Assassin's Heart (26 page)

WE GAVE THE MONASTERY LES'S HORSE. THEY LOOKED
dubiously at the ill-tempered animal, but I reminded them they could sell him for the coin.

Butters had been kept well fed and maintained in my absence. He nickered when he saw me. We saddled both horses and led them to the gate, where the usual mob of ghosts had gathered.

“Are you sure about this?” Les asked. Butters tossed his head and stomped his hoof, either raring to go or trying to impress Les's mare. She stood quietly, her ears flicking at Butters.

“No.” I stared at the ghosts. “But if it works, we can make up time.”

The priests swung the gates open. The cacophony from the ghosts rose in volume. Even with the gates open, though, they could not cross onto holy ground. They pressed themselves against the invisible barrier, trying to reach us.

“Are you ready?” I asked him.

“What's the worst that can happen?”

“Your soul could be pulled from your body and you could wander the dead plains for a thousand years?”

“And that's why I keep you around,
kalla
Lea. For your sense of humor.”

Butters huffed as we walked toward the dead plains. The moon was barely a sliver and already high in the sky. If this worked, we could push our horses and reach Lovero before the sun rose.

The ghosts stretched toward me, screaming. I urged Butters forward. The ghosts swarmed me, trying to be the first to claim my body, but when they touched me, they were driven back by a spark and flash of light, just as they'd been when I'd been attacked on the dead plains before.

“Les!” I glanced over my shoulder. He hesitated by the entrance. Then he shook his head and kicked his horse into the fray of ghosts. Miraculously, the ghosts swayed away. They could not touch him without being forced aside. We had looked upon the face of Safraella, and the ghosts could not rip our spirits from us.

Les directed his horse beside Butters. His chest heaved with heavy breaths. “I can't believe that worked.”

“Let's go!” I kicked Butters, who leaped into a gallop, happy to be given the chance to run once more.

Les gasped as his mare followed. He had a tight grip on the her mane but didn't jerk her head. We trailed a stream of angry ghosts. The dead did not tire and did not forget their rage.

I slowed Butters a little so Les could catch up and ride beside me.

“Will we go straight into Ravenna?” he yelled over the sound of the horses' hooves.

“No.” I shook my head. “They'll notice anyone who enters the city this late. We'll enter Lovero through Lilyan, then make our way to Ravenna.”

We urged the horses faster, trying to outrace the ghosts. Any that managed to reach us were deflected by an invisible barrier that surrounded us like the monastery, hurling them far away into the plains with a flash of light. It was as if we were holy ground. They tried to throw rocks at us, branches, anything they could find, but everything was deflected away. Our protection seemed to make them even angrier, if that was possible. Maybe they could sense how Safraella had touched us, had given us a new life while they were trapped with their rage and grief. Maybe they hated us even more because of it.

Perhaps I'd possess this protection for the rest of my life. Though I supposed it could be stripped from me once I did Safraella's bidding. If it remained, I could travel anywhere by land, see the world and not have to worry about the ghosts. It was a heady realization, that I could be so free if I chose. If I survived.

We crested a hill, the horses' breaths blowing heavily. Before us spread the river and the many-colored lights of Lovero.

I slowed Butters, allowing him to catch his breath. The
ghosts circled, but none tried to touch us. Their screams, though, were the loudest I'd ever heard. “Is that Lovero?” Les asked.

“Yes.” I pointed to the west. “Where the lights are the brightest, that's Ravenna, my city.” I shifted my hand more to the east. “That's Lilyan.”

“Will the Da Vias be watching the gate?”

“No. It's outside their territory. Unless things have changed since I've been gone. Lilyan belongs to the Caffarellis.”

“Won't
they
see us?”

I shrugged. It was a possibility. But we had to cross into the country somehow, and the only three cities that bordered the dead plains were Ravenna, Lilyan, and Genoni. “I'd rather take my chances with the Caffarellis than the Addamos or Da Vias. We'll wait for daylight to slip into Ravenna. The Da Vias will be sleeping and won't notice.”

I nudged Butters forward, and the ghosts chased us. The river wasn't far, and once we crossed the crooked bridge, they wouldn't be able to follow. Then it wouldn't matter how loud they wanted to be.

“It's beautiful.” Les stared at the lights of my home. “I've never seen anything like it.”

“Yes. It does have a kind of frantic, dark splendor. I've missed it. But it's funny—I thought I'd never get used to Yvain. The quiet way of the people and the nights, the stink of the canals, the flowers everywhere. But in Yvain, the stars are brighter.”

