Want a first look at an early chapter of The Emperor’s Arrow?
(Title subject to change, © Kelly Walker, 2021 – Do not copy or reproduce)
They claimed her first kill would be her hardest, but that was a lie. It might have been true for Aerie’s sisters, but for her, the first was simple. The man intended to kill her, and Aerie did not want to die. The rest were harder, knowing what would come after. Each tick mark scratched onto the leather sheath at her hip matched an invisible one deep inside, scrawled in blood that wouldn’t wash away.
Aerie’s sheath was running out of room, and she was running out of ways to ease the churning in her gut.
She had no choice. Their life for hers, a lesson learned well. That first kill extinguished a man’s life, but ignited furious determination in Issulion’s eighth daughter. Driving Aerie to do better. Be better.
Not because she’d killed the man, but because she’d cared.
And caring would get her dead.
Blood had painted the hollow of his gaunt cheek, oozing around the throwing blade she’d buried between his eyes from thirty yards away. The ruby rivulets were a magnet, holding Aerie hostage with a pull her tiny, five-year-old body couldn’t resist. Aerie’s older sisters looked on, their faces a mixture of pride and commiseration, but her father paid her no mind, oblivious to the droplets falling upon the crystalline sand of the amphitheater. For Emperor Issulion, neither his young daughter nor the dying vagrant were worth more than a cursory glance.
Until Aerie’s eldest sister pointed, a cruel smile making her face even more severe. Aerie wiped at her eyes, but it was too late. While Aerie had focused on the blood, Princess Naraka ensured the emperor didn’t miss the moisture trickling down Aerie’s own pale flesh. For a daughter of Issulion, blood and death were her birthright—tears were intolerable.
A decade later, Aerie’s blade skills were legendary, but even she could not conquer her conscience. So she buried it deep and pretended. Never again would she let the horror of who and what she was break her. Now, the marks on her sheath were her only concession, a small tribute to life. And death. A habit began the day of her first kill, not with one mark, but two. The vagrant, and her trainer, punished for not making Aerie tough enough.
Within the hour, her tally would grow.
Aerie gave her memories a rough shove, banishing them. If she thought too hard about the sick feeling that would twist her insides tighter than a sailor’s knots, she’d make a mistake. And Aerie Issulion did not make mistakes. Not anymore.
Awareness tickled the fine hairs at the back of her neck. Someone approached. The prince’s room—not prince, target, keep it impersonal—should be up one more hallway and halfway down on her right. Footsteps grew closer, laced with the low hum of a hushed conversation. She wouldn’t make it to his chamber in time.
Precisely why Nysta taught the importance of awareness, especially of hiding spaces. Aerie backtracked, keeping her steps light and silent. She darted behind an intricate tapestry with moments to spare.
The artist, despite his or her significant skill and impressive imagination, had created a work too large to fit the wall between the castle windows. Aerie was counting on finding one behind the artwork. If there wasn’t… she didn’t have time to come up with another plan that wouldn’t force her to take more lives than assigned.
Her calculations were right, and there was a window, three foot tall and arched at the top, offering a view of the sweeping courtyard. The ledge was only a foot wide, plenty for her to crouch on, keeping as close to the window frame as possible.
Aerie pulled her dark hood up to keep her face from catching the moonlight, risking a low chuckle. Wait until she told Nysta she’d hidden behind a dragon.
Across the empire, mothers cautioned their babes to behave lest the famed daughters of Issulion come for them. It worked until they got older. Then the children would decide Issulion’s Arrows were as fictional as tales of dragons who once ruled the land and skies of Ivonlea and beyond. Only when grown would they understand the uneasy truth: dragons had been extinct for many years, but Aerie and her sisters still stalked the shadows, far more deadly than stories gave them credit for.
Aerie stilled her breathing. The occupants of the hallway were close. Too close. Both male, given the weight of their footsteps, not servants. Servants shuffled their feet, keeping their voices low and unobtrusive. With only a thin wall-hanging between them, if Aerie breathed wrong, she’d be discovered. And if she inhaled dust from the seldom cleaned tapestry, causing a sneeze… Her fingers curled around the hilt of her daga, her thumb stroking the engraved feathers that flared to create the guard.
“You need to get the whelp on board.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
“It would be easier if he had more of his grandsire in him. A shame he’s Nicwyn through and through.”
They spoke of Nicwyn El Aron’telis, the king of Yiatenys, and her father’s staunchest rival.
“It’d be better if he lent his support. But if he doesn’t, you know what you’ll have to do.” Disgust dripped from every word, as rancid and thick as the sludge that lined the gutters outside the butcher’s shop in the Issulion slums.
“You’d have me harm Khera’s son?” The second man kept his tone measured, fitting the gravity of what they discussed.
