Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [31]
That moment of shock was all she needed. Fileon was fast, but not fast enough. Thorn swept his blade from his hand and planted a powerful kick directly in his chest. It was a solid blow, driving the breath from his lungs and sending him tumbling to the ground.
“Stay down!” Thorn flung Steel, and the blackened blade grazed the halfling’s neck before flashing back to her hand. “That’s your only warning. Why did you try to kill me?”
Fileon stared up at her but made no attempt to stand. “You have my sympathies, sister.” There was a hint of actual sorrow in his voice, though it was overshadowed by pain. For all his speed and skill, the halfling was still an old man, and Thorn’s kick might well have shattered a rib. “But this is not the time for revelations.”
“It’s exactly the time for revelations,” she said, crossing the room in three steps.
Fileon reached for her, the dragonmark blazing on his withered arm, but Thorn was prepared for the attack. She grabbed his wrist and activated her false dragonmark.
The tattoo flared around her eye, pain tearing through her nerves. But between the blazing stone in her neck and the agony she’d endured stopping her fall, Thorn barely noticed it. Not so Fileon, who felt Thorn’s pain increased by a factor of ten. The little man shook in Thorn’s grip, but she released him before he passed out.
“Why did you try to kill me?” she asked. She took a step back, making sure she was out of his reach.
“You have learned your lessons well, sister.” The halfling was shaking, gasping for air, yet he still managed to laugh. “I regret my actions.”
“You’ll regret them even more if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
Fileon leaned back against the wall. “The Son of Khyber. He wants you below. Has need of your skills.”
Thorn frowned. “Why would you betray your leader?” Even as she asked the question, she realized the answer.
“He is not my leader,” Fileon said. “Thora Tavin raised me from the darkness. It was her courage and her cunning that kept me alive in Darguun, her vision that built this house. This Son of Khyber, he changes everything. Sends Tavin away to build forces in other cities. Raises hopes and fears with his words. We were stable. Successful. Now he prepares us for war.”
“War? What do you mean?”
“We’ve always known the struggle would come, sister. A time when the Twelve would move against us. He would strike the first blow, and in so doing, he would bring the war upon us.”
It sounds as though the Twelve were right to be concerned, Steel said. You know your orders, Lantern Thorn. Evaluate the situation, and if this Son of Khyber proves a threat, eliminate him. The time for evaluation is done. Extract his location from this one. Kill the others. Complete your mission.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” she said. A time when the Twelve would move against us … meaning me.
Her anger stirred again. The thought of a merchant prince using the Citadel as a tool …
She was no paid assassin. She’d joined the Citadel to serve Breland, and she still didn’t see a threat to the crown. “Tell me more about this war.”
Fileon sagged against the wall. His strength was clearly fading, and now Thorn could see bloody spittle on his lips.
I hit him too hard, she thought. Whatever skills he might possess, he was still an old man and a cripple. She felt a pang of guilt, and she knelt down next to him. “Fileon,” she said. “Let me help you—”
Old he might be, and crippled—but he moved like a viper, his hand wrapping around her wrist as light flowed from his dragonmark. A wave of vertigo swept over Thorn, that terrible numbness she’d felt on the ledge. But this time Thorn refused to surrender to it. Her anger swelled within her, and the fire from the shard in her neck spread throughout her veins, the pain drowning out the aberrant chill. Fileon’s eyes were wild, and the lines of his mark blindingly bright. She could feel his power growing stronger, but she would not submit. Every nerve was on fire—
And then it was over.
Fileon