Disclaimer: I don't own anything that can be found in Tamora Pierce's books. And lets just say that that goes for the rest of the fanfic, because these disclaimers are really annoying.
Chapter two: Meetings
Alanna connected another solid punch, this one to Novellee's right eye. The simple ring that Alanna had gotten for her fiftieth birthday from her husband, George, split open, allowing blood to spill into her eye. She blinked furiously in a vain attempt to keep the blood out.
"A stupid bitch, am I?" Alanna declared, her voice hot with temper. "At least I have enough respect to fight people in the open, instead of killing them with trickery!"
"Alanna," Burdock called from the door, "Focus on the important matter at hand."
Novellee looked at the man named Burdock through the one good eye she had. He was tall, taller then the man who had sent for him. She would place him to be at the height of six feet, three inches. His shoulders were wide, and his muscles were nicely toned. But otherwise, he looked more accustomed to life in a library then to life as a knight.
His face was near perfection. Black hair fell into deep, green eyes, lined by lashes that any woman would covet. His jawbone was strong and defined nicely. His lips were beautiful and his chin was slightly rounded with a stubborn tilt to it. His pale skin was stretched tight over high cheekbones.
He was one of the most beautiful creatures she had ever seen. And she wanted to hate him, oh how she wanted to. But she couldn't. Because when she looked into his eyes, what she saw moved something inside her.
He looked at her like she was a person. No one had looked at her like that for a very long time. She had almost forgotten that she deserved to be seen as a person, and not as a street rat, or an assassin, some one who could be paid to kill. But he reminded her of that fact, the fact that she was human, and she didn't like that.
She turned her head away quickly, testing the boundaries of the magic. The muscles in her arms strained as if she were physically pushing the magic away from herself. She grunted with the effort, but she threw it loose.
"I don't need to be restrained as if I'm an animal. I'm human just like the rest of you," she hissed, her voice as lethal as it was quiet. Burdock quickly translated. Alanna gave her a cold look, barely restraining the urge to spit at her. But she wouldn't sink to that commoner's level.
"Ask her what her name is," Alanna instructed to Burdock. He quickly did, but she remained silent, her face blank, an unnerving stare on her face. She looked directly into Alanna's eyes, her glare like icy storm clouds.
"Answer the question!" Burdock demanded. Alanna gave Novellee a healthy punch in the jaw. Novellee turned her head to the side and spit out blood and a tooth that had been knocked loose.
In a guttural tone she said, "My true name is to sacred for your ears. All I can stomach to give you is the name I am known by to my clients. Novellee Shadow. What do you want from me?"
"What do we want? What do we want?" Alanna demanded. "We want a confession so we can hang you like the commoner you are. Or, we want the exchange of information for your life. Not that it's a life worth saving. It's simply that we want the chance to bust more then one person if we can get it."
"I wouldn't give you information if it did cost me my life. Unlike you I have loyalty to my treaties and I stay true to my oaths. All of them."
The confession sounded almost like a threat. Little did Alanna know, it was. Novellee might have been only nine when her family had been killed before her very eyes. She might have been considered a child when she made her oath, but she hadn't forgotten it, and she hadn't given up the hope that she would one day find those men and kill them. One. By. One.
"Where did you get your Gift? It's hardly ever that we find a commoner who has the Gift. It's usually an accident when this does happen. A careless mistake one night that ended with a babe. Were you a mistake?"
Her laughter was bitter when it filled the room. "It was a mistake that I ever survived. But, we street rats have a tendency to do that. Are you through with your questing yet? I'm rather tired and I'd like to enjoy my last night on this earth."
"You haven't answered my question yet. When you answer it, we'll be done." But no matter what they did, she refused to speak again, choosing instead to stare past them, at the wall. Her indifference was so complete it was as if she was unaware that they were even there.
Alanna gave a scream of frustration. Why wouldn't she answer the questions? Why wouldn't she trade in her life for information? Every other person they had offered this had taken it up. Yet not her, she seemed to be ready to give up her life.
"I'm going to the king to ask allowance to use harsher means of extracting information. Burdock, stay her incase she decides to spill her guts. Ask her about the items that were discussed at the meeting a few nights ago."
Burdock nodded, then Alanna left, snapping orders at the guard to make an exchange. She wanted fresh guards at the door every two hours. Then she was gone, leaving Novellee alone with Burdock.
