“By the gods,” he said. “It’s true.”
“What?” Kylar said.
“The coal matrices. They’re perfect. I’d bet my right arm every last one has four links, don’t they? The blade’s a perfect diamond, my lord. So thin you can barely see it, but unbreakable. Most diamonds can be sheared with another diamond, because they’re never perfect, but if there are no flaws anywhere—this blade is indestructible, and not just the blade, the hilt, too. But my lord, if this is… I thought your sword was black.”
Kylar touched the blade and let the ka’kari whoosh out of his skin to cover it. The word MERCY inscribed in the blade was covered with JUSTICE in ka’kari black.
Grand Master Haylin looked pained. “Oh my lord…. My grandfather told us…. I never understood. I feel blind, yet I’m almost happy for my blindness.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have the Talent, Lord Starfire. I can’t begin to see how amazing this blade is. My grandfather could, and he said it haunted him all his days. He knew what Talent had gone into this blade, he could see it, but he could never equal it. He said it made the work of his own hands look cheap and tawdry—and he was famous for his work. But I never thought to see Retribution with my own eyes. My lord, you can’t sell this.”
“Well, it doesn’t come in black,” Kylar said lightly, sucking the ka’kari back into his hand. “If that knocks a bit off the price.”
“My lord, you don’t understand. Even if I could give you what this is worth—even if I could somehow fix a price on it—I could never—it’s worth more than I’ll make in my whole life. Even if I could buy it, I could never sell it; it’s too valuable. Maybe one or two collectors in the world have the wealth and the appreciation to buy such a sword. Even then, my lord, this isn’t a sword that belongs on display, it belongs in the hand of a hero. It belongs in your hand. Look, a hilt that won’t slip from your hand even if it’s bloody or wet. The moisture slides right off. It’s not just brilliant, it’s practical. That’s not a showpiece. It’s art. It’s killing art. Like you.” He threw his hands up and slumped in his chair, as if exhausted just by the sight of Retribution. “Though my grandfather did say the inscription was in Hyrillic—oh my.”
The MERCY on the blade shifted before their eyes, into a language Kylar couldn’t read. He was stunned. It had never done that before.
A snake wriggled in his stomach and strangled his guts, a snake of losing something whose value he couldn’t even calculate. It was the same feeling he felt as he thought of his dead master, a man whose worth he had barely known.
“Nonetheless,” he said, his throat tight. “I must sell it.” If he kept it, he would kill again. He had no doubt of it. In his hand, it was pitiless justice. He had to sell it, if he was to stay true to Elene. As long as he held onto the sword, he held onto his old life.
“My lord, do you need money? I’ll give you whatever you want.”
The small, mean part of Kylar considered it. Surely this man could spare more than enough money for what Kylar needed. “No, I, I need to sell it. It’s… it has to do with a woman.”
“You’re selling an artifact worth a kingdom so you can be with a woman? You’re immortal! Even the longest marriage will end in a tiny fraction of your life!”
Kylar grimaced. “That’s right.”
“You’re not just selling this sword, are you? You’re giving it up. You’re giving up the way of the sword.”
Looking at the tabletop, Kylar nodded.
“She must be some woman.”
“She is,” Kylar said. “What can you give me for it?”
“It depends on how soon you need it.”
Kylar didn’t know if he could keep his courage up. He knew what he was about to say would probably cost him thousands, but losing Elene would cost more. He’d never really cared about being rich anyway. “Just whatever you can get me before I leave.”
“Before you leave the city?”
“Before I leave the shop.” Kylar swallowed, but that damn lump wouldn’t disappear.
The Grand Master opened his mouth to protest, but he could see Kylar’s mind was made up. “Thirty-one thousand queens,” he said. “Maybe a few hundred more, depending on what sales we’ve done today. Six thousand in gold, the rest in promissory notes redeemable at most money changers, though for that sum, you’d have to hit half the money changers in the city. You’ll have to go to the Blue Giant directly if you want to change it all.”
Kylar goggled at the sum. It would be enough to buy a house, repay Aunt Mea, start a shop with a huge inventory, buy an entire wardrobe for Elene, and still put some away, in addition to buying a pair of the finest wedding rings money could buy. And the man was protesting it wasn’t nearly enough?
~A good price for your birthright, huh?~
The thought almost took the wind out of Kylar. He stood abruptly. “Done,” he said. He walked to the door and grabbed it.
“Um… my lord,” Grand Master Haylin said. He gestured to his own face.
“Oh.” Kylar concentrated and his features fattened and his hair reddened again.
Within five minutes, a still-stunned Smiley had helped load a chest of sovereigns—worth twenty queens each—and watched as his father put a thick wad of promissory notes on top of that. It totaled 31,400 queens. The chest wasn’t large, but it weighed as much as two large men. The Grand Master called for a horse, but Kylar asked if they would put two broad leather straps on it instead. Journeymen and apprentices stopped to watch, but Kylar didn’t care. Smirking, Haylin attached them himself.