“Also, Yvain has dangerously handsome clippers, which I think Ravenna was missing.”

“Dangerously handsome?”

He held his head high and gestured to his face, his back straight.

“You're wearing your mask,” I pointed out.

“Ah. Yes. But a clipper girl once told me the mask was the most beautiful face of all.”

I laughed. The ghosts screeched and cried.

We reached the crooked bridge, and the horses' hooves clopped loudly against the stone. The ghosts tried to follow, but they couldn't turn when the bridge kinked to the left. They were stuck as we crossed the rest of the river.

They shrieked, more enraged now that we were escaping them. There were so many of them. I'd never seen such a congregation before. They raced along the riverbank, bellowing wordlessly as we rode farther away.

“I can't say I'll miss them,” Les said.

An explosion of noise erupted behind us: cracks and booms. Both horses spooked and jumped. Only my quick reflexes prevented Butters from bolting out from under me.

We turned in our saddles to face where we'd come from. Across the river, the ghosts had found a large oak tree on the bank. They had combined their powers to topple it across the river, its trunk and branches creating another, straighter bridge.

The ghosts rushed toward us.

“The hells with this!” I gave Butters his head. He sprinted
for the city, Les and his mare close behind. The ghosts roared as they rushed to catch us before we lost them.

“They'll get inside the city!” Les shouted.

Before us, the old gates to Lilyan rested crookedly against the crumbling city walls, rusted off their hinges. The gates hadn't been closed since Costanzo Sapienza took the throne and declared Safraella patron to all of Lovero.

We dashed into the city, the horses' hooves clattering loudly on the flagstones. I pulled Butters to a halt. His legs collected beneath him as he slid across the flagstones. The streets were filled with people. They shouted and pressed themselves against the buildings, trying to avoid the stallion before he crashed into them.

Finally Butters halted and I twisted in my saddle, looking for Les. He and his mare stood quietly, watching the city gates.

The ghosts tried to enter, but just as at the monastery, an invisible barrier protected the city. All of Lovero behind the old, crumbled walls was holy ground to them. As long as the king and his subjects continued to worship Safraella, She continued to protect them from the angry ghosts.

A few of the common shrieked and ran away from the ghosts as they pressed against the barrier.

“How did they get across the river?” A man peered at the ghosts from a safe distance.

“They knocked down a tree.” I slid off Butters. “They used it as a straight bridge.”

The man faced me. He wore a garish mask, covered in
feathers and gems. I glanced at the others and they, too, wore masks and beads and bright-colored clothing. The scent of alcohol wafted off them.

“Good clipper.” The man bowed courteously to me. “You grace us with your presence.”

“In the morning,” I said, “you will need to speak to your city officials and have someone remove the tree before more ghosts discover how to cross.” The ghosts couldn't enter the cities, but they could certainly snare anyone too drunk to notice where the walls ended.

I led Butters out of the crowd. Les followed. We'd already attracted enough attention. Any chance of sneaking into Lovero had been destroyed.

My home. I took a deep breath. I'd returned. I was so close now, so close to avenging my Family.

My chest tightened in the familiar ache I'd grown accustomed to since my Family's death. Since my terrible mistakes.

Tears welled in my eyes. We weren't even in Ravenna and yet everything reminded me of them. A food vendor selling Jesep's favorite pastries dusted with sugar. A puppet troupe that would have made Emile squeal with laughter. The smell of the oil, the same kind we'd used to light our house. I could feel my Family in the laughter and joy of the common. I could feel them in the very air.

Les walked beside me, the horses trailing. He glanced at the people we passed. Everyone bowed to us. “The people aren't afraid of you.”

I cleared my throat. “Oh, they're afraid. But their respect
is greater. Many of them dream of becoming favorable in the eyes of a Family, which would give them access to wealth and power and connections, not to mention an advantageous rebirth. Most of them will overlook their fear to take that chance.”

“And the masks?” He stared at a particularly loud mask on a woman who laughed uproariously at the man whose arm she clutched.

“Susten Day,” I said.

Susten Day was a holiday celebrating Safraella. It used to be my favorite holiday. The parties and food and dancing would last all night. And because everyone wore masks, I could be anyone I wanted. Now I knew that was the dream of a child. Safraella had offered me a chance to be someone else. I'd chosen to be me.

