Her laugh was low, deadly. "The forest doesn't chase, assassin. It eats them."
The sentence balanced between them, cut with actual menace. Kaelen found himself reading the movement of firelight through the gold streaks in her eyes—reciting details, weaknesses, how she stood. The woman exuded contained rage like heat from the forge-fire, but rage was something he could anticipate. Something useful, even.
"How theatrically wonderful," he remarketed, his tone as dry as dust. "Do you practice these mini-monologues, or is melodrama an innate gift of the rebel type? Seriously, though, I'd like to know—is there a textbook? 'Intimidation for the Dramatically Inclined'?"
Aeryn's eyes narrowed, and the air in the room became hot. Her tattoos blazed brighter, responding to the rage that coursed through her. "Taunt me again, Imperial hound, and you'll learn just how naturally they come."
Kaelen tilted his head, the very picture of bland curiosity despite his wrists being tied. "Ah, there we are. 'Imperial hound'—so creative. I was wondering when we'd have the name-calling phase of our friendship. Though I must say, I was hoping for something more creative out of the legendary fire clan. Disappointing, overall."
"My patience perished with my brother," she stated coldly, and Kaelen felt the cold edge in her voice as a blade at his throat. "These rope restraints are a courtesy I'm already wishing I'd never extended."
"How sweet," Kaelen replied, his voice holding just the right amount of sympathy to be offending. "Although I do think that if your temper was that fragile to begin with, perhaps leadership isn't your best choice. Just saying." He paused, his gaze sweeping the room perceptively. "Of course, I'm sure the council has complete faith in your. stability."
The words hit their mark. He could see it in the set of her jaw, the reach of her hand for her gun. Good. The angry made blunders, and blunders were openings.
Before Aeryn could respond—presumably in anger, if the glint in the killer's eye was any indication—one of the members of the council cleared his throat loudly. Kaelen marked the interruption as significant. Someone within the room was keeping Aeryn on a leash, meaning there were political overtones he could manipulate to his benefit.
"The day is wearing on, Aeryn," the older woman said hesitantly. "Perhaps our. prisoner. can be used for a glimpse of what he's fallen into. To know what his people are attempting to burn."
Kaelen picked up on the wording—prisoner, not guest. truthful, at least. He picked up on the way the elder's eyes darted back and forth between him and Aeryn, clearly ill-at-ease with the tension growing. fascinating.
"Oh yes," he said in mock enthusiasm. "The grand tour. How delightful. I do hope it includes the picturesque torture rooms and the quaint execution squares. I have such a weakness for rural architecture."
Aeryn's jaw snapped shut, her hand drifting unconsciously to the hilt of her blade. "He is not a guest, Elder Mira. He is a sword against our hearts."
"How poetic," Kaelen breathed. "Though technically, I'd be a rather expensive blade lodged in the dirt at the moment. But I suppose 'weapon' is more operatic for your small recruitment orations."
"All the better to show him what those hearts beat for," Elder Mira replied with diplomatic aplomb. "Let him see what the Empire would burn. What you would slay to protect."
The logic was sound, but Aeryn appeared to enjoy burning Kaelen alive more than taking him on a tour. Kaelen could almost envision her weighing the political price of disobeying the council against the personal pleasure of murder. Interesting dynamics—something he was certain he could live with.
"Fine," she actually said, the word slicing like shattering glass. "But he stays bound, and if he takes one misstep—"
"You'll burn me," Kaelen summarized graciously. "Yes, you've gone quite far in making that particular threat. Highly professional. Impressive in your commitment to repetition—truly brings the point home."
"Wouldn't dream of asking otherwise," Kaelen responded, although in his mind he was tallying the knots, testing their give. Old habits.
The council members parted with hushed words and significant stares at Aeryn—some approving, some troubled. Kaelen took note of each face, each response, creating a mental map of where things stood and where potential cracks might form. Information was wealth, and he was already amassing riches.
