Assassin's Heart (2 page)

“GODS, LEA!” VAL PUSHED HIS MASK TO THE TOP OF HIS
head. Worry and panic etched lines across his face.

Free of the cloak, I unbuttoned a pouch on my belt. It held nearly a dozen vials, each tightly stoppered with a scored cork. I ran my trembling fingers across the symbols known only to me, searching for the right one. My heart raced faster and faster.

My finger traced a loop with a line through it. The antidote. I yanked it from the pouch. My hand shook. The vial tumbled from my grip. The glass clinked against the stone street before it rolled away into the shadows.

Tears squeezed from my eyes. I didn't want to die like this.

The poison raced through my organs. It would attack my stomach, my heart, my brain. Once the full seizures started, no antidote would save me.

I groaned, reaching into the darkness. The poison turned my body against me. My arms jerked like a wounded seabird.

Val pushed me aside, his hands struggling against mine. The scrape of the vial as he snatched it from the street was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. He jerked the stopper out with his teeth and pulled out a dagger with his free hand.

“In your mouth or in your veins?” He clutched the open glass and the dagger in his gloved fingers, waiting for my answer. My voice emerged as a groan.

“Lea!” he shouted. “Which one?”

The poison rushed through my body. My head slammed the brick wall behind me. I opened my mouth as wide as I could, hoping he'd understand.

Val brought the vial to my lips, his other hand restraining my head. The liquid poured into my mouth, tepid and sharp. It tasted terrible, like soap soaked in urine.

Val clutched my hands, keeping them still. He took deep breaths and watched me closely, his eyes wide, his mouth tight, lines of worry creased in his forehead as he waited to see if I would die.

My breaths came easier and my heart slowed its racing pace. The pain in my stomach faded. I took a deep breath and Val sagged in relief.

“Gods.” He looked at the street before he reached for his mask. His fingers trembled as he pulled it down. He'd hidden his fear, and any other emotion he didn't want me to see. These were the things I loved about him, knowing he cared so much that he couldn't hide it from his face, that he needed the mask to hide it for him. That he'd been scared, yes, but
had reacted calmly. He had kept himself under control when I'd needed him.

“It's fine.” I exhaled. “She knew I had the antidote.”

“She?” He stood. “Your
mother
did this?”

I waved a shaky hand at him. “She's been testing me on poisons again. I should have expected this.”

When I was seven, I told my mother I hated poisons. Poisons meant distilling herbs in darkness, meant mixing things but not making a mess. Poisons meant death.

My oldest brother, Rafeo, said poisons were an important skill and that I should be proud I had such an affinity for them, because many did not.

He was only trying to make peace, but I didn't feel pride over poisons. I was proud of the feathered mask I'd sewn for Susten Day and how I'd only pricked my finger on the needle once. And that the wooden horse I'd carved had a flowing mane.

Mother had not been happy. My attitude was more proof I wasn't the daughter she wanted, that I wasn't the proud Saldana girl-child she felt she deserved.

Mother took the mask away.

After that, I stopped playing with embroidery needles, costumes, and childish toys, and instead focused on things that made
her
proud: knives and poisons and masks crafted from bone.

I unhooked my water skin and poured the tainted liquid onto the street. I'd be filling my own water from here on. Lesson learned, Mother. Again.

My hands wobbled as I restrung my water skin. Maybe next time she'd pick something less violent. Or maybe I could convince her now that I didn't need a next time. I could find an antidote under pressure. Even if I'd almost died this time, and would have without Val.

“That's crazy,” Val said. “Your Family is crazy.”

“It's not any crazier than yours. It's her way of making me a better clipper. Also, in the future, you shouldn't open vials with your teeth. You could accidentally poison yourself.”

He stared at me, expression unreadable behind his mask. “That's what you got out of this? That I could have poisoned myself while saving your life?”

His bravado would've been worthless if he'd died. “I'm just looking out for you.”

