Jey turned to look out the window. Outside, the academy lay in all its well-groomed splendor. The broad lawn, the sculpted hedges, the rough, rearing stone wall – it was the landscape she had known most of her life. She had vague, unspecific memories of walking serenely from class to class, of dancing lessons in the hall with the other students, and of the constant presence of the orderlies with their spritzer vials and their soothing voices, shepherding the confused, drugged students through their quiet days.
It had all been the most pernicious kind of lie. It was changed now, of course. The Tessilari were here. The walls were no longer a prison, the people within no longer captives.
Still, Jey’s anger was not so easily set aside. The bracelet was just one more horror – one more despicable tool. Would no one pay for the crimes her people had suffered? Was no one to account for the death, the suffering, the loss?
“Jey?” There was a cautious note to Liam’s tone. She turned to see both Liam and Treyam looking at her with wary eyes. Phril was on her shoulder. He’d half flared his wings and once again released that strange, haunting cry she’d first heard him make in the forest. He craved revenge even more strongly than she did. She could feel it in him – a desire to rend and tear, to smash the enemies that have brought his species so near extinction.
In the distance, down the slope towards the river, Jey could make out the deployment blocks. The equipment within them, she now knew, had been requisitioned. Using the texts Liam had provided, the strongest and brightest of the Tessilari were even now at work converting the contents into magical weapons for use against the diod and its monstrous army.
Jey realized with an abrupt chill that she didn’t care about the diod. No. That wasn’t quite right. She did care. She would join her people and stand against it when the time came.
For now, however, she had something else to take care of.
The deployment blocks were still there, reminding her of all the times she’d been sent out from here, released into the night with a purpose. She had been a shadow surrounded by darkness – a silent, stalking bringer of death.
The High Priest had been deposed. His power was broken. He no longer had any power over her. He no longer had power over anyone. He was awaiting trial.
But it wasn’t enough.
A decision formed within Jey – hard, glittering and resolute. Justice, she understood suddenly, was within her power to deliver. She was a weapon. She’d been created by the very man she now longed to kill.
On her shoulder, Phril settled. He agreed with her decision. Jey settled as well, her new resolution resting in her chest, a warm, comforting, silent promise. She met Liam’s eye. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine,” she repeated when his eyebrows lowered in skepticism.
And, she discovered, as he began to speak again, explaining more about the horrid bracelet, she was fine. And she’d be even more fine tomorrow, after she’d carried out one final assassination.
◈
Treyam’s first instinct upon leaving the valley had been to mistrust anyone not bound to a tessila. Now that he’d met Liam, however, he was finding the man both too useful and too likeable to be on his guard around him. When he learned Liam was responsible for facilitating Jey’s escape from the academy, his respect for the man only grew.
What’s more, Liam knew a good deal more about the Tessilari than anyone else Treyam had ever spoken to. He knew about types of tessili Treyam had never heard of. He knew about the sorts of strengths and weaknesses different lineages of human and tessili were likely to produce.
He also, now more than anyone, knew the truth about the academy. Treyam could see how that knowledge weighed on the man. He was in his fifties, Treyam guessed, with hair going to gray and shoulders that seemed to bow under some great weight. More strangely, he seemed to have no desire to leave. The other professors had eagerly accepted freedom when it was offered them. Not Liam. He seemed to have an attachment to the academy, and to Jey in particular.
It was a fatherly sort of attachment, Treyam reassured himself as he watched the two of them sitting together from his vantage by the window. He was finding Liam’s library very useful. He also, if he was being honest, had been dogged by a strange sort of fatigue these last weeks. Nim felt it too, he could tell. She should have been off cavorting with the other tessili. Instead, she hardly left his collar. The library gave him an excuse to stay off his feet.
Treyam was trying not to worry about that and trying to convince himself that there couldn’t be anything romantic about the evident bond between Liam and Jey. Still, it was a little hard that the professor could make her smile in a way Treyam himself had never really managed.
