Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (27 page)

Merry music broke out from the band, and Aaron led his bride down the central stairway, his arm locked around hers like an iron clamp.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

~
Prophetic Whiplash ~

526AX December 11, Orion

THERE WAS BLOOD on Isis’s hands—fresh blood. Her eyes panned down her splattered arms, past her drenched hands, to the knife twisted inside her victim’s chest. As she looked up into the eyes of Veronica Frostwater, the ever-haughty woman simpered, then faltered and collapsed with a heavy thud to the floor. She was dead.

Isis clenched her eyes shut, trying to purge the memory from her mind. But it was no use. She had killed a woman. She had watched her die. And as she died, Isis experienced a jolt of Prophetic Whiplash, the culmination of all the things that would no longer be. Veronica’s essence, all that she would have done, sang out in a hurried melody of murdered potential, clawing desperately like a drowning animal for something, anything, to keep a foothold in the world of the living—and then was silenced.

The memory, on the other hand, would not be silenced. Veronica’s eyes. The knife in her chest. Isis’s bloodied hands. The montage of an unrealized future, vibrant colors melting away, leaving only black and white. It played over and over again through her mind, a dizzying carousel of death. Isis’s head spun and her stomach churned, and she staggered forward to vomit into the bushes.

“Are you ill?” Aaron asked from behind and set a hand lightly upon her shoulder.

“I’m fine,” she growled, wiping her mouth with her wrist as she stood up again.

But she was
not
fine. He had commanded her to kill Veronica. He had stolen her life from her. This was all his fault. Every last bit.

* * *

526AX November 21, Orion

“She is rallying support against you,” Lord Adrian had told Aaron the day after his coronation.

“I’m not surprised,” replied Aaron.

“She must be dealt with quickly, before things get out of hand. Before everything we’ve worked for is lost,” Lord Adrian insisted.

“Agreed. But I cannot kill her myself.”

“She lost. What she’s doing now is treason,” Lord Adrian declared. “You have the right.”

“No, I think it’s best if it appears her own supporters turned on her,” Aaron decided. “She does have compromising information on most of them, doesn’t she?”

“She wouldn’t have been such a strong contender otherwise. Sweet-talking can only get you so far. But if you want to make this believable, you will need a seamless kill, someone who will leave a clean murder scene so that we can plant the necessary evidence. You need a professional.”

“Don’t we have the world’s most renown assassin in our custody right now?” suggested Aaron.

“Jason will not help you, not if he hated Veronica above all others,” Isis told him.

Aaron stared at her for a moment, then said, “We will commission another Elition to perform the task then. I believe the one referred to as Chimera has quite a formidable reputation.”

“Forgive me, but I think we should keep King River out of this,” Lord Adrian spoke up. “The assignment of any Elition to a task requires his approval, if you remember, Your Majesty, and he will most certainly not approve. He doesn’t like assigning Elitions to fuel our so-called ‘infighting’. If I may, I do have another suggestion,” he said, turning to look at Isis.

“I really don’t like the way you’re staring at me, Lord Adrian.”

“My apologies, Empress,” he excused himself with a bow, though there was still the hint of a smirk upon his lips. She knew he didn’t like the fact that he now had to answer to an Elition, but he was entirely too giddy about something.

“I’m not doing your dirty work,” she declared.

“You do have the training.”

“I am trained to guard. I do not kill.”
And I want to keep it that way.

“She’s the only Elition who doesn’t answer to King River,” Lord Adrian told Aaron.

“Use one of your own lackeys,” she growled.

Lord Adrian turned his silken smile on her. “Unfortunately, Your Majesty, as I am most ashamed to admit, the Selpe military no longer has adequately trained assassins. It’s an unfortunate circumstance of our alliance with Elitia. For over a decade, we’ve dedicated our own resources elsewhere, using Elitions for assassinations. But, as I said, King River has been particularly obstinate of late. He didn’t seem pleased by the deal your dear husband made with Davin Storm.”

