Skylight: Assassins Universe

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.

"'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

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Mar 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393360490

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.

Book preview

Skylight

Praise for Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Kristine Kathryn Rusch may be one of the most sure-footed authors in science fiction, never straying from the path of good story-telling as she dissects her characters and their situations for the reader’s benefit….She integrates the fantastic elements so rigorously into her story that it is often hard to remember she is not merely recording the here and now.

A.M. Dellamonica Science Fiction Weekly

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is one of the best writers in the field.

SFRevu

In less than 20 years, Rusch has won most of the major sf and fantasy awards, including the Best Editor Hugo during her stint at the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction….[She] is one of the more accomplished younger sf authors.

Booklist

Skylight

Assassin’s Universe Book 3

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing Inc.

Contents

Skylight

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Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

About the Author

Skylight

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