds of male voices.

The mans name was Jax, a presumed rebel and apparent Captain, whom she had been sent after.

The king never told her why he wanted the seaman, but she knew deep down.

The king's obsession with Phoenixes. All her assignments lead down a similar path, hunt and kill species that Cias found a threat, or deemed inferior.

He had purged the world of them and was in search of more.

Obviously hoping that this Captain Jax might have found more of them on his travels around the globe.

Or if the Captain had any information on rebellious movements.

There is always rebellion when the leader is a raging tyrannical brute.

Cias is particularly obsessed with Pheonixes, the powerful ash they produce when they die brings them back to life.

The king had managed to bottle up that ash and kept it secured in his tombs deep in the castle.

To be used at his discretion. She knew he was running low, that even with his long-lived life, but he was running out of options to keep himself alive.

It was why his enemies never bothered with an assassination, Cias would not stay down for long.

Everyone still remembers what he did to the last great phoenix house...

everyone knew it, so no one tried or said a word against him.

He is known to kept a vile of ash on him at all times, just in case.

Though, everyone is long lived in Lymia, but no one came close to the Majesty's long lived years.

Not since the dragons, but their house is long gone now.

Their ancestral home destroyed some two hundred years ago, just before the start of the Great War, which ended around the time of Adan's birth.

"There is a rumour that the kings guard is out looking for you." A males voice reached her ears and she crept closer to the open window.

The laugh that resounded was pure male arrogance.

It rippled down Adan's spine and chilled her bones.

Her eyes narrowed and she steeled her nerves.

She had no problem putting down arrogant men like that, and had many times before.

She reminded herself that she had to bring in the male alive, but the king said nothing about him being unharmed.

She flipped her small blade in her hand as she crouched down over the eaves. Letting her feet dangle as she listened to the males bickering. She held her breath and strained her ears to separate the two male voices over the bustle of the Loch.

"The king can send whoever he likes, it won't matter." Pure, unyielding, male arrogance matched the deep dark voice, like the feel of fresh leather against her cheek.

"Don't be a fool. The king always gets what he wants. There is no stopping that dark power of his. No one can resist him." The other male scolded. This one was worried, not as collected like his companion.

"He will have to kill me to stop me."

Adan scoffed in her head, careful not to let a sound pass her lips.

"Jax." The tone was a warning, but it was all the confirmation that Adan needed before her world flipped upside down with a yank.

Her hood fell with the weight of gravity and the blood in her body started to rush towards her head.

She looked down at the cobblestones that were at least three floors away, letting her know that she was no longer perched on the roof, but was dangling from a large hand that encompassed her ankle.

It was so very rare that someone every got that drop on her that she didn't even have a moment to act.

Her stunned silence didn't even allow her to scream.

Something she had not done in twenty years. She couldn't remember the sound of it.

A tsk came from behind that hand, she followed it to the massive chest that barely fit out the window. The masked male that held her had to be Jax, even if he was covered in black from head to toe, not unlike herself.

"What do we have here?" Asked the male behind him, completely eclipsed by Jax impossibly large frame.

She still held her blade in her hand as she dangled there processing her options.

She immediately thought of going for his hand that held her.

The fall wouldn't kill her, but it would be a while before her body stitched back together, but then she would be vulnerable.

She would never make the crawl to the Sicarii, where Osho would scowled her for her rookie mistakes.

"I wouldn't." He smiled behind his mask of black cloth.

"You might get your wings out in time to beat the fall, but I don't like your odds."

He shook her for emphasis. Even if she did summon her wings, which she had vowed to never do again, it would be a death sentence anyway.

She would take her body crushing on the stones over that fate.

She simply stayed silent and narrowed her eyes at Jax, her fingers tightening over her blade.

He merely laughed and pulled her up so that she was half inside the building, still precariously outside the window.

So if he changed his mind he might just give her a small push.

"What is a little thing like you, doing up on the roof of a brothel, eavesdropping on a couple of males. Someone might think you a pervert, miss—"

Adan straightened her spine and steeled her lips. She would give this Captain Jax nothing, even as he held her shoulders. No doubt decided what to do with her. All he would have to do would be to take her hood down, and her mask off and he would know who she is. Everyone knows who she is.

"Thats the king's assassin." Gasped the male from behind him, "can't you tell... look at her eyes."

The only thing she could not afford to cover, those mis-matched eyes.

One blue and one brown. Jax seemed to have the fortitude to look worried, that brought a small smile to Adan's face.

She was renowned all over Lymia. Not just for her work as an assassin, but her triumph in the gladiator pits.

A place she had vowed to never return to.

She would take satin sheets and a feather bed over sand and dust any day.

