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  The girls scatter instantly, no one bothering to mention the obvious:

  It’s impossible.

  Faye shoves Cianna out of the way and seizes the reins of the horse she’d begun to saddle. She swings herself up and digs her heels into the horse’s side, then she’s gone. Cianna utters a curse and bolts to the next stall. Mercy runs to her horse’s stall, relieved to find no one has taken him yet, although she knows no one in her right mind would dare. Blackfoot is an enormous stallion, gray-haired with black feathering around his hooves; he’s fast and stubborn, but she’s the only rider he hasn’t bucked.

  In her haste, someone had stolen the saddle Mercy uses, so she is forced to ride bareback. Outside, Trytain counts aloud with an unnerving amount of excitement, and although the arrows in this special quiver have been dulled to a blunt tip, they still leave bruises which ache for weeks, if not break the skin. Mercy reaches for the bridle and tightens the straps, her brows furrowed in concentration. An arrow thuds into the wall above her head. Blackfoot’s eyes widen and he jerks out of her reach, stomping his foot.

  Trytain nocks another arrow. Mercy ducks as it sails over her head and cracks against the wall, sending splinters of wood flying.

  “Not in here, you barbarian!” Irella shouts. “For the Creator’s sake, destroy the forest, not my stables!”

  Mercy jumps to her feet, holding Blackfoot’s reins with white knuckles as she begins to run, Blackfoot trotting beside her. When they make it far enough away, Mercy swings herself onto Blackfoot’s back, and they speed into the tree line as Trytain calls, “Time’s up!”

  Mercy is not the only one in the forest, although it feels like that at first.

  The woods are strangely quiet, the creatures which usually scamper in the underbrush scared away by the clomping of the horses who have already bolted past. For a moment, the only sound is the wind whooshing by Mercy’s ears, pressing her clothes to her body and rustling the branches above her head.

  A second later, the forest is deafening.

  Seven other girls riding seven other horses surround her, galloping so fast they flicker between the tree trunks like phantoms before disappearing. Hooves pound against the hard ground, echoing like trees crashing down in a storm. Branches whistle as Mercy rides by, and they slap her face and leave stinging little cuts behind. Blackfoot snorts and twigs snap under his hooves. Every so often, an apprentice yelps when an arrow finds its mark.

  Mistress Trytain has a horse.

  He’s loud and heavy and fast, and Mercy catches glimpses of him behind her as she rides. Sometimes Trytain changes course and targets someone else, and other times Mercy is peppered with wooden needles when an arrow embeds itself in the trunk of the nearest tree as she races past.

  She leans close to Blackfoot and knots a hand in his mane, her grip on him threatening to give way with every sudden turn and jolt on the hard, uneven ground. His muscles are strong, and she can feel each powerful pump of his legs as she fights to remain on his sleek back.

  She jerks the reins to the side and Blackfoot pivots so quickly she’s almost thrown off then and there. Blackfoot leaps over a fallen branch and Mercy’s head snaps back as his hooves reconnect with the earth. Mistress Trytain is behind her but losing ground with every missed arrow she is forced to retrieve. The split in the forest is just ahead, Mercy knows, where she will have to decide whether to go right—to the bank of the river, where Trytain expects—or left, to the waterfall.

  Trytain’s horse is a shadow, weaving between tree trunks with the ease of a fish in water. Mistress Trytain herself is having a harder time—she’s never been a natural rider; the bouncing of the horse and the dazzling oranges and reds of the leaves are making it difficult for her to aim properly, and frustration is getting the better of her. She growls when yet another of her arrows misses, and she slows her horse to retrieve it. The other girls thunder ahead, and Mercy spurs Blackfoot faster, jerking his reins at the split in the forest.

  She chooses left.

  The incline is gentle at first, hardly noticeable, then sharply increases until Blackfoot is snorting with effort, quickly falling out of a full gallop. The trees here are thicker, the branches wild and low-hanging. Blackfoot’s hooves trample the underbrush, but they’re the only ones Mercy hears. She smiles triumphantly; Trytain thinks she went right, like all the other girls—like she was supposed to.