He exhaled, the air hissing against his mask. “Fine. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

His anger rolled off him like steam, but I'd learned long ago the best way to disarm Val's anger was to ignore it.

“Yes, actually.” I slowly shifted my seat and pulled a gold coin from another pocket. I handed it to him, my entire arm still shaking from the remnants of the poison. “Mark my kill for me, please.”

The coin had been stamped with the crest of the Saldana Family. Murder was illegal in Lovero, unless one was a member of a Family. As disciples of Safraella, pledged to Her dark work, all clippers were exempt and could accept assassination contracts.

“You know Estella doesn't want us marking kills,” Val said.

It had always been a tradition for the Families to mark their kills. But two years ago my aunt and uncle, our Family priest, and Rafeo's wife had died in a plague outbreak. Only by Safraella's grace had we all not caught the contagion.

The head of Val's Family died in the plague, too, along with other Da Vias, and afterward Estella Da Via had taken over and told the Da Vias to stop marking kills. She thought it was an antiquated way of worship and that the murder was enough.

My mother thought Estella was just a miser and wanted to keep the gold in their Family. Luckily, even though the Da Vias had the most money and members, no one wanted to see them as the first Family. The Saldanas tried to keep the entirety of the nine Families in mind when making decisions. The Da Vias cared only about themselves.

“I'm not asking you to mark
your
kill. I'm asking you to mark mine.” I paused to catch my breath. “For me. Surely your Family head won't begrudge you that.”

“My aunt makes her own rules for the Family.”

“You asked if you could help. Never mind. I'll do it.” I pushed against the wall, trying to get to my feet. My legs wobbled, and only my grip on the stonework kept me upright.

“Lea, don't.” Val gripped my arm. I clutched his shoulders and slid my fingers down his biceps as he lowered me back to the ground. “I'll do it. Just don't hurt yourself.”

I nodded, and he walked to the body in the street. Val knelt over him, then opened the man's mouth and slipped
the coin onto his tongue. The coin would act as a balm and prevent the man from becoming an angry ghost, because it signaled that the person deserved a quick rebirth. Instead of wandering the dead plains, Safraella, goddess of death, murder, and resurrection, patron of Lovero, would see the offering and grant him a faster return to a new life. A better life.

Val returned to the alley. He pulled me to my feet and I remained still, making sure I'd fully regained my balance.

“You should mark your own kills.” I tested my weight on one foot. “It's close to blasphemy that you don't, and my father plans to bring down an order that all nine Families must mark their kills.” The Saldanas as the first Family held the most power over the nine Families. Rank was decided by wealth, numbers, territory, and other factors that contributed to status. Once the Saldanas had been more numerous and rich, but ever since the plague, Father worried the other Families would force a vote for a new first Family. If enough of the Families voted against us, we could lose our position.

“I do whatever Estella tells us to do,” Val said. “You have a choice in how you relate to your father as the head of your Family, because even if he didn't love you, he can't afford to lose you. I'm pretty sure Estella hates everyone except the face she sees in the mirror.”

“Still, it's not right, Val.”

“A lot of things aren't right since the plague, Lea. A lot of things.” He looked away from me.

Val's parents had both succumbed to the plague. It was
what had brought us together, sharing grief over our dead. After that, he'd courted me, in secret of course, because no one could know about us, that rivals were involved romantically. And I let him.

I often wondered what Val missed more, his mother and father, even though they surely had been granted happy, new lives, or the way things had been for the Da Vias before Estella took charge.

“I can't break away from the Family in this, Lea.” Val lowered his voice. “I can't break from the Family in anything.”

I didn't respond. We were clippers. We all served Safraella faithfully. But this wasn't the first time I was reminded that Val and I lived in different worlds.

Yes, my mother had tried to kill me again tonight. But she'd done it to make me a better clipper. In her own, twisted way she was protecting me by making me stronger. If Val's Family ever tried to kill him, they'd make sure he wouldn't have an antidote.

