I grab Cyros’s arm and attempt to tug the knife away. His grip tightens, his arm like steel.

“What did you tell her?” he asks again. “If you don’t want to die, speak now.”

I nervously swallow, and I can feel the blade scrape over my skin with the movement. I tap his hand, too afraid to speak.

He glances down at the gesture, then moves the knife back, a fraction of an inch.

I breathe out a sigh, though I hardly feel relieved. “What are you talking about?” I hiss. “Who?”

“The politician’s sister,” Cyros says. “I know you saw things at the inn. What did you tell the woman and the guards about me and my master?”

His master, huh. “Nothing,” I say. “I only told them your fake names, I promise!”

Cyros goes still. “What do you mean, our fake names.”

Shit. I wasn’t supposed to know that. “Uh, I mean, I just assumed they were fake, right? Since you guys were trying to lay low.”

He narrows his eyes at me.

“Um, I mean, you had your hood up the whole time you were at the inn,” I say, stumbling through an explanation, my mind racing. “And, of course, we first met in that orchid patch, which seems pretty suspicious since the noble died from orchid venom.”

“Poison,” Cyros says.

I blink. “Uh, what?”

“Never mind.” He nudges me with the knife to prompt me to keep talking.

“So, anyway,” I say, trying to strain my neck away from the blade. “I figured, you had to have lied about your names, right?”

Cyros swears. “I should have let you die in that orchid patch.”

“Well, uh, I appreciate that you didn’t,” I say, mind still racing. I’m the only one that saw him out there. I’m the only one that knows he’s responsible. Is he going to kill me now that he got the info he needed? Crap, I should have thought of that before responding. “And, um, I’d love to repay you for saving my life.”

His eye twitches. “How?”

Great question. Is there anything I can say that will convince him? What does he want? What do I have?

My inventory.

My pulse quickens, then slows. Breathe, Sal, breathe. Against all my instincts, I let go of his arm and drop a hand down by my side. “Talia—the noble’s sister—she trusts me,” I say. “She wants to use me to figure out who killed her sister, and why. If you want me to throw her off your trail, I could do that. Just tell me what to say.”

Cyros considers my offer, frowning. Will he take it? Is the gamble that I’d play along worth letting go of a loose end? What would I do in his shoes?

I’d tie up loose ends.

Cyros seems to decide the same. His hand twitches, and I reach for my knife.

[Accessing inventory,] Echo says.

The blade appears in my hand. I rip the sheath off and I jerk the knife forward, pressing the tip against his stomach.

“Don’t try it,” I hiss, inching the blade forward.

Cyros jerks against the touch, eyes darting down, then leaps back with a gasp. I drop into a defensive stance, raising my knife.

“How did you do that?” he asks. “I scoped you out. You didn’t have any weapons on you.”

I snort. “Like I’d tell you how.” Mostly because now that my inventory is empty it’s a one-time trick that I won’t be able to replicate.

He doesn’t move, eyeing me up and down. “You don’t know how to use that blade, do you?”

Guess my defensive stance isn’t as convincing as I’d hope. “I don’t have to be good with knives to make one appear in your stomach.”

He squints at me. “You’re bluffing.”

“Wanna try it?” I challenge. Please don’t try it.

Cyros stares at me for a moment longer. When he finally moves, I flinch, but he’s only raising his hands in a gesture of stalemate. “Fine,” he says, slipping his knife back into a sheath at his side. “Let’s talk.”

Still eyeing the blade at his hip—actually, blades now that I’m looking carefully—I also slip my knife back into my inventory, vanishing it from sight. His eyebrows shoot up at that, and I have to hold myself back from smiling at the reaction.

“You’re really willing to lie for me?” he asks, folding his arms. “Why? What’s in it for you?”

Not dying by a slit throat, I think. But it’s interesting he cares so much about covering his tracks that he’s willing to work with me on this. Just who is he, exactly? Why did he kill that noble? All information that would help my position in this negotiation.

Echo, can you tell me anything more about him? I ask.

[Cyros, Level 24 dryad vine rogue,] Echo says. [He is a trainee of the Blackcloaks.]

And what’s the Blackcloaks? I ask.

