Chapter 1
Twenty-five years ago
The children hurled rocks at each other until they got close enough to beat the other team with sticks. Whenever one of them got sufficiently hurt to start crying, the others would mock him, because they were children of the warrior caste and they had no time for babies.
“Savage bunch,” said the first caste man. He was dressed in white and gold, which the warrior children knew was foolish, because how in the world could you hide in the trees to ambush your enemies while dressed in white and gold? The important visitor was standing on the observation platform next to the familiar figure of their leader, the phontho of the Vane garrison, Andaman Vane.
“What are they, six years old?”
“Six to eight. The older and bigger ones play at dirt war in a different field; keeps them from breaking the little ones.”
“Play?”
“Yes. This isn’t training. Training is serious business. Dirt war is just a chance for them to show their mettle. It is our way. Start them early. As soon as they can walk they can start developing a proper fighting spirit.”
There was a clonk and a scream as a boy was struck in the side of his leather helmet by a rock. Dizzy, he tumbled down the muddy hill. His friends immediately set upon him to finish him off, which meant putting bruises on him until he begged for mercy.
“Aren’t you worried they’ll die?”
“Ha!” Their phontho laughed at the absurdity of the idea. The first caste were so soft. “Once in a while accidents happen, but don’t worry, Arbiter. You might not be able to tell from up here, but we’ve rules in place for their safety.”
The rules were simple. When you picked your stick, it had to be pliable, nothing stiff enough to break skin on a thrust, and it couldn’t be thicker around than their thumb. So it was more of a painful switch than anything. On the thrown rocks, they were supposed to stick with pebbles and never aim for the eyes…But in the heat of battle, everyone tended to go for bigger rocks, because all the children knew those flew better.
“Bruises make character. We have them fight like this now to weed out the snivelers. Those will do fine in support companies, obligated to the worker caste to raise funds, or married off to other houses, but the Vane barracks is allowed only five hundred active raiders, so I make certain that they’re the best of the best. Five hundred elite warriors is what I promise your Thakoor, and what I always provide…If he changed the treaty and allowed me to form a second company, I could provide a thousand such men.”
“I could make this suggestion, Phontho, but there are many within Great House Makao who feel that House Vane may already be too ambitious for a vassal.”
“We are merely eager to serve. When your inspection is over, you can report back to your Thakoor that Vane remains ever loyal and ready to provide as many soldiers as he desires for his just and mighty cause.”
“Don’t worry. I have been most impressed by the tour. If the rest of our vassals had such discipline and spirit, we could conquer the whole of the west…Are any of these children yours, Phontho?”
“The girl.” And the way her father said it filled Thera with pride.
“Really? You let your daughter out in that?”
Andaman Vane laughed. “You are new here. Welcome to Vane. Who do you think defends our lands while your Thakoor has sent me and my men off across the border? Our women don’t march to war, but that doesn’t mean war won’t sometimes come to them. In the warrior caste, even our daughters are trained, not to the same level or intensity of course, but more than enough to defend themselves. Plus, when they’re grown, they will have a better understanding of what their husbands and sons must do in order to better support us in our duties.”
Since Thera could hear that her father and the important man from the Makao had their eyes on her now, she moved out from behind cover, braved the falling rocks, and screamed their battle cry, “Behold, Vane is here!” Her bold charge got her halfway up the hill before a larger boy on the other team intercepted her. Thera may have cheated by using a stick much larger around than her thumb, but she had the skinniest hands so it seemed fair to her. He was standing above her, she aimed her out-of-regulation stick for his legs. It was hard to defend yourself bending over. His toes were sticking out the end of his sandals, they made a great target. He yelped when she smacked them. As soon as he was hopping on one foot, it was easy to shove him down the slope.
Once Thera had taken the summit, all six mighty feet of it, the other team rallied to knock her off, but she had pockets full of rocks ready and an excellent arm. She began throwing rocks, aiming for their bellies, so even if she was off a bit, she’d still hit something that really hurt. “Vane is here!”
