Born of Smoke and Bone

Chapter 1: Faye

Faye only knew two things for certain: Kassian Gunn was both the smartest and stupidest person she had ever met. The boy in question currently had a fabric-clad hand gripped around her wrist, and was dragging her quickly through the dense greenery of the Shai Forrest. His legs were quite a bit longer than hers, and the path he was streaking through the foliage introduced many a branch to Faye's dismally protected face.

"If we," Faye started as a branch flew into her line of sight, "live through this," smack "I am killing you" smack "multiple times!" She gasped out the last word of her fragmented sentence as Kassian skidded to a halt at the edge of a very unfortunately placed cliff. He whirled around to face his companion, dark hair mussed and eyes gleaming with adrenaline. The shouts of the men pursuing them grew steadily louder as Faye watched the gears in Kass' head turn. They were on an assignment that was supposed to be a simple assassination of a single tribe leader. But, as most things in their lives did, the mission had fallen to pieces immediately. She gave her partner a total of three seconds to contrive a brilliant plan before assuming a defensive stance, daggers drawn and hood hiding her eyes from view. They were her tell- always had been- and leaving them visible showed weakness she couldn't afford.

Kass flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders, spreading his arms to the side as if preparing to clap.

"Do you trust me?" The teasing in his voice was apparent, and the words themselves unnecessary.

"I'll have to reconsider my answer, after the brutal beating my face took from that stupid tree." The corner of his mouth twitched at her retort, and his eyes shot to the area they'd come as their attackers arrived.

"Then jump." He didn't have to tell her twice, they'd been doing this together long enough to know not to doubt each other. The twitch of his jaw or slope of his neck told her more than words from his mouth ever did.

Faye wasted no glances at the group of men who appeared on the edge of the cliff and instead launched herself off the edge, covering her ears and closing her eyes tight.

A concussive wave of heat radiated from the spot she and Kassian had been standing, and once the spots had cleared her vision, Faye's eyes found Kass plummeting to the ground beside her. As the ringing in her ears cleared, she could make out the screams of the hunters they'd just escaped. No mercy for the wanted she thought to herself, at least not from him. Her sense of victory was almost immediately overwhelmed with a sense of imminent death, as jumping off a cliff usually causes. She squinted at the ground, making out a reflective surface. Water. So they wouldn't die today after all. Faye spread her arms and legs, trying to slow her descent, and shucked her pack off. It would be useless when the landed, and waterlogged it would drag her down. Kassian ripped the neck of his shirt from down from covering his mouth, and mimicked her stance. As they tumbled to the water below, Faye wondered if this partnership had always been doomed to end in a terrible mess. In the very least, it seemed that's what her life had planned for her. Terrible messes all around. In the very least, she could make killing Kass very very clean. A small smile graced her lips as they broke the surface of the water, and sank to the bottom of the freezing lake.

~

As Faye wrung the water out of her beloved cape, she recalculated her wonderful scheme for murdering the crap out of Kassian. Her mind immediately went to the dagger strapped to her thigh, but she thought better of it. He needed something less personal, and more painful.

While she was collecting their stuff and squeezing out excess water, Kass had been using the heat from his veins to dry as much of their clothing as possible. He currently sat cross-legged in the sand, hands running over his shirt to evaporate the water. Faye tossed him her own bundle and returned to retrieve their supplies.

Both of their packs had been discarded during the fall, but while hers landed safely on the shore, his had sunk to the bottom of the glassy lake. Faye couldn't waste time retrieving it, but she could evaluate what they still had left. She pulled their makeshift healing kit from the pouch and discarded the ruined bandages. Next, she checked the rations, dividing into piles of salvageable and beyond hope. By the time she had finished, Kassian had made his way over to her and was handing her the clothes she had given him. Their long-term partnership made modesty a silly concept, but she still felt the heat in her cheeks as she glanced at Kass' bare back.

It was littered with scars of all shapes and sizes, the consequences of the lives they led. Maybe one day she'd know the stories behind all of them, but for now, she'd settle for the histories of the ones she did know, the ones he got defending her or others who couldn't defend themselves. Faye's eye traced every white line, every raised edge of his skin until it felt wrong like she was invading his privacy.

He turned to her, eyebrows soft with question. He'd been trying to log the results of their assignment, where they were supposed to collect the soul of a tribal leader caught up in a nasty bout of necromancy, but the contracorp wouldn't accept the man's soul.

"Maybe we didn't actually kill him?" Faye suggested, taking the spherical device from Kass' hand. "Your explosion wasn't exactly pinpointed"

"Let's see you try and light someone on fire with your bare hands." Kassian shifted to look over her shoulder at the contracorp.

"At least my daggers always aim true. Flames are unpredictable and fluid. You know this." The device shifted in Faye's hands, notches and levers slipping between her knowing fingers. She pressed the slot meant to accept a soul, but a creaky whine emitted from it. Her frown deepened as she pressed it again. "Our boss will not be pleased. You're in deep shit." Kassian laughed at that, a rough noise sounding brittle like kindling under strain. "Another issue," Faye added in a slightly irritated tone. "How are we going to make it back? You made us jump off a cliff." Kass managed to look sheepish at that, running a hand through his messy curls.

"I know a guy. Or girl. Boat?" His lip quirked up with the last word, as he stretched his arms above his head. "God I'm sore, we haven't run like that in a while."

"We haven't jumped off a cliff in a while," Fay muttered under her breath, slipping back into her beloved cloak and shoving their gear back into the pack. She tossed it to Kassian, and he caught it against his chest before slinging it across his back. "You said you know a boat? I didn't know wood had become sentient."

"You'd be surprised, my dearest Faye. The woods have eyes everywhere." She smacked his arm lightly at this, for his mocking of the spirits she treasured. "But yes, I know of a boat, owned by a girl. Who I also know, by the way."

"Convenient."

"I have eyes everywhere."

"You suddenly resemble a very burnt palm tree..." They both chuckled at this, settling into the ambiance that often surrounded them. Their partnership was based on trust and mutual skill and had fostered a communication between Faye and Kass that didn't require words. They exchanged feelings with tilts of the head and movement of the jaw. When one of them was sad or injured, the other felt sensation almost as intensely. Maybe even more so when they were the cause of pain.

Kassian rose again, sauntering to a path that before had been almost hidden from sight. He pushed aside the branch of a tree and held his arm out, beckoning to her.

"Shall we meet a mermaid?"