That evening, after she returned with the bracelet she’d taken from the child, the three of them resumed their work. They were searching for any references on how to destroy the armies of the diod. If Liam’s research was correct, the diod would be defended by scores of humans who had once been normal men and women but whose wills had been overrun by the diod and whose bodies would no longer feel pain.
Of course, anything the three of them discovered would be passed on to those in charge. Treyam wasn’t in any sort of leadership position. He could have had that, years ago, if he’d been inclined to follow in the footsteps of his forebears. When his bond with Nim had produced such disappointing results, however, he’d withdrawn to the edge of things. Many among the tessilari still watched him with a sort of strange hope, as if he might someday emerge as the remarkable leader others of his line had been. Treyam himself doubted that. Sure, he was a versatile caster. He could heal very well. He could perform basic spellwork at a high level. But his talents were nothing compared to what his parents’ had been, and their skills had been mere echoes of the power of their grandparents’.
Treyam’s eyes strayed to Jey. She had settled at a desk with a book Liam had given her, but she wasn’t reading. Her tessili had an alert, poised look to him.
Jey was powerful. Her bond with Phril was strong, and Phril himself was magnificent. Treyam had seen him that day in the forest. The tessila had made himself larger than any other in living memory. But Phril was also broken, and something about that brokenness inhibited Jey’s ability to harness his power properly.
So, Treyam and Jey both had their issues. He wondered, though, what might happen if they had a child.
It was a ridiculous thing to wonder. He hadn’t so far progressed to a point with Jey that he could set a hand on her arm without making her flinch. He didn’t know her lineage, of course, but he wondered. With his ancestry, her raw power, and the boost to the tessili population that would result from combining the academy’s lines with the valley’s lines – it seemed hopeful that he and Jey might be the first step towards restoring the Tessilari to their former glory.
Jey, sensing his gaze, looked up. He didn’t look away. Her dark eyes held his for a moment, then she rose. “I’m going to head back.”
So far, Jey had refused offers of accommodations in the academy, preferring to return to the shelter in the hillside instead. Treyam could hardly blame her, given her history. Still, it chafed him a little. There was so much in this library he wanted to learn, so much he needed to discover. But he also disliked letting Jey too far out of his sight. “You can stay,” Jey continued, adjusting her cloak. “I can find my own way to the shelter, even in the dark.”
Treyam noted the strange quirk to her lips when she said this, but he couldn’t interpret the meaning. He was about to answer when the library door swung open and Lokim walked in.
As usual, the appearance of his boyhood best friend caused a roil of conflicting emotions to tumble through Treyam’s psyche. Even Nim stirred, rousing herself enough to peek over Treyam’s collar. Lokim, he reflected bitterly, had wooed Elle without apparent difficulty, experiencing success where Treyam encountered only failure. It was another item on the long list of points of contention that had soured their friendship for so long.
Treyam too had
wanted to leave the valley. He’d wanted it for as long as Lokim had, he’d wanted it as badly as Lokim had. But he, unlike Lokim, had understood that he was young and inexperienced and that greater minds than his made the decision to keep the population hidden and secret and safe. So while Treyam had worked out the spell that had parted the mists and allowed a pathway through, he’d done it more to show that he could than of any real intention to use it. He’d shown Lokim because Lokim was his best friend, and that’s what a best friend was for.
Lokim had left. Just like that, he’d gone. He’d refused to listen to Treyam’s arguments against going. He’d invited Treyam to come, but his friend’s refusal to accompany him hadn’t stopped him leaving.
The rovers had gone after him, of course, but they hadn’t brought him home. They’d given him two stitchrings and a scribis and told him to be careful. The council had ruled that all Tessilari were free, and Lokim was within his rights to leave, though many among them were unhappy with the ruling.