We broke out of the cramped street and reached an intersection, with a fountain and food vendors and entertainers. Fire breathers walked on stilts, their skin painted with gold and silver. Musicians played, their notes clashing with the songs people roared drunkenly off-key. The smells of the food vendors competed with the body odors of so many people. I wrinkled my nose. Had it always been like this? So boisterous and loud? It felt different, somehow. I'd always loved the noise and excitement, especially on Susten Day. Now it filled my senses, threatened to overwhelm me. It made me want to be somewhere else.

A group of children ran past, screaming and laughing behind their masks. A girl tripped and fell to the street before
Les. He helped her up.

“Thank you,” she said, then spied his mask. She backed away. When she reached a wall, she bowed hastily, then scampered after her friends.

He watched her go. “I've never had children frightened of me before.”

“That's only because the children of Yvain were in their beds when you were about your dark work. I promise you they would have run from you there had they seen you.”

We made our way through the square, people parting around our horses, many shouting glad welcomes when they saw our masks. We broke through to the other side and found a quieter, less crowded street.

I sighed. “We're attracting too much attention. We need to find a stable to board the horses and get out of Lilyan before the Caffarellis find us.”

A man in black leathers stepped out of an alley, clawed guards over his knuckles, the left side of his bone mask adorned with purple flames.

“Oh, Sister,” he said. “We already have.”

PURPLE FLAMES. CAFFARELLI COLORS. THE MASK TICKLED
my memory. I knew who this was, if I could only remember.

Three more clippers stepped from the shadows, each bone mask decorated with purple patterns that appeared almost black in the darkness.

Four of them. Fighting them would create a scene, and our only advantage lay in the fact that the Da Vias thought us dead.

“Brother.” I inclined my head respectfully. “We apologize for the intrusion into your territory. If you let us pass, we will leave and pay any restitution you deem necessary.”

We had to take this carefully. The Da Vias were the first Family now, and the other Families could easily be under their sway.

But my mother had been born a Caffarelli, so maybe that would be enough to buy us passage, if nothing more.

The clipper in front tapped his mask with the long metal claws of his left hand.

“What is it you're doing in Lilyan? Surely there are celebrations in your own territory?”

“We came from outside the walls.”

He sighed. “Now you are lying.”

“Brother,” one hissed to the clipper in front. Their leader leaned away without taking his eyes off us. When the whispers stopped, the leader examined us anew.

“Come closer.” He gestured with his claws. “Into the light.”

Les glanced at me. Whether we were standing in the shadows made no difference if it came to a fight. I slid into the beam cast by a lantern hanging from a balcony above us.

Les followed and we stood beside each other, one hand holding the reins of our horses, the other concealing a weapon behind us.

The leader shifted his weight, some of his tension receding. “We'd heard a Saldana survived, but here stand two of you. And I do not recognize your masks.”

I slid the mask to the top of my head. “The mask is new.”

He searched my face. “Lea Saldana, then.”

He pushed the hood of his cloak off, displaying messy, short, white-blond hair. He slid his own mask up.

He had a narrow face, with a nose that had been broken too many times. But he had laugh lines around his mouth, and his eyes looked relaxed and easy. He appeared to be a few years older than Les.

“Brando Caffarelli,” I said.

He gestured at himself. “Brand, cousin. My father was . . . grieved to hear of the loss of your mother.”

Traces of my mother showed in his appearance, especially in his hair color. I didn't know much about my mother's brother. I hardly knew anything about the Family she'd left behind when she married my father. She'd made it clear that the moment she became pregnant with Rafeo was the moment she gave up being a Caffarelli and became a Saldana.

Beside me Les pushed his mask to his head.

“Though,” Brand continued, “now with you before me, perhaps I can bring him glad tidings?”

I shook my head. “We are all that are left.”

He looked to Les. “I don't recognize you. You have the dark hair of some of the Saldanas but not much else. Certainly not their coloring or their stature.” Brand gestured at my diminutive height, and then flashed me a smile to show he meant no insult. I'd been short my whole life. So had my brothers and my father. I was used to the teasing remarks.

“Alessio Saldana,” Les introduced himself. A flush of pride spread across my cheeks and trailed down my throat.

Brand nodded and didn't question any further. If Les said he was a Saldana and had the mask to prove it, the other Families would take it as truth.

Brand spoke inaudibly to the three Caffarellis behind him. They disappeared into the shadows of the streets.

