Free The Miscreant (An Assassin's Blade Book 2) by Justin DePaoli Page A

the opposing flab of skin. “Shallow lacerations need only one layer of sutures.” She jabbed the steel tip up and out of my flesh, circled around and stabbed again. “This is not a shallow laceration. The skin won’t hold unless I stitch multiple seams.”
    “Did I get good string for you?” Tylik asked.
    “It will work just fine,” Lysa said. “Thank you.”
    “Speaking of which,” I said, “what exactly did you barter with?”
    Tylik went pale. He chewed his cheek, twiddled his fingers. “Probably won’t be much happy with me, Astul.”
    “ What did you barter with?”
    Lysa maliciously punched the needle through my throbbing flesh. “Does it matter? He’s helped save your life.”
    “Yes. It matters. Because—”
    “One of your daggers,” Tylik blurted.
    My hands involuntarily curled into fists. “You traded—” I licked my lips, looked to the heavens and chuckled. “You traded an ebon dagger for some fucking foliage and string?”
    “Needles too,” Tylik pointed out, as if he was oblivious to the resentful tone of my voice.
    “Well, fuck me. That’s great, Tylik. Some needles, flowers and string. What do you think that runs you? Hmm? Maybe a handful of gold coins? Do you know how much an ebon dagger goes for?”
    I’d have gone on more about how Tylik the Barter Wonder couldn’t have made a worse deal if he’d traded wine for water, but a miserable pain in my arm sewed my mouth shut. With a thrust, the needle Lysa wielded burst through a hanging flap of flesh. She followed that unfriendly treatment with a glare as acerbic as the slit eyes of a serpent.
    It was at this point I noticed Tylik’s hanging head and drooping face, like a child who’d lovingly brought his mother flowers from the garden only to be scolded for ruining the landscaping.
    Great. Now I felt like shit.
    Blowing a puff of vibrating air through my lips, I grasped Tylik’s shoulder with my free hand. “Ignore my temper, hmm? It gets the best of me at times. You did the best with what you had. I appreciate it.”
    He pursed his lips and nodded: a half-hearted acceptance. Gentle souls like his don’t take well to ireful outbursts. I would do well to remember that from now on, because a sorrowful innocence guts you like hot steel across the belly. I’d make it up to him, though. Soon he’d be reunited with his family.
    “Voilà!” Lysa said, loosely tying the linen bandage around my now-closed wound. “All done. Did you see how nicely the skin came together after the fifth layer of sutures? Perfectly flush.”
    “You enjoy this type of thing far too much,” I said. I waved my arm around, trying to soothe the taut muscles.
    “One day I hope to dissect a body,” Lysa said.
    “Sounds lovely.”
    “Oh, it will be! Can you imagine the complexity, the secrets hidden beneath the skin? Haven’t you ever thought about it?”
    I stuffed our supplies into the satchels they’d been dumped out of. “I’ve seen what lies beneath the skin. Just a bunch of blood and bone and stringy things. Thought you’d be more interested in the mind, given your expertise.”
    The giddy excitement drained from Lysa like the green from autumn. “It’s a scary place to go.” She faced the phoenix. “Come on. We had better leave.”
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    T he last time I’d crossed this way, my mind wasn’t my own. So I didn’t remember much about the journey.
    It is, I discovered, not an enjoyable one.
    A wide channel of seawater lay like a fat canvas of pooled ink beneath us, a broad tail of pale moonlight gushing across it. Sometimes the clouds would come and take the moon hostage, which made it worse. Maybe it was serene at first, soaring above the night sea, but after a while, it feels you’re rushing headlong into oblivion. The blackness tugs at your eyes, blends everything together in a distinct depression of lifelessness. I knew the ocean churned below the spindles of fire from the phoenix’s wings, but up here, it looked as dead as a