The whole year he’d been gone, his absence had eaten at Treyam, festering like a sore. And then word had come that Lokim had found other Tessilari and a rescue party was needed and, of course, Treyam had volunteered to go. Now Lokim was a sort of hero, but there was a coldness between the two of them. Too many things had been said that night in the mist for them to look at each other and not remember.
So, Treyam looked aside as Lokim walked into the room but looked back quickly enough when his old friend spoke. “Tintarin has been taken.”
It wasn’t the words that got his attention, it was Liam’s reaction. The man sat up with a horrified intake of breath. “Tintarin?” he repeated. “But that’s only a few hours journey from Deramor. It’s the biggest outlying settlement in the north.”
Lokim’s face was grim. His face had hardened in the time he’d been out in the world, the softness of boyhood falling away. He spoke in a clipped monotone. “We mobilize on the morrow.”
◈
The night was wild. A high wind blew in from the south, rocking the trees and whipping down streets. Jey moved with a sense of purpose, stalking through the deserted lanes of Deramor with focused grace.
It was a good deal easier to move undetected now that she could hold her passive echo spell for a greater length of time. It was also a comfort to have Phril with her. She was aware of his eager interest as she strode around the corner of a baker’s shop. It was a nice change from the undercurrent of murderous frustration she used to receive from him as he lay beneath the weighted harness the orderlies had forced Jey to put on him each time she went on an opportunity.
Jey now walked with a giddy sense of freedom and power, dropping into her old role without difficulty. How many times had she hunted out sleeping people to deliver death in the night? How many times had she brought violence to the innocent?
Tonight would be different. Tonight she would revert to her old self for only a brief time. This night, however, she would deliver justice. This night, no one but herself would choose where her lethal energies were directed.
The High Priest, she’d learned that evening, wasn’t even in prison. He was being “held” in his own manor house, living in perfect ease and comfort. He was under guard, and he was not allowed to leave. Still, the injustice gnawed at Jey. This was a man who had systematically perpetrated an unending string of murders. This was a man who had turned girls like Jey into monsters. This was also the man who, if Marim’s reports could be believed, Nylan had stolen a map from. That map had led Nylan and Marim to the diod’s ancient prison.
As she walked, Jey’s emotions seemed to coalesce and condense, forming into one sharp shard of hatred.
She knew the streets of Deramor. She’d stalked them often enough. Now she made her way towards the inner walls that led to the administrative city. The gates were closed, manned by two sleepy guards. The wind covered the sound of the shallow handholds she popped into the wall. Then she was climbing.
It felt good to use her body. It felt good to clear her mind, to narrow down to the necessity of holding herself steady, maintaining the tension in her limbs that let her climb. She moved up, popping in new handholds one by one. It was difficult to hold her passive echo spell at the same time. She’d never have been able to do it if Phril hadn’t been with her.
But Phril was with her, and he was excited. He clung to the whipping end of her cloak, glorying in the mad flapping. He was staying near her, as she’d asked, but she could feel his high spirits, his barely contained desire to leave the cloak and ride the roiling air with his own wings.
Jey reached the top of the wall. She could feel the sweat standing on her forehead. She felt alive for the first time in months. She jogged forward, navigating her way down a set of narrow steps, then making her steady path into the heart of the administrative city. She passed the Queen’s compound. Light spilled out of the upper windows of one tower. Jey wondered briefly who was awake on a night like this, but she didn’t linger.
The High Priest’s manor house was encircled by a wall, but this barely slowed her down. She climbed as she had before, then flung herself off the top, leaping towards the ground below and using a passive displacement spell to diminish the force of her fall. It was a bit of a waste. Jey could have used steps again. But she felt so strong. She felt full of life, full of energy. She felt unstoppable.
The manor was dark. Jey approached the door and forced the latch. Then she was inside, stalking through the main hall on silent feet.
