Chapter 77: Steady Hands.

It was hard to stay perfectly still and silent, when you knew a blade was coming for your throat. Harder still to keep your breathing steady. Harder even than that to channel the barest of mana.

Click. Click.

I opened my eyes the tiniest fraction. Faint light spilled in and my Gift did the rest. The room sharpened as if my eyes had been wide open. There was one hooded man. He eased the door shut behind him, checking the hallway one last time before the latch clicked. He locked it, then stood still for a long breath before stepping forward. I recognized him. He was the adventurer we had hired to carry Dorothy’s things. Arin, I faintly remembered. He was tall and well built even under his cloak.

His gaze swept the room. Searching for traps, maybe? There were none. He nodded to himself and approached my bed. My heartbeat was so loud I was sure he could hear it.He drew a dagger from his belt. The blade was slick with something dark that did not catch the light right.

“Sorry about this,” he breathed, barely a sound at all. He lunged with his full weight behind the blade, aimed at my throat.

I threw myself sideways. The dagger punched through the bedding where my neck had been and buried itself in the frame with a dull crack. Before he could wrench it free, I channeled mana into both legs and kicked upward into his stomach. I weighed nothing compared to him. The mana made up the difference. He folded with a grunt, staggering back.

It gave me the second I needed. I pulled.

Brilliant white light flooded the cramped room. Vaelin materialized in my grip. I slashed upward at his knee. There was a resistance. The resistance snapped not a moment later -cutting his knee hadn’t felt any different from slashing at air.

He screamed. His leg buckled, but his momentum carried him forward, and his full weight crashed down on top of me. The breath was driven from my lungs. We hit the floor in a tangle of limbs. His hands found my throat before I could breathe. My right arm was pinned beneath his weight, the Godblade trapped with it. In the time it would take to compress enough mana to physically throw him off me, he would snap my neck.

If I had been holding any other sword, I would be dead.

At a thought, the blade dissolved. It settled back into my mind. My right arm came free. I wedged my empty palm flat between his chest and mine. There was barely an inch of space. I pulled again.

White light erupted in that sliver of space. The Godblade materialized through his shoulder. Not from the outside in, but from inside him, outward. The man shrieked as hot, wet blood sprayed across my collarbone. The door burst open. There were shouts then.

They all blended in with each other. The man’s weight vanished right as I was compressing my own mana. I took a breath and shook my head. Violet was standing over me, her eyes wide. They swept over my body -over every inch of it. She was checking for wounds. Perhaps checking to see if any of the blood was mine. She exhaled hard, then reached down and hauled me to my feet in one rough motion.

“You bastard…let me go.”

I turned. The assassin was pinned beneath a mound of packed earth, his limbs locked in place. Damian knelt atop it, one hand still pressed flat to the stone, his face pale.

“Are you okay?” Violet’s voice was soft -softer than I had ever heard it.

“Yeah. Just fine.” I dusted myself off. My hands were shaking, so I stopped. “How loud was it?”

“What?” She stared at me.

“It wasn’t that loud.” Damian replied. “My room was a little farther down, and I barely heard it.”

That meant it was likely few other people had, especially outside of this place. That meant there was time. Good.

“You’re not struggling to keep him down, are you?”

Damian shook his head. His jaw was tight. “No. I can hold him. But shouldn’t we get the Count?”

“Not yet.” I crouched in front of the assassin. He had stopped scrambling. His eyes found mine. “Arin.” I said. “You tried to kill me. You failed. Who sent you?”

He bared his teeth. “You think I’m going to talk? To a child?”

“To a child,” I repeated. “Yes. You’d think that would make it more embarrassing for you, wouldn’t it?” I tilted his chin up with my fingers. “It’s Duke Greenward, is it not?”

Something flickered in his expression. He smothered it. “Doesn’t matter who-”

I punched him with my left. Not with too much mana , but enough -enough that I felt something in his face give. His head rocked sideways. I waited for his eyes to focus again.

“I know it’s Greenward.” My voice didn’t rise. “That’s not what I’m asking.” He stared at me. I watched the anger in his face wrestle with something else. Fear, maybe. Of me? Of someone else? “You’re not the only one,” I said. "There's someone else. Not another knife perhaps but surely someone to watch. To report back whether you succeeded or failed."

