down and held her wrist as he led her through the main entrance of the building.
At the counter, the wrinkled man in charge raised his balding head to regard them. “Can I help you?”
“Omi Master, I wish to purchase this woman.” Brenin tugged Hessa up to the counter. He kept a tight grip on her so that she couldn’t run. But his words served to confuse her even more. She had expected to be turned in, not this. Why would he want to buy her? What could his motive be? He didn’t know her, didn’t have need of anything. He was Brenin Drake, the highest paid and mostly deadly assassin known to the city. But his yeinei had said he was no longer an assassin; that comment puzzled Hessa.
“Ah. Lord Brenin.” The old man smirked. “There are other, more attractive, women available. Are you certain this is the one you want?”
“Yes.” He sighed and offered a grim look of disdain. “I have a woman to warm my bed. This one will have other tasks. How much for her?”
The master reached across and touched Hessa’s scarred cheek. “I know this girl. She has no guild traits. Not desirable as a brothel ward. Only good for hard labor.” He pulled his hand away. “Basic laborers are ten.”
Brenin reached into his purse and counted out the coins. “I want the Omi mark burned out.”
“Do you want your mark upon her?”
Brenin squeezed Hessa’s arm before he released it. “Of course. She is mine and all my possessions bear my mark.”
The man raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. After turning his back to them, he searched the bookshelf behind him for the tome that contained Hessa’s records. He flipped through the pages until he came to the sad entry of her birth. Her mother’s name was scrawled there in neat writing, marks that she couldn’t understand made to represent a woman she had never met or known. “Sign here to claim her. I will have her delivered to your home this evening.”
Brenin drew his name across the parchment in a flourished font. Hessa stood there staring at the marks, wishing she could read, and astonished that she had been sold away to a new master as simply as that. Brenin stomped out before she could thank him.
“Get to the bathhouse,” the man behind the counter said. “I’ll have a woman clean you up and dress you better than those rags. It wouldn’t do for you to come to the Lord’s house in such a poor state. I don’t know why he wants the likes of you.” He frowned. “Unless he thinks you are his twin because of your scars. Could be that.” He snorted out a sardonic laugh before he waved her away.
In a daze, Hessa walked out. She followed her feet to the rear of the main house and went into the bath rooms. Steam and scents of perfume drifted through the dim air. She stood at the entry until someone came to attend to her. Hessa let the other woman strip away her soiled shift and wash her in a lukewarm bath. She closed her eyes as stiff fingers dug into her scalp and scrubbed. Bathing had never been as luxurious as this. It was usually a harried chore before bed or at daybreak with chilly water and harsh soaps. This was the bath house used by the whores. Although it didn’t sit well with her, she knew she had moved up a notch in the status of life if she was here. Hessa was no longer an undesirable servant of the pits, but a servant who would work in the house of a wealthy assassin.
“Lord Brenin does not buy servants of Omi,” the woman said as she set a drying sheet over Hessa’s shoulders. “What have you done to draw his eye?”
Hessa chewed her lower lip, thinking. “Nothing.”
The other woman snorted. “Indeed. I should take your place. I can clean better than you can. You’re only fit for the pit fighters, an ugly thing for them to look upon before they die.”
Hessa gritted her teeth, angry. She pushed away from the woman and scowled. “I am fit to do what I please. While I tend the manor of a high assassin, you will still be washing whores here in Omi House. Maybe he wants me because I’m not twisted and cruel like you are.”
The woman huffed and walked out, leaving Hessa to find the clothes she had brought. She dressed herself in the new shift, a work of finer linen with no stains and golden embroidery at the hems. It tied at the back so that it could fit most wearers. She ran her fingers over the design and thought of Gunnar. Had he been returned to his cell, and allowed only the loincloth to wear? If so, no one would tend his wounds or offer him any kindness now.
She picked up the small bag of her belongings that he had so carefully packed for her. At that moment, the horn sounded in the pits, announcing a battle. The crowd cheered. They had gathered in the drizzling rain, their clothes sodden but their lust for blood insatiable. Nothing had changed much at all.
When Hessa stepped out into the weather, the jilted washwoman waved her hand to the burning house where Hessa would go to have the Omi mark removed and Lord Drake’s mark burned into her skin. Walking with fortitude and without fear for herself for the first time in her life, she stepped inside. The small house stunk of coals and smoke.
The man there had one blind eye, and he had been expecting her. A hot brand stood by the hearth in the midst of the round house. It was in the shape of a winged serpent curling in on itself.
“I am the property of Lord Drake,” she said.
“Come and bear his mark then.” He smiled a crooked grin and beckoned to her with one hand.
She sat across from him and slipped down the neckline of her shift. Hessa closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, determined not to cry out. The fire popped. Metal grated against stone. The man warned her with a word, and then she felt the bite of heat press into her flesh.
Chapter Seven
Hessa Drake stood by the window in the dark tower that belonged to her master. He was a strange man, given to silence and brooding or long trips away. He hardly spoke two words to her at a time. Hessa spent her waking hours cleaning, though there was little sullied in the great black tower. She wandered throughout the mysterious hold, dusting shelves or statues that had no need of her attentions and pondering the turn her life had taken.
It was midday. She listened to the birds outside her mistress’s open window and watched the hired workers far below come to the jindi fields to dig out the roots for market. In the distance, the sounds of Bisura’s pits drifted on the wind to her, but she did not hear Gunnar’s humming or his song. She longed for his voice, for the touch of his fingers on her face, but most of all she longed to know what had become of him.
“You are thinking of the warrior again.” It was her mistress, Shenya, who came up behind Hessa and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Yes,” she answered. “I would give anything to be with him again.”
Shenya brushed her finger over the scar where the Omi mark had been burned away. In the days that followed her arrival at the hold, Shenya had cared for Hessa’s brands with a numbing salve. Now the marks were healed, one a blank square and the other, the shape of the winged drake. “I have told Lord Brenin your feelings for the pit fighter. Perhaps you will be relieved to know that he is not fighting in the pits or in the breeding cells.”
“What does he do now, Lady, if he is no longer an assassin?”
Shenya pursed her lips. She looked out the window at the fields for a long time before she answered. “My Lord is a bounty hunter of sorts. He brings back those who have been lost, and he brings them back alive.”
“Who does he hunt for now?”
Shenya set her arms on the windowsill. “Omi House has a high price on your warrior’s head. Few survive the pits as long as he did. The crowds still call for him. Perhaps it would also please you to know that he hunts your pit fighter.”
Tears welled in Hessa’s eyes. “He’s hunting Gunnar?”
“It has been weeks since the escape. All but two of the pit fighters have been found. One is your Gunnar. Another, Omi House masters suspect, was too wounded to survive the forestlands. He likely succumbed to the predators there.”
“Lady, if there is anything I can do…anything to buy Gunnar’s freedom…”
“He is free now,” Shenya said, her eyes still studying the outside world. “My Lord never fails to find what he seeks.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “He was curious about your warrior. Not many have traveled
