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“An’ I was jus’ sayin’ ee don’ exist. Naw one like that cu’d be real,” a younger man in the depths of the wagon piped up.
“He is. I hear the tales of how he kill them Fae, of how he save’n us.” Odd. He was almost talking about me as though he was awed. I’d never heard that tone before. I stiffened before laughing it off like a great joke with some of the others.
“Have a lark, will ya?” the man next to me caroled, still laughing.
“’Tis naw a lark. ’Tis true. He goze from Qit ta Qit, killin’ doze Fae monsters for da qween.” Kint made a squelching noise as he pantomimed my blades moving through the air to remove the head from a Fae.
It seemed my most recent addition to my lore was taking hold nicely. I may not work for the queen, but it might help the stories of me reach her faster. It might help me reach her faster.
“He haz deez eyes, two diffren’ blues that look out and see everything—” Kint was cut off by the sharp laugh of the man next to him, a man with eyes so grey they looked like storm clouds in the middle of his sun-scorched face.
I, however, froze; the scorching stagnant heat of the wagon turned icy. I hadn’t added that to the tale. In fact, I had specifically left that out. Eyes of different shades were too noticeable, too rare, and impossible to hide. It would tie me to the story too easily. It wasn't just that, however. That fact had been placed on my bounty posters several years before, when I had been seen on my first job and had been wanted for the death of a crime lord I had been paid to kill.
It was my first hit, and everything had gone wrong. Not only was I seen, but Jack had been lost in a crossfire I couldn’t stop.
I didn’t want the same thing to happen again. I didn’t want to lose again.
Bringing up that fact would tie me to things I needed left in the past.
I had left it there. I had taken all of the training I had given myself to kill the queen and put it to use becoming the best assassin in the Realm, sought out by any who needed a dirty job done. I had mastered killing. I reveled in it. I enjoyed it.
The assassin I was could not be linked to the Fae hunter, however. An assassin would never receive an invitation to the Runturin. To have them connected, to have been seen…
I fought the urge to pull up my hood, simultaneously fighting the need to kill everyone in the pack wagon. I would start first with that same man who had been staring at me before. A simple swipe across his neck would do the trick. The filthy bearded fellow was still staring with those grey eyes, his focus narrowing as though he had already seen my eyes; as though he already knew who, or what, I was.
Perhaps I could simply follow him off this wagon and end him anyway.
“Ever’yting ya?” the grey eyed man scoffed. “Dey see that fish ya trew back las’ week?”
Everyone laughed, the sound reverberating over the wood and through the darkness.
“Wuh say you, Jack?” Kint asked, leaning forward as everyone piped down. Such was the way of the Wave Walkers. They all moved so much, and they often didn’t meet anyone new, so to their groups, the stories and opinions anyone new would bring were treated like gold.
I would oblige, but if I said much more, or if they did notice my eyes, I would have two options: kill them all, or go back to walking my way home to Waide.
I wasn’t necessarily against killing them all—I had killed more for less—but I had exhausted myself hunting and fighting a Fae. Luckily for all of these men, they were going to survive simply due to my fatigue.
“I say I’d be wishin’ to sleep an’ dream of da ladies who be wanton’ a good tumpin’,” I responded with ease, pulling up my hood before anyone truly caught sight of my eyes.
It was my usual response to these stories, and it worked a charm, the statement riling them up into wild laughter as the conversation devolved to who put their cocks in who and how.
I let it all drown over me, the voices a hum as I looked not at Kint, but at the man sitting next to him, the one who kept looking my way. My skin tingled slightly, warning me this man was Fae. Except if he was, that tingle would be screaming through every nerve ending with how close he was.
I met his penetrating gaze, my warning clear even as my skin buzzed, even as that darkness inside of me begged to end him.
Chapter 6
Caspyn
“Off’ by the duct! Waide Way!” The voice rattled through the wooden sides of the wagon as the horses whinnied and pulled to a stop, some of the men pulling from the conversation that over the last few days had drifted to the state of fish to grab their things.
I paused, watching who left before I too, stood, grabbing my bag and making sure my cloak and hood was still placed around my body enough that neither my eyes nor my knives were visible in the bright sunlight.
“Good un, Jack!” Kint, the man who had been talking about me, or rather that fable of me, said, lifting his hand.
I turned, lifting my hand in farewell. Kint gave me half a grin as he sat back against the wagon, but the man next to him leaned forward, still staring with wide mossy eyes. The energy that was thrumming through my bones spread as those eyes dug into me as though he was the one still debating what to do with me. I hadn’t eliminated the possibility of killing him. Now, however, was not the place, nor the time. I marked his face, memorizing every detail and gave him a nod before jumping off that wagon as it started moving.
There was something about that man that was pricking at all of the alarms that I had learned over the years not to ignore; the pull of energy, the zing of warning. If I hadn’t honed that skill I would think him a Fae, but nothing else about him was Fae.
