Assassin's Heart (Assassin's Heart, #1)(15)

Once out of the bath I stood in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection.

I still looked the same. Everything had changed. Everything. And yet my face stared back at me the way it always had. My eyes were still brown, my hair was still long and blond.

I ran my fingers through the strands, pulling apart any tangles. It wasn’t fair. I was different on the inside. I should look different on the outside.

I dug through my leathers until I found what I was searching for.

The knife sliced my hair easily and the chunks fell across my bare feet, piling to my ankles before I was finally done.

I left it long enough to pull back to keep out of my face when I wore my mask, but barely.

There. Now the girl who looked back was someone different. Just like the girl on the inside.

In my room I crawled under the blankets, pulling my knees up against my chest. My muscles still ached, weary from everything, but my mind wouldn’t be still.

All I could picture was Val in the alley, dangling my key from his fingers before I’d snatched it back. He had taken it from me at the beginning of dinner, at a restaurant his Family owned. Anyone could have made an imprint of it while we dined, while he stroked my fingers. And then we’d fled to the alley and he’d kissed me, all while his Family plotted to destroy mine.

My fault. All my fault.

Tears soaked into the pillow beneath my head. I wept steadily. My grief stretched on and on, endless. When I’d manage to regain control of myself, my body, I’d remember someone I had lost: my father, my mother, Matteo, or Jesep. Emile. Rafeo. Then the tears would start again.

I’d left Rafeo in the tunnel, and I’d left my mother in our burning home. I was alone now. The only Saldana remaining, and I’d gotten my Family killed because I’d loved a boy in secret who used that love to destroy me.

I cried until my cheeks burned from the salt, until my skin chapped and my head pounded. Then, finally, my body empty, I slept.





seven


STALL OWNERS CLOSED UP SHOP BELOW MY OPEN window. I’d slept through the rest of the night and the day. My eyes were sticky and sore with dried tears. My muscles begged me not to move.

I’d never slept so heavily before—like I’d slept for years. I scrunched under the blankets. Maybe I could simply not wake up. Ever.

Footsteps pounded outside my room as other guests went about their business. It was no use. I couldn’t stay like this. I couldn’t give up.

I climbed out of bed, the wooden planked floor rough beneath my bare feet. I stood in front of the mirror over the bureau and smoothed my newly shorn hair.

What would I do? The only thing I could do.

Kill everyone responsible.

I jerked on my hair, pinching my scalp. I pictured Val in his leathers, leaning against an alley wall as he kissed me. I saw him laughing, his smile lightening the mood. Then my chest constricted as I pictured Emile as he tried to outrun bedtime. And my father, removing his glasses and massaging the bridge of his nose where they always rubbed him sore.

I pictured Rafeo dead in the tunnel, his leathers soaked in blood, his skin cold.

My throat burned. I coughed, then swallowed. If Val had been a part of the fire, I’d have to kill him. If he’d helped kill my Family, then he deserved to die. It was that simple.

Even if I loved him.

Even if more killing wasn’t the answer.

I paused, my fingers entangled in my hair. “I’m a clipper, a disciple of Safraella,” I said to my reflection. “Murder is always the answer.”

I pulled out my leathers and set about dressing myself. I needed to verify that it was the Da Vias who’d attacked us. Then I’d make a plan. The Da Vias numbered over fifty active clippers. I couldn’t take them out one by one. They’d catch on.

No, I needed to kill them the way they’d killed us.

If I found their home, I could burn them out.

If only I had help . . .

The Caffarellis. Maybe I could reach out to them. There had been the marriage prospect, and my mother had belonged to them, once.

But why would they offer aid? The Da Vias were now the most powerful Family. The Caffarellis ranked fifth. They couldn’t defeat the Da Vias even if they agreed to help me.

Probably they would just hand me over to the Da Vias to curry favor.

I tightened the buckles on my boots until my calves ached. No other Family would assist me. Not now, even if they hated the Da Vias.

No. I couldn’t trust them. I couldn’t trust anyone ever again.

I could give it all up. Bury my clothes, the mask. Become a different person. I could be a glassblower. A seamstress. No one need ever know who I was, what I could do.

Safraella would know. I couldn’t abandon my duties to Her and Her subjects.

I paused. My mind turned. I did need help, though. Someone who couldn’t abandon me. Someone who could help me fix things.

Time to visit the king.

The three Loveran cities that bordered the fields in front of the dead plains, Ravenna, Lilyan, and Genoni, pressed against one another like drunks in a barroom, their boundaries blurred by buildings that spilled across the city lines. Lilyan was smaller than Ravenna, but because the Caffarellis didn’t have to share territory, like the Saldanas and Da Vias in Ravenna, they had more space. The southern cities and territories spread out more freely, with farmland and room between them.

The king’s palace, located in Genoni, sat in the center of Addamo territory. Even if I could avoid the Addamos, and they were lacking in the skills of stealth and fighting technique, it would take too long to travel on foot. I’d need my horse if I wanted to speak to the king, Costanzo Sapienza.