“ARE YOU DONE FOR THE NIGHT?” VAL ASKED. “ARE YOU
hungry?”

We headed deeper into the alley, leaving the body in the street for the cleaners to remove. When they saw the coin in his mouth, they could record which Family had been responsible and notify relatives if the body was identified.

“After a job? Always. And I'm going to need some food to help fight off the remains of the poison.”

“Get changed and I'll meet you outside Fabricio's.”

I sighed. “Again?”

“We could go to Luca instead.”

“Why can't we go someplace your Family doesn't own? It's so risky.”

No one knew about us. No one
could
know about us. Not his Family. Not mine. And not any of the other Families, either, though the city of Ravenna belonged to the Da Vias and the Saldanas and none of the others would dare
trespass without permission.

He shrugged. “Any restaurant would be a risk, Lea. At least at Fabricio's or Luca we eat for free and we know the staff keep their mouths shut.”

I rolled my eyes but didn't push the point. The staff
did
keep quiet.

I tugged my cloak into place. “Fifteen minutes?”

He stretched his arms. “Ten.”

I laughed. So damn competitive. Of course, I couldn't stop my muscles twitching at the challenge, even if they were still sore.

He turned, but I snagged his hand at the last second. “Val. Thank you for being here, when I needed you.”

His eyes softened behind his mask. He nodded and squeezed my fingers before releasing me.

“Wait, one last thing.”

He groaned and faced me again.

I handed him a push dagger, a small knife that fit between the knuckles. “I think this is yours.”

He stared at the dagger, and then his eyes drifted up to mine. “When the hells did you lift that from me?”

I shrugged. “When you were helping me to the ground.”

“After you'd almost died from being poisoned?”

“Yes.”

He blinked a few more times, a sure sign he was organizing his thoughts. Val and I had an ongoing competition of lifting objects from each other, unnoticed. He was much better at it than me, so when opportunities came to catch
him off guard, I took them, even if it was a little unfair using my poisoning to my advantage.

Val shook his head and laughed. “All right. You're one up on me.”

I snatched his hand and pulled him against me, his body strong and solid. I tapped his mask where his lips would be. “Never underestimate me.”

He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me against him even tighter. We were so close I could almost feel his heart beating through his leathers as they creaked, could almost smell his skin. His warmth leaked into me, and I clutched his arms to remain steady.

“I never do.” He released me and sprinted away.

The race was on.

I climbed to the roof of the bordello. If Val beat me to Fabricio's, he'd lord it over me the whole dinner.

I raced over the rooftops of the city of Ravenna, gaining speed, sliding across tiles. If anyone saw my movement, they would attribute it to their imagination, or perhaps the wine in their skins. Or, if they were smart, they would attribute it a member of the nine Families, and they would turn away. It was said that to lay eyes upon a clipper while they were about their bloody business invited death. We didn't go out of our way to disprove the story. Fear made our jobs easier.

I reached a single-story building, dark behind its locked door. An art dealer, and the shop did indeed sell portraits, beautiful oil paintings with thin brushstrokes.

A hidden latch on the roof of the shop opened a secret
door. I dropped inside.

There were many such shops within the Ravenna city limits, all hidden storage points for the Saldana Family. There were safe houses for the Da Vias too, though I'd never seen one.

They were a closely guarded secret.

Most were simple places where one could change from leathers into something more appropriate, say, for meeting one's secret suitor for dinner. A few contained hidden entrances into a Family's home, the place where we lived, where we dined together and slept and were tutored as children. Our literal home. If a Family found another's Family home, there would be trouble.

Generations ago there had been twelve Families. Two of the three lost Families had been destroyed when another Family discovered their home. The current king, as a disciple of Safraella, had no authority over the Families and their relationships with one another. When he'd become king, he'd sworn an oath to remain unbiased in matters of the nine Families. If a Family wanted to war with another, the king could not intervene unless their feuding endangered people outside of the nine Families, the common.

