Skylight

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Abandoned by everyone, Skye strikes a bargain with the Assassins Guild at the tender age of 14 to work off her education. But in the years that follow, her training proves she must escape an assassin’s life. After failing one final test, she learns her fate—a fate no one can see coming.

This story marks the origin of Skye, the heroine of A Spy to Die For, which Kristine Kathryn Rusch wrote under the pen name Kris DeLake.

“‘Skylight’ takes one of the less likely aspects of fantasy—the Assassins Guild—and not only does a science fiction take on it, but also makes it seem sensible. ...Kristine Kathryn Rusch makes the entire concept work with a story about morality and hard choices.”
—Tangent Online

“Her method for dealing with the problem, and the ultimate solution, left me hoping for another story or six starring Skye as an iconic space-opera wisenheimer which is about as strong an endorsement as I can give ‘Skylight.’”
—Primary Sources

“Kristine Kathryn Rusch has created both a compelling protagonist and an equally compelling setting. Rusch writes the world in which Skye finds herself as an insular place filled with mystery, revelations appearing slowly and carefully as the reader learns more about Skye, her past, and her present. While ‘Skylight’ feels as if it could be the first chapter of an ongoing new series it also works well as a stand-alone story.”
—SF Signal

Kris DeLake is one of author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s many pen names. In addition to writing as Kris DeLake in romance, Rusch also writes romance as Kristine Grayson (who specializes in paranormals) and Kristine Dexter (who prefers romantic suspense). In mystery, Rusch writes as the Edgar- and Shamus-nominated Kris Nelscott, as well as under her own name. In science fiction and fantasy, Rusch is a bestselling double Hugo winner.
To find out more about her work, go to KrisDeLake.com or KristineKathrynRusch.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Dec 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311905161

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

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Skylight

Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2013

Published by WMG Publishing

Cover and Layout copyright © 2013 by WMG Publishing

Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing

Cover art copyright © Lunamarina/Dreamstime

Smashwords Edition

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

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SKYE STANDS OVER the unbelievably fat man, feet spread as far as they go so she can straddle him, and clutches the spear in her right hand. His eyes are wild, but he’s past begging. Tears stain his face, and his lower lip trembles.

She doesn’t hate him. She should hate him, right?

She doesn’t look up either, because if she looks up, she fails, but she feels like stepping aside. Even though she’s in a simulation, everything feels real—there’s an actual wind blowing her long black hair (over her face, dammit), her footprints depress the grass around the fat man’s body, and the light of the fading sun seems too bright to her untrained eye.

Plus she can smell this guy. He smelled like garlic when she first arrived at his estate, pretending to be an escort that he had hired, and now he smells like sweat. Not healthy manly sweat, but flop sweat, tinged with fear so powerful that if there were predators in this simulation, they would come from the woods beyond in droves.

But there are no predators here, not even her. She’s supposed to be one, but it’s just not working for her.

I asked this before, and I’m going to ask it again, she says, sotto voce to her handler, just like she’s supposed to if something goes horribly wrong with the simulation. A spear? Really?

She knows the answer. Her handler has given her the same answer for two full days. You have to be ready to use everything around you. The story she’s acting out here is a simple one: the fat man’s bodyguards