Aaron’s hand clamped around Isis’s wrist, as though to hold her to him.

“Such things tend to happen when one of the parties involved isn’t consulted first,” Isis told Lord Adrian, but looked at Aaron.

In response, Aaron lifted up her hand and kissed it lightly, his blue-green eyes burning into hers. The heat of his stare beckoned her forward, but she resisted. She would not give in. She stared right on back at him until he chuckled and kissed her on the forehead.

“Shall I give you two a moment alone?” Lord Adrian asked.

“No,” replied Isis, just as Aaron said, “Yes.”

“No,” repeated Isis, peeling his hand off of her wrist.

Aaron shrugged. “Very well then. Continue, Lord Adrian.”

“Yes, by all means, Lord Adrian. Please, continue telling us how you wish to warp me into an assassin,” she growled. She wouldn’t mention how such an act would drive her to insanity. Maybe, they didn’t even know anything about that pesky Prophet weakness.

And she didn’t even want to think about those awful foresights of her bloodthirsty future self. It was already happening, step by step.

“Well, I suppose we could always send a Diamond Edge and see what happens,” Lord Adrian proposed. His tone left no question as to what he thought of that idea.

“I could tell you what would happen: disaster, plain and simple,” said Aaron. “Veronica has hired the Crescent Order to guard her. My men are not equipped to deal with six bodyguard assassins.”

“And I am?” gasped Isis.

“You’re fast. You need only render the bodyguards unconscious so that you may dispose of Veronica uninterrupted,” Lord Adrian said, as though he were being helpful.

“Thank you. I feel so much better about the whole thing already,” she snarled.

“My love,” Aaron began.

“Forget it. This discussion is over.”

But the discussion was far from over.

* * *

526AX November 26, Orion

“You’re going to have to kill Veronica Frostwater,” Davin told Isis the next week.

“Now
you
are involved in this, Davin?” she said.

“Aaron talked to me.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“He said you refuse to discuss this with him. That you leave the room any time he brings it up.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Look, it’s like this. Apparently, there is a line buried in the contract of marriage that the ascending empress must prove herself worthy.”

“Not that I was ever asked if I wanted to marry Aaron,” she commented.

“Yes, well, it’s an archaic practice, usually referring to the wife’s responsibility to bear an heir,” he explained.

She rolled her eyes. “Splendid.”

“But in this case,” continued Davin. “It’s being manipulated to force you into killing Veronica. Should you refuse, you will be dethroned.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad,” she replied.

“And convicted as a traitor, the sentence of which is death.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“For you and Father and me,” he concluded. “As this would be a breach of the marriage agreement, upon which all our lives were pledged.”

“Your friend Aaron is such a delightful man. He would threaten to kill his wife, his best friend, and a member of his Advisory Council just to rid himself of his annoying cousin.”

“It’s not Aaron. It’s that scoundrel, Lord Adrian, and he has no problem in seeing us all dead. You know how he feels about Elitions. He’s probably even hoping you say no, just to get a chance at taking us out. Don’t give him that chance.”

She sighed. “Curse it, Davin. They’re just going to keep pulling one outdated rule after another out of their ridiculous rule book. Next it will be, ‘We’ll invade Elitia if you don’t pop out one prophecy a week for us’, as though I’m some sort of chicken who lays fortune-telling eggs.”

Davin clenched his fists. “I’d like to see them try to invade Elitia.”

“You know what I mean,” she sighed. “This will never end. They will continue to manipulate us until I’m dead.”

He set a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “No. I read through the entire section regarding marriage, all two-thousand pages of it.”

She gaped at him in shock.

“Don’t ask. It’s convoluted ludicrousness. In any case, this is the last thing they could get you on. Unless you murder Aaron in his sleep, you should be fine from now on out,” he assured her.

“So, just to be clear, I
can
murder him while he’s awake then?” Isis asked. She’d hoped to joke past the sinking feeling in her stomach. It wasn’t working.

