The Mirrored City by Michael J. Bode Page B

anything like this. Better enjoy it.
    Heath waited for the passing patrols to walk by before leaping over the edge of the roof and swinging onto the balcony. He entered the room quietly, unnoticed by any patrols.
    The Patriarch’s bedroom was gold plated. Heath staggered for a second to admire the fact that every inch of the architecture had been wrapped in gold leaf. While it lacked in the majestic arches and domed ceilings of the other houses, it utterly destroyed them in sheer opulence. In the center rested a four-poster bed that reached the ceiling with heavy green curtains. To the sides were archways to the attendant’s quarters. The Patriarch and Matriarch had a retinue of servants ready to attend their every need.
    Heath walked softly to the bed and pulled the curtain open.
    Ibiq Qaadar was a rail thin man with white beard and hair. His wife was considerably younger and more attractive. They lay peacefully in the sheets, their bare legs intertwining.
    Heath popped his right springblade and rubbed the edge with a poison-soaked cloth he kept in his belt pouch. Satisfied the numbing venom was applied, he drew his blade against Ibiq’s wiry gray-haired thigh. Abraevium knives were the sharpest in all Creation, so sharp they could part skin without anyone knowing. With slow and surgical precision, Heath opened the length of the femoral artery in Ibiq’s thigh.
    Like Heath, Ibiq was also a healer and could remedy his injury if he awoke. He did not, and Heath watched while the old man bled out. It took less than a minute for him to stop breathing.
    Satisfied, Heath stepped back and charged one of the stained glass windows full force. The glass shattered around him. In Dessim, the housing behind the central palace was small homes with rooftop gardens. It was the same here. He just needed to live through the landing.
    He willed his body to relax and prepared to roll when he hit.
    Pain shot through his body as he tumbled across the grass rooftop beneath him. His shoulder took the brunt of it and flared in painful response. The cuts from the glass covered his arms and face. He rolled onto his back and pressed his hands against his arms.
    The warm glow of Light spread from his fingers. To anyone’s knowledge, he was the only person in Creation to be both a Stormlord and healer. People who were born to it, like Jessa and Sireen, couldn’t master other forms of theurgy. And since becoming a Stormlord himself, Heath had felt his Light depleting. Still, it was enough to heal the cuts, broken shoulder, and most of the bruising. The other pain he could endure as he scuttled off the rooftop lawn down to the streets below.

    “The Patriarch? Are you fucking kidding me?” Maddox shouted as he waved the crumpled broadsheet in Heath’s face.
    Heath sat at his desk quietly penning his letter of condolence. “He had a long fruitful life of exploiting people’s religious beliefs for his own gain. He refused to even speak with me, so I had to advance our agenda.” Heath dipped his quill into the ink pot and continued writing.
    “You’ve been a Stormlord for exactly nine months, and the first person you kill is the head of a democratically elected government. By the Guides, who in the hells are you? I thought you were trying to have a conscience.” Maddox tugged at his hair.
    Heath smiled. “The old me would have murdered him for pocket coin, no questions asked. This is about building something that will last when I’m gone.”
    “I fail to see how that’s an improvement.” Then Maddox admitted, “I’ve been a Stormlord before. Their brains don’t work like ours… it changes you.”
    “What I’m doing,” Heath said calmly as he made his signature on the paper, “is ensuring Assembly support for the retaking of Thelassus for our friend, Jessa. Now if there had been any valid reasons for Qaadar’s refusal to assist us, I would have addressed those. However, there were no reasons aside from a bigoted hatred of societies