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1
SALINA
“Shit. This place looks scary as fuck even in the daylight,” I mutter under my breath.
Nakam is supposed to look unassuming, harmless even, when the sun is up.
But it has never quite managed that.
Instead, the dark twisted spires reach for the skies like gnarled limbs raising upwards in worship. There is a perpetual cloud of darkness that hangs over Nakam – some say the cloud arrived the day that a purna’s spell went horribly wrong.
I don’t know the truth of it. I don’t think anyone does.
All I know is that nothing really grows close to the ‘school’ building. And it is always dark, no matter how brightly or sharply the sun shines down on Milthar.
I puff slightly as I run up the front steps. Ivy grows up the front steps of Nakam, and with a twist of my hand, I rot them. They wither into dust and fall away.
An old teacher of mine, who died a long time ago when I first joined Nakam, practically beat it into me that I had to use my magic in even the most mundane situations because that would make me more powerful.
“You need to be addicted to it! You need to be addicted to your magic! Your power! Your talent! Otherwise, your magic will begin to rot and so will you!”
I haven’t ever really understood what he meant by that, but I took it to heart.
Now, whenever I’m in Nakam, I use my magic as much as possible.
You’re late,an anxious voice in my head says. I shove it away as I run through the narrow, silent hallways of Nakam.
Callista is waiting for me in the training rooms.
“Are you ready?” A wicked grin crosses her pretty face and I roll my eyes as I pull the dark, hooded cape off my shoulders.
The cape hovers in the air as I focus on it.
This should be easy.
My shoulders tremble as the magic inside me strains against my instruction. But then with a wave of my hand, the cape settles on one of the many hooks that are attached to the wall.
“I’m ready now.” I tell her. I am wearing a pair of tight, black trousers and a loose, black cotton shirt.
The walls are mirrored, and I look at myself as Callista prepares to take me through our warm up exercises.
I like what I see in the mirrors. And I know that as an assassin, my looks are my most important weapon.
Waist-length silver hair that gleams in the sunlight and shimmers in the moonlight. Golden eyes that glint and glitter and terrify. A full mouth that has brought scores of men to their knees, and a lithe body, whipped into shape from years of training.
That is what I am.
An assassin.
Sometimes I feel like I am living in a dream.
Sometimes, I wake up and I think I am back in Prazh, about to go through the morning rituals with the rest of my coven.
But then my world shatters. Because the reality is that most of my coven is dead. And those who are alive have banished me forever.
And I am now an assassin, and I live in Milthar, and I attend a school which is, at night, a school for assassins.
How did I get here?
