As the rain falls outside, the sounds are varied and constant. The gentle patter of the raindrops against the window is punctuated by the occasional rumble of thunder.
The air is thick with the smell of wet earth, and the wind blows through the trees, making the leaves rustle softly. In the distance, the occasional car horn or siren can be heard, but mostly the night is quiet and still. The rain creates a sense of peace and calm, and the darkness makes the world feel small and cozy.Jack had made his way into the club. The loud music blasted through the speakers, making everyone sway their hips to its rhythm.Jack wasn't here to party, he had serious business at hand and there was only one place he could discuss his business; at the inner room.Before he would be allowed access into the inner room, he had to be checked thoroughly by the security at the doors and the moment he gained access, Jack would be welcomed into a smokeVincent had other plans in mind, instead of going back home immediately. If Jack was willing to go the extra miles to see that he would be killed, he was willing to revisit his inner demon once again.After minutes of driving, he arrived at a shopping complex which was desecrated. He made his way down to the back of the shopping complex and stepped inside. There was a lot of music going on, but the moment he stepped in the music stopped and all eyes were on him. Everyone in the room, seemed to be stoic with their gaze, as they stared him down."Look who is back? The prodigal son himself!" He looked up to see Evans coming down the stares with a glass of wine in his hands."Nice to see you too Evans. You have gotten fat." Vincent's comment would leave Snicker of laughter across the room from everyone."Don't you dare call me fat. This is success." Evans replied, turning around so Vincent could have a better view. "I cannot same t
After a year of slavery in the Salt tunnel of New York, Jessica was accustomed to being escorted everywhere in shackles and at sword-point. Most of the thousands of slaves in New York received similar treatment—though an extra half-dozen guards always walked Jessica to and from the tunnel. That was expected by Skull gang’s most notorious assassin. What she did not usually expect, however, was a hooded man in black at her side—as there was now.He gripped her arm as he led her through the shining building in which most of New York’s officials and overseers were housed. They strode down corridors, up flights of stairs, and around and around until she hadn’t the slightest chance of finding her way out again.At least, that was her escort’s intention, because she hadn’t failed to notice when they went up and down the same staircase within a matter of minutes. Nor had she missed when they zigzagged between levels, even though the building was a standard grid
But she had other things to think about as they continued their walk. Was she finally to be hanged? Sickness coiled in her stomach. She was important enough to warrant an execution from the Captain of the Guard himself. But why bring her inside this building first?At last, they stopped before a set of red-and-gold glass doors so thick that she couldn’t see through them. Captain Westfall jerked his chin at the two guards standing on either side of the doors, and they stomped their spears in greeting.The captain’s grip tightened until it hurt. He yanked Jessica closer, but her feet seemed made of lead and she pulled against him. “You’d rather stay in the tunnel?” he asked, sounding faintly amused.“Perhaps if I were told what this was all about, I wouldn’t feel so inclined to resist.”“You’ll find out soon enough.” Her palms became sweaty. Yes, she was going to die. It had come at last.The doors groaned open to reveal a throne room. A g
At a passing glance, one might think her eyes blue or gray, perhaps even green, depending on the color of her clothing. Up close, though, these warring hues were offset by the brilliant ring of gold around her pupils. But it was her golden hair that caught the attention of most, hair that still maintained a glimmer of its glory. In short, Jessica was blessed with a handful of attractive features that compensated for the majority of average ones; and, by early adolescence, she’d discovered that with the help of cosmetics, these average features could easily match the extraordinary assets.But now, standing before Evans Stoicas little more than a gutter rat! Her face warmed as Captain Westfall spoke. “I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”The Leader shook his head when Chaol reached for her. “Don’t bother with the bath just yet. I can see her potential.” The prince straightened, keeping his attention on Celaena. “I don’t believe that we’ve ever had the pleasure of an i
The prince’s eyes shone with amusement at her brashness but lingered a bit too long on her body. Jessica could have raked her nails down his face for staring at her like that, yet the fact that he’d even bother to look when she was in such a filthy state . . . A slow smile spread across her face.The prince crossed his long legs. “Leave us,” he ordered the guards. “Chaol, stay where you are.”Jessica stepped closer as the guards shuffled out, shutting the door. Foolish, foolish move. But Chaol’s face remained unreadable. He couldn’t honestly believe he’d contain her if she tried to escape! She straightened her spine. What were they planning that would make them so irresponsible?The prince chuckled. “Don’t you think it’s risky to be so bold with me when your freedom is on the line?”Of all the things he could have said, that was what she had least expected. “My freedom?” At the sound of the word, she saw a land of pine and snow, of sun-bleached cliffs
