Page 80 of A Sword of Shadow and Deceit

I frown. “But I’ve never met a failed assassin. There aren’t any at the—” One shapely brow lifts over her eye and I stop talking. “Oh,” I finish lamely, realizing my oversight.

Ophelia stands back up and looks back to the manor in the near distance. “Run along now,” she commands. “I shall wait here for the news of your success.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, but it doesn’t go down without a bite of pain. Instead of complaining, though, I turn towards the manor and start across the street. Almost as soon as we’ve separated, I look back and it’s as if Ophelia manages to intertwine herself with the shadows. I no longer see her, even if I know she’s there.

Keep moving. I’ve long since passed the point of no return. This is no different.

Still, despite that warning, the closer I grow to the manor the harder my heart beats against my rib cage. It’s as if the crazy thing can stop the oncoming death of my target with the noise of its fear alone.

Fat chance.

My legs move swiftly, devouring the route between Ophelia and the manor. Once at the iron and stone gate that surrounds the Gods’ home, I quickly scale the outside and drop down into the shadows on the other side. I mold myself to anything and everything on the landscape, becoming one with the shadows. I can feel them reaching out, touching along my skin, whispering for me to come closer. To give myself in to them completely and let them feed upon me for sustenance.

I shake off those wayward emotions and the tingling of my own power as I close the space between me and the building I’m meant to enter. It takes no work at all for me to pick the lock of a side door and slip inside. Gods, I realize, are far too confident in themselves. There are no guards. No sentinels striding through the quiet house around me.

I close my eyes and send out a burst of power, seeking out my little friends. Several spiders respond to my call. I meet their tiny little minds, and together, our collective consciousness combines. Behind my closed lids, I can see the outline of the home I’m standing in. Through the different hallways and rooms to the sleeping chamber of the God couple I’ve come for.

The spiders are anxious. They don’t speak so much in human words, but I can sense the direction of their thoughts and something else has made them all too frightened. What could it be…?

The bite of fear slams into me and I stumble, nearly slipping as my back smacks a wall. The ricochet of pain seizes my spine and lungs. My breath stops in my throat and freezes as one of the spiders shrieks in my mind. Tiny, grubby little fingers smash it to bits—exterminating its life. Several other spiders, the ones around it, physically flee from whatever the source of danger is. As they do, however, they share with me the vision of that spider’s murderer.

A small child with long hair donning a bloody and dirt-stained face slaps at the floor of his room. Tears cut clean tracks down their too thin cheeks. Fear. The child is just as afraid of the spiders as they are of him.

What is he? A prisoner? Why would a God keep a child so dirty within their home?

Stay on task. Ophelia’s voice appears in my mind. A reminder that anyone other than my target is to be forgotten. My insides tighten, but I wave away the image of the crying child and step through the manor. I trail the scent and feeling of Divinity until I find where it’s strongest—behind a large ornate set of wooden doors.

Silent as can be, I approach. Here is where the danger truly begins. If I’m caught, I’m dead. If I’m not, I’m that much closer to freedom. I suck in a deep breath and pause outside of the door. As I lean into the shadows, they come alive for me. Squirming and sliding down my calves and forearms as if they’re living, breathing creatures. I look down at them, both confused and alarmed. They’ve never reacted like this in training. I didn’t even know I could do this. Or … perhaps it’s not my power at all but power from the Divine Beings in the room waiting for me.

Do these little creatures answer to them? Will they reveal me? I hold my breath, but nothing happens. The shadows continue to wiggle against me like little puppies seeking affection. Oddly enough, when I reach out and pat one, my fingers move through the darkness as if it’s not tangible. The misty black turns and circles my hand as if whining for more. Their excitement grows, but so too does my anxiety. I need to get this over with quickly.

I pick the lock on the Masters’ room and let myself into the darkened interior. Shadows surround me, speak to me, their desires swallow me whole as they shroud my physical body. I shiver as they separate and disperse when I step closer to the bed that is set in the middle of the room.

Moonlight pours in through the window across from me, gauze curtains masking very little as it practically illuminates the path left for me to the two beings slumbering in the four-poster bed. My heart is hammering now in my chest, racing so fast, like a frightened horse, that I’m afraid the two might wake up because of it.

The very breath of silence, I slip my blades from their sheaths and hold them up. Metal glints in the moonlight. I’m so close and yet, my feet refuse to move forward another step.

You are a sword, Kiera. Once again, I hear Ophelia’s voice in the back of my mind. Not mortal. Not Mortal God. A sword. Swords do not feel pain. They do not feel regret. They simply act as the weapon they were meant to be.

My insides clench and contract and release. Over and over again as beads of sweat pop up along my spine beneath my cloak and clothes. The blood contract brand on the back of my neck burns, an ever-present reminder that I don’t have a choice in this. There’s no point in hesitating.

One of the figures on the bed rolls to their side—the man. His face is clear even in the darkness of the room. Perfect in shape. Unblemished. Slack with sleep. I have to kill him first. Silently. Without hesitation.

I step forward. One foot and then the other until I find myself at the side of the bed. His pulse jumps beneath his throat. I go for that first, letting everything else fall away. My body moves, but I don’t feel it. Instead, I let the skills that I’ve been trained in for the last five years take over. The sharp edge of my blade touches the God’s throat and I slice through the flesh there—blood flows, down over the sheets and blankets.

Eyes shoot open and his lips part as the pain registers. It’s too late, cutting his throat as well as his vocal cords ensures that he won’t make a single noise, but just to be on the safe side, I quickly round the bed to the opposite God. Her face is far more dainty than the man’s. Her nose is high and tiny, barely even there. Her brows are a light blonde, and across her cheeks, there are hints of sunspots. She’s beautiful, I realize. She hardly looks like the kind of person who would hold human children captive and torture them. But I know from experience that looks can be deceiving. Not only am I evidence of that fact, but Ophelia had ensured that I would understand why these two were on an assassin’s list.

The client that wanted them dead was a woman who’d lost her child to their tantrums and parties. Parties where they had invited young human children, only to prey upon them and turn their screams and cries into entertainment for their other Divine friends. It doesn’t seem fair that this one’s face is so serene, so immaculate that the only mar to her perfection is my dagger as I set it to her throat and then slit it with a much cleaner, steadier hand than I had her husband’s.

The only remaining question in my mind as the red liquid pours in a stream down the side arch of her throat to soak into the bedsheets and pillows beneath her head is this: Why can I do this and no one else? Why does the Divine Blood flowing in my veins let me kill what it contains? Divine Blood against Divine Blood. It’s a sick irony and an answer I don’t think I’ll ever find or understand.

I don’t think about it for too long or too hard as my thoughts and attention drift back to the male, who remains wide-eyed, dying at a much slower pace likely due to my initial hesitation.

I watch as the man jerks back and forth on the bed that I’m sure he felt safe in when he laid down earlier this evening. His body twitches as he thrashes, gurgles cutting off any screams he might make as he chokes on the blood spurting from his neck, showering down the front of him and across the sheets. The woman, on the other hand, never wakes. Instead, the light crease of her brow as she slept and dreamed just fades away and the breaths in her chest cease completely. Twin pools of red drip down the bed and flow towards my booted feet.

It’s over. My first kill and my second.

I look down at my hands, half expecting something—some form of emotion to hit me. Nothing does. There are little dots of red from the slices I made that speckle my knuckles, but I quickly rub them against my cloak, erasing the evidence.

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