The Seven Markets by David Hoffman

ground.
    “Revenge!” The assassin’s voice was choked with incoherent rage. He struck the ground, rolling to absorb the impact, and was back on his feet instantly. He slashed up at the air, missing the Prince’s feet as he danced once more out of range.
    “Revenge!” The assassin raised his pistol, leading the Prince as he danced across the ballroom, waiting for the inevitable moment when he would need to pause and rebound off a wall.
    With a wail of inchoate fury the assassin fired his weapon again and again. Bursts of golden energy erupted across the ballroom, zeroing in on the Prince for the split second he hung, exposed and vulnerable, in midair.
    The first shot struck him in the thigh, twisting him back into the wall. The second took him in the arm below the elbow. His hand curled into a withered, darkened claw. It twitched, withdrawing into the Prince’s body, seeking shelter in the shadow of his torso.
    “Nooooo!” She reached out across the ballroom to him. If she was only closer she could have shielded him with her own body.
    The third and fourth shots hit together, the former striking his chest and the latter catching him high up on his temple. The Prince flashed in agony, blazing for a moment like a summer star, before collapsing onto the floor.
    There was not a single drop of blood anywhere on either the wall or the floor where he came to lie.
    Ellie raced to his side, cradling her beloved’s head in her lap. She expected, for all the world, to be comforting him as he spoke his dying words. If it wasn’t too late already. She wept. Her hands shook. The world was a bottomless pit from which she could never escape.
    “Where is he?” the Prince said, using her shoulder to push himself up off the ballroom floor.
    He had been shot four times, in the leg, the arm, the chest and the head. Yet there was not a single mark on him. His fine clothes were unmarked. Ellie glanced at the hand squeezing her shoulder—it had been a gnarled claw only moments ago—and saw only the familiar hand of the man she loved.
    “Here, sire!”
    Cutter knelt over the assassin, his knee pressed into the man’s throat, the strange pistol and the curved blade cast aside where they could do no more harm.
    The Prince helped Ellie up from the floor. Together they went to Cutter and the assassin.
    “Who sent you?” the Prince said, bending down.
    “Revenge!”
    “Ah, that.” He turned to Ellie. “Revenge is so tedious, don’t you think, my dear? Look at this poor fellow. He’s gone mad with it.”
    “Revenge!”
    “Yes, so you said. Your revenge, or are you working for someone? Please do tell, it’s so important to be specific with these things.”
    “Sire,” Cutter said, an anxious tremor to his voice.
    “Yes?”
    “There may be more, sire. We should continue someplace safer.”
    The Prince rolled his eyes. “If there are more, let’s hope they’re as incompetent as this fool. Still, we must credit him for showing up at a formal ball all in black. Masked even. Why, Cutter, I can’t remember the last time a masked man attempted to dispatch me.”
    “No, sire,” Cutter said. He flexed his hands, opening and closing his fists. All his attention was focused on the man beneath his knee.
    “Revenge!” It came out less as a warning and more as a sob.
    Ellie was standing back several paces. Not as near as the Prince and Cutter but still closer than the others in the room. She studied the man sprawled out helpless on the ballroom floor. His clothes were curious. More than mere cloth, but like no armor she’d ever seen. It bent and flexed when he shifted his position. Cutter’s knee was not held back by its strength, but accommodated. Still, there was a hardness to it that was plain to see.
    “I’ve never been a fan of masks,” the Prince said. He reached down and tugged at the man’s hood, pulling it back. His eyes were covered in thick, dark goggles, and beneath that, a mask of the same material as the rest of