Assassin's Bond (Chains of Honor, Book 3)

  Assassin’s Bond

  Chains of Honor, Book 3

  Lindsay Buroker

  Copyright © 2019 by Lindsay Buroker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Foreword

  Hello, and thank you for picking up Chains of Honor, Book 3. I know it’s been a long wait, with poor Yanko stuck in a brig for ages. This is the second to last novel in the series, and you won’t have to wait nearly as long for the final one. Book 4 is my very next project.

  Before you jump into this one, please allow me to thank my beta readers, Sarah Engelke, Rue Silver, and Cindy Wilkinson, and my editor, Shelley Holloway. Also, thanks to Gene Mollica and his staff for the cool covers for this series.

  Now, without further ado, let’s get Yanko out of that brig…

  1

  Wan predawn light filtered through the single porthole beside the steps leading down to the brig. Yanko White Fox could just make out the dark lumps that represented his cellmates, Arayevo and Lakeo. He could also see the mage hunter—his would-be assassin and Sun Dragon’s former bodyguard—in the cell to his left.

  She—Jhali, he reminded himself—hadn’t moved much during the first few days of the voyage, and the Turgonian doctor, or “Sawbones” as the soldiers called the man, had visited often. These last couple of days, Jhali had stirred more frequently, walking around her cell, doing some light exercise, and ignoring everyone’s attempts to engage her in conversation.

  Not that their guards had tried often. They hadn’t engaged any of their prisoners in conversation, not even to inform them what their fate would be when they reached land. Turgonian land.

  Yanko sighed and, for the hundredth time, contemplated the steel bars fencing them in and whether he should use his magic to break them. He needed to reach Nuria, not Turgonia, as quickly as possible so he could find Prince Zirabo and warn him that the lost continent of Kelnorean had risen from its hidden depths in the ocean. It was available to… whatever fleet got there first and claimed it.

  Unfortunately, Yanko and his fellow cellmates were the only Nurians alive who knew about its existence. The whole point of putting so much time and effort into finding it had been to ensure Nuria got there first. Yanko’s people, on the verge of a civil war, needed fertile farmland to feed their hungry millions and help settle the unrest at home.

  But even if he could break the bars, he, Arayevo, and Lakeo couldn’t defeat the hundreds of Turgonian soldiers and steer the ironclad warship onto a new course. He hadn’t the faintest idea how the steam engine even worked.

  And then there was Dak. Lord Colonel Daksaron Starcrest, the nephew of the Turgonian president and a highly trained Intelligence officer, could block Yanko’s magic and best him with any weapon.

  Dak was no longer in the cell across the way, but he was still on the ship. After months of working together, he knew Yanko well and knew that any violent threats he made would be just that. Threats. Nothing more. Dak was also smart enough to outthink and outmaneuver him.

  Yanko had considered his options countless times, but he kept coming back to the belief that it would be best to escape after they landed. They could slip away during their transport to jail or wherever they were going, then find passage aboard another ship heading to Nuria, perhaps by offering his services as a mage.

  Jhali rose to her feet and began a series of stretches.

  Yanko also stood up. He casually ambled over and leaned his shoulder against their shared wall of bars.

  Thus far, he had been careful to sleep on the far side of his cell, to make sure she couldn’t complete her mission of assassinating him. Even though he had saved her life, and her employer was now dead, Yanko believed she would carry out that mission if she could.

  But as a well-trained warrior and mage hunter, she could be an asset in helping them escape—if he could convince her to work with them. It need only be a temporary alliance.

  “What?” she growled, glaring over at him.

  Considering she hadn’t deigned to answer any of his questions earlier in the voyage, he decided to find that surly single syllable promising.

  “Just standing,” Yanko said pleasantly.

  If he was to conspire with her, it needed to be silently. The guards standing in front of the steps had been pared down from the original eight to a mere four, but they were awake and alert and would run for backup if Yanko started doing wizardly things—or plotting to do wizardly things. As he’d learned, more than one of them understood Nurian.

  “Stop watching me,” Jhali said, turning her back to Yanko. She was even more prickly than the ever-sarcastic and quick-to-mock Lakeo.

  “I’m not watching you. I’m contemplating life while gazing toward that porthole up there. Your cell is simply in the same direction.”

  Yanko groped for a way to start a telepathic conversation. Mage hunters were trained to block intrusions from those with mental powers. She was probably even better at it than Dak. He’d had a few courses on blocking magic during his military schooling, whereas she would have been trained from an early age.

  “You’re watching me enough that you’d be prepared if I sent a kick through the bars at your groin,” Jhali growled.

  Prickly was perhaps too mellow a word to describe her personality, at least when she was around him.

  “I’d like to think I’m not in danger of such from you,” Yanko said quietly. “All things considered.”

