The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,85
you cling harder to what little you still had. The rule applied to people and cities, kingdoms and empires.
“First the mother, then.” The creature jerked its chin at Giulietta. “What do you expect me to take for her?”
“My life.”
It sighed. “We’ve been through this. I don’t want your life. What use would you be to us dead?”
“Make me a counter-offer then.”
“Your death, highness. We’ll take your death.”
Tycho looked at him. There was nothing human in the creature’s smile. It was old and cold, immortal enough to make him shiver. He knew he would hate what came next. The question was whether he’d accept it.
“I don’t understand.”
“Why should that matter to me? Still, because I’m feeling kind . . .” Behind him, the diminished smirked. “If I take your life, you die. If I take your death, you live . . .”
“For ever?” Tycho asked.
“What would be the point otherwise?”
He would become like them, diminished and unable to die. No matter where he found himself or what was done to him there would be no escape. No salvation either. The woman he loved would grow old. She talked of souls. The incorruptible part of being human, only freed when the body died. If he never died, his soul would never go free. If he had one and today he doubted it.
“I accept,” Tycho said.
“Of course you do.” The creature smiled wide enough to show yellowing teeth. “And the baby,” it said. “Do you want to make me an offer . . .? Or shall I just tell you an acceptable price for its life?”
Tycho nodded.
“You’ll like this one. Well, perhaps like’s the wrong word. But I’m sure you’ll appreciate the subtlety. The price for Leo living is you give up his mother for ever.”
It couldn’t possibly . . .
Eyes cold as ice watched Tycho battle himself. In a second, Tycho condemned Leo to death and saw Giulietta with another child, his child. All of them growing older together. Except Tycho wouldn’t grow older. In the next second he unravelled the decision. He thought of Giulietta, who lay corpse-like on a slab in his mind, and Leo gurgling in the arms of the faun. Tycho wanted to die but he’d given that away already. The knot in his chest tightened and tears scalded his eyes.
The goat-heeled god nodded. “You agree?”
“Yes,” said Tycho, but he was shaking his head.
“Which is it?”
“Leo lives.” His words were a whisper, his throat so tight he could barely speak and so salt his tears tasted like blood. “I wish to speak to the child’s mother. Give me that at least.”
“Speak then, highness. She will hear you.”
“You have a fever,” Tycho said.
“Tycho?”
“Yes,” he said. “Me.”
“You abandoned me.” Her voice trembled.
“I’ve found Leo and he’s safe. I’m bringing him back to you.”
“Alexa,” Giulietta said suddenly. She sounded scared. “You murdered Alexa and changed sides. You’re lying to me about Leo.”
“She ordered me to kill her.”
“She what?”
“The Assassini kill when ordered. Alexa’s death was her final order. She was determined to make Alonzo believe I’d changed sides. She was dying, Giulietta. She chose it. I simply obeyed.”
“Leo’s really safe?”
“He’s safe and Roderigo’s dead. He came after me with wild soldiers but I killed him and half of them. Alonzo will be furious.”
As his sense of Giulietta faded, Tycho turned to find the faun in tears next to him, Leo clutched to her chest. Lifting the infant from her arms, he hugged Leo close, feeling the child snuffle against him. Where Leo had been pale he was now pink. The snot blocking his nose and the filth crusting his eyes were gone. “One question, highness,” the faun said shyly.
“I’m not a highness.”
She shrugged. “This form you took, this world to which you exiled yourself . . . What were you looking for that you became this?”
Tycho thought back to his memories of the beginning, which was not really his beginning, any more than he was the you she addressed. He thought of the warring gods and the battle for heaven, and had his answer. Some had fallen and some had not, and some had ended here. His mother had crossed half the world looking for it. Maybe her father had done the same, and his father, and so on.