"So the king has finally asked for my head."

He brought her fully inside as if she was nothing more than a doll and took a step back.

"I am surprised it took him this long." He placed those large hands on his narrow hips, assessing the assassin before him.

Black paint covered his face, it made it difficult for Adan to ascertain the colour of his eyes.

She made a mental note to visit Plaza Roe to purchase some immediately.

"The High King has asked for an audience." She finally spoke. She clutched the wooden window frame, pulling herself into the safety of the room, but still having an escape should she need it. Jax was proven slippery enough already.

"We're dead." Spoke the other male, who had the intelligence to look terrified.

Jax paid him no mind. His dark eyes swept over her, and the action made Adan see red.

She knew that look, she had seen it enough times from lesser men.

Though she did not move, she had no idea what power he possessed or what house he was from.

His wings were tucked in tight so she couldn't even guess at what he might be.

She knew nothing about him and it set her teeth on edge.

"And if I refuse?" Jax tilted his head, the act reminded her of a falcon, pure predator.

"Jax—" the male hissed, but the Captain silenced him with a slashing of his hand, without ever taking his eyes off the assassin in front of him.

"His highness truly hates being disobeyed."

She drawled, her lazy lackadaisical voice that she kept for moments like these.

She readied herself to strike, she could already smell this conversation turning sour.

Besides, If he put up a fight then she would have reason to hurt him. He was making this too easy for her.

"Funny enough I've never been one to enjoy the leash."

Then moved on her lightening fast, faster than any creature she had seen.

Adan could do nothing as Jax slammed his hands into her chest and she toppled backwards out of the window.

Once again her world was upended by the Captain.

One of her gloved hands found purchase into the wood frame and she felt her fingernails crack from the pressure.

She groaned as she hung there for a moment, the strain in her shoulder readying to pop.

"Fine. Have it your way, slave trader." She grumbled to herself and swung up her other hand and pulled her body into the room, toppling forward with zero grace.

She found the room now empty, and the door open.

She bolted after the males. Only one was of any real importance, but the other might squeal his knowledge if she pushed hard enough.

She had no qualms about bleeding the companion, he seemed scared enough that he might scream quickly.

She followed the cries of woman's shrieks, which only grew louder at the sight of her. Not caring that she had to push some of them out of the way as she trudged after the males. She would not go back to the king empty handed. She couldn't.

Whirls of transparent fabric fluttered around her in a furry as she bolted down the hallway. Patrons moved swiftly to get out of her way, slamming doors behind them. She reached the winding staircase, taking them two at a time to reach the bottom, and still no sight of them.

"FIRE!" Someone yelled from above her.

She ignored it until she noticed the main floor empty and the front door closed.

They could not have escaped into the city streets without her at least spying them first.

Which meant— she doubled back up the stairs towards the sounds of fright.

Fighting the onslaught of bodies that slowed her assent, fleeing the fire that was growing rapidly. Far too quickly to be natural.

She reached the first landing and spotted the too fast fire, impossible to be any mortal flame, this was magic.

Either one or both males had to be Demons or Fae.

The only creatures left alive with the ability to use fire.

She one of them—a fire wielder. An was extremely rare to Storm House and more rampant in Shadow House.

Adan was the only one she knew of in Storm House that had that ability.

Which meant, logically, that those males were most definitely members of Shadow House.

Which left them under Lord Lennox Hollows preview. She shuddered at the name.

Fire burned all around her as it spread at a speed and direction that was impossibly fast and unnatural.

Leaving her no choice but to flee. No one can walk threw fire—except a Phoenix or a Dragon.

Demon and Fae might be able to summon the burning flames but it could still kill them if they are not careful.

That was why the gift was so rare in the Fae, most born with it simply burned up from the inside, from their own power.

It took a great amount of control to be able to wield the flames.

She was not so educated on demon secrets, and how some of them were able to live with fire in their blood.

Each house had their own customs and privacy.

When Adan reached the narrow streets of the Loch she had no choice but to abandon the search.

The chaos those two had created was everywhere, and those able had already taken flight.

She looked up to the cloudless sky as a single black feather flicked down to her feet.

As if taunting her to come get him. She knew it was Jax's before reaching down to pluck it from ground.

Even with her gloves on she knew it wasn't soft, but rigged, and seemed to gobble up the sunlight as she tucked it away into her cloak.

She then tucked herself into a dark alleyway before climbing the stone walls to head back to the roof.

Her favoured form of travel, the closest she allowed herself to reaching the freedom of the skies but far enough away from the reality of the ground.

She thought long and hard about what she would tell her king when she returned to the castle.

Even as the burning stench of the Loch reached her nose.

The brothel behind her already nothing more than a cinder house.