5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Revival was excruciating.

Rafael regained consciousness much more slowly than he'd lost it, but apart from that the circumstances were very similar. He could tell he was strung up in a large chamber, nearly as large and open as the floor of the ruined cathedral where he had so spectacularly failed his last assignment. He was in pain, a fiery ache spreading from his wrists down his shoulders and radiating out from his much-abused back. He heard slow footsteps move across the cold stone floor, but he didn't open his eyes. He couldn't bear to see, not yet. His memories were bad enough, and he had plenty of memories of this particular room.

They were alone. Rafael could tell that much without looking, but it wasn't reassuring in the slightest. He shouldn't be alive. Xian had taken a contract out on him, and an assassin's contract, with very few exceptions, was a death sentence. They didn't usually toy with their prey, although Rafael bitterly admitted to himself that their fight might well have qualified as playing for all the effectiveness he'd had against his former master.

A failure. That was what he was, that was all he had ever been, and he had proved that quite spectacularly. He didn't want to be here. He didn't ever want to wake up again. Why hadn't Xian killed him?

Rafael's masochistic side forced his mind to replay the fight. It was so clear, in retrospect. Xian had played him beautifully, enticing him into wasting his crossbow bolts with his game of hide-and-seek, pretending injury to coerce Rafael into abandoning the high ground to try to capitalize on the wound before Xian was healed. The cloth, that magnificent gleaming black cloak had protected his former master from the wrath of the sun as well as the rain of silver needles Rafael had shot at him. And when they'd closed the distance…

Shame burned through Rafael's chest, making him squeeze his eyes shut, trying to deny it. He'd tried. He truly had tried to kill Xian, at first. He had made a supreme effort, especially after he'd nearly fallen to death when the floor crumbled to a yawning pit beneath his feet. He should have died then, but now he knew Xian had pulled him back and saved him from that dark, solitary end. Why? So he could revel in his former apprentice's inadequacies and watch him shatter beneath the realization that even after five years of living a life of vengeful sorrow and anger, in the end he couldn't move to kill his master? Did Xian sense the hopelessness in Rafael as he had realized that, the futile frustration and self-loathing? He could have run Rafael through right then.

Instead he had saved him. Saved him from falling, then spared his life when by all rights he should have killed him immediately. He had saved him for what, then? To gloat? That wasn't Xian's style. To impress Rafael's worthlessness upon him? Perhaps, especially if he still resented the death of his other apprentice, the one Rafael had killed only…two nights ago? Three? How long had it been? Rafael wasn't sure, although from the feel of his arms he hadn't been hanging for more than an hour. His shoulders hadn't separated from the sockets yet, despite barely being able to touch the ground with his toes. So, not long. Two nights then.

Why was he alive?

Politics. The answer came to Rafael in a rush and he released his breath with a tired, strained sigh. Of course. He had insulted the ruling council of Clare with his last kill. They wanted him taken alive so they could make his punishment last, so they could make an example out of him to any others who might have delusions of stealing their grandeur. His end would be neither fast nor clean. Rafael remembered from his own years in the Upper City the punishment for those who threatened the High Ones' sovereignty. No merciful end for an audacious mouse.

The footsteps circled closer, a spiral path of pain closing on Rafael's position. He kept his eyes resolutely shut. He wouldn't look. It might be cowardly, but cowardice was better than the other emotions he felt hammering behind his eyelids. At least he could be a silent coward.

"Awake at last." Xian's smooth, warm voice flowed into the empty spaces of the room, filling it instantly with his presence. The words were like a caress, and Rafael couldn't stop from turning toward them as a flower turned its face toward the sun. As soon as he realized what he was doing, he snapped back to neutral, raging at himself internally but keeping his expression blank. "Ah, pet. Still so responsive. I missed that."

Missed it? He'd missed it? Fury at Xian drowned out his anger at himself. He let it build and block out all the other emotions striving for supremacy. Fury felt good. It blossomed and filled his chest, purifying his mind and easing the tension in his throat with its perfect simplicity.

