The Assassin's Curse

  As I got older I realized, for all the stories, I ain't never heard of a pirate's out-of-battle death that couldn't be explained away by drink or stupidity. And at some point, I decided the assassins weren't real, or if they were, they weren't interested in tracking down a captain's daughter as punishment for not minding her elders. Or refusing marriage, for that matter.

  So that's what I told myself as I cut through the sunlight, back toward the food vendors to buy myself a sweet lime drink. The woman was probably a witch in her spare time, trying to drum up business for her cut-rate protection spells, and the only thing stalking me in the night was some memory from my childhood. A story.

  I paid for a room at an inn on the edge of town, not far from the day market. It was built into the desert wall, and my room had a window that looked out over the desert, which reminded me a bit of the ocean, the sand cresting and falling in the night wind. The room was small and bright and filled with dust, although clean otherwise – cleaner than my quarters on Papa's boat anyway.

  I stayed in the inn for four days, and for four days nothing happened but dreams. They were the same one as the first night, me wandering around the black glass desert, waiting for somebody to find me, knowing I was going to die. I took to sleeping during the day – though that didn't stop the dreaming none – and went out as the sun dropped low and orange across the horizon, wasting my nights at the night market that was conjured up by sweet-smelling magic a few streets over from the day market's husk. The vendors at the night market hawked enchantments and magic supplies instead of food and clothing, spellbooks and charms and probably curses if you knew who to ask. It was a dangerous place for me to go: not cause I'd started believing in the assassins, but because you get a lot of scum hanging around the night markets, and the chance of somebody spotting me and turning me into the Hariri clan or my parents was pretty high.

  But I went anyway, wearing my scarf even though the sun was down so I could pull it low over my eyes. I liked to listen in on the sandcharmers who worked magic from the strength of the desert. Mama could do the same thing but with the waters of the ocean, and it occurred to me, as I listened to the singing and the chanting, that I missed her. The most I'd ever been away from her – and from Papa too – was the three weeks I spent failing to learn magic with this sea witch named Old Ceria a couple years back. But that had been different, cause I knew Papa's boat would pick me up when the three weeks were up, and Mama'd be waiting for me on deck.

  That wasn't going to happen now.

  I spent a lot of my time daydreaming during those four nights, too, letting my mind wander off to what I was gonna do now that I wasn't tied to a Confederation ship no more. I knew I had to hide out till the Hariris got over the slight of me running away from the marriage, but once that all settled I'd be free to set out from Lisirra and make my fortune, as Mama used to say of all the young men who set sail with ships of their own. A ship of my own was what I really wanted, of course – what Confederation child doesn't? Course, the Confederation won't let women captain, and the Empire ain't nothing but navy boats and merchant ships, but I could always make my way south, where the pirates don't take the Confederation tattoo and don't adhere to Confederation rules, neither.

  It was a nice thought to have, and there was something pleasant about spending the early mornings before I fell asleep planning out a way to get first to one of the pirates' islands – probably Bone Island, it's the biggest, which makes it easier to go unnoticed – and then down to the southern coast. The daydreams took my mind off the Hariris, at any rate, and most of the time they kept me from feeling that sharp pang of sadness over my parents.

  On the fourth night, I woke up the way I always did, after the sun set, but my head felt heavy and thick, like someone'd filled it up with rose jam. I skipped eating and walked down to the night market, thinking the cool air would clear my thoughts. It didn't. The lights at the night market blurred and trembled. The calls and chatter of the vendors amplified and faded and then thrummed like a struck chord.

  I'd barely made it through the entrance gate when out of nowhere I got stuck. I couldn't move. I stood at the entrance to the market, and my feet seemed screwed to the ground. My arms hung useless at my sides. I smelled a whiff of scent on the air, sharp and medicinal, like spider mint. It burned the back of my throat.

  And then, quick as that, I was released.

  The whole world solidified like nothing'd happened, and I collapsed to the ground in a cloud of dry dust, coughing, my eyes streaming. I could hear whispers, people telling one another to keep a wide berth and muttering about curses and ill omens. I pushed myself up to sitting. Onlookers stared at me from out of the shadows, and I did my best to ignore 'em.

  This wasn't Mama's magic, sent out to bring me home: that I knew. Her magic had too much of the ocean in it, all rough and tumble, crashing and falling. You plunged into her magic. This – this was calculated.

  I stood up. A nearby vendor had one eye on me like he thought me about to steal his vials of love potion. I stumbled backward a little, coughed, wiped at my mouth. My hand left a streak of mud across my face.

  "Hey," said the vendor. He leaned over the side of his cart. I didn't meet his eye. "Hey, you. Don't even try it."

  My head was still thick. I stared at him, blinking.

  "Go on," he said. "You think I've never seen this trick before? Whoever your little partner is, he's gonna get blasted with my protection spell."