When the door closed, she allowed a whimper to escape free. "My jaw," she cried, and then tried to lower her head into the hand that was resting on the arm of the chair. She wanted to rub it more then anything, but she couldn't reach.
"Could you untie my hand so I can check to see how many teeth she knocked loose?" Novellee asked in her weakest of voices. Her shoulders slumped in defeat and her head lowered in shame.
"Not until you answer the questions," his voice was cold, but she could tell he was having trouble deciding. She had seen from the moment he walked into the room that he was a softie, and she would use that to her advantage. Any ploy would work with her, as long as she could get him over to her. Then she would make her move and be free.
"I can't tell," she whispered, her voice a breath of air. "They'll kill me if I trade in information for my life. So either way I'll die."
"Yes, but don't you want a chance to take down other murderers with you? Isn't that worth you giving up your life?" He demanded gently. The woman was loosening up, and soon she would spill. He didn't want to startle her to bad, he thought, as he determinedly sounded gentle.
He was loosening up, Novellee thought to herself, and soon he would come to her and she could be free. All it took was a little feminine weakness and the right words to have any man at her beck-and-call.
"I suppose, I could give up a little information. What do you have in mind?" she asked, with a hesitant look into his eyes. She looked away quickly and missed the cold, calculation that entered his.
"All we want to know is, who killed the Carthakian ambassador two years ago," he heard her suck in her breath in a shocked gasp. "It isn't asking to much is it?"
"No, it's just..." she paused, not sure what to do. She had killed the ambassador for a healthy sum of money. It had helped her buy the inn she currently owned and ran. The inn was also the headquarters of the assassin's guild she was a part of.
"It's just that..." her words speeded up as a thought took shape. "It's just that we don't know who did it either. It wasn't someone in the guild I'm a part of. And as far as I can tell, no one else knows who did it."
"Oh, well..." he thought of the next question that had been discussed at the meeting a few nights before. "Can you tell me who killed Derrin of Great Lake?"
Again she hissed, because again, it was she who had killed the man. He had known to many dark secrets about her client. The man had been willing to pay big bucks to have him killed. After she had killed him, she had made copies of all the documents that her client had wanted, in case she ever wanted a taste of blackmail. What she had found had disgusted her and she had raised the price for the retrieval of the papers, even though she already had them.
She had been preparing for the next question, and so, letting her voice stutter a bit, she answered, "T-the main... b-boss. He... he's the one who...who o-offed him."
"What's his name?" he asked, a little to eagerly. Novellee looked into Burdock's eyes, then to the floor. She remained determinedly silent. The look on her face suggested that he had betrayed her by asking that question. Burdock sighed heavily. He tried asking more questions, but she wouldn't answer.
What seemed like hours later, but in reality was only fifteen minutes, Alanna came back, towing with her a man taller even then Burdock.
He had to be the tallest person she had ever seen. She would have called him handsome, but his form was lanky and his black hair was going gray. What awed her, though, was the magic that came from him. It was black as night and the strongest she had ever seen.
"Novellee Shadow, meet Numair Salamin. He'll be watching the torture and he'll be casting a truth spell on you, so anything you say that's a lie, we'll know. We also have the king's permission to use our Gift's to... extract information. Shall we begin?"
Rage filled Novellee, so deep so dark, she was drowning in it. How dare they think they could use magic on her without her consent! She growled low in her throat, like an angry grizzly bear. Then she moved.
She slipped her hands from the frayed rope and launched herself at Alanna. With her Gift, she created a shield around them, blocking out all magic.
Numair watched as a dome of glowing white entrapped Alanna and the assassin. He had got a briefing from Alanna and he new that this was the assassin's Gift. Fascinated, he watched as she placed Alanna in a cocoon of magic. He knew exactly what it was. It was a spell to keep the magic from ever leaving the user's body. The magic would build up until it had to get out, causing the person to burst into flames. It was not a pretty sight.
The assassin had to have gone through severe training to be able to complete this spell. It wasn't that it was complicated it simply took a lot of the magic and energy to pull it off. To be still moving, she had to have great endurance. This was not any ordinary assassin. This person was powerful and she better of dead or under strict arrest.
Then she grabbed Alanna's throat and squeezed with all her might, cutting off Alanna's air and threatening to collapse her windpipe. Numair set to work breaking into the dome
A/N Okay, I'm leaving it there for now. Again, I apologize for any mistakes in the story, but like I said before, I'm not really good with grammar. And some things just don't catch my attention, so I don't realize that they're wrong. Review please.
Nubia
