Industry & Intrigue (34 page)

“
My name is
Reese
,” he
replied in a terse voice. She felt a pang of sorrow. There was that
Alkon name his friend had used. Something else the Siege of Tercium
had taken from them. Lucina had personally killed the Estaran
Republican commander who had attacked the city.

Personal vengeance was frowned
upon within the Arm, but as part of her elevation to master status,
she had been tasked with three kills, all of her own choosing. Once
submitted, only the Dark
Hand himself could remove her chosen targets. He
usually only did so if the Arm had an investment or relationship
with one of the candidate’s choices.

“
I have so many questions,” he
said.

“
I imagine you do, but I don’t
have the time to answer them, brother.” She couldn’t yet bring
herself to use his Alkon name but it he preferred it, so she
dropped the use of his birth name. “Tell me where you live and I
will come and see you when I have time, I promise.”

“
Are you serious? For years both
of us thought
each dead. Then we run into each and you ‘don’t have time’.
What the fuck does that even mean?”

She understood his anger. She
was going insane
with frustration, the emotional shock of seeing her brother
was heavy, but she was running out of time. “I…can’t explain right
now. Please brother,” she pleaded. “Tell me where and I promise
that no matter what, I will come.” He gave her his university room
and block details.

“
Good.
Now both you and your friend have to
remember this,” she said and threw a look at Michael. “Under no
circumstances can you tell anyone you have seen me. If you mention
me to anyone, Imperial Guards, Scepters, your university
professors, your lives will be in danger.”

Michael couldn’t help
himself
.
“You’re involved in that shooting aren’t you?”

She threw another look at him,
this one was mu
ch more hostile and it shut him up.

“
I am utterly serious about this
Reese,” she said. “Tell no one whatsoever. I will not be able to
protect you if you do.”

He thought for a moment, but
then nodded. “What about the window
?” He gestured towards where she had
fallen through.

“
Not a problem.” She walked
over, picked up the remnants of Michael’s
nitroglyce
rin experiment and flung it at the window’s remaining
glass. The she smashed the rest of the glass out with a metal
prong.

“
T
ell them the chemicals did all that
damage. It won’t even be a lie.”

As she stepped past her brother
she traced one hand ge
ntly down the side of his face. “I will find you.
I promise.”

Then she
was away. She ran down several
sets of stairs and then exited into another hallway. She took the
emergency exit out one of the windows and quickly climbed down. She
hit the ground and ran. She passed through the paved corridors that
ran along the building and turned onto the red brick path that led
out of the university.

As she moved
further away, she
heard the sound of people running up to the science building. That
would be the Imperial Guards. Once they figured out the shot had
come from a long-range rifle they would be checking all of the
campus’s outlying buildings. She needed to reach the southern gate
before they decided to cut off access into or out of the
university.

As she reached the gate, she
slowed down.
She hoped none of the Scepters had time to communicate with
anyone and keep it locked down. There wasn’t anyone around, so she
pushed it open slightly and stepped through.

Ral was standing across the
street
, his
face covered with his grey hood. She walked over. “No guards?” she
asked.

“
Dead
,” he replied. “Not that they would
have heard anything from the Scepters if they were still alive. I
placed powerful magnets around the gate.”

Magnets were
well
-known
for disrupting magic. A mage trying to communicate to the guards
would not have been heard. There were theories about the
conflicting nature of magic and electromagnetic energy. But their
disruptive nature to each other made it difficult to
study.

There was
on old story that floated among
assassins. The tale went that there was a conceiver who worked for
the Arm many years ago. Conceivers were specialized Arm members
that focused on obtaining or creating the best weapons for
assassins. This conceiver was the best, at least of his
time.

He had the most inventive mind
the Arm had ever seen but he was not satisfied.
He wanted to create something
that was radically different than anything ever before. His idea
was to create a device to kill mages, one that they would be unable
to detect. He had gathered the most powerful magnets he could find
and had one of the Arm’s mage assassins assist him.

No one knows
w
hat
happened in his lab, but the result was catastrophic. The entire
building had exploded in black and red fire, killing everyone
inside. Those investigating the aftermath reported that the shadows
of those killed were marked on the walls, right where they had been
standing at the moment of the explosion.

The building had been pulled
down and no one ever tried to experiment with magnets and magic
again. To this day, the Arm forbid
magnets to be allowed in properties that
held magical artifacts or spell books, under pain of
death.

“
No problems?” asked Ral.
Through the gap in his hood, she could see his eyes looking at her
carefully.

“
No. It was a clean shot
straight through his head. I left the gun as you said.”

“
And if
the watch and imperial security
investigate enough, it will lead them back to a war hawk general in
Cair Rathais province.”

Lucina nodded. She obviously didn’t know
the reason behind the assassination but it wasn’t hard to guess.
Someone wanted to push Alkos and Galria into war or at least
accelerate the tension between them. The Circle must have thought
war would be beneficial somehow, so they had accepted the
contract

Ral
’s ruby colored eyes studied her
face.

“
Hadn’t we best leave?” she
asked.
Though they were outside the university campus, a patrol
could come by at any moment.

“
What aren’t you telling
me?”
Ral’s
tone was menacing. She should have known better than to try and
leave something out. Ral had a knack for detecting lies.

“
It’s nothing
,” she said. She took a few
steps to the side, trying to get him to move, but he stood in
place.

