A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Sorry this is really late, it was hard to find the time with school and everything. (I mean first week back and they give us assignments!) anyway this chapter and the next are partly inspired by the song Numb by Linkin Park.

Disclaimer: The world and characters you recognize all belong to Tamora Pierce.

Chapter 5: Numb

The assassin's gift slammed Aly back against the partly open door forcing it closed even as she heard the click it locked and the bolt on the other side of the door slide home. Despite his injuries Heishi stood in front of her as his gift healed him.

"What do you know of the pain he gave?" he yelled. "What do you know of what he did to me, to my family when I refused him? You did not watch them die, didn't listen to their screams while he laughed. So what right do you have to judge me? You, who has never lost anyone to someone else's greed!"

Aly gasped trying to get breath into winded lungs, hiding her shock. Resisting the urge to shout back at him that she did know, knew all too well. She sighed, sitting down on the ground facing him apparently unfazed. She watched as Heishi stared at her, as his eyes cooled slowly and the blaze of his gift lessened and then as he looked at her with startled comprehension of what she had done. Of all the possible reactions he might have expected, this wasn't one of them. She didn't blame him really. After all,

What kind of person with no magical protection faced down an extremely angry and powerful mage? Aly grinned answering her own thought, one who's faced down an extremely angry god of course…with a bit of help.

She nearly sighed with relief as Heishi sat down on the ground opposite her.

Thank you, Mithros for intelligent people. Aly thought.

The assassin's voice was calm, and perfectly controlled. There was nothing to suggest he'd just been murderous with his rage as he spoke,

"It was said despite your age you were ancient in treachery, ancient in the ways and rules of the shadow world. I didn't fully believe it till just then."

Aly paused for a moment in thought, then raised an eyebrow and smiled crookedly.

"Don't let on to anyone else that I'm not completely incompetent. People might actually open their eyes and see what's happening around them, what has been happening for the past year or so. That would make my job fun and we can't have that. Well at least not for a couple of months anyway."

Heishi smiled coldly.

"Don't get cocky now will you? I forgot to mention you must be crazy."

"Crazy is such a vague word…personally I prefer genius. Or haven't you noticed that all the 'geniuses' of our time seem have the requirement that they all be slightly insane?"

Heishi shook his head sadly.

"Obviously there is no comeback to such logic."

"Obviously." Aly agreed. "I wouldn't have said it otherwise now, would I? It wouldn't suit my unique and charming character."

Heishi snorted.

"Kyprioth must have his hands full."

Aly grinned. "Oh he does."

A disembodied voice boomed around the room.

"Well that depends on whose point of view you're looking at actually."

The two mortals jumped in surprise.

"Does he feel the need to do that often?" Asked Heishi.

"Only when he's bored. He's as vain as a cat when someone says his name."

"Now that's not very nice," commented Kyprioth affecting hurt that Aly would even think that of him. "Aly you really have to make sure that they don't kill this assassin, at least not yet. That would be a bad idea. Just think how many of my plans it would ruin!"

"Oh tragedy! And pray tell what we would do without you and your plans?"

"Well, cry and weep a lot for lost opportunities among others," replied the god smugly. "The list is endless but unfortunately you mortals don't live forever so I will never be able to enlighten you to my true magnificence. That and all the glory would be too much for your sad human cells."

Aly made a suggestion to the god that made Heishi stare and Kyprioth's presence fade cackling,

"I'd rather not all the same. It would be most uncomfortable…" and then he was gone.

"I feel so much better knowing that that particular god wants me to live," remarked Heishi dryly.

Kyprioth's voice echoed once again echoed around the room,

"And so you should."

Heishi glared in the general direction of Kyprioth's voice had come from as he spoke.

"And of course he likes to have the last word."

Aly grinned "Of course, as he's informed me so many times he is a god."

Heishi opened his mouth to reply but the door to the cell flew open crashing into the wall. Taybur and Fesgao stood there looking murderous. Nawat appeared seemingly from no where and grabbed them both by the collars of their shirt before they did something they would all regret. When they struggled he spoke to them sternly.

"You have every right to be worried but this is Aly's job-"

Fesgao turned his head to glare at the startled Aly.

"It is not her job to walk in on a known killer and extremely powerful mage unprotected. She-"

"And you especially Fesgao should know better. She argued with an angry god, what is a mage to one of them? Not to mention the fact she is handling this situation perfectly well now if you don't mind leave with Taybur and let her finish."

Fesgao spluttered in amazement and the impertinence of the crow-man, but didn't protest as he was dragged out of the room by Taybur the door closing firmly behind them.

Nawat flopped to the ground next to Aly. He appeared relaxed but his eyes were wary. Heishi stared at the crow-man.

"So where were we?" Aly said amiably.

Heishi swallowed and stopped staring.