  The forest is so thick light barely penetrates the canopy, and just when it seems to be thickest, it breaks, and Blackfoot and Mercy are thrust into the open air. Thirty feet ahead, the ground drops off in a cliff, and Dead Man’s Waterfall joins the Alynthi River a hundred feet below.

  Mercy pats Blackfoot’s neck as he slows to a stop. When she slides off his back, he snorts and moves to the water’s edge to drink. His body shines in the sunlight, slick with sweat. Mercy sits at the edge of the cliff, staring into the forest with her feet dangling over the open air.

  A sea of gold sweeps outward for miles, the Alynthi River carving a jagged blue scar through the trees. It’s nearly thirty feet wide in some places, the water dark and churning, the rapids capped with white foam. It’s said the river connects all the way to the ocean, but Mercy doesn’t know; she’s never seen it. She can’t imagine so much water in one place.

  A shadow emerges from the tree line below. It’s too far to tell for sure, but she appears to be Faye. There’s something distinct about the way she moves, a natural grace as she slides off her horse and leads him to the water to drink. Minutes later, one, two, three more girls join her, until all seven are lounging on the grass by the river’s edge. Some of them wade carefully into the water, nursing their wounds. None are seriously hurt—only enough to teach them to pay closer attention to their surroundings.

  Blackfoot neighs, and a second later, something hard flies into Mercy’s back. She lets out a yelp of surprise and turns to glare at Trytain, who emerges from the tree line with an empty bow in hand.

  “You didn’t go to the river,” Trytain says, frowning.

  “No, I didn’t.” Mercy rubs her back where the arrow had struck her spine, feeling the hard bump already forming under her skin. At least there’s no blood. She picks up the arrow and tosses it away, where it clatters in the dirt at Trytain’s feet. “You always tell us not to do what our pursuers expect.”

  “The point of the exercise was to test your ability to follow orders. You think I care about the rest of them? They followed orders. Some were hit, but they all obeyed. All of them, except for you.” Trytain moves to Mercy’s side, staring over the lip of the cliff with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Mistress—”

  “You think the Guild wants Daughters who disregard our orders and do as they please? Do you think this will convince Illynor to allow you a place in the Trial?” Trytain’s eyes narrow, and Mercy shrinks away from her tutor’s withering gaze. “You are not clever; you are not special. You are one of hundreds of apprentices who have lived in this castle and, next year, you will swear your vows and become a Daughter. You will be a great Assassin—you’re too skilled not to be—but you’re a fool if you think it’s going to bring you honor or glory or whatever it is you seek; it certainly won’t win you the affections of Illynor or the other girls here.”

  “I don’t care about their affections,” Mercy spits. “I have always known my place in the Guild.”

  “Elves have no place in the Guild.”

  Mercy doesn’t respond, scowling at the tips of her black boots as they dangle in the air, droplets of water from the waterfall beading up on the leather.

  “Would you care to hear a story?” Trytain suddenly asks.

  Mercy hesitates, then nods. It’s best to go along with whatever Mistress Trytain asks. Below them, the apprentices have begun to gather near the tree line, peering into the forest with confusion at their tutor’s absence.

  “I remember every detail of the day Llorin brought you here,” Trytain says. “All day long, the castle had been abuzz with ne
ws that Llorin had brought something special from the capital, but no one knew what it was. I had been training the girls in the forest all day, so after I cleaned myself up and arrived in the dining hall for dinner, there was Llorin, sitting at the head table with a bundle of cloth in her lap. Who do you think was inside that cloth?”

  “Me,” Mercy whispers.

  Trytain nods. “You were this ugly, wrinkly little thing with a pinched face and pointy ears too big for your body. When you reached out and wrapped the ends of Llorin’s hair in your little fist, Illynor smiled and said you’d make a fine Assassin one day. After the meal, I spoke with Illynor and begged her to reconsider taking you in.” Her lip curls in distaste. “The Guild has always trained the most beautiful, cunning, deadly human Assassins, and she was willing to throw all those years of tradition away for a sickly elven baby whose own parents didn’t want her!