“Yes, but why is your daughter the only girl participating in this…dirt war?”
Her father laughed again. “She’s the reigning champion. How else would she defend her title?”
Then Thera could no longer listen to her father’s conversation with the important man, because she had to concentrate on holding her ground against the fierce counterattack.
An hour later, Thera’s father came looking for her in the tall grass around the dirt war field. “Where are you, child? It’s time for supper.”
Her arms and legs were covered in welts, and it hurt too much to move, but that wasn’t why she was hiding. She was in the tall grass because she didn’t want anyone to see her weep. So she wiped her eyes and tried to look like she hadn’t been crying. “I’m over here.”
Phontho Andaman Vane dar Makao knelt down next to her. Even though he was the greatest commander their people had ever known, who’d led successful raids deep into the territory of three different great houses, his voice was always gentle when it came to his girl.
“What’s wrong, Thera?”
“I lost.” She sniffed. “I don’t like losing.”
“Anyone who enjoys losing isn’t fit for our caste. But the good ones learn from their defeats so they can do better next time.”
“But you never lose, Baba.”
“I spent the whole day with my lips planted upon the buttocks of a soft-palmed bureaucrat who knows more about poetry than warfare, all in the off chance he’ll make a nice report about us to the Thakoor. A few generations ago our house dominated the west, and now I have to beg for permission to field a fraction of the army we used to, in service of a house we used to boss around. No, Thera, there are different kinds of defeat, and I too know its bitter taste.”
“It’s worse because I got shamed in front of the high-status man.”
His grin brightened her dark day. “He’s a firster. They have no mind for tactics. He probably didn’t even know the rules enough to realize your side lost—by the way, it was because the children who held your left flank, their arms grew tired. You should have rotated them out sooner—but all he’ll remember is that you are the bravest little girl he’s ever seen.”
“I’m not little. I’m brave and big.”
“True, and fearsome as a tiger. Now come on.” He took her by the hands, hoisted her up, and swung her around, grass tickling her bare feet. “If we’re late for supper your mother will be angry.”
Thera giggled as her father put her on his back to carry her home, her stinging wounds and bitter defeat quickly forgotten.
Because of her father’s rank, they had the finest home in the warrior district, but it was a long walk from where they conducted dirt war. They had to pass many other warriors’ homes, and Thera would be embarrassed to be seen by her peers being carried.
“Put me down!”
“You’re no burden. I’ve got helmets that weigh more than you.”
“I can’t look weak!”
“Clever girl,” he agreed. “Even when you aren’t feeling strong, you must never ever show weakness. Victims want pity. Warriors demand respect. Down you go.”
It was a beautiful day. The sun shined. Butterflies danced between the leaves. Men came out of their homes to greet her father, always with great respect and devotion. She knew his warriors loved Andaman Vane nearly as much as she did. Many of the senior men asked her father how the arbiter’s visit had gone. While they spoke, Thera wandered off the path, looking for a good stick to swing at the butterflies.
She looked up and saw something strange.
There was a black mark on the sky.
“Baba?”
Her father and the other warriors heard the alarm in her voice, stopped their conversation, and then followed her pointing finger with their eyes.
The mark quickly grew into a great black cloud, trailing fire. It was huge, but sped across the sky like an arrow. Dogs began to bark. Birds were flushed from the trees. Then it was over them, blocking out the sun, turning day to night, as the roar of thunder struck their ears. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen. It was a nightmare beyond understanding.
Some of the bravest warriors in the world quailed in fear. “It’s the gods!”
“Silence with that foolishness,” her father snapped. “There’s no such thing as gods.”
“What is it, Phontho?”
“Flaming rocks occasionally fall from the sky.” Bold and somehow calm, he stared up at the terrifying thing that could squish them all. “That’s just a really big one. Get up and show some dignity. It’s not going to land on us. It’s heading west toward the sea.”