His eyes widened again. I had been right on the mark. I had expected this. It was just the timing that had been wrong. I’d thought the knife would come on the return journey. Julian was more impatient than I’d given him credit for.

Violet stepped up beside me. “Want me to break something?” Her voice was low and flat. I had never heard that tone from her before.

“You would?” I asked and not because I doubted her.

“I’d do worse.”

I looked at her. Really looked. Her eyes were wide and bright, her cheeks were flushed, and her hands balled into fists at her sides. She was trembling.

“Hey.” I caught her wrist. “I’m okay. Look at me. I’m okay.”

She swallowed and nodded once. Then something brushed my hip -cold and thin. It was a blade.

I turned. Sere stood at my side, a small knife in her hand. One she had taken to carrying lately. It was little more than a very long needle. A rapier, like Estovan's. She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at him. All I could do was stare. Was she trying to ask me what I thought she was?

“No.” The word came out before I could think. “Sere, you don’t need to do that. You shouldn’t.”

She frowned. Then, very deliberately, she pointed at me. And then at him.

You do it, her eyes said. Why can't I?

“Esra.” Damian’s voice was strained. He hadn’t moved. His knuckles were pressed so tight they were white. “She’s not going to wait much longer. And I…” He swallowed. “This isn’t the right way.”

That was the proper way to react. I was fairly sure of that. “It’s not,” I agreed. “But it is mine.”

I looked into Sere’s eyes. I was searching for something. Hesitation? Doubt? Some sign that this was impulse and not intent. I didn’t find it. A part of me wanted to stop her anyway. But I knew that was foolishness. Selfishness. It was the part of me that was my mother.

I did not have a good reason. And so I didn’t stop her.

I had hoped, once, that I was the only one among us with something broken inside. That I could keep the rest of them from the worst of what I carried. Looking at Sere’s steady hands and Violet’s trembling ones, I wasn’t sure the breaking had been mine to prevent.

My throat felt tight. “Alright,” I said, quietly. “Just the thigh. Not near an artery.” I paused. “Do you know where they are?”

Sere didn’t hesitate. She stepped forward and drove the blade into the meat of his uninjured thigh. The assassin’s whole body seized. A strangled sound tore from his throat as blood welled from the wound.

Sere looked down at him. Her expression was perfectly flat. She twisted the hilt. The man howled. Sere pulled her hands away and stepped back. Her hands were steady and her breathing was very even. She looked down at the man the way you might look at a stain on fabric. The way you might look at a roach, before you stomped it underfoot.

“Huh.” Violet breathed out. “Alright then.” She paused for a second, "Nice thrust."

“Enough.” I said it as much to myself as to them. “We need him talking, not screaming.”

I had been wrong. When Sere had killed the Walker in the forest, she’d trembled. I had taken that as proof that she was still whole. That whatever was broken in me hadn’t touched her. A foolish hope, she hadn’t trembled tonight. More blood was welling up under the man now.

“The others. I want names and descriptions. Whatever you have, I want it, and I want it now .”

The man spat at my feet. “I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I can’t.”

Violet’s boot caught him across the jaw. His head snapped sideways. For a moment I thought she’d broken his neck. “Try that again,” Violet said. Her voice was quiet. That was so much worse than her usual shouting.

She drew her foot back again. This time, the man cowered, tried to move his head back as far as he could. Naturally, he couldn’t go very far at all.

“Violet...stop.” I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to.

She stopped and set her foot down. The assassin’s shoulders sagged with relief, which told me everything about how hard that first kick had been.

“You were hired through an open posting in the Guild,” I said. “You’re not one of Greenward’s loyalists. You must know that even if you’d killed me, you would never have made it home.”

“Doesn’t matter.” His voice was ragged. “My family got paid whether I come back or not. That’s all I needed.”

Something shifted in my chest. I buried it. “You might have a good reason then. A reason worth my life.” I moved an inch forward. “Alas, I really do not care.”

“He can’t talk, Esra.” Damian’s voice was tight. “Magical Contract, he has to be under one. Even if he wanted to give us names, it won’t let him.” He paused. “Which means what we just did to him was for nothing. And that's....” Not right , was perhaps what he wanted to say but did not.

The words stung because he was right, and because I had known he would be right before I’d let Sere drive that knife in. So why had I let her? I could stomach violence when it served a purpose. This hadn’t served any purpose at all.

