[Katya, Lady Assassin] 01] • The Taste of Waterfruit and Other Stories (Story Portals)

Katya is an assassin at the very top of her profession. Adept with weapons, poisons, and magic, she is highly skilled and extremely deadly. Katya lives on the edge, balancing every moment between life and death hers, or her target`s. Katya`s home is in Jakarr, the trading capital in the kingdom of Ankora, though her work often takes her to far off lands and even more exotic locations. To accomplish a mission, Katya or "Lady Kat," as she is known on the street will take whatever measures she must. There is no job she cannot do, no target she cannot kill, though, for reasons of her own and in accordance with her own strict code, there are jobs she will not accept regardless of the price.

Trained in the killing arts by followers of Shi`in, the goddess of love and death, she is also an expert courtesan, but she rarely uses those skills, and only when her true calling demands it. Years earlier, an attack on Shi’in’s temple killed most of Shi`in`s followers—and possibly the goddess herself. Now only Katya remembers Shi`in and continues to worship her as best she can, but without knowing who was behind the attack Katya must keep her worship, and her past, a secret.

As the goddess of love and death, Shi`in taught embracing life to its fullest, including the eventual end of every life, and Katya does her best to live by the creed of her faith, living in the moment and squeezing all that she can from each and every day.

The Taste of Waterfruit and Other Stories brings together eight more original tales of Katya, with stories written by Richard Lee Byers, M.P, Ericson, Steven Mohan, Jr., Irene Radford, Aaron Rosenberg, Laurie Tom, and Phaedra Weldon.