Thera watched in awe as the black thing trailed fire across the whole of the sky. Father was right. It was going to fall in the ocean and crush the demons instead. They were safe.
Then a bolt from heaven pierced her skull.
“Thera!”
She was lying in the grass again, only everything had turned red. Her father was kneeling next to her, but she couldn’t understand what he was shouting. Then it went black.
There was bouncing. She was very confused. Thera was being carried in someone’s arms as they ran across the warriors’ district. The thing in the sky was smaller, further away, but people were still watching the smoke line that traced its path. Some of them gasped or shouted in surprise when they saw her. Why did they look so scared? Her vision came and went.
When she was awake again, she was being put on a table. Thera knew this place. There was one worker who lived in the warrior district who was loved and treated as one of their own, and that was the surgeon, because he put them back together when things went wrong. She’d been here before—for stitches in her arm—after a hard day of dirt war.
The surgeon leaned over her, but his normally kind face was distraught. Why was his apron covered in blood? She tried to tell him that everything would be okay, but her mouth wouldn’t work. Why was he sticking a metal tool inside her head? He shouldn’t be able to do that. The surgeon looked up at someone she couldn’t see and shook his head sadly.
Asleep…
Awake. Her mother was there but she was screaming and crying. Thera tried to call out to her, but she couldn’t make words.
Asleep.
Then the pain came. She’d been spared it before. Maybe the bolt from heaven had been too sudden to hurt? Like being able to see the fireball in the sky before she could hear it, pain was like sound. And now the pain had caught up.
In and out, awake and asleep, darkness and light, Thera was too frightened to know what was going on. She was hurt and scared, so she slept.
Somehow she was back in her own bed and her parents were there. Father looked tired. Mother had been crying a lot. It hurt too much to talk, to think, so she went back to sleep, this time for a very long time.
The seasons changed. Sometimes the pain was worse, and sometimes when it was better she could hear what was going on around her. Her mother sang to her a lot, but after a while the songs stopped.
Her father was always there though. He didn’t give up. He poured broth down her throat with a tube to keep her from starving. She heard him argue with people who declared that Thera was lingering between life and death, and that she would never wake up. Nobody could survive such a wound they said. She was dead, her body just didn’t realize it yet. It would be merciful to smother her with her pillow and put her out of her misery. Thera was scared to die, but thankfully her father ordered those men away.
Eventually other men came, but these weren’t warriors. They were of the first caste, and they told her father that he was needed on the border. He’d been gone from his post for too long. If he didn’t fulfill his duty, then someone else would be appointed phontho in his place.
“She’s in a coma. The only time she moves is when she has a seizure. Either kill her and end this pathetic existence, Andaman Vane, or turn her care over to a slave. The Thakoor has declared you are needed elsewhere.”
“I will not leave my daughter. The bolt from the heavens broke her skull, but it hasn’t broken her will. I know Thera will recover.”
When one of the men told father that even if she did wake up, she’d be nothing but a useless drooling imbecile—nothing to ruin his name over—he had struck the man down and, from the noise, taken off his belt and whipped them with it until he’d driven the first-caste men from their home.
Thera didn’t know how long she slept after that. It was rare when she could think, and that was when the pain was there. She was weak and useless, and at times she thought about giving up and drifting away, but each time she could hear the real world again, the pain seemed a little less.
Until the day she really woke up…
That was when the Voice first made itself known.
* * *
That had been a long time ago.
Father had kept her alive. She’d survived, but it had cost him his rank and ruined their family’s status. The bolt from heaven had caused her so much trouble in the years since then that at times she wished the damned thing had just killed her and gotten it over with.
As the dream faded, Thera remembered that she wasn’t a helpless little girl anymore, but rather a grown woman who’d made her own way in a very unforgiving world, and the second she got her hands on something sharp, someone was going to pay for knocking her out.
