Page 6
Story: Rogue (Assassin’s Magic #7)
M y life for the next six months becomes one of discipline and routine.
Some parts of it are similar to my time at the Academy. I get up at dawn to run around the perimeter, shower, have breakfast, and then I train, but unlike at Bloodwing, training with the Legion is carefully controlled.
I learn how to breathe.
I learn where my body is strong and weak.
I learn what my limits are, and I don’t push them unless I’m ready to.
In the afternoons, I meditate while the other trainees practice their assassin’s magic.
I don’t go anywhere near those damn rings, and I’m surprised—but happy—to learn that only the Master Assassin is allowed to wear his ring inside the Realm, which means I never have to worry about anyone creeping up on me or surprising me.
I learn control and, above all, patience.
When I interact with the latest intake of trainees, many of them with their own anger issues, I find myself holding back, reacting with less force, not more, during training.
The head of training, a guy named Ridley, stops introducing me as another trainee and starts calling me his assistant.
I’m surprised when, during my fifth month at the Legion, Slade suggests a trip back to the Academy.
“Lucinda’s been asking to see you,” he says. “But it’s up to you to decide whether or not you’re ready.”
“In another week,” I say, since I’m learning to listen to my limits, and I need to prepare mentally for a trip back to the place that holds my best and worst memories.
It takes me more than a week to feel ready.
Two weeks later, I exit the Legion’s Realm for the first time since I was brought here.
The trip to the Academy happens in a Legion-owned vehicle that drops Slade and me outside St. Michael Cemetery. We check for observers and passing vehicles before I place my hand on the plaque at the front entrance that will allow us to enter the Academy’s Realm.
The Academy appears in the distance, and I pause in shock before I shake myself and step inside the boundary.
The road leading into Bloodwing is now paved with bright pebbles and lined with bushes bearing flowers of all colors. The fence and rose bushes are gone.
Up ahead, a giant oak has grown in the front yard, a child’s swing attached to its strongest branch.
Two children, both about eight years old, swing back and forth, chatting loudly.
Flower-covered vines creep up across the front of the building. The windows have been widened to let the light in, and colorful curtains are visible, floating in the breeze.
Lucinda appears in the wide doors at the entrance, a gentle smile on her face. Her long, straight caramel-brown hair is tied in a loose braid that rests across one shoulder, and she’s wearing a linen dress.
She hurries down the front steps, slowing when she reaches me. “Striker, you made it.”
She reaches for my hands, taking them in hers, her brown eyes clear and calm and unafraid.
Slade gives her a quick greeting in the form of a nod. “I’ll be inside. Has Alison baked again?”
Lucinda casts him a crooked smile. “Can you smell the cookies? Get in quick. They’re almost gone.”
I stare at Lucinda, taking in her calm eyes and her serene expression. “What… Lucinda… This place…”
“It’s a home now, Striker. A place where we’re safe.
What it should have been from the start.
” She gestures to the children on the swing.
“With the Guardian’s help, we’re identifying Unknowns early.
If their families are willing to support them, we leave them where they are with the offer to give help if needed, but we extract the ones who are in danger. ”
“I’ve never met Catherine,” I say. “That’s the Guardian’s name, isn’t it? Catherine?”
“No.” Lucinda pauses as she leads me up the stairs. “That was the Guardian before this one. Hunter Cassidy is the new Guardian. She took over a little while ago now.” Lucinda winks at me. “I don’t know how Hunter does it, but that woman has eyes everywhere.”
Lucinda draws me inside the building, taking me on a tour of each level, showing me the new library, the quiet rooms, and a loud room in which music blares as soon as she opens the door, but it’s soundproof when she shuts it.
“That’s the teens’ retreat,” she shouts. “We won’t go in there.”
Upstairs, I find dorms filled with beds covered in bright blankets. There are paintings on the walls and—I grin—mirrors.
“We still have to share the shower rooms, but there are individual cubicles now,” she says.
She hesitates at the base of the steps leading up to the attic. “I wasn’t sure what to do with upstairs.”
She chews her lip as she leads me up there, saying, “I left your room as it was because… I guess I hoped that maybe one day you’d come back and tell me how you’d like it. But I made Peyton’s room the way I thought it should have been.”
I walk past my room, knowing I need to avoid its painful memories, but I pause outside Peyton’s room.
It now contains a well-made bed with blue cushions on it. A plush chair sits in the corner with a small table beside it. The window is open, and pastel blue curtains billow gently in the breeze.
Lucinda’s right. It’s tranquil. Like Peyton deserved.
It’s what she should have been given.
I clear my throat, focusing on the sky visible through the window. “Have you seen her?”
Lucinda shakes her head. “Only Hunter has.”
Accepting that, I turn away from the bedroom door and pass across to the wide windows at the side of the walkway, taking in the lush garden below.
Instead of the training yard, it now contains multiple large trees, a myriad of bushes, and several log contraptions that puzzle me.
