The Assassin's Promise: The Lost Lines Series Book 2 by Merri Bright

Author:Merri Bright [Bright, Merri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bright and Dark Publishing
Published: 2022-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

ROYA

I couldn’t stay mad at Kavin and the others for long. Not when I was free for the first time in my life. Free to do what I wanted on the island, free to sleep and eat and explore when the mood struck. The three days we had been planning to stay stretched into a week, but none of us complained. It was paradise.

The sounds of the island woke me: wild birds calling from the jungle’s interior, chattering monkeys, and the rustling of larger animals traveling to and from the freshwater spring near the center of the island. I rose early each morning in my hut, feeling only the slightest bit guilty that I had it to myself, while the others shared with Thorn or slept in hammocks slung between palms. After a breakfast of coconut or ripe papaya, I went with one or more of the Alphas to gather water or more fruit, or to check the crab traps Icarus’s men had set out.

On the way to the spring, I also made sure to grab any leaves, stems, and berries I found familiar to take back to Thorn so he could positively identify them. I had enough poison in my cloak to kill a hundred men, but it never hurt to find more, and to gather the sorts of plants that made decent medicines and antidotes as well.

Kavin and Altair were with me today as I hunted for some mushrooms that looked like a powerful hallucinogenic variety we had grown near the Guild camp. In small amounts, it was effective pain relief. In larger doses, you could convince a man he was a seagull and send him sailing off a cliff.

Altair watched as I broke off a few stems of something I thought might be an analgesic herb. “Have you always been interested in plants, Roya?”

I nodded. “Years before Thorn started training me. I loved the idea that even though I was young, and smaller than the men who had power over me and my sisters, if I learned enough, I would be the one to fear.”

“And once Thorn began your training?”

I laughed out loud, startling a flock of bright yellow and orange birds into the air. “Sometimes I think he regretted teaching me all he did, but he didn’t have much choice. I harassed my other instructor until Thorn took me on as an apprentice of sorts, rather than let me be thrown out of the Guild.” I tucked away the herbs I’d gathered, remembering how I had challenged the regular Poisons instructor, a Beta named Turner. When he had mixed up two common sedative herbs, and I corrected him in front of the class, he’d thrown me out… and into Thorn’s workshop.

“These are some of the deadliest poisons we know,” Thorn said, leaning over my worktable, examining the ingredients I had laid out. “Be glad Turner isn’t teaching you this; you’d probably end up dead.”

Thorn’s cloak covered most of his face, but the sharp point of his chin, with the smallest edge of the silvered scar, was visible.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.