“My lord,” Haylin said, finishing with the straps. “If you ever want it back, it’s here.”
“Perhaps. In your grandsons’ time.”
Grandmaster Haylin smiled broadly.
Kylar knew he shouldn’t have said it so loudly. He shouldn’t have waved off the horse. He didn’t care. Somehow, it just felt so good to be speaking with a man who knew something of what he was and wasn’t afraid or disgusted—even if the man did think he was his master. But then, Kylar was probably more like Gaelan Starfire than Durzo Blint had been anyway. It felt so good to be known and accepted, he didn’t care that he was being reckless.
With a surge of his Talent, Kylar hoisted the chest onto his back. Open gasps filled the smithy. The truth was, it was almost too heavy to carry even with the Talent. Kylar nodded to Grand Master Haylin and walked out.
“Who the hell was that?” Kylar heard Smiley ask.
“Someday, when you’re ready, I might tell you,” the Grand Master said.
22
Hello,” Kylar said to Capricia when he returned to the ringery.
“Hello,” she said, surprised. She was alone, closing up the shop.
“The ass is back.” He grimaced. “Sorry about… before.”
“What?” she said. “No, you were fine. I understand that it all seems strange if you’re not from here. Men never like it—though the women have to pierce their ears, too, and they never complain.” She shrugged.
“Right, well…” Kylar said, then he realized he had nothing to say. What was it about jewelry that made him feel inadequate? “Right,” he finished lamely.
“Honestly,” she said, “most men barely notice the pain. I mean, their brides make sure they’re distracted. Technically, you consummate the marriage only after the nailing, but most cases, it’s pretty much only technically.”
Kylar coughed. He’d been thinking about that. “Uh, do you remember which ones she was pointing to?” Kylar asked.
“Of course,” Capricia said. She laughed. “I’m afraid they’re the ones that really hold the spells.” Her eyes twinkled and he blushed.
“I have the misfortune of having a wife with excellent taste.”
“It reflects well on her other choices,” Capricia said, smiling her big smile at him. Whatever the fallout with the Shinga was going to be, Kylar was glad he’d saved her. She pulled out the drawer and set it in front of hi
m. As she set it down, she scowled and grabbed a pair of rings out of the drawer. “Just a second,” she said, and knelt behind the counter, tucking them away, then she stood back up. “I think it was one of these,” she said, pointing to several along the top row of woven gold and mistarille entwined.
“How much are these?” he asked.
“Twenty-four hundred, twenty-eight hundred, and thirty-two hundred.”
He whistled in spite of himself.
“We do have similar styles in white and yellow gold that are more affordable,” Capricia said. “The mistarille makes them pretty ridiculous.”
Jorsin Alkestes’ sword had been mistarille with a core of hardened gold, Durzo said. It took a special forge to melt mistarille because it wouldn’t melt until it was three times hotter than steel. Once it attained its working heat, it retained it for hours, unlike other metals that had to be reheated over and over. Smiths found it a pure joy and a pure terror to work with, because after that first heating and the first hours they had to work with, it wouldn’t melt again. They only got one chance to get it right. Only a smith with substantial Talent could attempt any large-scale work with mistarille.
“Does anyone wear pure mistarille rings?” he asked as he scanned the rings. He could have sworn Elene’s eyes had lit up when she saw one of these sets. Which one was it?
She shook her head. “Even if you could afford it, you wouldn’t want it, Master Bourary says. He says that some of the simpler spells actually hold better in gold. Even the oldest rings combine the two metals. He has a pair that his great-great-great-something grandfather made that look like pure mistarille, but they contain a core of yellow gold and diamond. It’s pretty amazing. He lined the mistarille with tiny holes so you can see the gold and diamonds sparkling through it if the light is right.”
Kylar was almost starting to believe the talk about spells. Either Master Bourary was the real thing, or he’d been very careful to learn how to speak about magic from people who were.
It still felt like madness, to be looking at rings that cost two or three thousand gold. He should have asked Grand Master Haylin about the rings this afternoon. The Grand Master would have known if they were legitimate. But Kylar’s heart was light. He’d already sold his birthright. He was committed. Now it was just a matter of finding the perfect ring to please the woman he loved, the woman who was saving him from becoming the bitter wreck Durzo Blint had become.
Really, the magic in the rings didn’t matter. What mattered was letting Elene know what she was worth to him.
“There was one set, I swear it was in this box,” Kylar told Capricia. “What were those ones you put away?”
“Those were just a display set—well, not actually a display set. The queen got furious with a gem merchant who wouldn’t sell her some jewels a decade ago and she outlawed display sets. So it’s not technically a display set, but it’s not really for sale. We have other drawers; it might have been in one of those.”
