The Striker by Clive Cussler (ebook reader web TXT) 📕

annoyance turns to anger. You are more than a knife in the dark. You are patient, inescapable, inevitable. You are death itself walking the world. You will show them.

You have an idea, a target who will be more challenging than any of the previous five. A target who will be guarded by the best the Mage Guard has to offer. Probably the human as well. Your last and final kill before you leave and move on to Godscry and the elves. When you are finished, the gods will know how truly capable you are. They will know their doubts to be misplaced. They will know their lack of trust to be foolish. They and all the world will whisper the name Nisha Davrosh and they will tremble.

✽✽✽

THE VIEW WAS an appropriate finish to a day that started with an empty bed and ended with frostbite and failure. Sorrows leaned forward, gripping the handles of the sled, staring at the back of Davrosh’s head, the backs of six dogs, the pools of light beneath glowstone lamps. The storm had calmed, and the runners hissed softly in the snow. He listened to the dogs panting, listened to Davrosh crunching some sort of nuts she kept in a pouch at her waist. His stomach growled. He spared a little thought for food, a little thought for thirst, and a great deal of thought for Julia. Julia, whose soul was strapped to his back. Julia, whom he’d carried with him for more than a year. Julia, whom he’d carried with him for centuries. Julia, whom he’d avoided thinking about once Mig and Jace appeared.

He felt guilty. Felt it heavy like a stone in his stomach. Guilt and shame. The former because though she’d long been dead, he’d always felt taking a lover was an act of betrayal to her memory, to the life they’d shared together. But he’d grown accustomed to guilt. It didn’t bother him. In fact, if anything, it made her memory more real. Like she was still alive to be hurt and angered by his lingering need for flesh and bone pressed against his flesh and bone. But it was the realness of her memory that brought shame now. And that was something new.

Julia, a woman died last night because I almost bedded an elf. He could picture Julia’s face breaking. Her chin would tremble, then her lips would turn down at the corners. Her eyes would glisten until she blinked, and a tear would fall down her cheek. She wouldn’t slap, wouldn’t yell, wouldn’t slam a door and leave. She would just look at him with eyes large and dark and liquid until he averted his gaze and found words to form an apology. But there would be no words to explain Zvilna Gorsham. No words to explain how he’d failed to protect her as he'd failed to protect Julia from the Seph.

And thinking of the Seph made him think of the bow and the job and the empty box pocketed in his cloak, heavy like guilt. If he’d simply finished the job, the elves could have had the bow, and he could have laughed at Eldrake and Oray and walked straight out of Godscry Tower. It was a beautiful bow, but it wasn’t worth his freedom. But probably the box would have still found its way to him. The Fates would have appeared, maybe when he was in Tam with Mig and Fen. Maybe in the Evonwood. Maybe he’d have worked his way back to the Edge and the Fates would have shown up while he fought the Cursed. The Fates would have found him because Ashra would have found him. She always found him. Always knew how to get her claws into his life, her whispers into his head.

He loathed her. Hated her. Felt a thrill of excitement like fire burning in his bones each time he banished her. Felt creeping dread like ice water down his back each time she reappeared in a different form. Always human, always grotesque. How could she not be? Humans had died off centuries ago. All that was left now was brittle bones. But it was enough for the Seph to build upon. Enough to hold a patchwork of animal flesh and fur. Enough for Ashra to take shape and whisper riddles in his ear. Don’t trust the elf. The Seph-orc left him with that same trickle of ice-water. A Seph in a mortal body. Ashra’s reach grew longer.

Which turned his thoughts back to the job, the bow, and Julia. And he knew then what he needed to do and not do. He needed to find a Seph and free Julia. He needed to find the killer. He needed to confront Jace about Bex. And he needed to not be distracted by long limbs and golden hair until he’d done all three. Especially the third. Obsessing over an elf wasn’t like him. Obsessing over a killer was worse. He might hope to his god that what had happened to Bex was an accident; that Jace had acted in self-defense. But his god was dead. Life was never easy like that. He’d deal with Jace eventually, but in the meantime he would hunt.

“How did you figure out Zvilna?” Davrosh asked.

She sat on the front of the sled in the cargo basket, her arms resting on the top rails, her boots at the base of the brush bow. She was turned, looking at Sorrows over her shoulder.

“We examined all the victims, never thought to try pulling their hands off,” she said.

He wasn’t sure if she was angry, joking, or curious. I had a vision of Zvilna Gorsham’s ghost, he thought. But he wouldn’t tell that to her. Those were details of the job. The job wasn’t her concern.

“Lucky guess,” he said. He pictured Mishma Valinor, her withered skin, her perfect mask. “Why don’t you dismiss the restoration magic entirely? You would have spotted it with Sturm.”

Davrosh frowned, half embarrassed, half frustrated. “That’s easy