First Kill by Jennifer Fallon

 
     
    Knowing is not the same as understanding .
    Seeing is not the same as witnessing .
    Killing is not the same as murder.
    Kiam Miar ran through the mantra in his mind as the bare-chested stevedores secured the heavy lines of the trading ship to the Calavandra wharf, their dark skins glistening in the heat of the midday sun. The men hauled on the ropes, singing a melodic chant to aid the rhythm of their work, pulling the ship into shore. He looked around, trying to appear jaded and unimpressed. The long stone wharves were noisy and hot and reeked of fish. Despite that—and his outwardly calm demeanour—Kiam was filled with a nervous excitement he was hard-pressed to contain.
    The city of Calavandra hugged the steep hills surrounding the harbour that was the lifeblood of this island, the largest of the Trinity Isles and arguably the most dangerous. Some of the houses clung perilously to the slopes as if their foundations were fashioned from claws rather than the pillars or stumps of more traditional buildings. Mostly painted white to reflect the heat, with flat roofs that often housed gardens or washing lines, the city appeared a jewel from afar, more like a slum at close quarters. Kiam’s father, Galon Miar, the current Raven of the Hythrun Assassins’ Guild, once remarked that Calavandra was like the poor abandoned child spawned by an unseemly mating of Greenharbour and Talabar with none of the other cities’ wealth or culture to recommend her.
    But whatever the city was for most men, for Kiam Miar it was something else entirely.
    Somewhere out there, he knew, probably watching him even now as the ship docked, was the assassin charged with overseeing this final test. Kiam didn’t know if the man—or woman—would reveal himself at some point. He didn’t know if his mentor’s task was to help or hinder Kiam’s work.
    He just knew he’d been given this job to prove he had what it took. His first kill, which—assuming he passed the test—would mean he was a fully-fledged assassin.
    It would be his last kill if he failed. The Assassin’s Guild didn’t spend years training someone to kill silently and efficiently, move without being seen and hide the evidence of their work, just to cut them loose without any control or supervision if they didn’t make the grade. That his father was the Raven didn’t factor into it. If he failed in this task, Kiam knew his mentor had orders to take care of the matter without referring back to the Raven for his opinion. Galon wouldn’t hear about it until his son’s personal effects arrived in a small parcel along with a condolence note. In this heat there would be no question of shipping his body home. It would rot and putrefy long before it arrived in Greenharbour.
    Kiam would succeed in this test or he would not be going home. Ever.
    The task he had been assigned seemed quite straightforward. Somebody very wealthy wanted a young woman named Sofya the Siren killed. Kiam hadn’t been told his employer was wealthy. The mere fact the Assassin’s’ Guild had been hired to do the job was sufficient proof of that.
    Poor people took care of their own.
    Although he had been trained not to question the motive for a kill or judge the person soliciting another’s death, it was impossible not to wonder what this young woman had done to incur the wrath of someone sufficiently powerful, wealthy and angry, that they had passed a death sentence on her.
    He supposed she was a mistress turned sour or a spurned lover. Despite the glamour of the Assassin’s’ Guild, truth was, they preferred to stay away from political assassinations. The bulk of their work, Kiam had learned at his father’s knee, was inspired by the basic human vices of avarice, jealousy and vengeance. Politics rarely entered into it.
    Kiam had only the barest information to go on about his intended target. Sofya the Siren was twenty-one years old, supposedly. The description he’d been provided with was “pretty,