Infinity Blade 01- Awakening

by giving away our one path to salvation.
    In the end, he needed to be able to face his mother with a clean conscience. So, as he shaved, he quietly revised his goals. He would find freedom, would find someplace anonymous to hide, but only after he had properly disposed of this weapon. Perhaps delivered it into the hands of someone he trusted to use it to fight.
    Isa took a step toward the sword. Siris snatched it by reflex, dropping the razor to the basin with a clatter.
    “Touchy,” she noted, then reached past him—and the sword—to pick up what appeared to be a soap dish made entirely of silver. The motion put her close to him. Close enough that he readied himself to slap her hand if she tried to knife him in the gut.
    She stepped back and held the soap dish up to the light. Her scent lingered close to him. No perfume. She smelled of leather and of wax. Good smells.
    She dropped the dish into her pouch.
    “Looting?” he said. “You’re nothing but a common thief.”
    Isa slung her crossbow over her shoulder—she wore it on a strap, like an over-arm pack. “Hardly.”
    “Then what are you?” Siris asked, genuinely curious.
    “A person who gets things done,” she replied, turning and walking toward the exit.
    “For a price, I assume.”
    “There’s always a price,” she said. “Thing is, if you’re lucky, someone else ends up paying it for you. I’m going to go wait down below until you decide to hire me.”
    She turned to leave.
    “Wait. What did you just say?”
    She looked back at him. “Well, it doesn’t look like you’re going to let me take the blade—”
    “I’ll die before you lay hands on it.”
    “I don’t doubt that’s true,” she said, a twinkle to her eye. “Answer something for me. How did you find your way to this castle?”
    “Everyone knows where it is. You just keep following the river until you reach the cliffs.”
    “And I assume that before coming here, you hadn’t ever left your little town?”
    “Why would I have needed to?”
    She just smiled. “I know where everything is— everything —and I can get you wherever you want to go. Keep that in mind as you contemplate sitting here, in a castle everyone knows how to find, holding a weapon that everyone wants.”
    She strode out the door.
    What a strange woman, Siris thought, holding the Infinity Blade close. Her last words lingered with him. In a castle everyone knows how to find . . . a weapon everyone wants . . .
    After a moment of consideration, he went looking for Strix.
    “Great master,” Strix said from beside the broken throne. “It is so wonderful to see you well. The golems’ attack did not harm you greatly, did it?”
    Siris didn’t reply at first. He walked around the throne, feet crunching on bits of broken marble. He’d found the yellow-faced daeril poking and prodding at the God King’s broken seat, ostensibly trying to fix it.
    Siris rounded the throne and stepped up to the daeril. Siris regarded Strix for a moment, then grabbed the gaunt daeril by the throat, hauling him up and slamming him back against the remnants of the side of the throne. He held the Infinity Blade in his other hand.
    The daeril’s black eyes bugged out, and he tried to gasp for breath. “Great . . . master . . . Why . . . ?”
    “Who is it you serve?”
    The daeril’s eyes grew more panicked. “Master . . . I . . . of course I serve you . . .”
    “You are a smart one, Strix,” Siris said. “You know that it’s dangerous to be found here. The other Deathless will slaughter you for what you know of the God King’s death. I can understand why Kuuth stayed; he doesn’t care about life. But you? You stayed for a reason.”
    The daeril struggled, eyes widening.
    Siris tightened his grip.
    “Who do you serve?” Siris demanded.
    Something crunched behind him.
    Siris spun without thinking, the Infinity Blade lashing out. He’d intended to behead the person sneaking up on him. Instead, he sliced through his 15-foot-tall opponent’s stomach.
    Kuuth, the blind troll, stumbled back, blood dribbling down his waist. His large, treelike staff clattered to the floor. He’d been about to smash Siris across the head.
    “Hell take me!” Siris yelled. Traitors! Kill them both! Bring them pain. Make them fear.
    He spun on Strix and drove the Infinity Blade into the stone of the throne, just beside the creature’s head. “What,” Siris bellowed, “is going on?”
    “Do not blame Strix,