Lysander remained near the window with his nonchalant demeanor, but Kaelen felt the mage's regard as a physical weight. When their eyes met, there was a glint of something—recognition, maybe, though Lysander's face showed nothing. Kaelen smiled, and it was all they needed to share at the moment
"Coming, Lysander?" Aeryn asked, her tone informing Kaelen this was no inquiry.
"Wouldn't dream of missing it," said the mage, smirking. "I'm interested to see our. guest. react to good rebel courtesy."
"Oh, I have every confidence that it will be instructive," Kaelen drawled, his tone even. There was something almost intimate in the way Lysander shifted his head—a movement that tugged at memory in ways he quite didn't wish to investigate.
They stepped out into the blast of full afternoon sun, and immediately Kaelen felt the burden of unfriendly gazes upon him. He cataloged it all with detached objectivity, but his focus split—halfway attuned to potential threats, halfway acutely sensitive to Lysander hovering just close enough to be teasingly within his own space. The mage's closeness was a distraction he could not spare, especially when it was wrapped in high-priced scent and venomous history.
"Charming welcome," Kaelen replied, his tone relaxed but his eyes flying to Lysander with piercing intensity. "Very warm. I can almost feel the love emanating from every direction. Although some sources of warmth are more. intimate than others."
Lysander's expression had hardened, just barely—something Kaelen remembered with accuracy. "Yes," the mage spoke with silky ease, "some fires burn out more fully than others. Leaving only ash and regret."
The words ring true, and Kaelen feels his own smile slicing. "How nice. Still writing your little poems, I see."
"You're alive," Aeryn snapped, clearly irritated with the undertones she couldn't quite pick up. "In some communities that's already more mercy than you merit." She gestured with a disapproving hand towards a group of women tending gardens, but her eye was tracking the confrontation of the two men with growing distrust. "They've lost their husbands in Imperial raids. The children playing there? Half of them are orphans as a result of your folk."
"Ah," Kaelen answered in mock understanding, enjoying the diversion even as he filed Aeryn's wisdom away for later use, "and I thought it was my dashing personality that won hearts." He moved consciously to one side, noting the way the mage's eyes tracked the motion. "Though I have to admit, for a people so concerned with Imperial defeats, you're stunningly aware of my personal history. Someone's been studying."
"Oh, your reputation precedes you," Lysander said, and there was definitely venom in his voice now. "Though I find reality is often so much more. disappointing than legend suggests."
"Not my people," Kaelen said, his voice containing just the proper degree of sincerity to be believed as his mind registered the implications—and the queasy realization that Lysander was studying each micro-expression on his face as if he'd once committed every feature to memory. "Not anymore."
"Words," Aeryn spat, and small flames actually danced along her fingertips. "Easy words from a man who spent years killing for the Empire. How many of our people died by your hand, assassin?"
The question had clearly been meant to sting, but before Kaelen could develop his usual diversion, Lysander stepped in close and said, with a voice nearly intimate, "Oh, he was dreadfully selective about his work, weren't you, sunshine? Very. fussy about his contracts."
The endearment word was spat out like an insult, and Kaelen's cheeks began to heat up—anger, he told himself, as the beat in his chest contradicted it. "I'd rather be 'professionally discerning,'" he retorted coolly, "although I imagine that maintaining standards might be difficult if one's judgment is. impaired by personal feeling."
"Indeed," Lysander murmured, and his smile was rather more dental than human. "Although some of us managed to keep our private and professional lives suitably compartmentalized. Eventually."
"Touching." Aeryn's voice would have frozen water, and she was eyeing them with growing understanding. "A murderer with a conscience and a history, by the look of things. How delightfully complicated."
Lysander cleared his throat lightly, and Kaelen sensed the faint smile on the mage's face. Intriguing—this one was enjoying the battle of wits. "Perhaps we can reserve the philosophy for some other occasion? The children are starting to stare."
