Sword of Silk

I did not expect to find my father’s daughter on her knees in a basement in Nanda Parbat.

But there she was. Talia al Ghul. Heir to the League of Assassins. Daughter of the Demon himself. And she was scrubbing the grout between the tiles with a toothbrush.

I had been in the League for three years. Three years of knives and poisons and languages that broke my tongue. Three years of learning to kill a man with my thumb, with a hairpin, with a breath. I had earned my place. I had bled for it. And still, every morning at four, they sent me to clean the baths.

The baths were a relic. A cavern of white marble and green veined stone that smelled of sulfur and jasmine. Water steamed from a dozen pools at different temperatures, each one fed by a natural hot spring that ran beneath the mountain. The ceiling arched thirty feet above, and in the center of the room, a skylight let in a single column of moonlight. It was beautiful. It was also a bitch to keep clean.

Talia wore a white linen shift that clung to her shoulders. Her hair was pulled back in a tight braid, and she had rolled the sleeves past her elbows. She did not look up when I entered. She did not acknowledge me at all. She just kept scrubbing, her wrist moving in tight circles, her breath even and controlled.

I stood in the doorway with my bucket and my rags and my stupid, open mouth.

“The water in the third pool is too hot,” she said without turning. “Adjust it.”

Her voice was flat. Not cold. Flat. Like she was reading a shopping list.

I moved to the control panel on the far wall. Bronze dials, old as the mountain itself. I turned the third one left until the steam thinned. Behind me, the scrape of bristles on stone continued.

“You’re new,” she said.

“Three years.”

“Three years and they still have you scrubbing floors.”

I didn’t answer. What was there to say? She was right. Three years and I had never been sent on a real mission. Never been trusted with a name, let alone a target. I was good with a blade. Better than good. But the League did not care about good. The League cared about perfect, and I was not perfect. I was too loud when I walked. Too fast when I breathed. Too human.

Talia set down the toothbrush. She rose slowly, wiping her hands on her shift. The fabric was wet at the hem, clinging to her thighs. She turned to face me.

She was not beautiful. That was the first thing I noticed. She was something else. Something sharper. Her eyes were the color of old bronze, and they held nothing. No warmth. No curiosity. Just assessment. She looked at me the way I looked at a blade before I tested its edge.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“I don’t have one.”

“Everyone has a name.”

“The League took mine.”

She smiled. It was not a kind smile. “The League takes many things. Names. Faces. Lives. But it gives as well. It gives purpose.”

She walked toward me. Her bare feet made no sound on the wet marble. She stopped three feet away. Close enough that I could smell the jasmine oil in her hair. Close enough that I could see the faint scar that ran from her temple to her jaw.

“Do you know why I am here?” she asked.

“To inspect the baths.”

“No.”

She waited. I said nothing.

“I am here because I wanted to be alone,” she said. “And this is the one place in Nanda Parbat where no one comes. No one except the cleaners. And the cleaners do not speak.”

She reached out and took the rag from my hand. Her fingers brushed mine. They were calloused. A fighter’s hands.

“Tonight, you will speak,” she said. “You will tell me your name. The one you had before. And then you will forget you ever saw me here.”

I should have said yes. I should have nodded and left and never thought about it again. That would have been the smart thing. The safe thing.

But I was three years into a life that was not mine, and I was tired of being safe.

“My name was Elias,” I said.

She tilted her head. The moonlight caught the curve of her throat.

“Elias,” she repeated. The name sounded foreign in her mouth. Wrong. “And what did Elias do before the League took him?”

“He was a doctor.”

“A doctor.” She said it like it was a joke. “And now you scrub floors.”

“And now I scrub floors.”

She laughed. It was a small sound. A breath. But it was real.

She stepped closer. Her hand came up to my face, and she traced the line of my jaw with one finger. Her touch was light. Clinical. Like she was examining a specimen.

“I have a proposition for you, Elias,” she said. “One that will get you out of this basement. One that will give you purpose.”

“What kind of proposition?”

“The kind that requires absolute discretion. The kind that requires you to do exactly what I say, when I say it, without question.”

She let her hand fall. She stepped back. She was looking at me again with those bronze eyes, and I understood suddenly that she was not asking. She was offering. And the offer was a test.

“What would I have to do?” I asked.

“First,” she said, “you will finish cleaning the baths. Then you will come to my quarters. Room seventeen in the east wing. You will knock three times. You will wait. And when I open the door, you will not speak unless I tell you to.”

She turned and walked toward the far door. Her shift was wet at the back now, clinging to the curve of her spine. She stopped with her hand on the handle.

“And Elias?”

“Yes?”

“Wear something that can be easily removed.”

She left. The door clicked shut behind her.

I stood in the steam with my bucket and my rags and the ghost of her finger on my jaw. The water in the third pool was too cold now. I did not adjust it.

I finished cleaning the baths. I did not think about what I was going to do. I just moved. One tile at a time. One pool at a time. The motions were automatic, muscle memory from three years of repetition. And when I was done, I hung my rags on the hook by the door and I walked to the east wing.

Room seventeen.

I knocked three times.

The door opened.

Talia stood in the threshold, and she was wearing nothing at all.