Thera woke up slowly, and as she did so, decided she must have been drugged. Head aching and vision fuzzy, she tried to move, but as a result had to fight off the sudden urge to vomit. She tried again, but slowly this time. Once she realized that she was being held down flat on her back with ropes across her chest and neck, it made her glad that she’d managed to keep the contents of her stomach down.
Her hands were tied. Her wrists hurt, skin rubbed raw against the cords. She couldn’t lift her head enough to see her feet, but she could tell there were ropes around her ankles as well. When she wiggled her toes she discovered she was barefoot. Her clothing had been replaced with an unfamiliar silk gown. In the process of taking her clothes, she had been deprived of all the many knives she normally kept on her person.
The orange light told her it was nearing sundown. There was a window big enough to climb through—if she could just get free—only then she realized there were metal bars over it. Except this was no prison, it was more like a rich man’s bedroom. There were shelves holding carvings of ivory and jade and even a few books. The bed beneath her was far too soft and smelled of perfumes. The walls were painted bright colors, and as her eyes focused she saw that they were covered in murals, though without rubbing the sleep from her eyes she couldn’t tell what the art was depicting.
The ropes were so tight she couldn’t even inhale fully. She struggled for a while, looking for any give at all, but there was nothing. She was stronger than most women, but this was enough rope to secure a team of horses. Whoever had put her here knew how to tie knots as good as any barge master. Pushing as hard as she could barely even made the heavy bed frame creak, and only seemed to make the knots tighten around her neck. Thera was stuck. After several minutes of futile twisting she let out a frustrated scream. Even that didn’t work to her satisfaction because her voice cracked. It was unknown how long they’d kept her unconscious, but it had been long enough that it felt like a small animal had been mummified in her mouth.
“Get Sikasso. The witch is awake again.”
Thera realized one of the mural walls was actually a sliding screen. The speaker was on the other side.
“Untie me!”
“Last time we did that you tried to gouge out my eye.”
She didn’t remember that at all. “Do you still have them both?”
“Despite your best efforts, yes.”
“Then untie me and let’s try again. This time I’ll pluck them out and cram them down your throat. Come on, you fish-eating bastard! Let’s go!”
“I swear she gets angrier every time she wakes up,” the man muttered.
Thera couldn’t remember waking up here before, or trying to thumb someone in the eye, though that did sound like something she would do.
“What do you mean? How long have I been here?” Despite a few other incoherent threats, Thera couldn’t get the man on the other side of the screen to keep talking. So she quit struggling and waited for the room to stop spinning. Her head hurt too much to remember how she had gotten here. Her memories were as blurry as her vision. Eventually both of those began to clear.
There had been an ice storm. She remembered Ashok getting into a fight with the entire village, and the ensuing battle against the mountain raiders, the blacking out as the Voice came over her, and returning to herself with a mob of workers gawking at her, then finally wizards dropping from the sky around her in the forms of great black birds.
Oceans…
Now that she could remember who had taken her, Thera knew she was doomed. She’d done her best to keep her odd affliction a secret from those who practiced magic. These wizards knew she was special, and all wizards were curious and greedy. They would figure out the source of her abilities, then they would probably saw the top of her skull off to pry it out.
Vision slowly improving, now she could tell there were other shadows on the opposite sides of those screens, and, from the long shapes, the men were holding weapons, ready to strike the instant she appeared to be a threat. As she looked to the ceiling, she came to understand that the thing hanging directly above her, which she had first taken as some sort of decorative lamp holder, was actually a trap made of sharpened stakes, like you would drop on a tiger in the jungle. If she’d slipped her bonds someone would cut a rope, the trap would fall, and she would be almost instantly pierced and crushed beneath it…And she had thought the ropes had been heavy-handed.
They were scared of her. The wizards might not understand what she could do, but they were taking no chances. Unfortunately for Thera, she was no real wizard, capable of amazing feats, controlling the elements, or changing her form. She was simply a woman with a curse that had brought her nothing but misery.