Davin wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in closer, kissing the top of her head. “You’ll be fine. You’re the strongest person I know.”

Davin’s show of confidence notwithstanding, Isis felt far from fine. As the day of her scheduled assassination of Veronica neared, she grew increasingly anxious. She’d taken to wandering the palace gardens at night, hoping the chilly nights would numb her. But nothing could distract her. Even sleep was no sanctuary for her, as the foresight merely lay there in wait, ready as soon as her eyes closed to bombard her with horrific images of her future victim’s bloody end.

* * *

526AX November 28, Orion

Cape Midnight, Veronica Frostwater’s palace, was a seaside villa on the northeastern shore of the continent. It was from here that she was plotting her ascension. And here that she would be silenced.

Isis was flown in shortly after dark and dropped down into the ocean. Veronica, Lord Adrian had reported, had a highly paranoid sense of security. The only way in not fully protected by a convoluted security system was a tiny hole of decaying wall on the ocean side, deep under water. He’d bribed this information out of one of her disgruntled servants.

What this all boiled down to
, a wetsuit-clad Isis thought as she slid her hips through the child-sized opening,
was an uncomfortable beginning to a horrific mission.

There was a reason she’d never killed before, and it was not from lack of trying. As was to be expected with her fighting abilities, they had initially tried to push her through the assassin training track. She could do it all, complete every exercise—every exercise but one, that was. She could not take a life. As she stood opposite her defenseless victim, the advantage all hers, she had faltered. She had no sooner lifted her blade that she was assaulted with a tempest of broken images—then she collapsed into a fit of convulsions. The fading thread of a life once full of such potential melted away, leaving only the raw, cold picture of the victim’s last act in life: to die at her hand. There was a reason Prophets didn’t make good assassins, and she was no different. She simply couldn’t do it. The instructors at Rosewater had been fools to think otherwise.

Yet here she was doing it now, years later. She’d reasoned and pleaded and threatened to get herself out of the life of an assassin, but she hadn’t escaped this fate. Veronica’s Elition bodyguards were no problem, it turned out. Isis replaced their Energy Serum with a sedative, and five minutes later they were nothing but an unconscious heap on the floor. She moved into the next room, where Veronica sat at her computer, preparing messages to her supporters. Like a breeze, Isis was across the room in an instant, standing before her target.

“You,” Veronica hissed—then collecting herself, stood regally. “He’s sent you for me, hasn’t he? But you aren’t a murderer. I can see it in your eyes. It’s not too late. My offer still stands. Side with me, and I will set you free. I will free Elitia from the alliance. You can all live in peace.”

Isis’s heart ate up Veronica’s words—hoping beyond hope that they were true, that this woman could really free her—but she didn’t dare respond. Even if Veronica could help her, it was too late. She’d betrayed Jason, and he would never, ever forgive her.

Pushing back her grief, Isis struggled to remain still. After their last meeting, she should have expected this. Veronica Frostwater was an adept sweet-talker. Not that it made what was coming any easier. The security cameras were all out; Isis had seen to that upon entering the villa through the waterlogged basement. The Elition bodyguards were decidedly unconscious. And Veronica was there before her, incapable of defending herself, even if she’d had more than a letter opener at her disposal. Isis would have to do it now, before the flood of imagery hit her full force.

Her arm shot forward, plunging the knife into Veronica’s chest. Frozen, Isis did not move. She just waited for the inevitable.

“You…fool. You don’t know what you’ve done,” Veronica choked out melodramatically, then with her head held high, fell to the floor.

Veronica’s blood still stained Isis’s hands when Aaron’s Diamond Edges snuck onto the property, their movements now unhindered by the deactivated security system. They had to pry the knife from her clenched hand. As she stood there blankly, Isis had a vague sense that they were manipulating the murder scene, but her mind was too turbulent for her eyes to focus. Images of Veronica’s curtailed future were still flashing by at top speed when they whisked her away from the villa.