Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

20. The Day of Reckoning

Captain-Commander must have counted down slowly, giving me a chance to get away, because the sounds of pursuit never caught up to me. I didn't need it to run like Bhutas were after me. In my headlong fight, my heart pounded at the rib cage. Sobs broke my breath, no matter how hard I fought them down. The shortness of air set my side on fire, hunching me over. But I didn't stop to catch my breath or calm down. I ran.

It took a while for my mind to get over the shock. Then, I looked for a place to hide and ponder my destroyed life. Deadhead Company didn't want me. I already left Sharim. What was I to do?

I veered into one of many lanes between the house with the overhanging second and third stories. It dead-ended on a brick wall in a permanent shadow so deep that it was hard to tell it from the wall. Moss, a rare thing in Palmyr, clung to the soggy bricks. I cursed and climbed. A nail ripped off painfully. It remained lodged in some weathered groove to rot. The sharp pain made me all but give up, but I gained the top. I sat there, sucking on the torn fingernail. Those things hurt more than they should.

The view from the way I came was pretty sad. A tunnel between the houses with barely a beam of light crossing it. I turned around. The other side of the wall was as peaceful as they came. It was a square courtyard with a small fountain and four potted lemon trees in its corners. A tub with white flowers sat next to the trickling water. I thought I recognized them--they were star-shaped and perfumed the night air. In the day-time, they looked wilted. A bench, long enough to recline on, sported silk pillows. This was Kozima's kind of place. If only I was rich enough to buy him a house with a courtyard like this...

Lured by the movements of four fat fish in the fountain, I leaped off the wall and into the courtyard. The house wall remained cool even at mid-day. I pressed my back against it gratefully. Did the sound of my jump spook men or servants inside the house?

But no, all was quiet.

I exhaled and crept towards the bench. I needed a quiet place to regroup, and Mythra provided me with a refuge. The Divines didn't fully abandon me. They never would. My future just took a turn and--

A shuriken whistled an inch above my ear. It hit the wall with a brassy twang.

By my rebirth! Maybe They didn't provide me with a refuge.

"Now that I have your attention, girl..."

The scorpia assassin's voice came from a clot of shimmering air. It looked like haze on a scorching afternoon, but in this cool courtyard it couldn't have been a natural phenomenon. Color seeped into this accursed magic splatter, solidifying into the abominable woman.

As soon as the scorpia was visible, her knees bent into a lunging-ready crouch. Her lips, shaped identically to Parneres', stretched into a smile that had no resemblance to his amused one whatsoever. It was cruel and sharp, like a blade. She came to settle our score.

A black dagger, longer than my knife, thicker at the base, the middle of the blade raised, grooves on either side of it, thinning into a tip capable of punching through armor, lay comfortably in her hand. The dark luster of the metal left no doubt. The dagger wasn't just deadly or even written with magic. This was black steel. It could only be sung to life by a Divine-inspired blacksmith. And weapons forged from it left wounds that never closed unless countered in time by a rare medicine. Without it, the smallest cut bled out till the victim died.

"In the Land of Swift Sunrise," she said, "there's a specific death punishment for every transgression. They have thick tomes debating why a death specifically befits a crime. An exhilarating read."

A snake darts its tongue at a turtle's speed compared to how fast the Scorpia struck. She became a blur. Then she materialized again—and I was left with a stinging line down my cheek. Unbelieving, I touched it with my fingers. They came away red. The trickle sped up, creeping from my chin to my chest. Basically, I was a walking dead.