Assassin's Promise (The Severed Empire Book 4) - Phillip Tomasso

---

Assassin's Promise - book excerpt

Chapter One

There was no way I could know my parents would be slaughtered before the end of the day.

My father was up well before the sun that morning. I saw him leave the house, but didn’t have to follow him. Before chores, he always spent an hour or two each morning in the large barn behind our house. As an alchemist, my father worked at creating new elixirs. He wasn’t a curer, but when his parents died from a plague that the curers couldn’t treat, he became set on discovering something that might help other people.

I was only allowed in—what he called his laboratory—when invited. His equipment was expensive and had been collected from many different lands. There were graphite rods, vials, a balance with weights, beakers, pipes, cork stoppers, and burners. Everything was on a large wood table where rubber tubes connected many of the beakers and vials. Some of the beakers sat over open flame burners. He had a device with mercury and silver he’d created for measuring temperature. Mixed and labeled combinations of chemicals, herbs, roots, and minerals were stored in jars and sat on shelves along the barn walls.

He often called what he was doing, science.

I knew we were going fishing that afternoon, and so, unable to sleep, I climbed out of bed and went outside where I filled a bucket with water from the well and soaked a patch of ground behind the house. I used my knife and hands to dig into the dirt. The grubs and worms wiggled to the surface in an attempt to escape the saturation. They didn’t realize the fate they’d face was far worse than waterlogged burrows. Plucking up the night crawlers, I inspected each as they squirmed between my fingers and only dropped juicy, fat ones into the empty bucket. I collected plenty, too. Some fish were clever when it came to snatching bait without getting snagged on the hook. When the bucket was more than a quarter full, I added another quarter of dirt over the top and set the bucket by the house until we were ready to go fishing.

My grandfather and father had built the log home we lived in. It sat proudly on land on the northwestern outskirts of Grey Ashland, closer to the Cicade Forest than to the king’s keep.

It was the end of spring, and while the days were warm enough for just a tunic, the temperature at night required a cloak. I looked forward to time spent fishing with my father. We had a secret spot where we returned again, and again. It was a place where he said his father took him, and he had explained that one day I could bring my son here, too.

Many evenings we sat on stumps outside of our home and whittled bark away from strong, thick branches. We’d talk about the fish we’d caught, and the fish we’d one day catch. Sometimes we talked about life-things, like girls, and growing up. Other nights, we didn’t talk at all. The silence never bothered me. It didn’t seem to bother him, either.

I kept my collection of fishing poles under the bed, this way one was always accessible.

“This is our hole, Blodwyn,” he always said, and then he’d wink at me. His eyes were bright, deerskin brown. My father was a tall man with broad shoulders, and some extra weight gathered about his gut. He kept his dark hair trimmed short, while his beard, streaked with grey lines that started at the chin, grew to unruly lengths. “Never tell another soul. Promise?”

That shared secret always felt more important to me than nearly anything else we ever talked about. I knew he was dead serious, so I’d give him an exaggerated nod. “I promise!”

On our way to the brook, I carried poles in one hand, the rods against my shoulder, and the bucket of bait in the other.

“Do you know why I keep this location a secret and don’t tell everyone about it?”

“Because all the best fish swim here.” They did, too. I couldn’t recall a time we ever left empty-handed. Very few people fished the sea. Some fishermen kept small boats docked at the Delta Cove, and down along the Ridgeland Port. My father said between the Voyagers and the sea serpents, the risk wasn’t worth it. Especially not when the brook was safer, and the fish enjoyed the bait.

The brook stemmed from Lantern Lake and ran to the Isthmian Sea, cutting through the center of the Forest. In some spots, I could easily jump from bank to bank, while in other locations I’d have to hike up my trousers and walk across. The brook was rarely more than knee-deep. At the end of winter, with the melting snow, the levels rose, got a little deeper, and moved much more swiftly. Usually, I could stand in the water without worry of losing my balance. It was about solid footing on otherwise slippery rocks beneath the surface.

Father brought bread and cheese for us, and a goatskin of ale for himself. We set up on a large flat rock by the water. I removed my boots, rolled my trousers up over my knees, and butt-scooted to the edge. I dipped my feet into the water and hoped I hadn’t scared away the fish. Sometimes the fish inspected my toes with nibbles.

“It’s because your toes look like wiggling worms,” my father said with a laugh.

“It tickles,” I said.

“Just be careful something bigger doesn’t come along and chomp off your big toe.” He laughed, but I pulled my feet out and sat with my legs crisscrossed.

Father grabbed the bucket, reached in, and let his fingers rake through the soil. “Got some good ones this morning, didn’t you?” He exhumed a white grub. It coiled itself around his thumb as he threaded a hook through the meat of its body.

“Uh huh.” I set my pole down beside me and withdrew a long reddish worm from the bucket.

“Not going to use the whole thing, are you?” Father arched an eyebrow.

I snapped the worm in half. “No, sir.”

I dropped the unused half back into the bucket. It burrowed into the soil, and aside from a sticky trail of green ooze, was out of sight in seconds. The other half I pierced with my hook, and cast my line into the brook. “How many do you think we’ll catch today?”

“Maybe a hundred?”

I laughed. “You know what’s coming up soon?”

It was my birthday next week. I couldn’t wait. My mother made the best pastries for special occasions, and my father used the imu for cooking a freshly-slaughtered pig underground. The imu was six feet long, and four feet wide, and three feet deep. Neighbors were always invited. There was no way the three of us could eat an entire pig.

“Is it next week?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it an important day?”

I giggled. “Yes.”

He shrugged and turned his attention back to the brook. “Nope. I have no idea what’s coming up soon.”

I couldn’t contain the laugh. “Yes, you do.”

My father looked at me, smiling. “I could never forget your birthday. It’s hard to believe you’re going to be ten years old.”

“I’ve used up all of my fingers, and am going to have to start counting on my toes next!”

This time my father laughed.

Something pulled at my line. The joking was over. “Father.”

“Wait for it. Wait for it…”

There was another tug, as the fish took a second run at the bait. I pulled back on the pole. The sharpened hook passed through its mouth. I lifted the fish out of the water and looked to make sure my father had been watching.