Chapter 3

  Four months into my time at Malik's Assassin school, I was learning to read, write, and run faster than a lion. I was also learning math and how to meditate.

I started using throwing stars at eight. I learned by then that the older you are, the less kind and gentle Malik was to you. Malik used to be patient and gentlee with me, softly coaxing me to do better. Now, each time a star or knife missed its mark, I was forced to retrieve it, no matter how many objects were flying around. Eight years old and dodgin flying objects and getting knicked in every imaginable place. Occasionally, a weapon would land in my arm or leg, even my back.By the age of ten, I was doing five miles a day, meditating an hour a day before lunch, and throwing knives and stars easily. I could make a Bull's eye without looking. Malik had tested me with a blindfold and an Assassin of the Black Desert by his side. I'd landed three of the five targets, which had been lined up at different distances. The Assassin had been mildly impressed.I then moved to practicing with wooden swords and daggers. Adonijah and Ezra were my constant practice partners. Ezra was always easier to beat, while Adonijah was more experienced and would do anything to win.

At twelve years old, I had to break my right hand. Every bone in it. With a rock. The order had been given to me by a harshly pretty Assassin woman. She'd dragged me aside during practice time and told me to go outside, find a rock and crush every bone in my right hand. When I asked why, her cold gray eyes burned on mine and she told me that I had to do it so that, one day when I have the inability to use my right hand, my left would be ready. Adonijah caught my eye as I headed outside to do the deed and he grimaced. I smiled back at him as though I wasn't afraid to do what I was being told to do. The Assassin woman watched me go searching for a decent rock that would serve its purpose quickly and easily. I found a decent-sized rock of about four inches in diameter with jagged edges and a slight point on one side as if it were meant to be used as an arrowhead, not an instrument of destruction of one's hand. I picked it up and carried it back to the front steps to Malik's home so that the Assassin woman would be able to see me do the thing she was asking. She stood in the slightly open doorway nice and firmly like a thin, dark wall, clad in her black gear. She looked down on me, her cold eyes burning into mine again.  I knelt by the stone steps and placed my right hand on the cold stone. I glanced once more at the woman with her blood red hair scraped into a tight, neat ponytail. My heart thundered in my chest. I knew this would hurt so very badly once I was done. I was so sure that it would knock me unconscious with pain. But, I had to do it. It was a direct order from an Assassin of the Black Desert. It was unrefusable.

I squeezed my eyes shut and smashed the rock into my hand over and over again in hopes of never being able to fully register the pain.  I felt all the bones breaking and still felt the agony of the rock shredding my skin and tearing apart nerves and veins.  Warm blood was pouring from my hand, but I didn't stop.  I had to make sure every bone was broken before I confirmed with the Assassin that it was done.  

Someone tore the rock out of my hands as I continued smashing it.  Warm arms came around me and pulled me into a muscled chest.  I was crying through the pain.  It was like a raging fire had seared through my hand.  

"Iris?" A soft, accented voice whispered.  "Iris!  Oh my gods!" 

Cool hands touched my broken one and it only made the pain worse. I screamed my pain to the person holding me.  

"Ezra, don't.  Don't touch it." Malik's deep voice was unmistakable.  "Go back inside, please.  Tell Adonijah and the older children to stay back.  Make way for me to bring her to the infirmary, all right?"

Malik pulled me into his arms and brushed some strands of hair out of my face.  "Iris, it's going to be okay. I just need you to keep your hand still for me.  I'm taking you to the infirmary."

I was jostled slightly as Malik rose to his feet and began to carry me inside.

"There is no need for that, Malik.  She can walk herself to the infirmary.  One day she might need to be able to do that." the Assassin woman said.

I pried my eyes open and looked at her through the mist of my tears.  Her gray eyes were fixed on Malik.  I looked up at Malik whose face was a perfect description of barely concealed fury.

"She is twelve years old.  She was not meant to be exposed to such agony at this age.  You crossed a line, Savia.  You may be an Assassin of the Black Desert, but this is an abuse of your authority here.  Iris is still just a child.  If she had been a few years older, perhaps I'd approve."  Malik growled.