"Well-"

Kyprioth's figure appeared in the room.

"I thought you left," growled Aly irritably.

"I had. But the prospect of having all of you wonderful people in the same room scheming was too much to resist."

"OK. What do you want?"

"How could you think such a thing of me Aly?"

"Well let's see..."

"Don't follow that train of thought my dear. I forgot you might actually be able to drag up a feasible reason and evidence to go with it. You wouldn't want everyone-scratch that. I wouldn't want everyone to be biased against me."

"Tragedy," commented Heishi.

"I know! Just think of all my great plans and tricks that would be ruined if no one would listen to me-"

Kyprioth's voice trailed off as Aly suddenly sat bolt upright, stiff and staring at the far wall. She was oblivious to anything around her as the pieces of a puzzle in her mind fell into place leaving her with a picture she didn't like. Nawat put a hand on her shoulder.

"Aly?"

"Something's wrong." Her numb lips barely moved as she her voice emerged from her mouth a toneless croak. She seemed to snap back to reality as her gaze settled stone cold on Kyprioth.

"What have you done? Where is the trick?"

The god inwardly cringed. This was not going to go well. He'd underestimated how quickly her mind worked. He affected a face of stern consternation.

"And why would there have to be a trick and why have I done something?" asked the god.

"Because you're a god and on top of that the trickster god." She said shaking off Nawat's hand as she jumped to her feet and her face drained of colour as a thought occurred to her. An uncontrollable anger like she had never known welled within her. Her voice was like an arrow cutting through the air.

"Kyprioth," she growled dangerously. "If you've touched them, if you've even looked at someone who has, will or is…I'll,I'll-"

The god's expression turned crafty. "You'll what Aly?" he used a tone she'd never heard from him before. It was scornful, undermining.

"You, mortal, can't do anything. What you fear most is happening now. It will happen. It must happen. You can do nothing. In fact I'd advise you don't try."

As Aly's legs froze her entire being, her mind, her soul shook with her hatred, her unquenchable, insurmountable anger…and her helplessness.

"No Kyprioth! No! Not to them! Why to them! What do you want! Please Kyprioth. I'll do what you want without this. Anything but this! Please!-"

The god's face was hard. "You need the extra motivation. It will not be enough to want to. You will need to. Need to in such a way that you will do it if it kills you."

Vaguely through her anger she heard Nawat calling her name. Frantically asking her what was wrong.

She didn't break her gaze on Kyprioth as her mouth responded without a thought. "He's arranged it Nawat. The twins. We left them in our quarters. Alone."

She barley registered the movement and then the slam of the cell door that signified Nawat's departure.

"You realise mortal, that I cannot allow him to interfere." Kyprioth remarked.

"Not him as well-!"

"Yes my dear, him as well. This worked out perfectly, he went as I knew he would. You mortals are so easily predicted. Though it was a pity I had to do this to a former crow. My work here is done…oh no it's not."

The comment was accented with the sound of a body crumpling to the ground.

"Heishi will wake in a couple of hours. By the time the magic that holds you in place wears off Aly it will be to late for you to do anything. I suggest you hurry about finding the assassin's master. Now he has your family there is no telling what he'll do." And with that he disappeared.

When the spell finally wore off Aly rushed up stairs and down hallways to her quarters. The door was wide open, upturned furnishings littered the room. Nearly everything was destroyed, and a breeze through the window blew debris everywhere. A single black crow's feather landed on the ground at her feet as she picked it up she made a promise. She would find her family, all of them. And sometime, somewhere Kyprioth would pay. The reality hit her then and her world seemed to crash to the ground around her the space where things had once been an empty pit which reeled her in.

Aly's POV:

I woke slowly to a world, no, a void of faded colours and muted sounds. The sky seemed white, the vegetation a dull black-brown in contrast with anything else varying shades of grey. Pictures swam before my eyes, faces and memories blurred and fuzzy, whipped away before they clarified as though they were smoke in a breeze. I finally and truly understood Heishi's pain now. The feeling of wanting nothing, knowing you have nothing to live for. The shapes intensified in their efforts to imprint themselves in my mind, reaching out smoky tendrils to pleadingly, trying to brush my face before they faded. What good did it do to resist the images the smoke carried? I had lost what mattered most to me. I had lost my family.

A/N: Oh, and plz LEAVE A REVIEW! I'll even tell you how it works. It's a really big secret and may come as a shock (Warning: if of faint heart don't read any further…) –drumroll- -whispers- All you have to do is hit the blue button below that says "submit review" (not the back button or the exit button). The little man who lives inside the submit review button called Fred will tell this box to pop up which you write the review in, then you hit send and Fred stores it and then he sends me an email saying I got a review. If you don't leave a review he's out of entertainment…and a job…you wouldn't want that now would you?