  He didn’t think she knew about the first time he’d saved her life—since he had also been the one to endanger it by dropping a rockfall onto her head, he hadn’t brought it up—but the second time, he’d risked himself to swim into the bowels of a sinking ship to let her out of her cell. She’d been on the verge of drowning. He knew she knew about that, even if he couldn’t penetrate her barriers to tell how she felt about it.

  She did pause before responding, perhaps contemplating what “all things considered” meant.

  “You’re naive, White Fox,” was what she finally said.

  Not encouraging, but since she was talking to him for the first time in days—weeks?—he saw it as an improvement.

  Yanko turned away from her, as if giving up on the conversation, then telepathically asked her, Can you hear me this way?

  She did not respond. He wasn’t sure if she was ignoring him or if her mental defenses kept the words from penetrating at all. Even though he’d heard the legends of the secret and deadly mage-hunter organization, he had never met one in person until Jhali. His knowledge of their abilities and training was mostly through rumor and hearsay. He hadn’t successfully managed to have a telepathic conversation with Dak, but he also hadn’t tried many times. Before this mission had started, he’d only communicated that way with animals. These last couple of months had forced him to learn mage skills at an accelerated rate. He’d absorbed more in that three days with Captain “Snake Heart” Pey Lu—his mother—than in months, if not
years, of independent study.

  I can hear you, White Fox, Jhali responded.

  He almost missed it, since he had stopped monitoring her, and she didn’t project the words the way another telepath would.

  I’m planning an escape. Yanko pointedly did not look at her or at the guards. I could use your help.

  She snorted aloud. One of the guards stirred.

  Perhaps realizing her mistake—they did not need the guards to suspect they were communicating this way—Jhali sat down in the corner of her cell. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them.

  Will your bird not be sufficient help? she replied silently. I’ve been waiting for you to order it to filch a set of keys.

  Yanko looked toward the horizontal bar that linked the vertical ones. Kei perched there, his head rotated with his beak buried between his wings. Though he occasionally left to explore, or whatever it was parrots did when steaming across a vast ocean, he spent most of his time in that spot. Early on, one of the guards had muttered something about shooting him, but Dak, who had spent the first three days locked up in the cell across the way, had informed them that killing a wizard’s familiar resulted in an eternal curse on oneself and one’s dead ancestors. Yanko wasn’t sure the burly Turgonians had believed him, but they’d made superstitious gestures in the air and avoided the bird ever since. Not that Kei was a familiar. He’d only latched onto Yanko in the hope of receiving a never-ending supply of munchies. Given Yanko’s current inability to provide them, he was surprised the parrot didn’t leave more often.

  If I wished to open the gate, I wouldn’t need keys to do it, Yanko pointed out.

  Even though Jhali’s face was buried, he could tell she sneered. It came through the telepathic link.

  Then why not break out? I’ve heard your women encouraging it.

  His women. As if he could control or even influence Lakeo or Arayevo. Any delusions he’d had of convincing Arayevo to become “his woman” in any sense of the term had been quashed when she’d bluntly told him she didn’t have romantic feelings for him.

  Where would we go? Yanko asked. We’re in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by Turgonian warships.

  No krakens to call up to crush those ships? There was that sneer again.

  Yanko didn’t know if she had been aboard Sun Dragon’s first ship when he’d convinced that kraken to destroy it, but if not, she would have heard the details from her putative employer. If she had been aboard, she would have been standing beside Sun Dragon and acting as his bodyguard while he hurled fireballs at Yanko and Lakeo. She shouldn’t begrudge Yanko for defending himself however he could.

  I doubt a kraken could damage the hull of a Turgonian ironclad, he replied. Definitely not five of them.

  That many are still out there? Lacking magical senses, she had no way to know how much of the fleet was accompanying them. Then I guess you should call upon your mother to rescue you.

  As if Yanko could telepathically call to someone a half an ocean away. And as if his mother wanted anything else to do with him.

  She may have been curious about him, even inviting him to become her apprentice and join her pirate fleet, but that had been before he’d helped destroy her ship and fought her for that magical lodestone. The last time he’d seen her, she had been bleeding from a deep gash in her neck, one Jhali had given her. It could have been a fatal blow.

  There’s no one to rescue us but ourselves, Yanko said firmly. Surely, you must prefer to go back to the Great Land, rather than rot in some Turgonian jail. Or worse. Just because these soldiers haven’t shot us doesn’t mean they won’t do so once they reach land and confer with their superiors.

  What do you propose? Jhali asked, startling him with the reasonable response.

  We wait until the ship docks and they come to transfer us to our next destination. During that transfer, I’ll create some chaos, and we’ll find a way to slip away from our guards. Yanko paused, expecting her to object, to say it wouldn’t be that easy.

  He doubted it would be. The Turgonians had watched him battle Sun Dragon, and they believed he was the reason the warrior mage had been incinerated by lava that shot up from an underwater volcano. They would expect magical trouble from him.

