never weak, until the very end, and even then Tahal had taken steps to ensure the empire would remain whole. The deaths of his boys ensured a unified palace and a unified army…
And yet, what was good for the empire had been poison for Eyul. Tahal had loved him, and Tahal had destroyed him. He’d given Eyul the Knife, knowing what was to come. He had doomed him—
No; before Tahal there had been Herran, and before him Halim, and before that, Eyul himself. He had been chosen for his nature.
He threw the bowls to the sand and looked at his tent. The nightmares waited for him there. He did not wish for sleep, nor did he wish to wait here for the full light of the sun.
A sandcat appeared over the crest of the dune, its lithe body slinking towards him. Dawn gleamed along its yellow hide. A good hunter, it could overwhelm its prey in seconds—as could he. The animal watched him, its head low, its green eyes shining in the rising sun.
Eyul met its gaze, his shoulders falling in relief. “I am tired of hunting, my friend. If you want me, I am here.”
“No.”
Eyul was startled—had the whisper come from Amalya? The cat took one step towards him, then turned away, drawn perhaps by an easier kill beyond the dune. A flick of its paws, and it disappeared from sight. It was only then that Eyul felt his fingers on the hilt of his Knife, ready to draw. Not so ready to die then after all.
He unbuckled his belt. The leather, worn as it was, felt rough in his hands. He laid it out, checking it from buckle to pointed end. The Knife looked small, powerless in its sheath, the metal of the hilt twisting dark against the lighter color of the dune. A gusting wind kicked sand against Eyul’s back, tiny needles pricking his neck, and he stretched, feeling light without his weapon.
Wrapping the bandage around his eyes, he counted fifteen steps to Amalya’s tent. He dropped to his knees and scratched lightly at the flap.
A rustle, and then her voice came, velvety with sleep. “Eyul?”
“When we met, you asked me how I became an assassin.” She was silent, but he felt her listening on the other side of the cloth.
“There was a man—a cruel man. Jarek. I spent many days with him, weeks, maybe months.”
“He taught you to kill?”
The simplicity of her question caught him off-guard. “No—no, at the time I was just a boy lifting purses.” He remembered hiding in a doorway, slipping after his mark, the soft feel of leather against his fingers, and the shouts, the chase.
“The guards said I’d lose my hand, but first they put me in Jarek’s cell.” For a moment he felt Jarek’s breath on his neck, heard the shouts of the guards taking bets. When will the boy scream? Eyul cleared his throat. “He didn’t know how to kill, at least, not on purpose.”
“I see.”
He drew his fingers through the sand, as he’d seen the hermit do, and closed his eyes against the morning light. “One day—I remember it was a cold day—they passed a sword through the bars to me. They said if I killed Jarek, they’d let me go. A visitor came and watched me try. He was young, well-dressed.” No bets were taken that day, in deference to the visitor with green robes and serious eyes.
Halim had always been serious. Each turn of the blade, every thrust and step, could save or end your life, he’d said. In training there had been no cause for levity. In the end, Halim had been a better teacher than an assassin. He’d died when Eyul’s beard was still new and soft on his cheeks. Halim never knew grey hairs or creaking joints, but he had known regret. The one thing he never taught Eyul was how to live with it.
“Eyul?” Amalya’s voice brought him to the present.
He shook off the memories. “I couldn’t, even after all the things he’d done to me… When he was on the floor, pleading for his life, I couldn’t do it. I had to tell the jailers to take my hand after all.”
“But they didn’t.”
“No.” His right hand went to his hip, searching for the familiar Knife, and found nothing there. “It was a test. The assassins look for mercy in their young recruits. Then they show us how death itself is a mercy.”
She reached out to him then, soft fingers on his