Free The Assassins of Tamurin by S. D. Tower

listened. The story was about a girl named Aysel, whose parents ruled a great and rich kingdom. She was stolen away at birth by an evil sorcerer, and he put her with a family that treated her most shamefully. Then there was a golden fish in the story, a fish that could talk, and a long journey with many hardships, and at the end of the journey Aysel came to the house of Mother Midnight in a deep forest on the highest mountain of the world.
    “Why was she called Mother Midnight?” I asked drowsily. “Because she stood at the place where today and tomorrow meet, and looked both ways, and knew everything. Don’t interrupt.”
    She went on to tell how Mother Midnight told Aysel who her family was, and Aysel returned to the kingdom and revealed herself, to her parents’ great joy, and the evil sorcerer was found and put to death.
    “And afterward they all lived as they wished,” Dilara finished, “for as long as they wished it. And that is the end of the story.”
    I pondered. “So you call the Despotana ‘Mother Midnight’ because. ..”
    “Because she gives us a family, just as the Mother Midnight in the story did for Aysel. And also because she knows everything—she’s very learned, just as learned as any scholar. And someday she’ll help us defeat a truly evil sorcerer, the Chancellor in Bethiya.”
    “I wonder who my evil sorcerer was?” I mumbled, my mouth under the coverlet.
    But Dilara didn’t answer. She was very, very slowly easing herself up on one elbow.
    “What are you—”
    “Shh,” she breathed, and I fell silent. I carefully lifted my head and peeked over her shoulder.
    A furry brown basket vole was sneaking along the floor next to the wall, nose twitching. It was interested in our boots, to chew the leather. It was about the length of my hand, not including a short fuzzy tail. They were vermin, but pretty ones, with their soft pelts and black-ringed eyes; some children in Riversong had kept them as pets.
    Dilara’s hand crept out and took a citrine from the fruit bowl. The vole crept on, sniffing. It began to gnaw the sole of my boot and I heard the scrub of chisel teeth on leather.
    Dilara’s arm moved like a whip. The citrine shot across the room, slammed the vole against the wall, and bounced away. The little creature, stunned, lay on its side with its flanks heaving.
    Dilara was out of bed in a flash. She picked the vole up by the neck, so it couldn’t turn and bite her, but it was too dazed to defend itself.
    “Put it out the window,” I said. I was rather awed; I was a good shot with a stone, but Dilara was either very lucky or a lot better than I was. In the other bed, Sulen seemed to be coming awake, but then she snorted, rolled over, and fell silent.
    “It will only come back if I let it go,” said Dilara. She took the vole’s throat between her fingers, and, with a single twist, neatly snapped its neck. “There,” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “Now it won’t bother us again.” She crossed to the window and dropped the small corpse through the lattice.
    Then, yawning, she came back to the bed and slid under the coverlet. “I’m tired,” she said, “and we’ll be leaving at dawn. We’d better go to sleep now, Lale.”
    “All right,” I answered, and closed my eyes. Almost immediately, Dilara’s breathing deepened as she fell into a sound sleep. I spent a few moments feeling sorry for the vole, and then I followed her.

Six
    Tamurin! In my memory, my first sight of Mother’s realm has never faded. I need only close my eyes to see again, on the far side of a broad valley, the mountain ramparts of the Despotate soaring toward the clouds. I could hardly wait to reach them, for I felt that my new life would not truly begin until I was safe within their rugged embrace.
    Over the thirty-odd days of our journey I had become good friends with Dilara and Sulen, and we chattered incessantly as we rode. Our relationship with Tossi was different, and not merely