He raised a sword. He spared a brief, regretful thought for the townspeople hidden in the tunnel at his back, hating to have so many witnesses see him this way. Then he swept the sword toward the girl’s neck in a quick, fatal arc.
The girl ripped off her mask and thrust it forward like a shield. As she did, she shouted something. The clash of the sword hitting the mask obscured most of the word. Sparks erupted where the unforged metal met the steel of Tal’s blade, blinding him for a moment, and he jerked back to a defensive pose as he blinked the spots away. The girl wasn’t attacking, though. The force of the blow had knocked the mask out of her hands, and it now lay face-up in the puddle, brackish water seeping through one eyehole.
It was then that Tal’s mind began to register what it was the girl had said when she’d lifted her mask. Tal. His name.
He peered into the shadows before him, a strange tincture of dread and hope trickling through his veins. It had been a long time since anyone but the Destroyer had called him by name. Many nights, he’d lie awake fantasizing about what it would feel like to see a friendly face, to hear his name on the lips of someone he didn’t hate with every fiber of his being. But if the girl before him knew Tal in more than just the vaguely familiar way he’d expected, it would only make this infinitely harder and more painful than it would have been otherwise. Because the assassin had attacked the Destroyer, and Tal could even now feel his oath ghosting through the hollow spots between bone and muscle, ready to take hold and compel him to end the girl’s life if he refused to do it of his own volition.
Still, a terrible, morbid curiosity nudged him forward. He edged closer to the shadows. “Who are you?” he said, regretting the words even as he spoke them.
A strangled laugh. Her voice was sounding less flippant and more pained with every passing moment. “I know it’s been two years, little brother, but I thought you’d recognize my blade if not my face.”
Tal froze. The dread rose up, drowned his hope in horror, and swallowed him wholly after. He fumbled at his belt. His movements were clumsy, and the dagger he’d tucked there fell onto the ground with an ungraceful clank. The handle was etched silver. Scratches marred the blade. He’d put most of them there himself, when she’d been training him.
“No,” he breathed, trying with all his strength to stop the next word from slipping out, trying to stop it from being true, but he was helpless against it: “Nyx.”
His older sister. The one he’d left behind that day two years ago, when he’d gone to fulfill his visions against her will. His gaze shot back to her. She’d grown into herself while he was gone. Her lanky limbs were now lean with muscle, her face sharp with angles and intelligence. A multitude of small scars crisscrossed over her arms. Training injuries. She could afford them as he could not, because she had no affinity, no unsanctioned metal in her blood to connect her to the Unforged God and provide her with a special magic. Not that she’d ever wanted to be a Smith anyway. She’d raged against his visions, raged against the god who would have him fulfill them.
And yet here she was in a Saint’s mask.
It was an unimportant mystery compared to the urgency of the moment. Tal could feel the oath sinking its tendrils into him now, like a vine strangling a tree. He had seconds to figure out how to save his sister. His mind jolted from possibility to plan to wild idea and back again. In the last two years, he’d tried everything to get out of his oath. Throwing his weapons down only meant he had to kill with his bare hands. Holding the oath back through sheer force of will sapped his strength quickly and only bought seconds. He’d even tried destroying the crown that held his oath—an act that he knew would kill him along with it—once last year, when his bitterness had finally grown beyond the reach of his faith. It hadn’t worked. The magic of his promise had taken over and moved him like a puppet to safety.
But he hadn’t been truly desperate then, not like he was now, with his sister—the only family he had left—standing before him. “Nyx,” he ground out, “run.”
But she shook her head and pushed away from the wall, moving toward him. He flung himself backwards. His hands were clenched so tightly that his swords shook and his knuckles ached. “Run,” he ordered again as the tendrils of his oath sank deeper. He had seconds. She had seconds.
His god was cruel, or perhaps just uncaring. Tal had realized that long ago. This, though, this was beyond cruelty, and far beyond indifference. The boy he used to be urged him to pray, to repent of whatever he’d done wrong to earn this horrific fate, but he shoved the urge away with as much violence as he could muster.
“I want to be taken to the Destroyer,” Nyx said, stopping in front of him. She wavered on her feet. He’d cut her shoulder deeply, and she’d lost a lot of blood.
He registered her words. His eyes widened. “No. Nyx, no, that’s worse.” Whatever the Destroyer might do to a failed assassin would be far, far more painful than the quick death she’d sent Tal to deal out.
“It’s my right,” Nyx insisted. Her words were still labored, her familiar voice made alien by pain. “I have…a right to a trial.”
It was true. The oath eased away, gave Tal full control of his limbs again, but he could only