After an unknown amount of time, the screen slid open. The man who approached the bed was familiar, dressed in colorful silks, somewhere between young and old, neither attractive nor ugly, having a completely forgettable face, only he looked far worse for wear than when she had met him briefly in Jharlang.
“Where did your arm go?”
The wizard looked down at his empty sleeve, annoyed. “You’ve asked me that every single time we have spoken.”
“I don’t remember. Well, what happened to it?”
“Ashok Vadal cut it off with an axe.”
“He does that sort of thing.” Thera began to laugh at his misfortune.
The wizard backhanded her across the face. It stung.
“I already know you’re a foulmouthed, belligerent woman, Thera Vane. You have wasted enough of my time.” Despite striking her, his manner remained cold and aloof. “Let us begin again. I am Sikasso of the Lost House.”
“I feel like we’ve done this before.”
“Because we have, several times, and each time after we finished speaking I put you back to sleep. If necessary I will continue to do so, over and over, until I am satisfied I have the truth.”
She didn’t know how long that had been going on. Other than having what felt like the worst hangover of her life, she was fed and clean, but getting a limb removed with an ax was more traumatic than being knocked out and tied to a bed. Sikasso was walking around, but he still appeared weak, with big dark circles beneath those threatening eyes. So he hadn’t been recovering for too long.
“How long have I been here? A week? Two?”
“Long enough for you to have told us about the bolt from heaven, and how it is through you the Forgotten has been providing prophecies to the Keeper of Names.”
Thera hated the Voice. “I don’t know if it’s the Forgotten. I don’t know what it really is at all.”
“Your associates seem to think it is one of the old gods and you are its oracle.”
“There’s no god living inside me. It’s a thing that got inside my head, and every now and then it takes control to spout some gibberish for the fanatics to fawn over.”
“What sad manner of prophet doesn’t believe in their own prophecies?”
“One who would be rid of it if I could. The damned thing has ruined my life.”
“A tragedy,” Sikasso mockingly agreed. “So tell me, Thera, if this thing is not a god, how can it predict the future?”
She had no answer for that.
“We have been paying little attention to the rebellion in the south since it has not directly concerned us. False prophets come and go. This one was more successful than most, sending forth prophecies to motivate even the dullest casteless, but it was still of little interest to my people. Only then I saw what you could do with my own eyes, heard the words inside my own mind, and I could sense the power within you. It’s different than black steel or demons, and since those are the only two known sources of magic, what you did should be impossible. While you’ve been here, my people have searched out some of the prophecies you’ve given. They are surprisingly popular among the non-people. I was shocked to find that some of them have actually come true. How did you do that?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a wizard. How do you turn into a giant bird?”
Sikasso had a malicious smile. “The Lost House does not share its secrets so easily.”
“However shape shifting works, it must not help grow arms back.”
This time when he hit her, it was much harder. Thera saw stars. That wasn’t a warning like the first one. That was real anger.
She tried not to let him see her pain. She didn’t cry out. Thera had grown up in the warrior caste, where only victims showed weakness. Her eyes sent a message of hate as she tasted her own blood.
“Sensitive topic, I see.”
“Mark my words, Thera. I will find a way to repair this disfigurement, and once I do, I will take Ashok Vadal’s limbs, one by one, until he is a pathetic, armless, legless, lump of meat, begging me for death. And only then will I kick him into the sea.”
That wasn’t idle talk. It was a vow. However, it told Thera a few things. Sikasso wasn’t the kind of man who became loud when angry, but rather focused, which meant he was very dangerous. But more importantly, his reaction told her that Ashok had survived.
Not that she expected the living embodiment of the Law to go out of his way to rescue a criminal like her, but Sikasso didn’t know that. “He’ll be coming for me, you know. Ashok pledged his life to the rebellion.” She still didn’t grasp his reasons, because for a man with such a simplistic, straightforward view of the world, Ashok could be remarkably difficult to understand. “And there’s no rebellion without the Voice.”