Indeed, there had been a group of wide-eyed children who had come to stand off at a distance, watching the exchange with awed horror. Kaelen itemized their locations, their likely ages, their potential use as leverage. There was a girl among them with Aeryn's warm brown skin and curious golden eyes, but no smile of warmth in either.
The girl proceeded with the bold disregard of childhood. "Are you really an assassin?" she asked, but there was no inquiry in her tone—only icy judgment that seemed unbearably mature for her years.
"Maya," Aeryn warned, but her tone was bursting with fierce guardianship, not love.
"It's fine." Kaelen bent down to the girl's level, ignoring how the rope pulled on his shoulders. He could feel the disapproving look of all the adults in reach, but children were often the best sources of honest information. "I was. I am at the moment in career choice limbo, you might say."
"My papa said that assassins are cowards who kill in the dark because they are not able to fight honestly." Maya's voice was straightforward, sad in its naivety.
Kaelen leaned forward, regarding her with the attention he had once reserved for reconnaissance on a mark. "Your papa was very particular about professional method. Did he prefer open fighting? Hand-to-hand?" The questions were innocuous enough, but he was building a profile—of Marcus, of his fighting style, of potential weak points in rebel tactics.
"The Empire killed him." She scrutinized Kaelen with unsettling intensity. "Did you know him? Did you kill him?"
The silence was taut as a bowstring. Kaelen could sense the rigidity of Lysander at his side, the hum of magic from the mage vibrating with nearly restrained power. When he looked up at Aeryn, he could see the fury and pain battling in her golden eyes—and something else. Suspicion. She was making connections.
"No," he answered finally, meeting Maya's unflinching gaze. "I did not know your father. But had I, in fact, been given orders to kill him." He paused, his eyes flicking, for a single instant only, to Lysander—a glance that said more of deep-seated history and mutual trickery. "Well. Suffice it to say my track record at following through on unpleasant necessities was. spotless."
"Until it wasn't," Lysander murmured quietly, and there was something so almost hurt in his voice. "Until you picked up that pesky conscience of yours."
"Maya." Aeryn's voice was bitter with command, but her gaze was on the sparring between the two men. "Go to your mother. Now."
The girl obeyed, although not before shooting Kaelen a last, appraising look that assured him she would never forget this encounter. Stepping away from her, Kaelen sat up gradually, feeling the weight of having been under two very different kinds of observation.
"My brother," Aeryn said, once Maya was out of earshot, "was murdered defending the eastern colonies from an Imperial raid. Their killer was highly trained. Highly effective. Marcus had no idea the knife was on its way." Her tattoos were aglow now, responding to the anger and grief that flowed through her. "So forgive me if I don't see your presence here as particularly. comforting."
"I bet it's more the other way around," Kaelen said, though his attention was divided. He could feel Lysander's magic probing at the edges of his mind—not quite a truth spell, but near enough. Trying, testing, looking for cracks in his armor.
"Stop it," he said to the mage quietly, not looking toward him. "Whatever you're doing, stop it."
"Just double-checking," Lysander breathed, and the push of magic faded. "Make sure you're still. you."
The language was laden with meaning that cinched Kaelen's chest in anger old and hurt even older. "Still disappointed?"
"Always," Lysander replied, but his voice was softer now, almost fond. Almost forgiving.
Aeryn looked back and forth between them, her expression shifting from rage to calculation. "How do you two know each other?"
The question hung there like smoke from a funeral pyre.
The danger hung between them, like the cloud of smoke from a funeral pyre. Lysander stepped in, not between them but close enough to jump in if he needed to. "Perhaps we'd best take another stroll around," he said quietly. "Before Aeryn has cause to exercise her "rebel justice"."
"I'm considering it," Aeryn said, her fingers resting on the hilt of her stunner. But she turned and strode deeper into the village, her step sharp with fresh-disciplined anger.