The woman half-smirked. "Your children are subjected to much softer conditions here than you were ever given during your time at the Black Desert camp.  You had to do the same thing when you were younger.  This anger of yours is only because you love her and favor her most out of all of your children.  You broke the rule you laid out at this camp: Never allow yourself to love one of your pupils.  Look at you now, Malik."

"You think I'm angry because I love her?  I don't.  I simply believe that some levels of pain are too much for young children.  Just because I experienced something at a young age, doesn't mean I liked it and it doesn't mean that my pupils have to experience the same exact thing." Malik snapped.  "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a child to heal."

Malik took me to the infirmary then.  I was nearly passed out from the pain when he laid me on a bed and made me drink something hot.  I passed out almost instantly.

When I woke, the sun was streaming through the windows on my left.  I was still in the infirmary and my hand was thickly bandaged.  Adonijah was sleeping in a chair beside my bed with his head tilted back and his mouth open wide.  I poked him under his exposed chin, jolting his head back a little more.  He snorted and woke up.  His head came forward and I couldn't help giggling at how he'd been sleeping.  

"What are you laughing at?" he asked with a lopsided grin on his face. 

"The way you were sleeping, dummy." I replied as I laughed and I imitated it.

Adonijah started laughing too.  "You're so mean.  I've been sitting here every night since Malik took you here.  That Assassin lady was really cruel, making you smash your hand to pieces.  Malik was really mad about it too.  Every time that lady tried to talk to him about it, he would start yelling at her.  She never seemed to care though.  She just folded her arms over her chest and smirked at him like she knew something he didn't."

My happy mood was gone.  I remembered what the lady - Savia - had said to him when he was bringing me inside to heal me.  She'd said he was so angry because he loved me more than the other kids he'd been training even though it was his rule to never love any of his students.

"She thinks that he's all mad at her because he loves me." I whispered.

Adonijah made a disgusted face.  "Malik loves you?  That's weird.  He's too old for you.  Way too old."

I shook my head and half-smiled. "No.  Not like that! Like a father.  He'd never have those kinds of feelings for me."

Adonijah looked relieved.  "Why would he love you like a father?"

I shook my head again.  "I don't know.  Maybe because I listen to him and do my best at everything?"

Adonijah chuckled.  "You're not the only student he's had that's like that though."

I shrugged.  "Well, that's the only thing I can think of as a reason."

Adonijah sighed as he leaned forward in his chair.  "How's your hand?"

I touched it.  It was almost numb through all the bandages around it.  It looked to be almost three times the actual size.  I shrugged again. "I'm not feeling anything."

"Malik changed your bandages like ten times while you were sleeping.  Your hand wouldn't stop bleeding.  You really messed it up with that rock, Iris.  Every bone was broken and sticking out of it in all these weird ways.  Ezra passed out when she got a good look at it when Malik got you inside.  I had to drag her out of the hall so no one would walk all over her.  It even made me sick to look at." Adonijah told me.  "Malik wouldn't let anyone in here for nearly three hours while he worked on setting your bones back as best he could, stitched you up and bandaged you."

"How long was I out?" I asked him, picturing all of this in my head.

"A day.  You passed out on your own but, Malik gave you a couple doses of sedative to keep you out while he worked on you so that you wouldn't feel anything."  Adonijah replied.

I nodded and kept looking at my bandaged stump of a hand.  Then, the door to the infirmary opened.  I looked up to see Malik dressed in green robes entering the room.  His spiky black hair was a bit of a mess and seemed to glisten in the sunlight.  Was he coming from a shower?

"Iris.  You're awake finally." he sighed. "Good.  How does your hand feel?" 

"I'm not feeling any pain." I replied quietly.  I couldn't help it.  Malik was still as handsome as the day he'd saved me.  The green eyes are what brings the whole look home.  They're so bright like emeralds in his tan face and they're overshadowed by thick, arched eyebrows and long dark lashes.  

He smiled and I felt that spike of attraction pierce me.  Why did he have to be so much older than me?  He didn't even look that old either.  He still looked like he was in his early twenties.

"Why don't we take the bandages off and see how it looks?" he asked me as he stepped into the room.

I nodded.

"Adonijah, you may go now.  Breakfast is on the table.  You need to prepare for your training as well." Malik said, holding the door open for my friend.

Adonijah took one last look at me before he stepped out of the infirmary and Malik closed the door behind him.