  “Of course, she said if the Guild can be run by someone who isn’t human, why can’t we train someone who’s not human? Why don’t you have the same right as anyone else to become an Assassin? I laughed at her, yelled at her, threatened to leave, but she refused to reconsider. I thought if I could make her see . . . Elves are good for nothing but slaves and servants.” Her eyes are distant, lost in the memory of that night. “I knew she would turn the Guild into a laughingstock. At midnight, I snuck into the infirmary where you slept and stole you from your crib. I wrapped you in a blanket and shoved a cloth in your mouth so you couldn’t make noise and wake the others.

  “I tucked you under my arm and hid you under my cloak, and I walked all the way to this river—just down there.” She nods to the girls below. “I knelt on the bank and stared into your face, let the moonlight shine on you and tried to see what they saw. Where was that beauty, that grace, that power they all saw in you? What had you done, a week-old babe, to captivate them so? I searched and searched, but I never found it. I wrapped you in that blanket and lowered you into the river, waiting until the cloth became heavy with water, and let you go.”

  Mercy’s eyes widen in horror and she gapes at her tutor. After so many years, the others’ hatred shouldn’t surprise her, but it always does, and it always stings.

  “I was ready to watch you sink under the waves, watch your body being slowly pulled under and to face the consequences of my actions. But the sounds you made,” she says, “the sounds you made were so raw, so incredibly human.” Her voice drops to a hoarse whisper. “It’s my one regret.”

  Mercy gapes at Trytain, too shocked to be angry. “How can you say that? I work as hard as any of them. I work twice as hard—”

  “Sure, you work twice as hard and will reap half the benefits. That’s how it works here—that’s how it works everywhere.” She shakes her head, noticing the apprentices below beginning to mount their horses and wander from the bank. “I want you to understand my regret isn’t that I tried to drown you. It’s that I failed. Because you, Mercy,” she says over her shoulder as she retreats into the tree line, her bow swinging from one hand, “you are ruthless.”

  Mercy sits there for a long time, watching as Trytain appears at the bank below and escorts the rest of the apprentices back to the stables. Faye falters at the edge of the forest, waiting for Mercy to arrive, but she reluctantly spurs her horse forward after Cianna calls her name. Blackfoot wanders around the clearing and nudges Mercy with his nose a few times. When she doesn’t acknowledge him, he chuffs and moves into the shade, munching on clumps of leaves in the underbrush.

  Mercy stares down at her fingers, unsure how to process the revelation which had been dumped into her lap, thrust into her hands, shoved down her throat.

  She had already known most of the girls hate her. They used to torment her and call her names and pinch her ears. The tutors dislike her, too, although the others are usually more subtle about it than Mistress Trytain, whose hatred had been strong enough to warrant murder. Mercy hadn’t realized a grown woman could see a newborn child and decide she must die, that she had felt qualified to weigh the value of a life which hadn’t had the chance to be lived yet.

  Murder of a Daughter is an insult of the highest degree to the Guild, and Trytain had been willing to accept the consequences until her humanity had kicked in.

  Mercy stands and wipes off the dirt clinging to her legs. This changes nothing. She will do what she has always done: survive. She will take their hatred and craft it into her armor, because whether they will admit it or not, she will be the best Assassin the Guild has ever trained.

  6

  Mistress Sorin has already left for Ellesmere by the time Mercy enters the infirmary, and—seeing Arabelle is asleep—she springs into action. Jars clink against one another as she shuffles through them, pausing long enough to glance at the handwritten labels before moving them aside. She searches through the jars on the table, the bottles on the shelves, and the dried clusters of herbs hung in the corner to no avail. She sighs, frustrated, and—before she thinks better of it—slams her fist on the tabletop.

  There’s a clink, followed by the sound of something glass rolling over the stone floor.

  Mercy drops to her knees, searching the dusty floor under the table. Her hands close around a cold glass jar, and she leans back on her heels, grinning.

