Assassin's Heart (Assassin's Heart, #1)(89)

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.”





thirty-eight


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.