"Very good, Rafael. You've remembered a great deal of what I taught you." He was close now, very close. He moved behind Rafael and stopped for a long moment. Rafael felt the cold metal handle of one of Xian's instruments touch the nape of his neck then slide slowly down the length of his spine. He almost cried with relief. He couldn't have taken the touch of skin. Metal allowed him to maintain his rage, to hold his edge. Just metal. Just a whip or a quirt of some kind. It could have been anyone's hands on it.

"Skin and bones," Xian murmured. "Your new master runs you ragged, pet."

What a hideous misconception. Even knowing it might be a ploy on Xian's part, Rafael felt compelled to answer. It was all right, his rage still protected him. "I have no master." His voice sounded like ground glass, almost as rough as it had been when he'd tried to kill himself after being banished from the Upper City.

"Perhaps not," Xian said after a moment. "Perhaps not even yourself." He tapped the base of Rafael's spine with the handle, then began to move again. "A pet without a master is dangerous."

"I'm no one's pet."

"But you certainly are dangerous. Wild, unpredictable. They told me I should have gotten rid of you years ago."

"You did." That familiar shuddering pain lanced through his chest again, but Rafael buried it under his white-hot fury, fed the blaze so that it wouldn't go out and desert him when he most needed to maintain his composure. "You abandoned me before I could be tested."

"The council judged you unfit for ascension, Rafael, not I."

That knowledge didn't make it any better. It just made his master a servant, a weakling, another one of the council's mindless underlings. It lessened him, and that lessening made Rafael even madder. He didn't speak, unsure what would pour out of his mouth if he opened it now.

"Their decision was for the best. You would have failed their test," Xian went on. His voice was casual, matter-of-fact. "It would have ruined you."

"I was ruined anyway."

"Yet here you are, mostly whole." The metal handle tapped his straining chest just below the solar plexus. "Functional. Capable. You've taken your ruination quite well."

"You know nothing of it." If he knew how many times Rafael had tried to die, how he'd cursed his body every time it had failed him by living, how terribly hard he'd made Feysal's life for the months of his recovery…

Gods, poor Feysal. He'd tried for so many years to free Rafael of his obsession with the High Ones, of his need to kill them and make them suffer for his rejection. Feysal had given unceasingly of himself, and all he'd asked in return was that Rafael try to live a normal life. Rafael had failed his friend badly.

"Perhaps not," Xian finally agreed. "I lost interest in most of the Lower City long ago. I go there only when my calling takes me there. I know little of how you've lived, whom you've killed, or in what manner you've found solace over the years. I am, however, interested in you. Everyone is interested in you now, pet."

"If I'd known all it would take to get your attention again was killing one of your apprentices, I'd have done it years ago," Rafael snarled, his eyes opening at last as he turned his head to the side, suddenly wanting Xian to look into him and see the furious honesty of his last statement reflect in his eyes. Despite his conflicted emotions over killing his master's other apprentice, if he'd known it would bring them back together, he probably would have attempted it early into his exile. His longing for Xian had been all-encompassing.

The rounded knob at the end of the handle traced over the lines of his shoulders, the coldness of the metal a sharp counterpoint to the growing burn there. Xian finally moved to stand before him, and it was all Rafael could do to keep from screaming with the sudden surge of anger, frustration and desire.

He looked…like Xian. Like Rafael's master. Like he could have stepped out of his memories from five years ago without a pause. His long silver hair was held back in a braid, leaving the angular lines of his face clear. Pale skin stretched taut over sharp cheekbones and a sharper nose, and the chilling whiteness of his eyes was near-total, even the pupils dimmed by centuries of magic consumption. He looked like a hawk, a hunter, long and lean and broader across the shoulders than most High Ones. Black trousers, normal cloth instead of the shining shield he'd used so effectively before, hung loosely on his hips. He wore those and tall black boots and nothing else and the sight of him, so bared before Rafael, felt like a knife in his heart.

He reached desperately for the protective pain that would keep him from losing the shreds of his self-control. It was a fight, and one he might have lost if the sudden soft chime of someone seeking entrance hadn't caused Xian to turn from him. Rafael collapsed in his restraints, breathing raggedly and forcing his screaming shoulders to bear more of his weight and distract his mind.