[Local to the southern regions of Dunmora, the Blackcloaks are a small yet growing Assassin’s Guild.]

I do my best not to react to that. He’s an assassin? I mean, I guess that makes sense, what with his master’s title and all the poison and knives and murder. But it means he does actually have something I want.

“There’s someone I need to kill,” I finally say. “If I tell Talia anything you want, you have to teach me everything I want to know about poisons.”

Cyros blinks. “That’s not the answer I was expecting.”

“Is that a no?” I ask.

He frowns, chewing on his lip. “Who do you want to kill? I could maybe arrange that.”

I shake my head. “I want to do it myself. Besides, you’re not strong enough.” I mean, neither am I, to be fair. But I’ll get there.

He snorts. “I think I stand a better chance than you. Who is it?”

Well, if I want to kill her eventually, I’ll need to start brainstorming ideas with someone sooner or later. “Maru,” I say.

“Hm,” he considers. “Is that Maru Climbingvine? The tailor?”

“What?” I scoff. “No! Maru the demigod! Champion of the God of War? Come on!”

Cyros laughs. When I don’t join in, he stops. “What, you’re serious?”

“Dead serious,” I say.

His frown pinches with worry. “That’s… quite the undertaking. Likely to get you…”

Killed is probably what he was going to say. He must have realized at the same time that would solve his problem for him. A faint smile pulls at his lips.

“Alright,” he says. “You’ve got yourself a deal. You feed bad intel to the noble’s sister and the City Guard, and I’ll teach you some of what I know about poison.”

He holds out a hand.

I nearly shake it, then hesitate. “Your skin isn’t covered in, like, a thin layer of poison, or have venomous needles up your sleeve, right?”

He chuckles. “No, but good instincts.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Hesitantly, I clasp his hand. “Sal,” I say, finally introducing myself.

Cyros grins. “I’m Shoti,” he lies.

----------------------------------------

We hash out the details of our agreement over the next few minutes. Honestly, I probably should have taken more time to make sure I wasn’t getting stiffed, but once the adrenaline of almost getting my throat cut wears off, I’m so exhausted I can barely keep standing. The Starlight Inn is so remote that it takes a 12 hour round trip to get between it and Fairwood, so the next time Cyros can afford to come visit me is a week from now. I’m not even sure I want him to; on the one hand, I have to get my hands on some of his assassin training. On the other, every time he comes to see me is another time he could decide our agreement has expired and kill me on the spot.

The risks we take for revenge.

Cyros tells me everything he wants relayed to Talia, I do my best to not immediately forget it all, and then he vanishes back into the night. Too tired to be relieved, I find somewhere to stash my bag, as was the original plan, then trudge back in through the gate. It swings shut behind me. I drag myself to the bedroom Talia showed me to, and without any more fanfare, I collapse into bed.

I don’t wake up until the sun’s shining through the windows. Back at the Starlight, Iski usually has me up before dawn to start prepping breakfast for the guests, so it’s a little disorientating when I wake and the room is filled with light. Guess I needed the rest.

I consider skipping town without speaking to Talia again, but I did make an agreement with Cyros, no matter how sketchy it might be. With a sigh, I rake my fingers through my hair, make a half-hearted attempt to smooth the wrinkles out of my clothes, and set off to find Talia.

I don’t have to look far. Smoke is curling lazily out the chimney of the kitchen and an absolutely heavenly smell is wafting from its open door. I poke my head inside.

“Finally up,” Talia says from her seat at the table. She has a book in one hand and a fork in the other. A mug of something dark is steaming on the table, and she has a plate of eggs, bread, and jam. The thick slice of toast is nothing like the kind I’m used to on Earth, but it still looks hot and buttered, and therefore delicious. She snaps her book shut and stands to grab me a plate as I sit in the chair opposite.

“Sleep well?” she asks, cutting off a hunk of bread and setting it on a stone near the fireplace.

“Yeah,” I say. I grab the plate of eggs as soon as she sets them on the table and start wolfing them down. “Thanks.”

After returning with a second mug—tea, I think—and the now-toasted bread, she sits across from me and laces her fingers together. She may claim she’s no politician, but she certainly acts like one.

