Page 10 of Heir

Which was why Sirsha staggered toward them. The way down to the Jutts was steep. But if she was careful, she could avoid tumbling head over feet into the wide chasm below, and reach one of the thin rock bridges she knew lay in that direction.

“Come back here!” Migva screamed, hands shredded from the climb.

“When has that order ever worked for you, dog-face?” Sirsha slipped and went skidding down the slope toward the chasm, her fall halted when she smashed into a ridge, jarring every bone in her body. Lightning flashed and she jumped at what looked like a figure ahead, huge and hulking, standing near a spot of flat land beside a boulder.

A moment later, it was dark once more and she wasn’t sure what she’d seen. Her distraction cost her. Migva knocked into her, tearing the breath from her body.

Sirsha lurched forward, and Migva’s gaze caught on the thin gold chain around Sirsha’s neck. Her eyes shone with sudden greed, and she lunged for it, sending both of them rolling down the rocky slope. They were approaching the chasm too fast.

“Stop, you idiot!” Sirsha screamed as Migva tried to rip the chain off. “You’re going to get us killed!”

But Migva was past caring, and all Sirsha could do was try to fend her off with one arm while scrabbling for a grip with the other. There were knobs of rocks here, vines, ridges. If she could grab one, she could arrest her fall.

Just before the slope dropped off into the gorge, her fingers caught on something rough. An old dead vine that she felt a sudden and abiding love for. She latched onto it, and though it stretched taut as gravity pulled her and Migva closer to the cliff’s edge, it did not give. Sirsha shoved her thumb in Migva’s eye and kicked out viciously. The Roost rat released her, startled at the sudden attack. She hurtled down into the darkness, her panicked scream echoing until it was suddenly cut off.

“I did warn you,” Sirsha muttered. She didn’t dare move. She was practically vertical, with no clear sense of what was anchoring the vine. Gingerly, she felt for a foothold.

As she did so, the vine slackened. Sirsha fell, dropping away into death.Bleeding, burning hells. Sharing a grave with that pasty-faced bitch. What an end.

Until quite suddenly, she was hovering. Not dead. Her beloved vine stretched taut and she held on to it for dear life, dangling over the Jutts’ maw. Inexplicably, the vine began to inch upward.

No, Sirsha realized. Someone waspullingit upward. Quickly. After only a few minutes, she was out of the crevasse, and she tried to get a look at whoever had saved her. She saw a flash of a lamp and a huge figure before the rain blurred her vision. Seconds later, a hand pulled her to a flatter spot on the rocky slope that had nearly killed her.

“You can let go. You won’t fall from here.” The voice was a deep rumble that Sirsha didn’t recognize. Lightning flashed and she caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar man. He was taller than her, with light eyesand dark hair. His face was grim—marked by sorrow. He appeared to be twice her age.

“Are you Sirsha Westering?” he asked. “The tracker?”

Before he could so much as think about drawing a scim, she had a knife to his throat, the blade cleverly concealed in a strap on her wrist. “It’s pronouncedSeer-shah.And who wants to know?”

She expected anger from him, or irritation. Men didn’t like being bested by the likes of her. But he smiled and nodded downward. He held a blade to her stomach. As quickly as it appeared, he was flipping it back into his belt and holding up his hands.

“I’m a client,” he said. “And I’ve got a job for you.”

4

Aiz

Oh, Aiz. You poor, stupid fool.

Aiz couldn’t move. Couldn’t plunge the knife into Tiral’s neck, couldn’t shift it even an inch. Tiral grinned, squeezing her wrist until she cried out and dropped the weapon.

He swiped it up and backhanded her so hard that she flew off the bed. One word pounded through her brain.No. No. No.

“Did you really think you could kill me?” Tiral sounded almost delighted. Humiliation coursed through Aiz. He kicked her in the stomach, and she dropped to her knees. Tiral laughed.

“That’s better. Beg for my forgiveness and I’ll make sure your death is quick, and that none at your cloister suffers for your stupidity.”

Aiz didn’t care about a quick death. All she wanted was for Tiral to hurt. To know pain and suffering. Yet she knew he was offering a gift, final though it was. The cloister, the clerics, the orphans. She hadn’t considered what he’d do to them if she failed.

“Or don’t beg.” Tiral smiled. “And I’ll let the Questioners take you apart limb by limb in the Tohr with all your precious clerics.”

Aiz stared down at her pale hands, scarred from a childhood in Dafra slum. A lock of hair fell in her face and she held herself still. The Tohr’s vermin-infested cells were peopled with broken Snipes who’d defied the Triarchy.Your anger will be the death of you.

The death of you.

Then she felt the ridges of her scars and the lick of flame. She heard the orphans screaming, and all she could think was how much she hated this snake of a man. The air in the room stirred as Aiz gatheredher will, praying to Mother Div that this one time, the wind would do her bidding.

For a glorious moment, the wind shot out like a whip, tight and brutal. Aiz nudged it tighter with her mind. Tiral grabbed at his throat, coughing.

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