Shade strolled across the Ice Marshes with four fat new purses of bloodstone at his belt. The girl’s father had paid him double their original agreement and so the assassin knew he had done his work well. He strutted at a leisurely pace; having finished the job he saw no reason to hurry. The midmorning summer sun shone down hot on the brown marshlands. The Ice Marshes did not live up to its wintry name during the warmer seasons. Swamp plants and flowers were in bloom. Yet the Faelin still undertook the marshes with a degree of measured care.
The assassin swatted his arm as he felt the sting of another mosquito bite. The blood popped as he squashed the insect. Blast. He wished there was a time of day when the marshes weren’t plagued with these stinging pests. Still, there was far much more to worry about. He saw several Coldwater Crocodiles sun-bathing their brown scales on muddy banks. He kept to the hammocks and the shallow swamp-water filled swales where he could see the bottom wasn’t more than a few inches. Muckhog trails were harder to track in the warm months since they didn’t tend to travel in large numbers.
Shade took ample care in his steps. Even though the ice was gone, the bog land still offered many surprises. Sticky sphagnum mats were difficult to walk on. Many shrubs and low lying plants bore poisonous thorns. Deposits of undecomposed vegetation such as peat and muskeg made for surprise sinkholes. The Coldwater Crocodiles tended to find easy meals in such environmental pit traps.
But there was also much beauty. He saw small Mudcrabs lift up their shells and flee his huge footsteps as he splashed through the swales. He saw frogs hop back into deeper waters. Snakes slithered among the reeds. Mudlarks with long beaks fluttered among the Baldcypress Trees to feed on insects. Moss, sedge and water lilies floated on the murky waters, a few plants even budding with flowers.
The assassin’s mind drifted back to his most recent kill. True, Warlord Lewd’s job presented the most challenge he had encountered in years, but this latest mark held a deeper meaning to it. Of course, he had made a much grander display of Oisleean’s death than his typical job, but in a small way he couldn’t help but feel he had accomplished some good through it. Oisleean had betrayed and murdered an innocent girl.
Shade had acted as the sword of justice in her father’s hands. The assassin had done what her father should have done, would have done, had society allowed him to act on his desire for vengeance without causing his family further harm. Shade was a hard Faelin, but he secretly hoped he handed back the girl’s father a small piece of his shattered heart. This world was a better place without Oisleean.
Shade wondered at whether he should make a new living working at nobler kills. He could slay all those who preyed on women and abused children. The assassin’s fingers traced unconsciously to a locket he hid under his leather vest. He rubbed the locket before he realized what he was doing. It was a secret he showed to no one. A secret he would take to his grave. A secret he would kill to keep safe. He paused and stared down at the brass locket. It was charred and blackened. He could still see the crumbled ashes preserved behind the glass. It had once contained a portrait of his mother.
He had never discarded it. He often wondered why he still wore it. Perhaps, it was his only connection to the living, to remembering what it was like to care for someone. Perhaps, he yet still had a softer side buried somewhere down deep under his hard callous. He wasn’t sure he liked that. No, it was much more he realized. It was the line. The line that kept him from becoming a monster like his old master, Sadora. The line that had caused him to flee his own dark country. The line that kept him from mindlessly butchering women and children. The memory came flooding back to him like it was yesterday…
Shade could still feel their blood on his hands. He stared down at his clean black gloves and wondered when the feeling would ever go away. He had washed his hands a thousand times over again, but still the cloying stick of blood never left his soiled fingers. He could still see their faces and hear their cries of terror. Not the Faelin, but the Faelinas and the children. He just couldn’t do it anymore. He shook out his hands as if it could rid him of the guilt that followed him like a shadow out of Jui-Sae.
The assassin wandered through the rocky terrain of the far northern black forests of Jui-Sae. The black barked ominous trees swayed in the late night wind. The red, cobalt and silver moons of Covent cast a slight sheen that emanated off the rustling black leaves. The leaves gleamed with a secret beauty like torchlight reflecting off of onyx stone.
Shade saw his life reflected in the faces of these trees. Tree trunks along the borders of Jui-Sae were scored with eerie symbols made to resemble black magic, though in reality they held no power. The Faelin scarred the trees near enemy borders in an effort to scare trespassers off. He felt like his life too had been scarred. Its dark and midnight beauty long lost.
Shade cast an anxious glance back over his shoulder. He kept his hood and cloak pulled tightly over his head. Master Sadora, Shadowlord over all Unseen, would be looking for him by now no doubt. Search parties and other members of Sadora’s secret circle would have surely been dispatched. He did not have much time before the local Unseen Guardians received word for his capture. He could feel their eyes on him now. He was being tracked as was commonplace of most Faelin wanderers when infringing on the border woods. Faelin never traveled outside their borders. He feared they might mistake him for a deserter, or worse, a fugitive.
Shade had defied a direct order from Master Sadora. The Shadowlord had ordered him to murder in secret a Faelin noble family for the last time. Sadora may have trained him to become a cold, hard remorseless killer, but he had to draw the line somewhere. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing their faces and these were good Faelin, Faelin of far nobler caste and character than his dark master.
The assassin found it ironic that he felt only a twinge of regret on his way out of Jui-Sae. He feared he would miss home, but he didn’t. In a small way the assassin would always consider it an honor to have trained under the most legendary Unseen alive. Sadora had even given him the new name of Shade, which granted him the right of nobility in Jui-Sae. He would have lived proudly under this name for the rest of his life, if only he could face himself in the mirror every day.
Shade had at first envisioned himself to be an instrument of death forged for the mortal enemies of Jui-Sae—the Quaelinari, not for eliminating Sadora’s political rivals and their entire families. He even grew tired of the endless war. The Elf Wars had waged for over two thousand years. He had not known one day, not one day in his entire life without the war hanging over his head. He yearned to strike out west where he could start afresh and shape his own destiny.
Shade had considered going to the Faelin king and exposing Sadora’s many dark plots. After all, King Solshistaar was reputed to be a Faelin of upstanding moral character, but the Shadowlord was too close to his royal ear. The assassin had no other choice, but to run. He had just one last personal responsibility to take care of before he left Jui-Sae.
Shade paused as he pulled an overgrown branch out of his way. The black trees thinned out into cloistered groves. Human bones littered the rocky turf, the bones of thousands of trespassers. The southern alpine ridge of the Sunchild Chasm lay beyond. The ridge looked small when compared to the whitecapped Dragontooth Mountains behind it. He was in the last clusters of the forest and the trees thinned out so much he could see the black grass fields that lay beyond the northern border of Jui-Sae.