Moments later a third person joined them in the chamber, entering without introduction. Rafael felt a brief surge of surprise that the visitor hadn't waited to be seen in. Privacy was very highly valued among the people of the Upper City, and to intrude upon a master assassin in his own home was unheard of. Then he blearily made out the dark, velvety blood-red robes of the visitor and understood. Simple things like courtesy didn't apply to members of the council.

"He doesn't look so very impressive as you report," the newcomer announced. Her voice was low for a woman's, and rich in timbre and tone. "I thought deception was my trade, beloved."

"More your way of life," Xian replied mildly. "And he's much more dangerous than he looks."

The High One smiled enigmatically. "He would have to be." She stepped closer, the pointed heels of her shoes echoing resoundingly off the polished marble. She was tall for a woman, her head shaved bare and left uncovered by velvet or silk. Her robes were loose on her frame and surprisingly plain. Her only decorations were two heavy ruby teardrops clinging to her ears and a third set in a brooch that decorated a dark velvet choker around her neck. Her heavy-lidded eyes were utterly expressionless as she looked at him, but there was something about her gaze that made Rafael shudder.

"He is a perceptive creature, isn't he?" She reached out and trailed cold, dry fingertips across his cheek and down his neck. "He must be a delightful puzzle."

"Myrtea," Xian said warningly as he stepped up beside her. "He's not yours to punish."

"Punish no, but educate…" She lowered her hand and shrugged. "You and I are teachers, beloved, and it behooves us to constantly improve our craft. I could teach your wayward apprentice a great deal in the three days left to him."

"A pleasure you'll be forced to forego, and I was given to understand that I would have him for a week."

"The council is confident in your ability to break him down faster," she replied, unperturbed. "The creature is completely at your mercy, after all. Surely you, the master of all assassins, can torture any important information out of him in three days and nights."

"As a general rule, assassins don't torture their marks," Xian said evenly. "We leave that sort of thing to the spies."

"If you feel insecure in your skills, then feel free to relinquish your burden to me," Myrtea suggested with a genuine smile. "I would be more than happy to offer my services in extracting the truth from him."

"Your methods produce notoriously unreliable results."

"On the contrary. I find excruciating pain to be remarkably effective in sorting through the lies." She gestured toward Rafael. "And clearly you do as well, or you wouldn't have put him in that position. You like to pretend that we are different, Xian, but you're deluding yourself. You and I enjoy the same things in life, and in death." She shivered slightly, still smiling. "To take a life, or better yet, watch someone else take a life at your word, on your orders… It is the ultimate experience, isn't it? A perfect expression of our power over mortality."

"Our waning power."

"Stop!" The venom in her voice seared through even Rafael's pained distraction, although he kept himself from showing his sudden interest. "Do not speak of it. Do not even think of it! Our wizards will find a way to secure our future, but you won't have one if you continue to speak so blasphemously!" Myrtea's sudden, vicious fury evaporated as quickly as it had built up, and she relaxed into cool indifference once again. "A few centuries left to your own devices and you've become quite irreverent, beloved. I wonder that the council has let you go on like this for so long."

"Perhaps it's because I'm exceptionally good at my profession. After all, if they stepped in every time an apprentice failed to ascend, you would be as vulnerable to chastisement as I," Xian replied. "How is Daeva, by the way?"

"Thriving in the rank pestilence of the Lower City, as I knew he would," she answered airily. "He serves his purpose, even if he doesn't know it. We all serve our purposes.

"Three days, beloved," she said, abruptly changing the topic. "Then your creature pays for his insults to the Upper Half. Make sure he's still whole enough to feel it." She turned and swept out of the great room, the black and red of her robes swimming dizzyingly across the marble floor behind her. The door boomed shut and Xian turned back to Rafael with a cryptic smile on his face.

"This new injunction will make my work more challenging," he said.

"What do you think I can tell you?" Rafael asked, his voice thready with exhaustion now. Gray spots marred his vision, and he knew he would be unconscious soon. He was looking forward to it.

"It isn't about what you can tell me, pet," Xian said quietly. "It's about how far I can take you."

Rafael wanted to ask how far was far enough, but the spots were growing, and he fell rapidly into the darkness. His breaths wheezed in his straining chest and his hearing became muffled. Just as he blacked out he heard the rapid release of a chain, but he was happily oblivious to his body falling to the floor.