Broken Blade by Kelly McCullough

question, but I knew that moving against him physically would only stop the flow of information. I wondered, too, how the pair could both have been captured and yet remain unaccounted for, and played out what I knew of them in my head. Loris was of the previous generation, and I didn’t know him well, but I’d always liked Jax, who was a year or two younger than I. She had a good head on her shoulders.
    Devin continued, “Though they later escaped, they both spent a certain amount of . . . time with the Hand of Heaven first. I think either of them would have moved to kill me rather than running.”
    In that moment, I regretted that I hadn’t. The Hand provided the Son of Heaven with his enforcement arm, which included a lot of torture and burning of heretics. I didn’t move. Devin knew things that I wanted to, and he was still talking.
    If your enemy is doing what you want, don’t interfere.
    “That leaves Siri and Aral,” he said, “the shining stars of my generation. Both in the field at the time of the fall. Which are you, I wonder, my former sister or my lost brother? Mythkiller or Kingslayer? In either case, a potential adornment to the new order of the Assassin-Mage.”
    This time I did hiss. A mistake.
    Devin chuckled in response. “Oh, I didn’t like the name much the first time I heard it either, but it’s a hell of a lot more honest name for what we are than ‘Blade’ ever was, and it grows on you if you live long enough. I’m going to make you an offer. If it will make you feel better, you can choose to believe that’s because I don’t think I can take whichever of you I’m talking to in a fight. And you might be right, or then again, you might be surprised. It makes no difference to me what you believe. What matters to me is what you decide.
    “Those of us who took the Son of Heaven’s deal have moved on from the ruin of the temple. We had no choice. The goddess really is dead, and there’s no bringing her back. The Blades of Namara are gone forever. But that doesn’t make us a spent force. We still have the Shades and the skills we learned from the temple. We can take on new apprentices, teach the assassin’s arts, summon more Shades from the everdark. We have the potential to be one of the most powerful mage orders this world has ever seen. To rule from behind every throne.”
    And to betray everything we ever were. I slid my swords free of their sheaths and rolled my shoulders. I didn’t want to kill an old friend, but I couldn’t see any other way out.
    “I know I speak for the order when I say we’d love to have you with us,” said Devin. “I won’t demand an answer this instant, but we can’t afford to leave you running loose for long if you won’t side with us. You have forty-eight hours from this moment to decide. If you want to join the future, send a note for me here care of the baroness. If you insist on remaining a part of the past, we’ll have no choice but to make sure your name is added to the list of the fallen. Goodbye for now.”
    The time for words was over.
    I started toward the place where I thought Devin’s voice was coming from but had only taken a couple of steps when the world came apart with a blinding flash and a tremendous boom. For a good ten seconds, I couldn’t see anything but a lavender pattern of branching lines left on my retinas by one of the most violent bursts of magelightning I’d ever encountered. It was well beyond what Devin should have been able to manage without a more formal spell. If he’d wanted to kill me then, there’s a good chance he’d have managed it. Instead, he vanished, leaving me alone beside the giant hole he’d blasted in the baroness’s wall.
    I briefly contemplated looking for him, but I had no doubts that the display was going to draw a lot of the wrong kind of attention, including the Elite. Promising myself that this thing with Devin wasn’t over, I slipped out through the hole in the wall and headed back