June

Issue 33

    "Forget about it," Yavar told herself, fingering her gold wedding band. Vrang stirred in his sleep, turned over, and laid an arm across her waist. She smiled at her husband. The years had changed him. He no longer had a full head of hair, and his once-firm muscles now sagged.

    She removed herself from his embrace and went to the window. Sorèacè still rested below the horizon. His morning rays touched the clouds in hues of purple and orange. She looked toward the snow-capped peaks, dreading the message she knew was coming.

    Vrang had been a mentor to her and, later, her husband. But an oath was an oath, and to break an oath to one of Okareon's priests held consequences that could make even a cold-blooded killer shiver in fear.

    The day drew near when the priest would call upon her to collect his payment: Warlord Vrang's head, the very husband she despised and feared almost as much as she loved. Could she go through with it? And what if she could? What would that make her?

    The kind of assassin my husband created me to be, she thought. He had taught her almost everything he knew: the Art of War, of Hand and Fist, of Inner Strength, the Art of Stealth, and the Art of Poisons. But there was one art he had not yet taught her: a secret and forbidden art that made him the most powerful member of the Noble's Caste—the Art of Sorcery.

    "We still have some time left together." She returned to bed and took comfort in the soft pillow and cushions, and in the sleeping embrace of her husband.