“That remains to be seen,” Evans said. “You’ll be told the details of the competition when we arrive in the city.”“Despite the amount of fun you nobles will have betting on us, this competition seems unnecessary. Why not just hire me already?”“As I just said, you must prove yourself worthy.”She put a hand on her hip, and her chains rattled loudly through the room. “Well, I think being Skull gang’s Assassin exceeds any sort of proof you might need.”“Yes,” Chaol said, his bronze eyes flashing. “It proves that you’re a criminal, and that we shouldn’t immediately trust you with the king’s private business.”“I give my solemn oa—”“I doubt that the Bosswould take the word of Skull gang’s Assassin as bond.” “Yes, but I don’t see why I have to go through the training and thecompetition. I mean, I’m bound to be a bit . . . out of shape, but . . . what else do you expect when I have to make do with rocks and pickaxes in this place?” She ga
When Jane finally collapsed onto a bed after her meeting in the throne room, she couldn’t fall asleep, despite the exhaustion in every inch of her body. After being roughly bathed by brutish servants, the wounds on her back throbbed and her face felt like it had been scrubbed to the bone. Shifting to lie on her side to ease the pain in her dressed and bound back, she ran her hand down the mattress, and blinked at the freeness of movement. Before she’d gotten into the bath, Benjamin had removed her shackles. She’d felt everything—the reverberations of the key turning in the lock of her irons, then again as they loosened and fell to the floor. She could still feel the ghost chains hovering just above her skin. Looking up at the ceiling, she rotated her raw, burning joints and gave a sigh of contentment.But it was too strange to lie on a mattress, to have silk caress her skin and a pillow cradle her cheek. She had forgotten what food other than soggy oats and hard bread tasted like, wha
She scowled as she stood. Her frown deepened when she discovered the head of the Guard smirking as they walked into the fray of the readying company. However, the unbearable urge to splatter someone across a wall lessened when they brought her a piebald mare to ride.She mounted. The sky came closer, and it stretched forever above her, away and away to distant lands she’d never heard of. Jane gripped the saddle horn. She was truly leaving Endovier. All those hopeless months, those freezing nights. . gone now. She breathed in deeply. She knew—she just knew—that if she tried hard enough, she could fly from her saddle. That is, until she felt iron clamp around her arms.It was Benjamin, fastening her bandaged wrists into shackles. A long chain led to his horse, where it disappeared beneath the saddlebags. He mounted his black stallion, and she considered leaping from her horse and using the chain to hang him from the nearest tree.It was a rather large company, twenty all together. Behi
Closing her eyes, Irene unspooled her magic into a gentle, probing thread, and laid a palm on that splattered star atop his spine.The cold slammed into her, spikes of it firing through her blood and bones.Irene reeled back as if she’d been given a physical blow.Cold and dark and anger and agony—She clenched her jaw, fighting past this echo in the bone, sending that thread-thin probe of power a little farther into the dark.The pain would have been unbearable when it hit him.Irene pushed back against the cold—the cold and the lack and the oily, unworldly wrongness of it.No magic of this world, some part of her whispered. Nothing that was natural or good. Nothing she knew, nothing she had ever dealt with.Her magic screamed to draw back that probe, move away—“Irene .” His words were far away while the wind and blackness and emptiness of it roared around her—And then that echo of nothingness … it seemed to awaken.Cold filled her, burned along her limbs, creeping wider, encirc
“Will it be hours every day that you work on him?” Nesryn’s words were steady, almost flat, and yet … The woman was not a creature who took well to a cage. Even a gilded one such as this.“I would recommend,” Irene said to Nesryn over a shoulder, “that if you have other duties or tasks to attend to, Captain, these hours would be a good time for that. I shall send word if you are needed.”“What about moving him around?”The lord’s eyes flashed at that.And though Irene was predisposed to chuck them both to the ruks, she noted the lord’s simmering outrage and self-loathing at the words and found herself saying, “I can handle most of it, but I believe Lord Westfall is more than capable of transporting himself.”Something like wary gratitude shot across his face. But he just said to Nesryn, “And I can ask my own damn questions.”Guilt flashed across Nesryn’s face, even as she stiffened. But she nodded, biting her lip, before she murmured to Vincent , “I had some invitations yesterday.”