“I’m sure you’ve plenty of things to get to today and so have I,” she says. “So let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

“Works for me,” I say, slathering the steaming bread with butter and jam.

“The names you gave to Captain Enrold,” Talia says. “Toshi and Tara. What can you tell me about them?”

“Toshi was a dryad,” I say, repeating what Cyros had told me. I guess since others like Iski and Gugora had seen him, it would be too suspicious for me to contradict his basic physical description too much. “Tara was a human.” That part I know is a lie, but she’d certainly looked human to me. “They didn’t say much or engage with the other guests. Wore dark clothes. I think one of them had a rose design on their cloak.”

“A rose?” Talia asks, perking up. “What did it look like? What color?”

I shrug, even as I try to recall exactly what Cyros had told me to report. “Yellow, I think. Or maybe white—it was pretty faded.”

“Interesting.” Talia taps a finger on the table. “A white rose is the symbol for the Dawnbreak family. They’d certainly have motives to get Kelwa out of the way. But why flaunt their symbol at the scene of the murder? To send a message? Or have they been set up?”

I frankly have no idea what Cyros’s intent was there. Perhaps muddying the waters was all he cared about.

“What else can you tell me?” she asks.

I wrack my brain. Everything Cyros had told me to say just had to do with his and his partners appearances, and then specifically to mention the white rose. “Um, the poison that was used was carnivorous orchid sap,” I say, trying to come up with anything to sound helpful. I have to at least appear like I’m being honest if I don’t want her to bring out her lie detector again. “And it was taken from a patch not far from the inn.”

“Really?” she asks, perking up. “Now that is interesting. How do you know?”

“I sort of stumbled into that same patch myself,” I admit. “Actually, that’s why I have a poison affinity.”

“Fascinating.” She leans forward. “Now some of your earlier mistruths are beginning to make sense. I can see why you wouldn’t have wanted to disclose some of this before Captain Enrold. The connection to you would be implicating. Is this why I could detect you were holding something back about your magic?”

“Yeah,” I lie, thinking about Echo and my Stat system.

She raises an unconvinced eyebrow.

“Partly,” I amend.

“Go on,” she prods. “I’m a scholar, I can’t stand to let a mystery like this pass me by.”

Would she know what Echo is? In her studies, would she have heard of anyone else having something like this before?

I still don’t trust her—and I still don’t want to get her killed by having second-hand knowledge of my origins—but maybe I don’t have to tell her everything to suss out some answers of my own. “My magic is different from most people’s,” I tell her. “There’s… visual and sound components to what I do, that no one but me can seem to see and hear.”

“Visual and auditory hallucinations?” she considers, taking a sip of her tea. “Quite interesting. There are some ocular magics that might explain such illusions. You’re sure your affinity is Poison?”

Echo? I prompt.

[All user affinities: Poison.]

“Pretty sure,” I say.

“Curious. Can’t say I’ve heard of anything like that,” Talia admits, sinking my hope. “There might be some references to such magical side effects recorded in tomes somewhere. I would suggest you start your investigation into your magic in the library of Miasmere, but I’ve heard the Athenaeum is currently under construction. Pity, it’s a remarkable institution. Still, it remains an option when it reopens to the public.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say. Maybe there’s more information at this library that could help with my Poison magic, too.

“Seems I’ve my own enigmas to start researching myself,” Talia says. She frowns, chewing on a piece of toast. “House Dawnbreak, hmm? They’ve certainly been vying for a spot on the Council. And I can’t blame them for picking Kelwa as their target given the bad blood… but would they really resort to murder?”

Despite the few times I’d seen her face puffy-eyed and tear-streaked the night before, she doesn’t seem too heartbroken over her sister’s death this morning. It’s definitely none of my business, but if I’m going to be feeding her information on Cyros’s behalf, I might as well figure out more about what information she’s digging for.

“How come you want to find her killer?” I ask. “Not that I don’t think you’re just in it for the justice, but…”

She chuckles coldly. “Aptly observed. I certainly never wanted my sister dead, but it would be equally accurate to say we were never close, loving siblings. She and I were both driven, which engendered a certain competitiveness in us, only fanned by our parents. It’s lucky our career paths diverged so sharply or we certainly would have been at each other's throats in our professions as well. No, it’s not justice I seek—not entirely.”

