The Assassin's Curse

  Then one of the machines opened up, its top peeling away like a lemon. More smoke poured into the air. I promptly forgot about Naji.

  I used his sword to cut my dress away above the knee so I wouldn't trip on the skirt. Then I held the sword up the way Papa'd taught me a long time ago.

  A figure dropped down to the sand.

  A man.

  Tarrin of the Hariri.

  I gasped and faltered, stepping back without meaning to, but I didn't lower my sword. My thoughts felt like poison, turning me to stone out there in the light and smoke of those horrible machines. The Hariris. How long had they been tracking us across the desert? How long had they had this kind of magic at their disposal?

  Tarrin was all decked out like a Qilari noble, the long coat and the knee-high boots and everything. He slipped off his hat as he walked up to me, clutching it next to his heart. His handsome face didn't fit the backdrop, all that dark smoke.

  "We don't have to fight," he said.

  "You sent an assassin to kill me!"

  Tarrin's expression darkened. "No, I didn't. My parents did. I warned you."

  My heart pounded hard and fast inside my chest. Sweat rolled down my back. I hardly noticed the heat, though. I didn't allow myself to. Part of me wanted to attack Tarrin then and there, just lay into him, even though it wasn't the nicest thing in the world to attack a man not holding out a weapon, but then I remembered Naji told me not to do nothing foolish. Laying into Tarrin, what with those machines backing him up? I wouldn't call it foolish, but I knew Naji would.

  "Besides, he hasn't killed you yet," Tarrin said.

  "Trust me, I noticed."

  Tarrin frowned. "Mistress Tanarau, my parents are willing to give you one more chance. I talked them into it. Father lent me his landships and everything."

  "That's what those are?" I squinted up at them, gleaming bright in the sun. Landships? Of all the abominable things.

  "Please, just come back with me to Lisirra. We can get married on my ship – the wedding sails are still up – and if you come back as my betrothed, Father will let me fly his colors." He smiled at me, as dazzling as the machines behind him.

  I thought about it. I really did. Marriage was still the furthest thing from what I wanted, and I didn't even know what I wanted. But it would have made things easier, to climb aboard one of those creaking monsters and let Tarrin whisk me back to sea, away from the sand and the dry desert heat. There was an appeal to it, is what I'm saying.

  I lowered the sword, and let it hang at my side. My arms ached from holding it up over my head, and besides, I wanted to seem as unthreatening as possible when I asked what I had to ask.

  "Could Naji come with us?"

  Tarrin scrunched up his face. It made him look prissy. "Who's Naji?"

  "My traveling companion."

  Tarrin got this look liked I'd suggested we share a bowl of scorpions. "What? The assassin? Why would he come with us?"

  "Look, I ain't too happy about it neither, but I can't just leave him."

  "Of course you can."

  I frowned. I thought about Naji screaming in pain when I tried to walk out of the Snake Shade I

  "It won't be forever," I said. "Just until we can get him cured."

  "Cured? What are you talking about?"

  "He got this curse on account of me, and until he finds the cure I pretty much have to stay around him. It won't be that big a deal. Just lock him in the brig."

  "Are you insane? Do you have any idea what he does?"

  "Kill people for money? Come on, you'd do it too if the price was high enough."

  Tarrin scowled. "That's not what I was talking about." He lowered his voice. "You haven't dealt with the assassins the way my family has. They're dark. The magic they use – it isn't right. Isn't natural."

  "Haven't dealt with them? What do you call walking across the desert for two weeks with one? He wouldn't use magic on your boat, I'm sure of it. Just as long we helped him cure his curse–"

  Tarrin crossed his arms over his chest and puffed himself up, like I was some recalcitrant crewman he needed to order down. "I can't have something like that on my ship. The brig wouldn't contain him, not with his magic. We spill one drop of blood up on deck and he'd be commandeering the boat–"

  "Yeah, to get a cure for his curse."

  "Please, mistress!" He threw his hands up in the air. "Just leave the assassin in the desert."

  "Why don't you just let him onboard? He ain't as dangerous as you're saying. If anything he'll keep the boat safe."

  "You don't really believe that, do you?"

  "Course I believe it. Why won't you believe me?"

  Tarrin sighed. "It's not that I don't believe you, it's that you're wrong, because you simply don't know what the assassins are like."

  "Oh, just stop!" I snapped. "Why would I want to marry someone who won't even listen to me?"

  Tarrin's face went pale. "Are you telling me no?"

  "I guess I am. Maybe you could take this as a lesson, and treat your next lady with more respect."

  "No, no, you don't understand." Tarrin shook his head wildly. "I have to come back with you as my betrothed, or as a corpse. It's the only way I'll get the colors…"

  I stared at him, ice curling around my spine.

  "I have my crew waiting," he said, jerking his head back toward the machines. "Our crew, if you'd just come back with me."

  "And if I don't?"

  Tarrin's face twisted up. "I want those colors, Mistress Tanarau."

  "Well, I want a ship of my own, not yours. So I guess we're at an impasse here." I lifted the sword again.

  Tarrin glared at me and reached for his own sword. I never did fight him, though, because light exploded out of the black smoke, a great blinding sphere of it, strong enough that it knocked me back into the sand and momentarily blinded me. Knocked over Tarrin, too, and he stretched out beside me, blood seeping out from a cut on his head – he'd hit a rock when he went down.