Kai’s POV
The king’s coin was good. The King’s jobs were never simple, though.
Kai Talon kept that truth in mind as he stood in the shadow-draped antechamber, the chill of the rain-soaked stone seeping through his worn leathers. He focused on the King’s lips, a necessary habit. The man’s voice was a muffled drone, the finer consonants lost to the permanent, high-pitched ring that had been Kai’s constant companion since that bloody night in a tavern a lifetime ago. Arrogance, he’d learned, had a price. His hearing had been the first installment. Secrecy was the top priority for this meeting.
“…paranoid ramblings…” the advisor standing at the table was saying, his words slightly clearer. “...need a deterrent. Something they can’t anticipate.”
King Vorian paced like a caged wolf, his paranoia a scent that cloyed the air. He was a man carved from worry. His fingers tapped a frantic rhythm on the tabletop, his eyes darting as if expecting an assassin from every shadow.
“Can you do it, Talon?” the king’s voice cut through, loud enough to grasp. “Oakhaven is a strange place. Slip in without notice, grab the asset, and get out. Do not let it speak. Do not remove the collar.”
Kai paused, replaying the words in his mind. Do not let it speak. His brow furrowed slightly. Had he heard that right?
“The asset, Your Majesty?” Kai’s voice was a gravelly thing, rarely used. “What is it?”
A flicker of genuine fear passed over the King’s face. The advisor leaned in. “It’s a woman. Her name is Zara Lyane, though few dare speak it. She’s the reason no sound is heard in or around Oakhaven.”
The advisor slid a hefty purse of coins across the table. It landed with a thick, promising clink. “This is a quarter of what you will receive upon the asset’s delivery.”
Kai scooped up the purse, its weight a solid promise. “Consider it done.”
***
The path to Oakhaven was the quietest road Kai had ever traveled. No birdsong, no rustling leaves, no distant chatter. It was a vacuum, and the ever-present ring in his ears screamed into the void.
He had arrived early in the afternoon but had lingered in the woods. The King’s advisor had been honest about the silence surrounding Oakhaven. Not even the sound of water lapping at the shore of a nearby lake reached him.
The town itself was a picture of eerie normalcy, played out on a silent stage. He saw people in the streets, their mouths moving in conversation, their faces animated with laughter or anger, but not a single whisper reached him. It was like watching the world through glass. Windows were shut tight. The eyes of the villagers were haunted as they walked the roadways.
He waited until full dark, when the silent town was bathed in moonlight. The only sound was the crunch of his own boots on the gravel path, a sound only for him. He found the cottage on the edge of the village, just as the map had shown. Isolated.
And in the moonlit garden before the house, he found his weapon.
She was on a stone bench, her face tilted up toward the stars. For a moment, she was just a silhouette, a young woman with dark hair, enjoying a moment of peace in the terrifying silence. The moonlight caught the brutal, elegant lines of a collar around her throat. Gems and runes etched into the metal sparkled in the natural light. It pulsed with a soft, sleeping energy.
He moved like a shadow, swift and silent, but the floorboards of the porch groaned under his weight; a sound that, in the utter silence, was like a thunderclap.
Her head snapped toward him. Her eyes, wide and the color of a winter sky, reflected the moonlight. There was no resignation in them, only pure animalistic fear.
She shot up from the bench, but Kai was faster. He lunged, his arms closing around her. A soundless gasp wrenched through her body as he grabbed her. She fought like a wildcat, all elbows and desperate, twisting strength. She drove a foot down onto his foot, a brutal, sharp pain that made him grunt and his grip loosen for a critical second.
She scrambled away, her hand flying to her throat not to scream, but to clutch the collar as if it were a lifeline. Her chest heaved with panicked, soundless breaths.
Kai recovered, ignoring the throbbing in his foot. This was no calm surrender. This was a fight for her life. He closed the distance again, grabbing for her wrists. She tried to duck under his arm, but he was too big, too experienced. He caught her, spinning her around and pinning her arms behind her back.
She went rigid right before a tremor wracked through her frame. Enough to make him feel guilty for harming her, a hesitation for a fraction of a second. It was all she needed.
She threw her weight backward, slamming her head into his nose. White-hot pain exploded behind his eyes. He stumbled back, his grip breaking, blood beginning to stream from his nostrils.
He saw her then, truly saw her. Not as an asset or a weapon, but as a terrified girl. One who was backed into a corner. Her eyes blazed with a pain so deep it seemed like a bottomless well.
With a final, furious effort, he tackled her to the soft earth of the garden. He used his weight to pin her, finally managing to wrestle her hands behind her back and bind her wrists with the leather cord he’d brought.
She finally went still beneath him, and he couldn’t tell if it was from surrender or exhaustion. Her breath hitched in silent, ragged sobs. The fight had gone out of her, replaced by trembling, broken despair.
Kai hauled her to her feet, blood still dripping from his chin onto his leathers. He looked down at her even though she refused to raise her eyes. Her chin was tucked against her chest, her entire body shaking.
The King’s coin felt like a lead weight in his pocket suddenly. He hadn’t captured a weapon. He had just broken a songbird, and the silence of the land was her mourning cry.
ns216.73.216.13da2
and then Add to home screen.