Chapter 3
Five Broken Blades: Chapter Three
Sora
City of Gain, Yusan
The meadow is beautiful this time of year. I run my delicate, bejeweled hand over the tall grass. The green grass is lovely and soft and yet, at the same time, hard and sharp. Like me.
I’m not entirely certain how the foraging lessons began.
Or at least how they became a regular event.
But every week, I meet five beggar children in the meadow outside of the great city walls.
There are a surprising number of wild edibles and sweet berries between here and the tree line.
I take the children under the trees on the hotter days to teach them about edible roots, but I don’t dare go farther than that. I can’t.
“Sora, what about this one?” Gli asks. She holds a spotted mushroom in her hand. Her little face with a cleft lip looks up at me, hopeful. Her thick curls are brushed back as best she can.
Gli is nine—the same age I was when I was taken. Well, not taken…sold.
My parents were paid a handsome price for their eldest daughter. My former parents. I, like these children, am an orphan. But unlike them, I’m not free.
I stare at the horizon. Sometimes I think about going past the tree line again, this time prepared for the Xingchi forest. I could run away from Gain and never return.
Maybe I could make it all the way north to the safety of Khitan.
But then I remember the collateral they have. The reason I can’t leave.
“Sora?” Gli asks.
She’s still staring up at me with her big brown eyes, waiting for an answer. I shake away my thoughts and return to the present.
“No, no, little dear,” I say. I tuck my long black hair behind my ear as I lean forward to look at her mushroom. “You see these spots? Do you recall what those mean?”
I give her a moment to remember my lesson from last week.
Gli frowns, her chin dropping to her chest. “Poison.”
“That’s right,” I say.
I stroke her cheek and raise her face. She has darker skin than my northern pallor. She’s also near tears. Life has not been forgiving of her mistakes. But I can be.
“You remembered after forgetting, and that’s just as valuable as knowing the first time,” I say. “Perhaps more, because you will lock it into memory now.” I pause and brush the mushroom from her hand. “We avoid the poisonous ones.”
She smiles even though she was wrong, and I smile back.
And then Tao, who is five and never seems to forage so much as hold my hand the entire time, pulls me away to chase a butterfly.
I let him, raising the hem of my colorful dress.
Childhood is short, and delights are scarce for the poor in Yusan. Even scarcer for assassins like me.
But the sun is shining on the meadow, and it’s a temperate afternoon, and there are children giggling and butterflies floating on the gentle breeze.
The air smells like earth and wildflowers, with a hint of the West Sea.
The sunshine will soon be replaced by the heavy rains of the monsoon season.
So I try to savor the sunny days. To remember.
I try to see that there is still goodness in this realm. That I am one of the lucky ones. I survived. We survived.
The children and I have barely finished foraging when I spot a figure at the edge of the meadow.
A chill careens down my spine, and my shoulders push back.
I’d know that black stallion and profile anywhere.
It’s the Count. And gods do I hate him. I have wished him dead well over a thousand times.
But, sadly, the gods don’t honor wishes from girls like me.
I suppose he’s thought of as attractive, but money and status enhance people’s opinion of powerful men. He is twenty-five years my senior with a heart as black as coal. I see him for who he is.
“Okay, children. Same time next week?” I ask.
“Yes, Miss Sora,” they say in unison.
“Good.” I smile, but my fingers are icy as I pat Gli’s shoulder. “Now, best be on your way.”
If the Count is in a foul mood, he can grab a child and slit their throat.
I know he won’t face any punishment for it.
And I know this because I watched him do it years ago.
I want to get the children away from him as quickly as possible.
But these little ones have been raised by the streets.
They understand the air shifting with danger and vanish in seconds.
I continue to smile at the empty field before walking toward the horse. It’s a warhorse that would trample me as soon as look at me. Just like its rider. My smile disappears as I get closer.
The Count’s brown eyes always scan me as one does offerings in a sugar house. As if he is figuring out where to consume me next. It’s not desire, though—it’s possession. Because he owns me, body and soul.
I give an almost imperceptible bow of my head. “My lord.”
“You’re looking well, Sora.” He smiles, scanning my body again in case I happened to miss it the first time. “Although why you bother with those filthy brats, I’ll never know.”
I stare at him. He didn’t ask a question, so I don’t have to answer. And I’m not here for conversation.
The Count sighs and extends his gloved hand, giving me a calling card. There’s a name scrawled on it. Just like that, I’ve been given another mark. Another person to kill. A soul to steal.
And I have no choice.
Murdering is the way I repay His Grace for all the gold mun given to my former parents.
The money lavished on my education and training—the training I never asked for that has left innumerable scars, most invisible.
Every kill goes to my purchase price and the steep interest that started twelve years ago when I was sold.
But I have to pay him back or my little sister, Daysum, will suffer unspeakable things. And she is the only family I have left. She is his “ward,” which is a kinder word for prisoner. When I was sold, she was taken as collateral.
“When?” I ask.
“Tonight, Sora,” the Count says. His tawny face takes on a cold look—his real expression that shows his naked cruelty. “His body should be cold by dawn. If it is, you may see your sister for one bell tomorrow.”
He rides off and leaves me standing in the meadow alone. The threat is clear: fail, and you’ll never see Daysum again.
…