Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Assassin by Felicity Heaton Page A

the palace and she had done so stealthily enough that he
hadn’t noticed her.

    “ I am
Perseian.” Speaking the name of his species made him remember the
pendant that he had bought Natalia, one which he would never have
the audacity or courage to give to her but which now resided close
to her hands in his jacket pocket. His gaze flicked to it and then
to her hands. She was toying with the sleeves of his jacket, her
slender fingers tracing the blue embroidery around the cuffs.
“These are the weapons I was raised with. The only ones that I have
needed since I took the trials as a child.”

    “ You went
through trials when you were a boy?” She drew her knees up again,
wrapping her arms around them and looking up at him. He was
thankful that her hands were away from the pockets of his
jacket.

    He nodded.

    “ Tell me about
them.”

    Ixion tensed. He didn’t
want to tell her about them. She didn’t need to know about the
things that he had done.

    “ Is something
wrong?” she said with a frown.

    He bowed his head. “My
lady, I request you give me leave to refuse your
request.”

    She giggled. “Why should I
grant your request to request that I give you leave to refuse my
request?”

    He frowned. She was
playing with him. The things that he had done were no laughing
matter. If he told her, she would never look at him again. She
would fear him. He sighed, pressed his right hand against his
chest, and closed his eyes.

    “ My lady does
not need to know the things that I have done, only that I will
protect her.”

    She was silent for a long
time. He didn’t dare look at her. It had taken him a strangely
large amount of courage to say those words. He had told her earlier
that he would protect her but now it felt different to say such a
thing. It felt as though he was confessing that there was something
deeper than his duty behind his reason for protecting
her.

    “ I would like
to know.” Her voice was small.

    He looked at her, right
into her green eyes, trying to see if she was telling the
truth.

    “ Why?” he
said.

    She toyed with the
fastenings on his jacket. “So I will know you better.”

    He bowed his head again.
“I am unworthy of such a thing.”

    “ Indulge my
whim then and tell me because I am asking you to.”

    “ An
order?”

    “ If you prefer
it that way.” There was an edge to those words that said she might
order him to do other things if he was lucky. He could only pray to
Iskara for such an elusive dream to come true.

    “ Then I will do
as my lady asks.” He drew up a chair and set it down in front of
her.

    Just as he was going to
sit down, a loud blast shook the building. Natalia gasped. One of
the white spotlights went out and then blinked back into life. The
baby Friskin made a purring noise.

    Ixion reached into the
crate and stroked it. It settled immediately. He glanced at
Natalia. Her eyes were wide and fearful again. He wished he could
soothe her fear so easily.

    Perhaps talking to her
would keep her mind off the fighting outside.

    He sat down on the chair
and thought about what to tell her. Only the truth would do,
although he would omit some parts.

    “ Tell me about
the trials,” she said in a tight voice.

    If she feared the fighting
outside, then telling her about the trials would only scare her
more, but she had ordered him.

    “ They are a
rite of passage on Perseia. I was the only survivor out of nineteen
others who shared my birth date.”

    “ That’s
terrible. What happened to them?”

    He leaned back in the
chair. “I killed them.”

    Her eyes shot wide and she
gasped again. Her mouth opened but he beat her to
speaking.

    “ It is the way
of Perseia,” he said, hoping it would make her see that he’d had
little choice in the matter. “All males of eleven
years—”

    “ Eleven!” she
shrieked, cutting him off. She looked horrified. “They made you
kill at eleven?”

    Clearly his people were
not well documented and she didn’t have