His companion answered with a low growl. “There’s no line I wouldn’t cross to return us to the old ways. That’s the difference between me and Nicwyn. Freedom is purchased with blood. Any who cannot accept that have no place in our future. Our ancestors understood removing the weakest among us was the key to survival. We must too.”
A heavy sigh, and a resigned answer. “Then, for his sake, I hope the prince comes around.” His words were punctuated by the scrape of a blade lifted briefly from its scabbard, then thrust home. Aerie would pity Prince Rhaiyn, if she wasn’t here to kill him.
As soon as these two buffoons stopped lingering in the hallway, blocking her way to his room.
Eliminating them wouldn’t be difficult, but waiting for them to move out of range left two traitors behind to destabilize her father’s enemies. The cleaner she was in and out, the better.
“Prince,” the other one sneered, his voice gruff, but his distaste plain.
“Patience, my liege. We’ve all got our parts to play.”
Liege… Aerie quickly fit the morsels of information together. Someone from the royal family was casually discussing treason!
“Yes, yes. And for now you must keep Nicwyn happy. Return to his side. Scouts mentioned a carriage too far from the border. It might be nothing, but if anyone’s blade splits his throat, it will be mine.”
As if she’d resort to such a messy method. Some of her sisters might—the ones who enjoyed their assignments a little too much. Amari came to mind—but Aerie killed as cleanly as possible. King Nicwyn wasn’t her target and had nothing to fear from her tonight.
Those fools with the carriage, however…
She’d deal with them later. First, back to her mission. Then she’d handle her way home.
Temptation whispered in her ear, urging her to peek from behind the painting. The emperor might be happy to have their identity. It all depended on his mood, and there was no need to guess how he’d react if Aerie botched her mission to chase down information on a whim. Her job was to do as she was told. Nothing more. Definitely nothing less.
Minutes crawled by as Aerie waited in the window, her muscles begging for a chance to readjust. She’d almost been in the clear when a third man joined them, and they lingered, chatting. These fools were worse than the old hens who clucked and clustered outside the markets, jabbering and complaining as if they had nowhere better to be. Stretching to loosen her muscles was impossible without disturbing the tapestry.
The goddess hadn’t seen fit to bless Aerie with patience, nor could Nysta teach it, though not for lack of trying. By the time they were far enough away, Aerie had nearly deemed killing them worth it to shut them up.
At last she crept through the cold castle halls, intent on her task. Carved from a towering tarcote tree, the heavy wooden door to the prince’s chamber was impeccably smooth. Aerie pressed her ear to it. She waited for five heartbeats, her own breathing echoing in her ears, but the chamber lay silent.
The bolt ground against the stone and Aerie froze, listening once more for any sign of movement inside the chamber.
Nothing.
Letting out her breath, Aerie crept inside. Inky shadows draped the room, the hearth dark, like all others in Ivonlea, bereft of fire for the last fifty years. Fire was forbidden by the emperor, enforced by wizards and executioners alike.
Yiatenys didn’t belong to the empire—yet—but magical shackles didn’t respect trivial things like borders. The entire continent bowed beneath the wizard’s spell.
Aerie cursed under her breath. She’d expected at least one active lightstone to guide her blade, and the southern facing window was no help. Fortunately, Aerie’s senses were better than most, even among her sister Arrows. She could have pulled her own lightstone from her beltpouch, but if someone were waiting in the darkness, it would do more harm than good.
She closed her eyes, feeling for movement in the air and listening for heartbeats, finding none.
Of all her lethal assassin sisters, Aerie was the best at finding her opponents in impossible situations. It was almost as if the wind talked to her, whispering secrets in her ear.
Those senses weren’t whispering now.
Get out, get out, get out.
The prince’s antechamber, comfortably furnished to host visitors or friends, offered two connecting doors. To the left, his likely sleeping chambers, though she’d bet her favorite dagger he wasn’t inside. And she really liked that dagger. On the right, the servant’s chamber might offer a place to hide, and a route for escape with the risk of servants willing to reveal her presence for a yul, or two.
Get out, get out, get out. A scream of warning now, insistent. Unrelenting.
She wasn’t in the habit of ignoring her intuition, but if she left now, she would be no safer. If she didn’t ensure Prince Rhaiyn Del Ashar’telis breathed his last, she’d breathe hers.
But even she could not slay a ghost. The spectre of the prince hung in the air like stale brew, a hint of something once there, now gone.
The first tendrils of panic wound up Aerie’s spine.
Failure was not an option. She just needed to think.
This late in the evening, where could the prince be other than his own chambers?
In a companion’s bed, likely. But she had no information on his suitors, nor the time to search blind.
The stone floor shivered, disturbed by armored boots moving down the hall, at least six to seven pair.
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