The High Priest’s bedchamber was not hard to find. She lifted it from the mind of the first sleeping servant she encountered. It was the sort of magic Elle was typically better at. Mental manipulation had never been Jey’s strong point. But the servant girl was asleep. Jey crept to her bedside and set a hand on her forehead, using a passive persuasion spell to make her think about the chamber Jey wanted and where it was in this vast house.
Then she was on the move again. Jey dropped her passive echo spell as she approached the closed double doors. She gave Phril permission to fly. He leapt into the air with a mad surge of joy. He flew in a loop around her head as Jey opened the door to the High Priest’s chambers, and stepped inside.
The latch clicked as she snugged the door shut behind her. She took several steps forward, moving into a vast antechamber with a domed ceiling. Straight ahead stood a sitting area with a set of double doors that led to a balcony. To the right stood an alcove with a massive desk and several ornate chairs.
To the left was another alcove. This one housed a sprawling bed. Jey turned, her mind going crystalline and clear with purpose. She took three steps forward, her soft shoes making no noise on the polished stone floor.
The man in the bed sat up, looking towards Jey with an expression of dull resignation. She froze, arrested by the strange look in the sunken eyes.
The High Priest spoke, his voice a sighing whisper in the still chamber. “I always knew one of you would come for me.”
◈
The force of Jey’s shock rippled through her, rooting her feet to the floor. She stared at the man in the bed. His hair was gray and sparse. His shoulders were thin in his night shirt, devoid of muscle. As she watched, he moved his hands out from underneath his ornate bedspread and folded them before him. There was fear in his face, but also acceptance. “You are J114, am I correct?”
The sound of that number caused a burst of anger to bloom in Jey’s mind, burning some of her surprise away. For a moment, her vision was overtaken by a red haze. She wished she had a name to fling back at him, a way to refuse his label and reassert her claim on the identity the school had stolen from her. But Jey did not remember her real name, or her parents, or anything about her life before the academy. It was this man who had taken that from her, who had forged her into the weapon she was now – an assassin without a past.
Jey began to stalk forward again, drawing the two long knives that hung at her hips. She had intended to smother him in his sleep. This, she thought, would be m
ore satisfying.
It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but Jey thought the man’s face went a shade more pale. He did not move, however. He faced her, gaze steady. “I have only ever acted for the good of Masidon,” he said. “Surely, you know that. Tessili are an abomination. They grant powers to mortals – divine powers that should lie only in the hands of the gods.”
His words were false. Jey knew they were false. Yet, something stirred inside her as she crossed the vast floor towards the alcove. The man’s face was sincere. He spoke with conviction. He was wrong, but he believed he was right.
Jey reached the foot of the bed. The grips of her knives were smooth and familiar in her hands. Phril, nearly invisible in the shadows, darted in excited loops around the room. The High Priest’s eyes tracked him for a moment, then returned to Jey’s face. “I forgive you, child,” he said, “for taking my life.”
The room seemed very still. Outside, the wind doubtless still tossed and swirled, but this room was sealed tight. There were no chinks in the window frames to let in the howling, no cracks in the walls to leak a draft. This man had lived his days in ease and luxury, cocooned in his comfortable station and his unwavering convictions.
Jey tried to guess at his tactic. Was he trying to humanize himself, attempting to change her mind by appearing weak and vulnerable? Or did he have some hidden weapon—another vile artifact like the suppressor—that he would use on her the moment she drew too near?
Well, there was no need to find out. Jey pulled strands of magic from the air, weaving them into a passive echo spell. She dropped this around herself, watching the quiver of surprise and fear in the High Priest’s face as she faded from his view. She took a few steps to one side and waited, counting to thirty, watching to see what he would do.
The man in the bed stared at the spot Jey had been, then he closed his eyes. Jey slid her two knives back into their sheaths and drew a smaller knife, this one made for throwing, from its place at the small of her back. She wouldn’t get close enough to find out if he had a trick up his sleeve. He wasn’t moving. Her knife could find his throat from here with ease.