All the Families were adversaries, of course, but some more than others. And sometimes it seemed the Da Vias and Saldanas were feuding the hardest, though maybe that was because we shared a territory.

I tossed my dirty leathers into a cupboard reserved for my things. My brothers Rafeo and Matteo also had cupboards
in this shop, along with our cousin Jesep. We were the only active Saldana clippers, though my mother and father would take a job if needed.

Since the plague, Mother often reminded me of my duty as a Saldana woman, to swell our ranks with as many children as possible.

I slid into a red velvet gown with a low bodice fastened along the ribs instead of the back for the type of self-dressing I often had to accomplish. My dirty-blond hair fit snugly into a silk snood, netting it away from my face, and a pair of flat lambskin ankle boots finished my attire. Nothing too fancy, since it was only dinner with Val. And because the Saldanas couldn't afford better at this time.

I slipped a dagger into my boot and secured a knife to my thigh. A clipper never went unarmed, even for dinner. I hung my mask and weapons carefully in my cupboard, then patted my chest, feeling the comforting weight of the key to enter our home around my neck. I never took it off.

I lifted my skirts and raced through alleys and backstreets, taking the shortest way to Fabricio's. Shops lined the streets—a locked flower stand, a bakery, and an alchemist's stand, his beak-shaped plague mask hung outside to show he was closed for the night. Ravenna was a night city, more than any other city in Lovero, but only the entertainment and refreshment establishments stayed open. The other businesses waited for the sun to rise to save on the cost of oil.

A salty breeze from the sea carried with it the sweet scent of the lantern oil used to light the streets. I inhaled and
smiled. Ravenna was the most beautiful of Lovero's cities, and its life soaked into my skin and muscles. I reveled in running through its streets. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world.

Fabricio's appeared before me, lanterns flickering. My breath eased in my throat, and I strolled casually to the front door. The restaurant pressed against the crumbling city walls. The walls had once been used to keep the ghosts out, but with Safraella the patron goddess of Lovero, the ghosts couldn't enter Loveran borders, even though the walls were cracked and collapsed. Ghosts could not cross onto holy ground, and now all of the country was considered holy. Before that, the ghosts would haunt the streets at night, stealing bodies and forcing people to hide in their homes. Now the ghosts just haunted the dead plains.

A small crowd of people waited at the entrance. A pinch-faced woman on the arm of a man dressed in colored silks too gaudy for the season glanced at my dress and sniffed.

Val dropped from Fabricio's roof to land beside me. The woman shrieked.

He wore black velvet with gold brocade visible through slashes on his sleeves. An elegantly stitched gray leather vest matched his knee-high boots. Diamonds winked in his ears, and a ruby ring flashed on his left pinkie. Val didn't purposely flaunt the Da Via wealth, but it was hard to ignore.

He scanned the crowd, including me.

I blinked slowly and nodded to him. A silent boast that said,
I beat you here.

He nodded back, politely.
As expected.

And though his eyes sparkled like his diamonds and a smile twitched at the corner of my mouth, no one would guess we were together. Which was how it needed to be. No one could know about us.

My breath caught in my throat as Val strode past the crowd to the doorman. The secrecy sent a thrill straight through the tips of my fingers.

“Ah, Master Da Via.” The doorman bowed deeply. “How wonderful of you to think of us on this lovely night.”

“My usual table, please,” he said.

The doorman bowed once more. “Come, come, I will seat you immediately.”

Val and the doorman disappeared inside. When the doorman returned, I stepped up next, earning a glower from the pinch-faced woman.

“Mistress Saldana, you grace us with your presence.”

I glanced over my shoulder, and the woman's glower turned into surprise as she recognized my name. When our eyes met, she dropped her gaze. I smirked. Where was her haughty attitude now?

The restaurant was packed, tables filled with couples enjoying a romantic meal, or more lively guests whose libations caused them to laugh too loudly.