My teacher took the seat Adonijah had been in and held out a hand for me to put mine in.  I did so and he began to undo the bandages carefully.  I watched as each layer came undone, coming closer and closer to seeing how well Malik had fixed my hand.

When the last layer came off, I could see that my hand looked almost as if it hadn't been touched.  There was only a long row of blackened stitches down the middle of my hand from my wrist to the knuckle of my middle finger.  I knew immediately that this would become another ugly scar on my young body.  But, I had to accept it.  This was the life I had been brought into.  I had to live this life of pain and scars.  I'd likely have scars like this all over me one day from all the battles I had yet to live through.  

I sighed as I looked at it and Malik looked up at me, his green eyes brighter as they became filled with sadness.  

"I did my best, Iris.  You smashed it to pieces.  Setting the bones back was not very easy work and the fact that you kept smashing and smashing that rock into it...you tore up so much skin and tissue...it's not bound to heal very nicely.  This is the best I could do.  Be grateful I was patient enough to put everything back better than most people would.  I had to do this to myself at a much younger age.  I had to fix my own hand.  It didn't come out very well.  I had little help.  One Assassin tried to help me but was sent away before he could be of much assistance.  He saved my hand from becoming too noticeably deformed."  Malik told me in a quiet voice.

He held up his right hand and then his left and I could see the slight differences between the two.  The fingers of his right hand were slightly and oddly crooked.  The back of his hand was scarred all over, though faintly and there were little lumps along it that one would think were veins.  They were bones that had not been set right. 

"You will not have this problem, Iris.  You will only have to deal with that one large and ugly scar.  Scars fade.  No one will notice that you endured pain there once those stitches are taken out and the scab turns to skin." Malik smiled faintly.  "You're welcome."

I smiled back.  "Thank you." 

"I know you heard what the Assassin said when I was taking you inside.  I saw your eyes open and look up at me.  You must know that I never approved of her doing that to you.  Usually they tell me when they are thinking of doing such drastic things to my students.  Savia did not.  She took you and made you break your hand at twelve years old.  I had to do the same thing at ten years old.  That was the training she and I went through.  I nearly died the day they made me do that.  The pain was that excruciating to me.  That's why I became furious with her.  She only fueled my anger when she insisted that it was because I loved you that I was defending you."  Malik explained.

I tilted my head curiously as he looked at me so steadily as he told me his story.  I still felt strangely hurt that he would say that he didn't love me.  Why not love the children you were taking in to raise and turn into assassins?  Why not become their father through love as well as through responsibility as you raise them?

"Why don't you allow yourself to love us?" I asked him.

Malik smiled wryly and took my injured hand in his. "Because, I know that emotional attachment can turn out to be detrimental.  If I were to let myself love any of you, I would become upset when I have to let you go on your missions later on and would stress over whether or not you would make it back from them in one piece or at all." he explained. "I would stress myself out to the point where I may not be able to help you if you need me.  I might stress myself to the point where I die from it.  I'd rather not form any emotional attachment so that I can always be there for you until the gods say I cannot." 

"But...there are some of us that love you...." I said.

Malik kissed my forehead gently. "I know.  I know that some of you think of me as a father since I saved you and gave you a home.  But, I can never assume the place of a father, Iris.  I'm a trainer.  I make you stronger and teach you to fight, I mend wounds.  That's all I can really do for any of you.  That you love me...that's your choice.  I accept your affections if you choose to show them to me, but I can never fully return them to you.  Only to the extent of a teacher's love to a student."

I nodded my understanding and looked down at my hand which still lay in his rough and scarred ones.

For a moment we were quiet.  Then, he said, "I will admit a secret to you, Iris.  You can tell no one this secret.  Understood?"

I looked at him and nodded.   He smiled and beckoned me closer to him.

I leaned in close enough that his warm breath brushed against my ear. 

"You are the only student that I could never stop myself from loving.  I think of you as a daughter, Iris. Never doubt that." he whispered.

My eyes widened as he said this and when he pulled away, I couldn't restrain myself from throwing my arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.

Malik smiled against my shoulder and hugged me back.  "Never tell anyone that."

I whispered, "I understand" to his neck as he held me and nuzzled his face into mine.