  Jhali, however, did not object. She’d seen that battle too, so maybe she believed he had enough power to do what he said.

  I don’t want to stay on Turgonian soil any longer than necessary. Yanko didn’t want to stay there at all. I’m praying to the badger goddess that there’s a ship heading to Nuria and that we can finagle a way aboard it. I need to get home and find… He hesitated. Should he withhold that he was on a mission for Prince Zirabo? She probably already knew. Her employer had certainly known an uncomfortable amount about Yanko’s goals. I need to get back to the Great City and find Prince Zirabo. I can see to it that you’re dropped off there too, so you can make your way home. Preferably without trying to assassinate him again….

  This time, her snort was only in her mind instead of out loud. So magnanimous of you, White Fox. Especially since you’ve been labeled a criminal back home. None of the people here will aid you, and you’ll likely be shot as soon as you step on Nurian soil. You’d be more likely to get help from the Turgonians.

  Since Dak was the only Turgonian who spoke to him, and Dak had his own problems, Yanko doubted that was true. But her words resonated, because he feared she was right about the rest.

  Yanko couldn’t help but feel that he was in far over his head. Was it wrong to simply want to go home? Back to the mountains and lake where he’d grown up? Where he’d played with his brother and his cousins? Trained his hounds? Tended his bees?

  But that home by the lake was gone now, burned by Sun Dragon and his people. Including Jhali. And he had no idea if his father, brother, or anyone in the village that he’d known was still alive. Had they found a safe haven? Or were they caught up in the middle of the rebellion—no, the civil war—that had been starting up when Yanko had left?

  A wave of homesickness washed over him, and he leaned his forehead against the cool bars.

  He told himself to focus on the present. Once he reported to Zirabo, his duty would be done, and he could search for his family. And he would find a way to locate Zirabo and report.

  Jhali lifted her head and looked in his direction. Wondering why he was taking so long to answer? Did she care? Even though she was allowing him to hear her words, he couldn’t get much of a sense of her thoughts.

  I don’t know what will happen when we reach Nuria, but we will find a way there. I promise. If we can’t find a ship, we’ll locate the Nurian consulate and ask them for help.

  They will have a communications orb and know of your criminal status, Jhali thought, though her eyes narrowed in speculation at the mention of the consulate.

  I’m skeptical that my crimes were deemed important enough for cross-ocean communications. If I show up at the consulate and tell them my friends and I have been stranded and need a way home, they may help us.

  Unless I show up first, tell them who you are, and what crimes you’re wanted for.

  Yanko kept his face neutral, though alarm flashed through him. He hadn’t considered that she would. Maybe he shouldn’t have put thoughts of consulates in her head.

  Is that what you did back on Kyatt? To get the Kyattese ambassador and police after me?

  It’s what Sun Dragon did.

  Sun Dragon was a baboon’s teat. Yanko looked away, ashamed that he was speaking poorly of the dead, but he couldn’t bring himself to retract the words. An elder to him or not, Sun Dragon hadn’t deserved his respect. And if he had been plotting against the Great Chief, he hadn’t deserved any help from the diplomats at the Kyattese embassy or anyone else.

  You think I’m not?

  Enough light seeped in from that porthole now that Yanko could see Jhali’s single arched eyebrow. It was the most expression she’d shown with him around. She usually bore a cool detached demeanor that so
metimes escalated to cool haughtiness. He had no idea if that was her typical persona or just how she was around her enemies. Around him.

  I know very little of you, Yanko replied, holding her gaze. Except that your mission was to kill me and that you loathe my mother. Even if we must continue on as enemies, I assume that my enemies will be honorable people until they show me otherwise.

  He expected another snort or perhaps something as derisive as an outright scoff. He wasn’t even sure if his words were honest. He wanted to believe they were, but she’d bragged to him that she had killed twenty-seven mages before him. Could an assassin ever be considered honorable?

  I am not moksu, she said after a long pause. People like me work the jobs they can get, so people like you can sit in castles and make up rules about honor that nobody in the real world could possibly live by.

  I grew up in a log house, not a castle, he pointed out.

  I saw it. It was a castle. So what if it was made from wood? You may not be as rich as some moksu, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t privileged.

  Since he couldn’t argue with that, not if he was honest with himself, Yanko said, There weren’t any turrets.

  What?

  My house. It lacked turrets. I’m fairly certain your home can’t be considered a castle without turrets.

  She gave him a flat look.

  Listen… Jhali. He hadn’t presumed to use her name before since she hadn’t been the one to give it to him. You don’t have to be from an honored family to value honor and live by it. He frowned, realizing that sounded like something Great Uncle Lao Zun would have said. When he said such things, they sounded wise. Coming from an eighteen-year-old, they probably sounded arrogant. Or naive. Something she and others had frequently accused him of being.