Page 23

Cold water splashed against my face.

Coughing, I opened my eyes and winced. They were blurry with water, and I tried raising a hand to wipe it away.

I couldn’t move.

I was sitting in a chair with my arms tied behind the chairback, my wrists bound tightly and secured to the wood. My ankles

were also bound, lashed together and tied to the chair legs, rendering me immobile. After a moment of panicked confusion and

futile struggling, I blinked the last of the water from my eyes and looked up, my heart pounding in my ears.

The iylvahn crouched in front of me, pale blue eyes staring from beneath his hood. Up close, he looked even more beautiful

and alien, with high cheekbones, charcoal-gray skin, and strands of silver-white hair hanging over his eyes. He watched me,

neither smug nor threatening, just silent. Calculating.

“Where is it?” he said at last.

I tried to swallow my fear, but it stuck in my throat, making my voice raspy and breathless. “What?”

“The soulstone.” The assassin’s voice was ruthlessly calm. “The thing you took from the crypts in the ancient city. The black

stone with runic markings. Where is it?”

“I...” My thoughts spun. I was suddenly cognizant of a horrific pounding in my head and the feeling of dried blood in my hair. “I don’t know.”

The assassin moved, so swiftly I wasn’t even aware of it. One second, he was crouched in front of me; the next, his face was

only a foot from mine and something cold was pressed against my throat. I could feel the razor edge of his blade barely touching

my skin, and knew that if it moved just a hair closer, I would be bleeding.

“You can tell me now,” the iylvahn said, still in that same calm, deadly voice, “or you can die here. Those are your only

options.”

“My satchel,” I whispered.

“Your satchel was empty,” the iylvahn said. “It was the first thing I checked. The soulstone is gone, taken by whoever knocked

you out and left you here.” He leaned back, thankfully taking the blade from my neck, though his gaze still seared a hole

through my face. “Who are they? Where are they taking the stone?”

Jeran. I bit my lip. Saving my own skin was one thing; selling out a fellow thief whom I’d known all my life was another. Even after

everything, even after his betrayal, I wasn’t going to give Jeran to this killer. He might’ve deserved it—he might’ve even

sold me out had the situation been reversed—but he was still my friend, and a fellow thief. I didn’t want him to die.

“What makes you think I know where they are?” I asked the iylvahn, daring to look up at him.

“It was a random attack by a random lowlife—if you hadn’t noticed, there are a lot of them around here.

” His expression didn’t change, and I tried to give a careless shrug.

Difficult to do with my hands tied behind my back.

“I wasn’t being careful, and they got the drop on me.

I don’t even know who they are, much less where they went. ”

“You’re lying,” the iylvahn said quietly. His blade came up again, not against my throat, but held between us. “I’ve killed

a lot of people.” The assassin said this as if he were discussing the weather. “I study my targets, and I know them very well.

And you...” Those pale blue eyes narrowed to slits. “I tracked you through the ancient city. I hunted you in the crypts

below the palace. You were my target, and yet you managed something none have ever succeeded at. You escaped. You literally

slipped through my fingers, and nothing I tried, despite my years of experience and hunting down the most dangerous men to

ever walk the sands, was successful in catching one slip of a human girl.”

I swallowed. “I was lucky,” I said, dropping my gaze. “It’s something I’ve been blessed with.” Or cursed with , I thought, upon reflection. The iylvahn didn’t move, and I looked at him again. “I’m not special,” I told him. “I’m just

a thief who gets lucky from time to time.”

The kahjai shook his head. “It’s more than luck,” he said simply. “You shouldn’t have been able to even reach the soulstone.

The curses and ancient guardians kill any trespassers who set foot in the palace. But you were able to move through the palace

untouched. Like a shadow, or a mirage.”

“Hardly untouched,” I argued. “Or didn’t you see the mobs of skeletons and skull beetles chasing us?”

“I did,” the iylvahn agreed, nodding. “And I saw that they stirred only after the Fatechaser stepped onto the platform or touched something he was not supposed to touch. You, however...” He paused, regarding me with a look that was frightening in its intensity.

“They couldn’t sense you. They couldn’t see you. As if you weren’t even there.”