I scanned the room for anyone who might recognize me. Val and I had entered separately, but it never hurt to assess one's surroundings.

The doorman led me into a small, curtained-off room.
Inside sat a table for two. The curtain closed behind me. I waited three breaths before I tapped on the left-hand wall.

The wall slid aside, and I ducked through to an identical room so no one in the restaurant would see us seated together. This room housed Val, waiting for me, curtain closed against prying eyes. I slid the wall closed.

He took my hand and kissed it, his lips soft and warm against my skin. I pulled away but could feel the blush spreading across my cheeks. “Don't be ridiculous,” I said.

He pulled out my chair and I sat down. He adjusted my snood, and his knuckles brushed against the back of my neck, lingering before he stepped away. I shivered.

We sipped the house wine and ate crusty bread and nutty cheese while we waited for our main course of duck in fig sauce.

“Did your father truly speak to the king about marking kills?” he asked. “Because my aunt won't be happy about that.”

“Does Estella truly believe not offering the coin will not offend Safraella?” Yes, Family came before family for clippers, but allegiance shouldn't ever come blindly.

“I don't know what Estella thinks. And I'm not going to ask her.”

A waiter appeared and served the duck. The greasy skin of the bird crackled, still hot from the fire. The scent of fresh rosemary and olive oil floated past me, and my stomach rumbled.

I was tired, and not just from the poison. “Why are we even talking about this? I don't have any sway over my father. And we both know your aunt is crazy.”

He reached across the table and squeezed my hand. Heat trailed down my body, and I squeezed back.

“That she is,” he said. “A man-hating old bat. But I suppose we have your uncle to thank for that.”

I pulled my hand away and drank my wine. “We don't talk about Marcello Saldana.”

“Which is funny, because my aunt rarely shuts up about her hated ex-husband. But don't let anyone else hear you speak against Estella so. She's the head of our Family for a reason, and the others would not stand the insult, even from a Saldana.”

“You mean
especially
from a Saldana.”

He grinned.

We attacked the bird, talk subsiding. When full, I set my napkin on the table and watched Val as he finished off the wine in his glass. He smiled. I used to think Val was vain and spoiled and self-indulgent. Now . . . now I felt the same way, but there was something to be said for capturing a vain man's gaze. And once I'd gotten close, it became apparent that much of that vanity was a shield he used to keep people away. The Da Vias were cutthroat, even in their own Family, and he had few people he could fully trust.

From outside our room a waiter's voice crept past our curtain as he spoke to another server. “Mistress Da Via
would like her duck more rare.”

We glanced at each other, and Val rubbed his eyes. “Damn it.”

I peeked past the curtain to the main room. Off to the right, at a table by herself, sat a woman heavy with child. I closed the curtain. “It's your sister.”

Val groaned and got to his feet. He glanced out the curtain. “What is she even doing here? She's going to have that baby any day.”

“Well, pregnant women
do
have to eat,” I suggested. Not that I had any love for Claudia Da Via. From everything Val had told me, she could be humorless and cruel. Which made it even more shocking, he'd said, when she'd wound up pregnant while unmarried. The pregnancy was fine, any Family would welcome an addition to the fold. But she'd refused to tell anyone who the father was, even when Estella had commanded her, except to say he was another clipper. It had become a bit of a scandal, everyone wondering who the father could be. Val thought it was probably someone from one of the lower families, a Gallo maybe, and that she was too ashamed to admit it.

“Do we wait her out, or sneak away?” I asked.

“If we wait, we'll be here forever.” Val straightened his vest. “No, I'll distract her while you leave quietly.”

I slipped back to my original room. Once there I watched through a gap in the curtain for the best time to leave unnoticed.

Val strode over to his sister and stood at her table. She looked up and scowled.

Claudia couldn't find out I had come here with Val.

Families could never work together, because it would give the allied Families too much power over the others. But clippers almost always married other clippers. The marriage usually bought a generation or two of peace between their Families, a temporary halt to any feuding.