Part of me had simply wanted to see what Sere would do. What Violet would do. Perhaps a part of me had simply wanted to know if I was alone, in whatever made me be the way that I was. It was a relief to find that I wasn’t.

The man’s breathing had steadied. Julian hadn’t sent his best. He’d sent someone expendable enough that it didn’t matter if they failed. Someone who could kill one useless shut-in fourteen year old girl.

Cut.

Vaelin whispered. It wasn’t just the word in my mind, it was the impression that came with it.

“You think we can?” I murmured. The others stared -I ignored them.

If. Intent.

It was worth trying. I extended my arm to my side, and a Divine Blade settled itself into my hand. The blade burned white, the purest white, such that it seemed to burn all else in the room. Even Sere stepped back. Violet didn’t. She stared at it like she was daring it to burn brighter.

The assassin stared up at the shifting blade, his jaw slack. "H-hero?" he breathed, uttering the word with all the reverence and terror in the world.

Did he only just realize?

"In a manner of speaking," I whispered.

“Thought you said this was pointless.” Violet’s eyes flicked from the blade to the man. “Are you going to…?”

“No.” I looked down at the man, back at the Godblade.

Well, what now?

The Godblade didn’t respond immediately, though I felt a pressure in my mind all the same.

Feed. Intent.

Not very specific, and yet I understood. The Godblade wanted emotion. It wanted me to feel something strongly enough to fuel whatever came next. I closed my eyes and tried to find the anger. It should have been easy -the man had just tried to cut my throat in my sleep, and yet the fury wouldn’t come. Not for him. That, distantly, frightened me more than the knife had.

So I reached for something else. The expeditioners. Harren’s red scarf settling onto the snow. Saffer’s voice, cracking as she told a joke that wasn’t funny. The three I had seen coming and failed to save because I hadn’t pushed hard enough. The anger stirred. It was weak, doubtless not enough.

A small hand settled on my arm. Sere. I didn’t open my eyes

More.

Vaelin hummed in my mind. A memory surfaced, perfectly unbidden.

I am far too timid to travel with such... unrefined company. I always find that when you invite strangers to pour the tea, it becomes terribly easy for something foul to slip into the cup unnoticed.

The words turned over in my mind, showing me a side I hadn’t seen before. Cordelia’s flawless smile. Her steady voice. But beneath that....her arms had trembled. I hadn’t noticed it at the gate. I noticed it now, in memory. It hadn’t been a taunt. It had been a warning. Given through fear. Given carefully. Given anyway.

Slip into the cup, huh?

My eyes opened. The Godblade had changed. The white had deepened into a bleeding pink that pulsed faintly.

Cut.

And then I saw it. I did not see with my eyes. I couldn’t have seen it even with my Gift. This was something deeper than either. It was a thread, jagged and glowing red, pulled taut around the man’s throat like a leash. It stretched outward from him and vanished into nothing.

It was a Magical Contract. I knew that, somehow and I could see it. I raised the Godblade and brought it down in a single, clean arc across his throat. The assassin screamed. The pink steel passed cleanly through his flesh, drawing no blood and leaving no mark. Instead, the blade caught on the empty air.

There was resistance -strong resistance. The strongest I had ever felt against the blade, as if the Contract was pushing back. The invisible string trembled under the weight of a God's Intent. I snarled, and pushed. The blade flared into a blinding, violent pink. The thread finally snapped.

A small burst of mana rippled through the room. To anyone else, it looked mad, but I knew what I had done. More importantly, the man knew.

He looked up at me. The blood had drained from his face entirely.“I don’t feel it,” he whispered. “It’s gone. What did you- how did you-”

I let the Godblade dissolve and stood. The room felt very quiet. Damian was staring at me -his expression was complicated. I met his eyes for a moment. “I apologize,” I said. “This is who you’ve sworn to, my friend.”

His face twisted again and he took a deep breath. He slowly nodded, and turned his head away. “It’s fine.”

The words sound strained and forced They would have to be enough.

I placed one hand on Violet’s shoulder. One on Sere’s.

“Girls,” I said softly. “Do make him talk.”

Violet cracked her knuckles. Sere picked the knife back up.

“And Damian?” He hadn’t moved. His jaw was tight, his hands still. “Do gag him. Firmly.” I held his gaze. “Please.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he moved to do as I asked. It was time to find out just what this man knew.

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