Vincent shot Irene back an equally displeased look the moment Kashin paused to sip his wine, and then launched question after question to the prince regarding his life. Helpful information, he realized, about their army.He was not the only one who realized it. Arghun cut in while his brother was midsentence about the forges they had constructed near their northern climes, “Let us not discuss business at dinner, brother.”Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier.And somehow Vincent knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.It did not entirely explain Irene ’s utter need to distance herself from Kashin. Not that it was any of his business, or of any interest to him. Certainly not when Irene ’s mouth tightened if she so much as turned her head in Vincent ’s direction.He might have calle
Vincent waited until Nesryn had been gone for a good thirty minutes before he summoned Kadja. She’d been waiting in the exterior hallway and slipped inside his suite mere moments after he’d called her name. Lingering in the foyer, he watched the serving girl approach, her steps light and swift, her eyes downcast as she awaited his order.“I have a favor to ask you,” he said slowly and clearly, cursing himself for not learning Halha during the years Levi had studied it.A dip of the chin was her only answer.“I need you to go down to the docks, to wherever information comes in, to see if there’s any news about the attack on Rifthold.” Kadja had been in the throne room yesterday—she’d undoubtedly heard about it. And he’d debated asking Nesryn to do some searching while she was out, but if the news was grimhe didn’t want her learning it alone. Bearing it alone, all the way back up to the palace. “Do you think you could do that?”Kadja lifted her eyes at last, though she kept her head
She’d known his age, but Irene had still not expected the former captain to look so … young.She hadn’t done the math until she’d walked into that room and seen his handsome face, a mix of caution and hope written across the hardened, broad features.It was that hope that had made her see red. Had made her ache to give him a matching scar to the slender one slicing across his cheek.She’d been unprofessional in the most horrific sense. Never—never had she been so rude and unkind toward any of her patients.Mercifully, Hasar had arrived, cooling her head slightly. But touching the man, thinking of ways to help him …She had not meant to write the list of the last four generations of Towers women. Had not meant to write her mother’s name over and over while pretending to record his information. It had not helped with the overwhelming roaring in her head.Sweating and dusty, Irene burst into Hadiza ’s office nearly an hour later, the trek from the palace through the clogged, narrow str
He tried not to flinch. Even Nesryn blinked at the frank question.“Yes,” he said tightly, fighting the heat rising in his cheeks.She looked between them, assessing. “Have you used it to completion?”He clenched his jaw. “How is that relevant?” And how had she gleaned what was between them?Irene only wrote something down.“What are you writing?” he demanded, cursing the damned chair for keeping him from storming to rip the paper out of her hands.“I’m writing a giant no.”Which she then underlined.He growled, “I suppose you’ll ask about my bathroom habits now?” “It was next on my list.”“They are unchanged,” he bit out. “Unless you need Nesryn to confirm.” Irene merely turned to Nesryn, unruffled. “Have you seen him struggle withit?”“Do not answer that,” he snarled at Nesryn.Nesryn had the good wits to sink into a chair and remain quiet.Irene rose, setting down the pen, and came around the desk. The morning sunlight caught in her hair, bouncing off her head in a corona.She
So Vincent had, half paying attention to the meal unfolding before him, half monitoring every word and glance and breath of those around him.Despite their youngest sister’s death, the heirs made the meal lively, conversation flowing, mostly in languages Vincent did not know or recognize. Such a wealth of kingdoms in that hall, represented by viziers and servants and companions—the now-youngest princess, Duva, herself wedded to a dark-haired, sad-eyed prince from a faraway land who kept close to his pregnant wifeand spoke little to anyone around him. But whenever Duva smiled softly at himVincent did not think the light that filled the prince’s face was feigned. And wondered if the man’s silence was not from reticence but perhaps not yet knowing enough of his wife’s language to keep up.Nesryn, however, had no such excuse. She’d been silent and haunted at dinner. He’d only learned that she’d bathed before it thanks to the shout and slamming door in her chambers, followed by a huff
Hadiza ’s face darkened. Not with ire, but memory. “I was once asked to heal a man who was injured while evading capture. After he had committed a crime so unspeakable … The guards told me what he’d done before I walked into his cell. They wanted him patched up so he could live to be put on trial. He’d undoubtedly be executed—they had victims willing to testify and proof aplenty. Eretia herself saw the latest victim. His last one. Gathered all the evidence she needed and stood in that court and condemned him with what she had seen.”Hadiza ’s throat bobbed. “They chained him down in that cell, and he was hurt enough that I knew … I knew I could use my combat to make the internal bleeding worse. They’d never know. He’d be dead by morning, and no one would dare question me.” She studied the vial of blue tonic. “It was the closest I have ever come to killing. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. The world would be better for it. I had my hands on his chest—I was ready to do it. Bu
Of all the rooms in the Torre Cesme, Irene Towers loved this one best.Perhaps it was because the room, located at the very pinnacle of the pale-stoned tower and its sprawling complex below, had unparalleled views of the sunset over Antica.Perhaps it was because this was the place where she’d felt the first shred of safety in nearly ten years. The place she had first looked upon the ancient woman now sitting across the paper- and book-strewn desk, and heard the words that changed everything: You are welcome here, Irene Towers.It had been over two years since then.Two years of working here, living here, in this tower and in this city of so many peoples, so many foods and caches of knowledge.It had been all she’d dreamed it would be—and she had seized every opportunity, every challenge, with both hands. Had studied and listened and practiced and saved lives, changed them, until she had climbed to the very top of her class. Until an unknown healer’s daughter from Benjamin was appr