“Yes, it has caused quite a bit of trouble, which is why if I can’t figure out the source of your power, then I will sell you to the Inquisition to recoup our costs. Perhaps they will have better luck unlocking your secrets.”
Thera felt a cold chill run up her spine. Whatever sad end she’d expected before, the Inquisition was worse. “I am more than happy to help you understand it.”
“You don’t even know who you would be helping.”
“You’re not the Inquisition.”
“We’ve had this conversation already, Thera. You’ve repeatedly told me how you just want to walk away and disappear. You are a survivor. You care about no one other than yourself. We have come to this point before. And each time I’ve laughed at your pathetic bargaining and used my magic instead. Yet, I haven’t been able to break through. I can’t understand what is in there.” Sikasso rudely stabbed one finger against her temple and pushed hard. Thera had to wince away.
“This mysterious power is tantalizingly close, but its true nature vexes me. If I thought dissecting you would give me its secrets, you would already be in pieces. Keeping you in a magical coma and combing through your memories doesn’t seem to work either. I’ve already burned through several valuable demon pieces, and even a precious flake of black steel. Whatever is inside you is capable of defending itself. When I push, it pushes back.”
“I’m not fond of it either. Why do you want it so badly?”
Sikasso seemed to think it over for a moment, mulling if it was worth giving her the truth, but it was hard to tell if that was just an act to make him seem more relatable. But he probably figured if he was going to put her back to sleep anyway, it wasn’t like she would remember this conversation.
“A few generations ago, my people were nearly exterminated as punishment for delving into illegal magic. The only reason we survived at all was because our knowledge was valuable to a few important men. For a hundred years we’ve lived in the shadows of the Law. They know we exist, but pretend we don’t. We live by their whim, and in exchange we occasionally serve as their secret killers. They pay us in magic, and the circle continues. We need them, and they need us, but oh…to break that cycle. A new source of magic could be the key. We want the same thing you want, Thera, the same thing your pathetic fish-eater rebellion wants. We merely want to be left alone.”
“I’d give you the damned thing if I could.”
“You’ve said that enough times I’ve begun to believe you. We’ve been treating you as if we’ve captured a mighty demon, but I’ve yet to see any sign that your mysterious gift can be used as a weapon. Repeatedly, you have tried to offer your cooperation for your freedom. So today, we will try this new approach.”
Thera would have nodded if she could. As far as she could remember, she wasn’t enjoying the old approach at all.
“If you are telling me the truth, and you have no desire to possess your odd magic. Perhaps together we can come to understand the source, so we can free you of it. Rather than being our prisoner, you shall be our guest.”
Provided the process of taking the Voice away didn’t kill her, being rid of the damned thing would be wonderful…But Thera simply said, “That sounds reasonable.”
“Guests behave themselves…Do you agree?”
“It would be impolite to disrespect such hospitality.”
Sikasso reached into the sash around his waist and retrieved a small piece of what appeared to be demon bone. All of the impossibly perfect knots simultaneously loosened by themselves. The heavy ropes slid off the bed. The odd fog that had been clouding her mind seemed to lift, and now the only pain she was feeling was from the back of Sikasso’s remaining hand.
No longer nauseous, Thera sat up quickly. The shadows behind the screens tensed. A sword was raised, ready to cut the rope and drop the tiger trap on her. She didn’t know what they expected her to do, unarmed, in a flimsy nightgown, but to show that she was no threat, rather than leap off the bed to try something stupid, she made a show of slowly rubbing the feeling back into her abraded wrists.
“Be warned, Thera Vane, I am not a tolerant host. Do not attempt to escape. Even if you could, we are in the wilderness far from civilization, beyond the reach of the Law. There is nowhere to go. Disobedience will be met with pain. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Thera answered, already contemplating how best to murder a one-armed wizard.
“Then the House of Assassins welcomes you.”