“It looks very peaceful from up here,” Lucinda says, giving me another wink, “but there’s a combat labyrinth down there that helps us stay in touch with our inner monsters.”
I allow myself to smile at that. Lucinda is a dryad. Her affinity with nature would have allowed her to make all sorts of changes to this environment.
The changes she deserves.
Her hand brushes my arm, a tentative touch. “The others would like to see you. Would that be okay?”
“Yeah.”
I follow her to the old dining room, where I first laid eyes on Peyton, finding it as bright as the rest of the building.
Joseph waits at the door, his dark-blond hair even messier than it used to be. He extends his hand to shake mine. “Striker.”
“Joseph.”
Joseph is a Draugr—an undead warrior—whose monster form matches my own in stature and strength.
Inside the room, Lachlan, Ashley, Ryan, and Bree wait for me, their eyes bright, their handshakes strong until Ashley forgoes the handshake for a hug that snatches the breath out of my chest.
She has long, straight blonde hair, and she’s wearing what appears to be a custom-made mask over her eyes that fits her perfectly. As a gorgon, her unfettered gaze turns anyone to stone, no matter if she wants that to happen or not.
I suspect that her mask may be made from a similar material to the assassins’ protective suits, except that it must be modified to ensure she can see out without hurting anyone.
Lachlan is an enenra—a demon of smoke and ash—and in his monster form, he is unkillable.
Bree is a siren, whose sharp teeth are currently nowhere to be seen, although her voice carries a melodic lilt when she greets me.
Ryan is a fucking scary wendigo, whose hunger for flesh is insatiable—despite the fact that in his human form, he’s vegetarian.
When I take a seat, they ask me questions about the Legion and the Master Assassins and about my life now, and they’re happy to tell me about the new Unknowns and that Alison keeps trying different recipes that sometimes don’t work.
Observing them as they talk, I begin to wonder about the way Lucinda had winked at me when she told me the Guardian has eyes everywhere.
“When was your last mission?” I ask.
The room is suddenly silent.
After a glance at the others, Bree gives me a bright smile.
“We help out when we can. Strictly no killing, but we have particular skills that the Guardian can use.” She leans forward and hums with a smile.
“For example, if you were one of my targets, I might ask you to tell me what you did last night.”
As a siren with the power to compel obedience with her spoken commands, Bree would certainly make a good interrogator.
I grin at her, knowing that she knows she has no effect on me.
Still, I choose to answer her question. “I slept. Soundly, actually.”
She pulls back with a fading smile. “I still have nightmares sometimes.” She reaches for Ryan’s hand, and he grips it tightly. “We all do. But we’re healing. Slowly.”
I give her a nod. Healing from years of trauma like we went through can only happen slowly.
Before I leave, Ashley approaches me to give me another hug. She raises her eyes to mine. “Striker?”
“Yeah.”
“I once told you that if you hurt Peyton, we’d be enemies, but we all hurt her in the end. We were all born into darkness. What matters is whether or not we choose to step into the light.”
She reaches up to press a kiss on my cheek. “You’re doing better, Striker. I can see it.”
Before I can catch my breath, she returns to the others.
When I descend the steps down the front of the Academy with Slade and Lucinda, I take a deep breath and a leap of faith.
I clear my throat as I turn to Lucinda to say goodbye. “I’m proud of what you’ve achieved here.”
Her eyes suddenly fill with tears. “Thank you, Striker.”
Walking away from the Academy to return to the Legion with Slade, I have to ask him, “Why did you take the chance of allowing me to train with the Legion? You had no reason to trust me.”
He gives me a faint smile. “Because you were handed an object of pure power, and you rejected it.”
“The White Wand.” My forehead creases as I recall what I’ve learned about Slade and his long-ago interaction with Lady Tirelli. “Like you gave back the Keres feather.”
He laughs. “Yeah, well, the difference is that you were smart enough to destroy the wand.”
I press my hand to my chest, where I burned the bone, my beast’s fire consuming it. I’m still not completely certain how I did that. At the time, I believed it was because I destroyed whatever I touched, but that certainty no longer holds true in my life.
I have hope now.
Slade shakes his head in humility before he says, “Let’s get back to the Legion.”
Two months later, after I’ve been with the Legion for eight months, Archer and Cain’s baby girl is born.
When they trust me enough to hold her on their visit to the Legion, I discover that something’s shifted.
The scales have tipped.
I’m no longer angry. No longer seeking violence.
My beast’s fury is a constant, but I control him , and I won’t falter.
I approach Slade the next day.
“My stepfather,” I say, giving him a steely glance. “It’s time.”
He looks up from his ledger, in which I’m now determined to write my stepfather’s name. “You’re certain?”
“That demon has had eight months longer than he should have had. He has nothing to threaten the Factions with now that you have the rings back. I’m grateful for the time you’ve given me to prepare. I’m ready.”
Slade gives me a nod. “Then suit up.”
I offer him a brief smile because the suit I’ll wear is very different from the one he plans on wearing.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6 (Reading here)
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
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- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46