She felt a hand against her shoulder-a gentle touch, the brush of a child’s fingers. She shivered.
“Rise, sister.” The voice was still harsh, but there was gentleness beneath it. “This struggle is ended.”
Thorn glanced up and finally saw her savior. He was a halfling, not even four feet tall, and he looked more like a beggar than a sorcerer. He wore a cloak and cowl of gray wool spattered with mud and held together by a host of patches. From what she could see of his face, his skin was dark and deeply lined; he was one of the oldest halflings she’d ever seen.
She brushed his hand away, using as much force as she felt she could without hurting the old man. “Don’t touch me!” she said. “You don’t understand. I can’t control it-”
He grabbed her wrist, holding it with surprising strength. “This is understood,” he said. “We share blood, you and I. You cannot hurt me.”
“What are you talking about? We’re not even the same race. How could we be related? What do you want from me?”
The halfling released her wrist and drew his tattered cloak back to reveal his left arm. It was a withered husk, swathed against his chest. His hand was clenched in a tight fist, but she could see the brilliant red and black markings that covered the skin. For a moment the crimson lines glowed in the shadows, then the light faded.
“We share blood. And I have come to take you home.”
Well done, Steel whispered as Thorn rose to her feet. The first part of her mission was complete.
CHAPTER TWO
Lower Dura Lharvion 15, 999 YK
The halfling led Thorn through a maze of alleyways and winding stairs. For an old man and a cripple, he moved with a quick, sure step, even when scaling rain-slicked stone.
“Where are you taking me?” Thorn asked. The little man didn’t look back. “The path to your new home is a long one, and it is not yet the time for revelation.”
Thorn stopped beneath a torn awning, rainwater dripping around her. “No, I think this is exactly the time for revelations.”
The little man glanced back at her; he slowed his pace but kept walking. “Stay where you stand, if that is your wish. We shall never meet again, and you shall never know the truth that lies within your blood. Is that your desire?”
Thorn paused for a moment, before moving to join the withered halfling. “If this is some sort of trick, I will kill you,” she said.
The old man smiled.
They climbed the steps in silence. A pair of planks half-hid a door with the seal of condemnation set into the wood. The halfling drew out a key on a light chain, opened the door, and slipped inside. Thorn squeezed through the gap in the plank barricade and followed the little man into the shadows.
The door closed behind her. There were no windows, and the room was fully dark. But Thorn could see the halfling perfectly, and she could smell the oil in the lamp he was struggling with. Two months ago, she’d thought that the ring she wore on her left hand sharpened her senses, allowing her eyes to pierce the deepest gloom. So much had changed over those last two months… and she still had more questions than answers. In any case, the halfling had no knowledge of her supernatural senses; and so she kept still, playing the part of the blind woman as he struggled with the lamp.
The lantern burst to life, crackling and sputtering. A thin mattress was set across a small table, with a chamber pot to one side. Shelves held salted meat and an assortment of weaponry. A safehouse, and not much of one.
Thorn drew Steel. “I don’t know what you’re playing at with your talk of a new home. I don’t know who you are. But I assure you, I’m not about to start a twisted little family with you here.”
The dry chuckle echoed off the walls. “Calm, sister. We are family already. And this is a place of trial, not a destination.”
Thorn kept her blade leveled at the halfling. “Tell me what this is all about.”
“No. I am not the one on trial here, and I need say nothing.”
“Trial?” Thorn said.
“I know what you are, and what you have been… Lantern Thorn.”
There it was. The success of her mission-and possibly, the length of her life-depended on these next few moments. “How do you know that name?”
“Do you deny that it is yours? That you are an agent of the King’s Citadel, one of the deadly eyes of the king?”
Thorn looked away. “I was. For years. Not anymore.”
“Yes… so I have heard.” He gestured at the mattress on the floor. “Put away your blade. Sit. There are many questions you must answer, if you are to earn a place in our family.”
“Family…” Thorn echoed. “You’re Tarkanan, aren’t you?”
The halfling smiled slightly, but Thorn could feel the intensity of his gaze. “Yes. I am Fileon, of the House Tarkanan. Were you looking for us?”
She had been. And she’d been watching this Fileon these last few days, even as he’d been shadowing and stalking her. But she needed him to believe otherwise, to trust her. I’m exhausted, she thought. Afraid. Betrayed. She embraced these feelings and let them flow through her voice and into her posture.
“No,” she said. “I was running. I just wanted to find a place to hide. And everyone knows that the towers of Sharn cast long shadows.”
“Then you are fortunate to have caught my eye, sister.” He ran his hand along his withered arm. “And I have never been one to trust in luck. Put away your blade, and tell me of the one you killed.”
Careful, Steel told her. His touch can kill. If he suspects you, this could be a ploy.
Thorn was all too aware of the danger. Steel had worked with dozens of Lanterns over the course of the past century, and his advice to her was often annoyingly patronizing. This could be a trick, but it was a chance she’d have to take. Keeping her eyes fixed on Fileon’s, she slowly sheathed her blade. “I’ve killed many.”
“You know the one I mean,” Fileon said. “Your first true kill, slain with the power in your blood. The one whose death drove you from your life as a Lantern, changed you from a trusted servant of the king to a common cutpurse in the slums of Sharn. How did he die, your first kill? A helping hand, as you reached out in the heat of battle? Or was he your partner in more ways than one, slain in the height of your passion?”
“Damn you to Dolurrh,” Thorn growled. She let her fingers rest on Steel’s hilt but left the weapon sheathed.
“I am no stranger to the realm of the dead.” The halfling drew back his cloak, exposing his withered arm. “Born to House Jorasco, I was taught to preserve life. I studied the healing arts, learned the seven signs of grayroot fever and three ways to prevent infection in the deepest of injuries. I dreamed of the day that the mark of healing would appear on my skin, when the power of life itself would flow through my blood.”
Thorn said nothing.
“There is power in my blood,” Fileon said, “but it is no force of life. My first was a soldier. He was dying, but I knew strength remained within him. I fought the healer’s battle, trying to pull him back from Dolurrh’s door by will alone. I pounded on his chest and then pain tore through me, as if I had thrust my arm into the fire.”
Fileon brushed his fingers across his maimed limb, and for a moment the lines of his aberrant mark burned with a baleful light. Then it faded.
“Days passed before I awoke. My mother was there at my bedside, and she told me the truth of my blood. My father was not the man I knew. He was an heir of House Ghallanda, and it was the mingling of their marks that set this seed within me. She sobbed on the bed beside me, begging my forgiveness, and when I reached out to touch her-”
“No,” Thorn whispered.
“Yes. I was driven from the house, and I fled to the wilds. I could not bring myself to take my own life, but I couldn’t trust myself around the living. I spent years alone in the plains, hunting with no weapon save my deadly touch. Then a woman found me and showed me that I was not a monster. That I could control this gift. That I need not be alone.”