All she wanted was for some bastard to show up and challenge her. That way, she could kill him or at least weaken him to the point that Tristan could finish him off.
Samuel was dead. It didn’t feel real. She’d had her issues with him over the years, but he was a good man who meant well for her and the Society. It’d taken her a while to appreciate that.
“Are you sure nothing else is wrong?” Jofi asked. “You seem unusually glum.”
“It’s all under control,” Lyssa replied. She paused. “No, that’s not true.”
Lying to Jofi was the worst part. Whatever people kept telling her, she’d grown used to him as something far more than a way to help channel powerful spells. He might not be human, but he was as much her friend as Aisha or Serafina. She understood why they needed to conduct the ritual, and it was the best choice given the situation, but that didn’t make her feel any better about it.
“What’s the problem, then?” Jofi asked. “I might not understand all the intricacies of humanity, but talking about it might make you feel better.”
“Assassins caught up with Samuel again,” Lyssa replied. “This time, they won.”
“That’s unfortunate. Elder Samuel seemed like a reasonable man.”
“I wonder if I could have drawn them off him if I had stuck around. They might not have sent them at him if they could take a poke at my house.” Lyssa burst out, “Hell, I wonder if I’m the reason they found him.”
“He was not a Torch, but he was not weak,” Jofi said. “I doubt they were able to track him because of you, and if they knew you were present, they would have sent more people to conquer both targets.”
Lyssa thought that over. Jofi was right. Whoever was behind it was already sending multiple teams at people, not a single assassin. Her presence in America wouldn’t have achieved anything more than adding dead mercenaries to the growing pile.
That didn’t make her feel better. Compromises and sacrifices defined life, but she was getting sick of the people she cared about going down while the sick rogue bastards kept hiding. When the ritual was over, she’d do everything she could to force the Tribunal to allow her to help hunt down Samuel’s killer, with or without Tristan St. James’s assistance.
Jofi was her friend and made her stronger, but she’d worked as a Torch for years without him. She wasn’t defined by the showstoppers and Tenebrous Air.
“Okay. Nothing left to do but stick to the original plan.” Lyssa scoffed. “Everyone wants to use me as bait, so I’ll be bait.”
“I’d suggest not leaving me behind in the near future then,” Jofi said.
“I don’t plan to.”
It didn’t help that her unease had grown since her arrival on the island. She couldn’t talk to Jofi about it to calm herself, but she could try to meet him halfway for both their sakes. It’d be a long week of waiting otherwise.
Lyssa watched a seagull in the distance dive toward a boat. “I feel like there’s something I’m missing. I keep wondering if Tristan has played me somehow. I’ve lost control of this situation. A lot of people said I might do that by coming here, but it’s gotten worse.”
“You don’t trust him?” Jofi asked. “Do you think he’s behind it? The easiest solution would be to kill him the next time you see him. If you engage him here, based on what I’ve heard, the local Illuminated will aid you.”
“That’s true, but I don’t believe he’s behind it all,” Lyssa explained, “if he were, he would have killed me when he had the chance, not go through this whole convoluted plan. I accept that he is trying to target people he thinks are corrupt, but I question his methods and how it might affect me and people I know.”
“It does sound like you don’t trust him.”
“I don’t trust anyone at this point. Everyone seems to suspect everyone else of something, and the only thing I know for sure is that Sorcerers are dying, and someone wants to kill me. The ghost town proved that.” Lyssa curled her hands into fists. “It’s annoying, and all I want is someone who I can point you at and shoot. The Society should be handling all this, not relying on stupid, desperate tricks.” She frowned. “You know what? Sitting in my room brooding isn’t going to help. The beach isn’t far. Maybe that’ll help me think.”
“Am I coming?” Jofi asked.
“Definitely. Maybe I’ll even get lucky, and our assassin will show up.”
Lyssa wandered the beach, her boots leaving prints in the sand. There wasn’t anyone nearby. The beach lay close to the docks and the boats.
Her plan had worked on one level. The calls of the gulls and the crash of the waves soothed her, but no one showed up to assassinate her.
She could have gone swimming if she wanted to. The water right off Last Remnant was always a perfect temperature, the weather almost always reasonable, the clouds sparse and pretty, never gloomy. Thousands of years of effort and design had produced a pleasant, temperate place with no dangerous animals and almost no disease. It was Shangri-La on a hidden island rather than the creepy gothic hellscape the average Shadow imagined, setting aside the small volcanic region on the island that looked like a good place to destroy a Ring of Power.
Lyssa chuckled to herself. She’d always thought Tolkien had been a Sorcerer or knew Sorcerers, given his emphasis on a fallen age of magical power and wonder, but from what she’d been told, he was nothing more than a creative Shadow author.
Perfect water and contained volcanoes didn’t make a place paradise. They hadn’t been able to fix the most important problem, human nature. Illuminated liked to pretend they were better than normal people,
