"I'd expect you'd be grateful for it."
"Oh, I'm plenty grateful," I said. "I'm just saying, that's a dumb reason."
"Yes, well, I'm afraid there's more."
I eyed him warily.
"I have to protect you now." The words came out in a rush, like he was embarrassed to say 'em. I woulda been.
"What? Why?"
"You saved my life. That's how it works."
"How what works?"
He didn't answer, just rubbed at his forehead, and I figured this must be some kind of honor thing, like he swore an oath or something. Pretty stupid oath for an assassin, but what did I know? I'd heard about ships in the Confederation with ridiculous rules of honor. Like this one captain who had his crew give a portion of gold to a temple every time they made port in Empire lands. More often than not the temple turned 'em in, so they spent half their time being chased by the Empire navy.
Fortunately, Mama and Papa never much went in for things like that. They always taught me that honor was best defined on a case-by-case basis.
"Well," I said. "I don't require your protective services. I'm a pirate."
"A bit far from the ocean," he said. He glanced at me out of the corner of his bad eye. "Besides, I'm afraid you do. The Hariri clan expects you dead. They'll send someone else."
"Or," I countered, feeling pleased with my cleverness, "you could just tell them you did it."
"They require proof."
"Oh, hell." I did shudder a little at that, though. Bad enough they hired someone to do their fighting for them. Demanding proof? Good thing I managed to avoid marrying into that family.
We sat side by side without speaking for a while. He went into some kind of trance, and the scent of mint was everywhere and his eyes glowed pale blue like before. Now that I wasn't scared out of my mind I realized they were the color of the glaciers in the northern seas.
While he was in his trance, I sat there and did some thinking of my own. I lucked out with that snake, no doubt about it. If they sent another assassin – and I figured they would, on account of this one screwing up the job – it might be handy to have a bodyguard around. Better still if that bodyguard was an assassin himself. I didn't much want to admit it, but he was probably right about me needing his help.
Sides, once the Hariris were taken care of, I could ditch him and head off to Bone Island or maybe straight to the southern port cities. His honor wasn't my problem.
After a while, he shook his head and blinked, and his eyes returned to normal, like his soul had come back from wherever he'd sent it. You never know with magic-users.
"How's your leg?" I asked him. Figured it might be good to play at making friends.
"What?"
"Your leg. I stabbed you."
He stared at me. Then he peered down at his leg, spread his hands over the dark fabric of his trousers. Blood on black is too dark to see in the best of times, and even with the moonlight I couldn't make anything out.
"A flesh wound," he said. "I'll be fine." He paused, tilted his head toward me. "How's your arm?"
"Oh." I glanced down at it. The blood had dried onto my skin, and the wound had stopped hurting sometime in the middle of the fight. "Nothing I haven't dealt with before." I paused. "My name's Ananna, by the way."
He hesitated. I was about to tell him he didn't have to give his name, but then he spoke up. "You can call me Naji."
"Glad I have something to call you," I said. He looked like he wanted to smile, and his eyes kind of brightened, but otherwise his face didn't move.
The wind picked up.
I didn't think much of it, except to duck my head to keep sand from blowing in my eyes. But Naji grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me roughly to my feet. When I looked up my heart started pounding something fierce, cause the desert was lit up like it was daytime, light coming from the swirls of sand slicing through the air. When the sand struck against my skin it left a shimmery golden glow, like the pots of expensive body paint we sometimes stole from merchant ships.
"The Hariris?" I said, dazed. Sand stung the inside of my mouth. "Already?"
Naji yanked the mask back over his face, leaving just his eyes. "No," he said. "Find someplace to hide."
"It's the middle of the desert!"
He shoved me away from him, and I stumbled across the sand, almost losing my balance. My eyes watered and my nostrils burned. I pulled the knife out of my sash and clutched it tight, close to my hips, the way Papa taught me. I had no intention of slinking off behind some moonlit desert tree. My people do not hide.
A figure emerged from the swirl of sand and light: a woman dressed in long rippling skirts. Something about her, about the way she moved, seemed familiar–
It was the woman from the dress shop.
She looked a lot grander than I remembered, and even more beautiful. Her hair streamed out in dark ribbons behind her, and her skin glowed with the same light from the sand. Her pale eyes were stones in the middle of her face. I tried to find my voice, to tell her Naji wasn't no threat anymore, but she spotted me and I froze in place.
"You," she said. "Why aren't you dead?"
"What?" It came out barely a whisper. My heart thudded against my chest, anger and confusion spinning out through my body.
The woman scanned the desert. "I should have known better than to send a sea rat out here." Her gaze flicked over to me. "Though you seemed to have so much potential. I really did think it would work."
I realized then that the woman had used me – I didn't know the full of it, but I hated that I'd trusted her enough to let her do it. So I lunged forward, knife outstretched, but she picked up one hand and flicked her fingers and I went flying backward. I landed hard enough in the sand that all the breath slammed out of me, but then Naji was pulling me up to standing. He pressed his face close to my ear, his mask rippling as he spoke.
"If you insist on fighting, take this." And he slipped something into my hand, something rough and dry and so powerful that even I recognized the magic in it, before bounding off to face down the woman.