  "I don't have a–"

  The vendor glared at me. I gave up trying to explain. Besides, I kept thinking the word assassin over and over again in spite of myself. The vendor turned toward a customer, his face breaking into a smile, but he kept glancing over his shoulder as he filled the order. Keeping his eye out for thieves, like any vendor.

  I coughed again, turned, wanting to get back to the inn, with its coating of dust and its view of the desert. The street leading away from the night market was emptier than it should've been, and quiet too. Halfway down I stopped and eased my knife out of my boot, and then I hobbled along, wishing I could walk faster, or run – but something had my joints stiff and creaking as an old woman's.

  The shadows moved.

  I froze.

  So did the shadows.

  I stood there for a few seconds listening to my heart beat and to the distant strains of music floating out of the night market. Papa's old assassin stories worked their way into my head – that old detail about how they moved through darkness and shadows the way a fish moved through water. I loosened my grip on the knife, holding it proper, the way you're supposed to, and dreaded the moment when the shadows would move again.

  Nothing.

  I slid forward, just a couple of steps in the direction of the inn. That stirred the shadows up. They slid along the buildings like snakes. My body ached worse and worse or else I would've taken off running; instead, all I could do was creep along, my heart hammering and my breath short and my skin cold and hot all at once.

  My head cleared.

  It happened real sudden, as if a latch had been sprung, and I saw the whole world as clear and crystalline as if I were still at sea beneath a shining blue sky. A man was following me. I whirled around and caught sight of his robes, dyed the color of the night sky, fluttering back into the liquid shadows. I'd no idea what had broken the spell, but I was grateful for it.

  "You want to fight me? Come out and fight me!"

  My voice bounced off the buildings. Eyes glowed pale blue in the darkness.

  My head started going thick and fogged again. The magic crept in. The eyes burned on and on. My fear was a thick coil in the pit of my stomach holding me in place.

  It was an assassin.

  "Fight me!" I shrieked, and I could feel the hysteria in my voice, like my words were splintering into pieces.

  The assassin glided forward, black on black except for the strip of silver at his side. He didn't seem to be in much of a hurry. I forced myself forward, through the magic, and it
gave me a pain in my spine that set me screaming, and my scream amplified up out into the starry night, rising up over the buildings, transforming into an explosion of white light that showered sparks and brightness down upon us both.

  No one was as surprised as me.

  I collapsed onto the ground, but for a second I saw the assassin like it was daytime: the grain in the fabric of his robes, the bump of his nose beneath his dark desert mask, the carvings etched into his armor. He was glaring at me.

  "You're from the Mists?" he hissed. The bastard spoke perfect Empire.

  "The what?"

  The assassin jerked his head around like he was looking for somebody. I wanted to see where he was looking but I also didn't dare take my eyes off him.

  "Who are you?" he said, though before I could answer he spat out a word in a language like dead flowers, beautiful and terrible all at once. Then he darted out of the glow of the light and melted into the shadows, all too quick for me to see.

  For a few minutes I waited to die.

  It didn't happen. The light I'd somehow screamed into existence burned away. I sat there in the street and remembered Papa's stories: they always kill their victims. But he hadn't killed me. He'd just melted into the shadows.

  I didn't let myself get too cocky about that, though. Cockiness is useful to fake on occasion, but it'll only get you killed if you believe it. Maybe the man hadn't been an assassin assassin, just some hired knife sent by Captain Hariri. But then what about the moving shadows and the fog in my head and his eyes? Ain't no crewman on the Hariri able to pull off that trick with the eyes.

  And my voice turning into light… Ain't no way that was me. That sort of protection spell was basic magic, and I couldn't even get the hang of basic magic back when Mama was trying to teach me.

  I shuffled toward the inn, working things over in my head, clutching the knife to my breasts like I was some scared merchant's wife who had no clue how to use the damn thing. Everything was so dark. It took me a minute to realize none of the magic-cast lanterns were burning, and that sent another quake of chills vibrating through my spine.

  It wasn't until I was dragging past the empty day market that I remembered the shopkeeper. The woman who bought my dress.

  You're going to need my help. Don't delay.

  I stopped. The night was quiet and still. I couldn't even hear the night market anymore.

  I don't trust beautiful people. But Papa always told me you sometimes got to trust the one person you don't want to trust. "Just be smart about it," he'd say.

  Well. I'd managed to avoid the only kind of death. I figured I could be smart about the woman at the dress shop, too.

  Mama tried to teach me magic, meeting with me down in the belly of the ship after my first menses showed up, but it turned out that I took more after Papa, who's completely untouched: better adept at stealing and sneaking and charming and fighting, all talents borne of the natural world. But unlike Papa, I can at least recognize magic when I see it and when I feel it, and I know better than to mess around with it.