  The label is distorted, partially covered by the thick white paste which had adhered it to the underside of the table, but the bright pink-and-white flowers inside are unmistakable.

  Lusus blossoms.

  “Mercy?”

  She jumps, banging her head on the underside of the table. Uttering an oath, she crawls out, tucking the jar into the leg of her boot before she emerges. Arabelle is sitting upright in her bed, watching with curious eyes. “Yes?” she demands, somewhat irritably.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Catching a rat.”

  “A rat!” Arabelle squeaks, clutching the blanket closer around her body. “Where?”

  Mercy waves her hand in the general direction of the desk. “I don’t know. How do you feel?”

  “Not worse.”

  “No? Then it’s a shame you wasted so much medicine by throwing it up. We’re almost out of Benza root, so I’ll have to go dig some up later, but we have enough for one more batch.” Mercy moves to the cabinet and pulls out the mortar and pestle, then moves to the rack of ingredients lining the wall.

  Arabelle crosses her arms, scrunching her nose. “It’s not my fault I was poisoned.”

  “It’s your fault for eating something you didn’t recognize.”

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Mercy says. She crosses the room and perches on the corner of Arabelle’s bed, leaning forward until their faces are only inches apart. Her voice drops to a whisper. “You find something you’re not familiar with? Make someone else try it first. If she lives, it’s safe. If not, she’s a fool for trusting you.”

  Arabelle smiles.

  “So, now or later?” Mercy asks, holding up the pestle.

  She considers. “Later.”

  “Okay.” Mercy sets the pestle on the bedside table and moves to the bed opposite Arabelle, who stares at her unabashedly. Mercy stares back, narrowing her eyes. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “You’re an elf.”

  “You’re a human.”

  “You’re the only elf.”

  “Where did you find those flowers you ate?”

  Arabelle frowns at the change of subject, but relents after Mercy raises a brow. “In one of the Strykers’ bags. Elia said they carried weapons more glorious than anything we have here, except for the Daughters’ weapons, of course. I-I wanted to see them, but all we found were the flowers.”

  “So you decided to have a snack instead?”

  She shrugs, daring Mercy to chastise her.

  Mercy leans forward. “Whose bag was it?”

  “OREN!”

  Mercy thunders down the stairs to the smithy, barges in, and grabs Oren’s shirt
in her fists. The other Strykers stop their work and stare open-mouthed as she pins Oren against the wall. He struggles against her grasp, his hands tugging at her wrists, his eyes like saucers.

  “Who did you intend to poison?” she spits. “Hm? Did you think you would get away with it? In the Guild?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t lie to me! I know you brought it here. Who was your target?”

  “Mercy,” Calum warns, prying them apart. “Let go of him.”

  Mercy slips under his arm and lunges toward Oren again, shoving her face into his. “Those flowers came from the north. The capital. Only five strangers have been there recently, and they’re all standing in this room. What was your plan?” She shakes Oren one more time. “A little girl is sick because of you!”

  “But I didn’t— It’s medicine!” he finally cries, trembling.

  “It’s poison!”

  Calum pulls her away, positioning himself between Mercy and Oren. “Mercy, calm down—”

  “Get out of my way, Calum. He tried to hurt one of my own. Let me deal with him.” She tries to move around him and he blocks her step. Her hands clench into fists. “I’m not kidding.”

  “I’m not either. Take a deep breath and calm down, or our deal is off.”

  She turns away and sighs, then turns back. Calum watches her with a stony expression.

  “Oren didn’t bring the flowers to hurt anyone,” he begins.

  “They’re poison!”

  “Oren has seizures,” Calum says, and the objections on the tip of Mercy’s tongue dies.

  “What?”

  The other Strykers glance away and return to their work, all except Calum and Oren, the latter standing against the wall, pale and shaking. Mercy studies him over Calum’s shoulder.

  “Yes, he has seizures. He’s had them since he was born. Lusus blossoms, when brewed in a tea, help calm them.”