Talia finishes off her toast and takes another sip of tea before continuing. “Unrelated to my sister’s demise, there’s a power vacuum in Fairwood. One of the eldest seats on the Council died earlier this year—right after the election cycle, resulting in the seat remaining open until the next term. That of itself has been enough to tip the scales, upsetting a previous balance among the council, but now with my sister murdered, two of five seats are up for grabs. Any of the three houses remaining on the council would love to use this to secure their positions more permanently.”

“This sounds like politics,” I say, growing bored. “And why do you care, anyway? I thought you’re a scholar.”

“Indeed.” She smiles wryly. “And if I want to keep the Academic Guild well-funded, I’ll need to make sure the Council’s still keeping my best interests at heart. However, I can’t help but feel some bigger play is in the works. Enrold admitted the guards he assigned to Kelwa left the day before her murder, and even he didn’t seem to know why. Someone’s pulling strings. And the timing of this with the Gods’ Tournament can’t be a coincidence.”

“What?” I say, sitting up. “What about the gods?”

“Ah yes, I suppose you wouldn’t have heard out in such a remote side of the country,” she says. “It’s the reason Kelwa was passing through your inn, actually. She was off in a nearby town when the announcement was made, and she came hurrying back as soon as she heard. About a week ago, nearly a dozen gods simultaneously announced they would be holding events to elect new champions. Widengra selected the location of his Gods’ Tournament to be here in Fairwood.”

Goosebumps prickle my skin, running over my body in a wave of prickly static. “Widengra? God of War?”

“Absurd, isn’t it?” Talia says. “Our city should have been claimed by Lorata if anyone.”

“When is it?” I lean across the table. “Will Maru be there?”

Talia arcs an eyebrow. “Maru, his Champion? I suppose she would be; she’d need to approve of any potential new Champion ascending to her rank. Why do you ask?”

“When?” I stress, excitement and fear lighting up my body like a shock of electricity. Maru was going to be back. I’d know exactly where and when to find her. “When’s the tournament?”

“A little less than a month,” Talia replies, perplexed. “Please tell me you don’t intend to enter. You hardly seem a devout worshiper of Widengra.”

“Never,” I hiss, clutching the edge of the table. “I’d never worship him.”

Talia leans back, giving me an appraising look as she sips at her tea once more. “You’ve some disagreement with the gods?”

I grind my teeth, thinking about Gugora’s words. Just don’t say it out loud.

Talia can read between the lines anyway. “That’s a dangerous path to walk. While many of the gods may be deserving of our ire, it’s best first to have earned another’s blessings before making such frustrations known.”

I don’t want any of their blessings. If Widengra is the kind of god that lets his champion go around murdering people, and if the other gods do nothing to put a stop to that, then none of them have my respect.

Talia just shakes her head. “Whatever your history may be, I will only say that it remains in your best interest to avoid drawing their attention. They will have plenty of potential Champion candidates to focus on in the coming weeks; it should not be difficult for you to remain beyond their sight. Pray keep it that way.”

I finish off the rest of my cold breakfast in silence, stewing in the knowledge that Maru would return in one month: and that was when I’d have my chance to kill her.

Just one month to grow stronger. One month to learn about my magic and absorb everything I can from Cyros. One month to find a way to kill a demigod.

The food churns uncomfortably in my stomach.

“Thanks for the meal,” I mumble when I finish, standing up to finally leave. I have a lot to think about and plan.

“I appreciate the company,” Talia says. “And I’d like to hope you’ll visit me again soon, should any new information regarding my sister’s case arise?”

I think about it for a moment; returning here would be another excuse to meet up with Cyros for assassin training, and he’d definitely want me meeting up with Talia more to keep drip feeding misinformation. Plus, I’ll need to get familiar with the city’s layout before Maru arrives—and there might be more resources around town to help me learn magic.

“Definitely,” I agree. “I’ll come back again soon.”

“Great,” Talia says as I head out the door. She follows me to the doorway, leaning against the frame. “I look forward to it. And when you do, perhaps you can return that book you’ve borrowed,” she adds with a wink.