  I went to the woman's dress shop straight away, climbing over the day market fence and skittering through the empty streets till I found the sign with the arrow. The woman sat outside the shop eating a honey pastry, a lantern illuminating the lines of her face. She looked tired.

  "Good," she said when she saw me. "You didn't delay."

  "It was you, right? That's my thinking right now and I want to know for sure." I paused, rubbed at my dry eyes. The woman took a bite of pastry. "Earlier tonight," I said. "When the assassin attacked me."

  The woman set her pastry in her lap. "You know that by all rights you should be dead."

  "I know it. But you helped me."

  She blinked at me.

  "Though I can't figure out why."

  The woman shrugged. She plucked the pastry out of her lap and finished it off. "Why don't you come inside?" she said. "I can prepare some coffee. I think we both need it."

  She stood up and went into the shop. I hesitated. It still seemed too easy to me, her helping me with the assassin. Easy the way it had with the haggling. The woman stuck her head back out into the street.

  "You come from pirate stock, don't you?"

  I frowned. "How do you know that?"

  "Because I looked at you. Don't worry, I won't hand you over to whoever it is you're running from."

  "I ain't running from nothing."

  "A pirate in the desert? You're obviously running from something." She smiled. "The reason I asked is because the pirates I deal with are so wary, but always over the wrong things. You look at my shop door like it's boobytrapped, but you go traipsing through the night market when you've got an assassin tracking you."

  I didn't have nothing to say to that, cause I knew she had a point.

  "Come inside," the woman said. "And I'll help you."

  She took me to the back of the store, behind the curtains, and set some water to boiling in the hearth. Steam curled up into the dusty moonlight. I sat down at a low table in the corner and watched her. She didn't spend a lot of time getting the coffee all perfect, the way they do in drink houses, and she didn't ask me how sweet I wanted it neither.

  She sat down at the table across from me. I waited until she drank from her own cup before drinking from mine.

  "What do you know about them?" she said.

  I looked down at the little swirls of foam in my coffee. "They're hired," I said. "They know blood magic." I closed my eyes. "They're the only kind of death." I felt weirdly safe in this small back room. I wanted to fall asleep.

  "Ananna," she said, and at the sound of my name my eyes flew open. My hands turned to fists. The woman gazed at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

  "How'd you know my name?"

  The woman smiled. "How'd I know you were targeted? I know things."

  "Yeah, I wouldn't mind knowing how you knew the assassin was after me, too."

  She gave me a demure smile.

  I scowled, took another sip of coffee, and glanced around the room, trying to find something that I could use to get the woman to talk to me. But there were just dresses and bangles and bolts of fabric. The shop could have belonged to anyone.

  "I've fought one of them before," she said. "I won."

  That got my attention. I stared at her, trying to figure out if she was lying or not, if she really was a woman who had escaped the only kind of death.

  "Don't look so impressed," she said. "Contrary to what you may have heard, they are human."

  "What happened?" I asked. "Why would anyone try to kill you?"

  "Why would anyone try to kill you?" she shot back. "It doesn't matter, really. All that matters is one of them is after you."

  "You ain't gonna tell me anything, are you?"

  "Of course not. That sort of knowledge is more precious than gold. But I will help you. I'm not going to risk my life to save yours, mind, but I can offer aid."

  I hadn't quite decided if I trusted this offer or not when she pushed her coffee cup aside and slid her hands over the tabletop. Figures rose out of the wood. A little man in a long robe, a girl in a courtier's dress.

  "I'm no good at magic," I said. "So don't think I'm facing him down alone."

  "But you already did face him down alone." The woman didn't look at me. "And besides, you've got enough magic," she said. "I can see it in you."

  "You sure about that? Cause believe me, I've tried–"

  She lifted her eyes to mine, and I got swallowed up by gray and couldn't talk no more. My ears buzzed and my lungs closed up.

  "Quite sure," she said.

  "Alright. You're sure." My voice came out small and weak, but the woman smiled and the gray all disappeared. The room fell back to normal.

  "Tomorrow night," she said. "Go out to the desert. It'll make things easier, to be out in the open."

  On the table, the two figures began to move. The assassin's robe fluttered out behind him. The girl – I couldn't think of it as me – took sma
ll hesitant steps backwards, her hair swirling around her face.

  "This is how it's going to go without me," the woman said.

  And in one movement, the assassin lashed out with a tiny sword and the girl collapsed on the ground.

  I jumped in my seat, my blood pushing violently through my veins. I cursed in the secret language of the Confederation. The woman raised an eyebrow.

  "That's not going to happen," she said. "I'm going to give you something. A few things, actually. What they are isn't important."

  She raised her hand over the figures. They reset themselves. This time the girl carried four tiny vials in the palm of her hand. When the assassin's robes began to flutter, the girl hurled the vials, small as grains of rice, in his direction. A flash of green light. The assassin was gone.