“Halek.” I suddenly remembered the Fatechaser who had offered to lead the assassin away so I could escape. “What did you do

to him?” I asked the iylvahn, suddenly afraid I knew the answer. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know where the Fatechaser is,” the iylvahn said. “He led me on a merry chase, but when I finally caught up and realized

you weren’t with him, you had already gone.”

“You didn’t kill him?”

The assassin shook his head. “I don’t kill those who are not my targets,” he continued, making me slump in relief. “The Fatechaser

is either still in the undercity, or he made it back to the surface. Or he died trying to leave. Whichever way, he is not

my concern.

“Regardless”—the iylvahn’s blade came up, the tip pressing into my cheek, his gaze focusing on me once more—“I followed you

back to the surface as quickly as I could. And after doing a quick search of the area, I found you here. Without the soulstone.”

“Like I said.” I tried to ignore the cold steel against my flesh. “It was a random attack. I was careless.”

“No.”

The iylvahn leaned close again, his eyes hard.

“You are not one to be negligent,” he said firmly.

“Not once in the underground city did I see you let your guard down. Luck is one thing, but you would not have survived this long as a thief if you were careless.” His eyes narrowed to pale blue slits.

“I’m guessing that you knew your attacker,” he went on, making my stomach twist. “Perhaps it was a fellow guild member. A partner in crime, maybe even a friend. And you followed them in here because you trusted them. Only to find, as is often the case with humans, that greed and desperation easily overpower loyalty. They struck you down, and they took what you had, either to sell, or for some other reward it would bring. And you’re here with me now because even though you are skilled, crafty, or even lucky enough to escape a city full of curses and horrors, you are still naive when it comes to human betrayal. ”

My throat felt tight, and to my horror, there was a stinging sensation behind my eyes. I ducked my head, breathing deep to

banish the tightness. I would not let this assassin see me cry. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Even though I was exhausted,

in pain, and reeling from the horrors of the night and Jeran’s betrayal, I would not let him see my weakness.

There was a sigh, and, to both my surprise and dismay, the assassin brushed back my hood, letting it fall behind me. Instantly,

I cringed, feeling even more exposed and helpless. Now there was nowhere I could hide, and the iylvahn’s piercing gaze seemed

to stab right through my head.

“So young,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “And likely just a puppet that the ma’jhet would use and throw away.”

He sighed again, running a hand over his eyes, before looking back at me. “You don’t even know why you were sent for the soulstone,

do you?”

I ground my teeth, banishing the last of the tears, and made sure my voice was steady.

“I’m a member of the Thieves Guild. When they tell you to fetch something, you don’t get to ask why.

You just do it. So, no. I don’t know why the Circle told me to go down into a cursed ancient city crawling with monsters, where I very nearly died, to fetch some rock for them.

I guess you’re going to explain why this thing is so important that you would kill me to get it? ”

The iylvahn’s jaw tightened, but not in anger. His gaze shifted to the grimy, dust-encased windows on the opposite wall, as

if weighing his choices. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he finally murmured. “None of us do now. But maybe if you understood

what’s at stake...” He rose and paused, then shook his head and turned to me. “How much do you know about the Deathless

Kings?” he asked.

The Deathless Kings . It all came back to them, didn’t it? What the Circle wanted, why the iylvahn had been after me. It all had something to

do with what I’d taken from the city of the Deathless King. “They were the rulers in the age before this one,” I answered.

“Several thousand years ago. They built great kingdoms, and their cities stretched to the edges of the world. But then there

was a great cataclysm. The kingdoms collapsed, and the cities sank into the sands.”

I stopped. The iylvahn waited quietly, as if he expected me to go on. “That’s all I know,” I told him.

“So, not a lot,” the iylvahn murmured. “Certainly nothing that matters.”

I clenched my fists behind my back. “That’s as much as anyone knows,” I said defiantly.

“The stories of the Deathless Kings are so old, they’re mostly faery tales.

Shadows and bogeymen mothers threaten their children with.

” Ignoring the fact that I had just been in one ancient city of the forgotten kingdom.

And the monsters there had definitely not been mere stories.

The iylvahn’s face went cold and terrifying as he loomed over me. “Then let me tell you the true story of the Deathless Kings,”

he said in a deep voice that sent chills racing up and down my back. “Long ago, several thousands of years past, the lands

were ruled not by one, but thirteen souls of immense power. Each of these kings, or queens, had their own cities, their own