“So.” He gestured for us to follow him into a quieter
square, with a garden and benches. He took a seat and we tied the horses to a pergola, letting them graze at the grasses of the garden, before sitting across from him. “Are you here to deal with the Da Vias?”

I folded my hands in my lap. “Yes. They've turned to another god. They're false worshippers.”

Brand hissed between his teeth. “How do you know this? That is a grave accusation.”

“Witnesses in Yvain. And I've seen some minor blasphemies from a few of them. I'd thought they were just being . . .”

“Cocky bastards?” Brand supplied.

“Yes. But they crossed the dead plains at night with the help of a priest of Daedara.”

Brand frowned.

“You could help us,” Les said.

I made a small noise in the back of my throat, and Les glanced at me. Help. Help killing the Da Vias. It was what I'd always needed, always wanted. It was why I had traveled to Yvain to find my uncle. I had thought the Caffarellis would refuse me, would side with the Da Vias, who had all the power now that the Saldanas were dead, but maybe I'd been wrong. Maybe they would have helped me all along, if I'd only put my pride aside and asked.

Brand leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, fingers interweaving together. “I can't see my father agreeing to that.”

Les frowned. “Why not? The Da Vias are traitors to their
masks. They lessen the status of all clippers.”

Brand waved a hand. “It's not that I don't believe you.” He rubbed a knuckle down the bridge of his nose. “My father is a cautious man. He will not take a stance against the Da Vias, not with their numbers and their wealth.”

“Not even as they worship another god?” Les asked.

Brand shrugged. “He would take a stand against that. I think many of the Families would, especially if it meant destroying the Da Vias once and for all. And certainly the Sapienzas would order us to if they discovered the truth about them. But no one, including my own Family, will take a step against the Da Vias without hard proof. Not with the power they wield. Your word is not enough, cousin.”

My hopes deflated. He was right. Even Costanzo Sapienza, the king, for all that he loved my father, wouldn't take a stand against the Da Vias unless he had proof before him that they were traitors to our way of life.

What they'd done was so dangerous and stupid. All those people the Da Vias had clipped, supposedly in the name of Safraella, had been during their secret worship of Daedara. Many now probably wandered the dead plains as ghosts. And since the Da Vias had been hiding such treachery, it would be easy for the common to believe it of the rest of the Families. Or the king. The common would turn on us, believing us to be indiscriminate killers. It would create pandemonium.

The Da Vias played with fire and didn't seem to care if the whole country burned for it.

“If you could get the Bartolomeos and Accursos to agree
to an attack,” Brand said, “I could probably convince my father then.”

“There's no time to speak to anyone else,” I said, “even if they agreed to meet with me. The Saldanas don't share blood with them.”

“My father won't agree to just us, the fourth Family, alone.”

“Fifth Family,” I corrected.

Brand smiled sadly. “Fourth, cousin. We both know the Saldanas will never be the first Family again. At least, not in our lifetimes.”

He was right, of course. But to be confronted so firmly with the loss of our status was to feel the pain of the loss of my Family again. Everything my Family had worked toward for generations, all the death and war faced by my father to put Costanzo Sapienza on the throne, ruined by the Da Vias.

“Maybe . . .” Brand hesitated. “Maybe you should let your Family go. You could join another Family. You could marry into the Caffarellis. We would be happy to have you.
I
would still be happy to have you.”

Beside me, Les bent closer. He stared at Brand with hard eyes.

Brand leaned away, hands held before him. “I meant no disrespect. I didn't realize you had claims on each other. Adoption, then. My father would take both of you.”

It would be so easy, to give it all up, to join Brand and his Family knowing that, truthfully, they were my blood family as well. To not have to be in charge, be the head of a Family,
even though there were only two of us. Three if we saved Marcello.

But I'd stood before Safraella, felt the divine pain when She'd kissed me back to life. Whoever said death wouldn't hurt? She'd asked me. And truly, whoever said life was supposed to be free of suffering?

If I gave up now, it would be to turn my back on Her gift of resurrection. To turn my back on Her. I would be no better than the Da Vias.

I shook my head. “No. I'm sorry. The offer is gracious, but we cannot accept. We must do this thing.”

From a dark alley, a Caffarelli clipper appeared. He leaned over and mumbled something to Brand before disappearing into the busy streets once more.

Brand stood. “My father says you are welcome to board your horses and to seek shelter in our territory through the end of Susten Day, tomorrow night. After that, he wants you gone.”

Les scowled, but I nodded. We didn't need more time.

We'd make our move against the Da Vias tomorrow.