He shook his head. “No, it’s not that easy
and you know it. We are not moving from this spot until I know
everything. What have you neglected to tell me?”

Lucina’s mouth tightened and
she clenched her teeth. She could make up another lie, something
sim
ilar to
the truth, but there was the risk that he would detect that as
well. If he knew the truth he would insist that she kill her
brother and his friend; the Arm never left witnesses.

But that was the one thing she
could not do.
When she realized that, she made her decision. There was
nothing else for it. Her life as an assassin was a steep price, but
if it meant having her brother back, she was willing to pay
it.

“
Fine
,” she said and stepped towards him.
If she was fast enough, he wouldn’t have time to defend himself.
Ral crossed his arms and looked at her, waiting to her what she had
to say.

She sprung
forward suddenly, pulling out
her dagger and thrusting it towards his neck. One clean cut to his
jugular was all she needed. He reacted far faster than she
expected, twisting to avoid her blade and taking a cut along the
outside of his left arm. Her blow off course, she stopped her
movement and stepped back quickly.

Ral turned back around,
twin daggers
already in his hands. He came at her in a whir, and she parried his
blows while he drove her back. Their blades sang out as they
connected, metal clashing with metal. She was skilled with a blade,
but he was a master.

He continued to push her back,
his eyes looking at her with a m
ix of irritation and curiosity. She felt
his daggers nick her left hand. She hissed slightly at the pain,
but the cuts didn’t feel deep. There was no way she would beat him
like this.

She flicked her hand and her
blood flew into his eyes, blinding him momentarily.
He cursed in Talfey
and paused. He wiped his eyes into his sleeve, both of his daggers
still pointed at her.

“
What
are doing? You know the penalty for
turning against the Arm. There will be no forgiveness, no mercy,”
he said.

“
You tell me nothing I
don’t
already know,” she replied.

Continuing to fight him by
matching blades was a losing prospect.
As an elf he had more than century of
experience over her. She had one more weapon she could use, but she
would have to get in close. She put her left hand into her side
pocket and felt the device.

“
Wh
y are you doing this?” he asked. His
daggers slashed towards her face and she knocked them aside,
feeling her arms begin to tire.

“
I have my reasons,” she
replied, but she wasn’t about to tell him. If she didn’t survive,
he would certainly kill Rius. He hadn’t noticed her palm the
device. “I can only say that I am sorry. But I had no other
choice.”

“
Spare me your apologies. You’re
a master assassin of the Arm, you should be beyond such matters.”
He came at her again, faster than he had before. This time she
focused on purely dodging his blades, instead of trying to score a
hit. It worked and Ral became frustrated at his inability to hit
her. He slashed both of his daggers down in one furious blow and
she barely managed to avoid it. But now he had opened himself
up.

Lucina opened her left palm and
slammed it onto
his shoulder, depressing the small trigger with her thumb.
There was a crack and a spark and Ral suddenly shook and convulsed.
His weapons fell to the ground. He collapsed on the cobbled street,
his body still twitching slightly.

Lucina turned him over. He
couldn’t move,
though his eyes remained open. He made a choked sound and
Lucina guessed he was trying to speak. She showed him what was in
her palm. It was a small circle of metal, with wires running to a
trigger. Ral looked up at her. The fight and fury left his eyes and
to be replaced with acceptance of his defeat. Every assassin had to
prepare themselves for a moment like this.

She
lowered her dagger and slit his
throat. As his blood pooled, she took everything in his pockets.
She didn’t know what he was carrying that could link to her and
wasn’t willing to risk the watch finding anything. The Arm had
given her everything. But today she had found something she thought
had been lost forever. And she was willing to betray everything she
had ever known to keep it.

Chapter 32

“
Three weeks
,” said Lawrence. “It’s been
three entire weeks and we don’t have anything solid about who could
have done this?”

He was
sittin
g on
his chair at the Imperial Council table. The other members seated
at the table were Minister-General Sanya Kodiak, Minster of
Security Austin Blake, Minister of Foreign Relations Siobhan Mason,
Director of Imperial Intelligence Nolan Talmach, Commander-in-chief
of the Imperial Army Airic Marnoch, Alkos City Watch Commander
James McLeod and Chief Scepter Shonna Ciar.

“
Well I’m
waiting
?” he
asked again. “Do we have anything, Commander McLeod?”

The w
atch commander was a tall,
dark-haired man. His dark blue suit made him look like a
businessman.

“
No, Your Imperial Majesty,
there’s nothing new. General Ferguson still insists that he had
nothing to do with it.
” General Hamish Ferguson, was a well-known
hard-liner in the imperial army who for many years had advocated
war against Galria. “We can neither confirm nor deny his
involvement. The body of the elf found near the university has yet
to be identified, but we don’t believe it’s related.”

“
You’
re seriously trying to tell us that
at the exact time the Galrian foreign minister was killed on our
soil, a mugging happened to take place, less than fifty meters away
from the university?” asked Sanya.

“
There is no evidence
they are linked,”
replied James.

“
There’s al
so no such thing as
coincidence. I thought that was a phrase from your watch,” chided
Sanya.

“
That’s enough,” said Lawrence,
interjecting before another argument erupted. The situation had
everyone on edge. There was only one week before the deadline was
up for their response to Galria. The day after Rossiv's
assassination a telegram had come from Urdov, demanding the
apprehension of the assassin within one month.