darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,94
simultaneously scares those who know her well and irritates most of the rest by being younger and obviously better than they are. I have to go. That leaves you.”
Jax took a deep breath. “I know all that, and I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I just hate it.” Now she fixed me with her hardest stare. “Oh, and if you don’t come back from this, I swear that I will track your ghost down and pickle it in a bottle of vinegar.”
“Harsh.” I grinned. “But probably fair, though I do have to protest the vinegar. You could at least make it good Aveni whiskey. Kyle’s eighteen, maybe?”
“Don’t you think you’ve spent enough time marinating in a whiskey bottle?” she asked.
She said it gently enough, but it burned, and I actually welcomed the pain. That I had even mentioned the Kyle’s said things about what was going on in the back of my head that I didn’t like. I had conquered my drinking for the moment, but I was under no illusions that I couldn’t lose myself in the bottle again if I let my guard relax.
There were too many times when I really, really wanted to just let everything go for a while, as I used to be able to when I had a bottle to hand. Like, say, every single time I remembered what it felt like to put a sword through Faran’s wrist, a memory that wasn’t going to fade any time soon. Or when I thought about actually killing the Son of Heaven and what that would mean for the world as opposed to the more straightforward task of reaching him.
“Aral?” Jax spoke with a note of real concern. “Are you all right? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
I put a finger to her lips. “I know you didn’t, and you’ve no reason to apologize for anything. But that was point and bout together, and . . . well, let’s leave it at that.”
“All right.” She nodded. “So, next thing on my list.”
“Wait, there’s a list?”
“Of course there’s a list.” She glanced skyward as if asking for patience. “It’s like you don’t know me at all . . . which might explain why our engagement foundered on the rocks, actually.”
This time I smiled at her tease. It was delivered in a manner more barbed and arch, but simultaneously much less painful than the whiskey comment. The book on that relationship had closed long ago, and I couldn’t imagine it ever opening again.
“It might explain it at that,” I said. “So, your list . . .”
“First, I don’t want you to go alone.”
“We won’t,” said Triss, obviously deciding that we had moved away from the dangerous personal topics. “Siri will be with us, and Faran.”
“Yes, and Kelos.” Jax lifted an eyebrow. “The very three people you said couldn’t be trusted to run things here in your absence.”
“Not fair,” said Sshayar. “The reasoning and structure of a mission to kill the Son of Heaven is completely different from that of maintaining the beginnings of a new order of Blades.”
Jax snorted and put the back of a hand to her forehead. “Betrayed by mine own shadow. Oh, the indignity. La.”
“Not that she’s wrong about any of that,” I said.
“Not that she’s wrong,” agreed Jax. She held up a finger. “I suspect that Faran would eat her own heart raw if she thought it would protect you at this point—foolish girl.” Another finger. “I trust Siri completely where neither you nor she does. Even if you have killed another king since the last time I saw you, she’s still better than you are. And that’s without whatever new secret talents she’s added along with the smoke in her hair.” She added a thumb. “Kelos is Kelos. I don’t trust him, but if your interests and his coincide, as I think they do here, there is quite literally no one in the world better to guard your back.”
I suppose that I should have been surprised that she’d figured out Siri had a new set of hole cards, but I wasn’t—Jax is very smart. “So, what’s your point?” I asked. “Or list? Or whatever it is you were about to get at?”
“I want you to take Maryam with you, and Roric.”
“Absolutely not. This mission is already too big for my comfort. Trying to sneak four assassins in close to the Son of Heaven is probably three too many. An army isn’t what I need here.”