The Assassin's Blade Read online

  Faylyn eyed him doubtfully but said nothing.

  “Are you interested in knowing the truth?”

  “I should take your word above the word of the people who reared me from a child? What reason would they have to lie?”

  He shrugged. “A more willing assassin? Come, what have you to lose except preconceived notions? My guard has captured a man of your race, no doubt sent by whoever ordered the hit. A little subterfuge could gain you the truth.”

  She was puzzled and it showed.

  After a moment, he reached down and tugged the sheet from beneath her.

  To Faylyn’s embarrassment, she saw the sheets were splotched with the evidence of Talor’s claiming of her awakening. The blood could only be her own.

  He tossed the sheet over her, covering her carefully from head to toe. “Lie still. Say nothing. You have been slain.”

  She heard his tread and knew he approached the door once more even before she heard it open. “Bring the conspirator inside.”

  “Mercy, sire! I swear to you I was only upon an errand and meant no harm! I am no conspirator….”

  The man’s voice sounded familiar to Faylyn, though she found she couldn’t place it. He broke off his babbling objections abruptly as he reached the bed and cried out. “By the gods! You have slain….”

  “The assassin sent to slay me,” Talor said coldly.

  “Nay! Our countess Faylyn! I swear she was sent to you as ambassador, not assassin!”

  “An ambassador sent to creep into my bedchamber with a knife to slit my throat? Come. Do you take me for a fool!”

  The man had begun to weep, babbling on and on about the death of ‘the countess.’ He couldn’t seem to think of anything else. “She is dead! By the gods, he will cut the entrails from my body and burn them before my eyes! She cannot have failed…. You have mistaken her intentions.”

  “He? Of whom do you speak?”

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘he’. To whom do you refer? The man who ordered my murder?”

  Faylyn was only regretful that she couldn’t see the man’s face. Beneath the sheets, she could hear his voice quite well, could even discern the inflections, but it was possible he was merely a convincing actor.

  “The Duke, her father!” the man spat furiously. “You have slain his only surviving daughter! You shall feel his wrath now!”

  “As I felt his wrath before?” Talor said coldly. “When he destroyed Earth and the majority of its populace?”

  “It is you who are to blame! There was no other way! If we had not been forced to develop a weapon of mass destruction to destroy your stranglehold on the worlds of the fif'Steorra Lumen, it would never have happened!”

  “It is my fault that your duke’s clumsy attempts to gain control resulted in the destruction of his own people?”

  “Yes! You and your father before you!”

  There was silence for some moments. Abruptly, the sheet was snatched from the bed.

  Faylyn blinked. Slowly, the stranger came into focus. He was staring at her, his eyes nearly bulging from their sockets, his mouth agape, but she could not fail to recognize the teacher she had once felt was almost a father to her. “Sinde!” she gasped, shock and dawning fury flooding through her. “Is this true? You … and my father used me to exact revenge for a disaster of your own making!”

  “Countess! Thank the gods! I thought you were dead!”

  “Obviously,” Faylyn replied tightly. “Otherwise you would not have enlightened me. When was I to be told? After I had slain the Emperor?”

  “You do not understand!”

  Faylyn felt sick. “Unfortunately, I do. You taught me to hate the wrong man.”

  “You cannot mean that, countess!” He pointed a finger at Talor Sylvanos. “Can you not see how evil this man is? Our only intention was to bring peace to our people, to seek retribution for our losses!”

  “You … my father … destroyed our home world, nearly wiped out our race! It is he who is evil! A sick, demented man and I am shamed beyond bearing that his blood flows through my veins!”

  Talor studied her a long moment and finally stepped forward. Taking a knife from the tray beside the bed, he sliced through her bonds.

  She looked at him with a mixture of regret, shame, and acceptance. “I’ve no right to ask anything of you, but I beg of you before you slay me, give me your word that you will hunt my father down and take your revenge upon him.”

  Talor smiled faintly. “I believe I have a far more … pleasant solution for our dilemma, Countess.”

  Faylyn sat up slowly. “I don’t think I understand.”

  He turned to Sinde, his eyes narrowing. “You will bear a message to your master. Tell him I have agreed to take his daughter to wife to bring peace to our people. But, if I discover he has conspired against me again, death will become a welcome friend.”

  He looked at his guard. “Take him to his master. If you see him again, slay him on the spot.”

  When they had gone, Faylyn looked at Talor curiously. “What do you mean to do with me?”

  His brows rose. “I thought I made my intentions clear.”

  “You cannot be serious!”

  He sat down on the bed beside her. Taking her hand, he toyed pensively with her fingers. “I have dared legend and found truth,” he said pensively.

  Faylyn looked at him blankly. “Legend holds that any man who seeks to awaken a woman of Earth will find himself enslaved heart, soul, and mind, even as he takes from her her mark of womanhood.” Faylyn felt her jaw go slack. “But … but it is only legend! Born no doubt to protect the maids of Earth. There is no truth to it! How could you … how could you….”

  “Love you?”

  Faylyn swallowed. “Love me. My father….”

  “Has nothing to do with you and me.”

  “But … you were only flirting. You did not … you cannot mean it.” He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing each finger lightly. “Can you not tell what I feel for you? Can you feel nothing in return?”

  “Love you?”

  “Love me.”

  Faylyn bit her lip. An unaccustomed moisture gathered in her eyes. “I think,” she said, “I could love you without any difficulty at all.”

  The End