“Just show me the ones I asked about,” Kylar said. He was suddenly skeptical. Was this a sales ploy? He’d seen it done before—a pretty girl tells a guy, “Here, this is very nice,” as she sets aside something ridiculously expensive and pulls out something cheap, and the man instantly says, “What about those?” to prove his manhood.
But Capricia didn’t come across like that. She seemed genuine. She pulled out the rings and set them in front of him. Just looking at them, Kylar could see the size of his shop’s inventory shrinking.
“Those are the ones,” he said. The design was seductively simple and elegant, a bare half-twist of silvery metal that somehow sparkled gold in the light when he picked up the larger one.
Capricia gasped and raised a hand as if he were going to break it. He gazed into one of the shop’s mirrors and held up the earring by his left earlobe. It looked kind of effete, but then, apparently none of the thousands of men he’d seen around the city worried about looking effete.
“Hmm,” he said. He moved the earring up higher on his ear. That looked a little more masculine. “What’s the most painful place a woman can nail a guy?”
“Right about,” she leaned forward and pointed, but he couldn’t see it in the mirror. He moved and her finger touched his ear. “Oh!” she said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to touch—”
“What?” he said. Then he remembered. “Oh, no, it’s my fault. Seriously, where I come from, ears are no big deal. Did you say right here? So it goes over the top?” He checked the mirror. Yes, definitely more masculine, and it would hurt like hell. For some reason, that made him feel better.
He picked up the smaller earring and—being careful not to touch her—held it up to Capricia’s ear. It was beautiful.
“I’ll take them,” he said.
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “We don’t have anything exactly like that for sale, but Master Bourary could make something that looks almost identical.”
“You said there were no display items,” Kylar said.
“Not technically. After the queen proclaimed the law—well, everything’s for sale. They just put ridiculous prices on what they don’t want to sell.”
“And these are one of those?” Kylar asked. Now the house was getting smaller.
“These are actually the rings I was telling you about earlier. The ones Master Bourary’s great-great-great grandfather made, mistarille over gold with diamonds?” She smiled weakly. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to embarrass you. They weren’t even supposed to be in this case.”
“How ridiculous a price are we talking?” Kylar asked.
“Ridiculous,” she said.
“How ridiculous?”
“Totally ridiculous.” She winced.
Kylar sighed. “Just tell me.”
“Thirty-one thousand four hundred queens. Sorry.”
It hit Kylar in the stomach. It was a coincidence, of course, but… Elene would call it the divine economy. He’d sold Retribution for exactly what it would cost to marry her.
With nothing left over? Elene, if this is your God’s economy, you serve a niggardly God. I don’t even have enough left to buy a wedding knife.
“On the bright side,” Capricia said, forcing a chuckle, “we’d throw in a wedding knife free.”
A block of ice dropped into Kylar’s stomach.
“I’m sorry,” she said, mistaking the stricken expression on his face. “We do have some lovely—”
“You get paid a commission on your sales?” he asked.
“One-tenth of anything over a thousand in sales a day,” she said.
“So, if you sold these, what would you do with—what?—more than three thousand queens?”
“I don’t know—why are you—”
“What would you do?”
She shrugged and started to answer, stopped, and finally said, “I’d move my family. We live in a pretty rough neighborhood and we keep having trouble with—oh, what does it matter? Believe me, I’ve dreamed about it ever since I started working here. I thought about selling those rings and how it would change everything for us. I used to pray about it every day, but my mother says we’re safe enough. Anyway, the God doesn’t answer greedy prayers like that.”
Kylar’s heart went cold. They’d move away from that vengeful, arrogant little Shinga. Kylar wouldn’t have to commit murder to keep them safe.
“No,” Kylar said, pocketing the mistarille earrings and grabbing a wedding knife. “He answers them like this.” He heaved the chest onto the counter and opened it. Capricia gaped. Her hands shook as she unfolded note after note. She looked up at Kylar, tears filling her eyes.
“Tell your parents your guardian angel said to move. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Tonight. When I saved you, I embarrassed the Shinga. He’s sworn revenge.”
Her eyes stayed huge, but she nodded imperceptibly. Her hand popped up like an automaton’s. “Gift box?” she asked in a strangled voice. “Free.”
He took the jewelry box from her hand and walked ou
t the door, locking it behind him. He tucked the earrings in the decorative box, and dropped it all in a pocket, suddenly as poor as a pauper. He’d sold his birthright. He’d given away one of the last things he had to remember Durzo by. He’d traded a magical sword for two metal circles. And now he didn’t have a copper to his name. Thirty-one thousand four hundred queens and he didn’t even have enough left over to buy Uly a birthday present.
We’re finished, God. From now on, you answer your own fucking prayers.
23
Are you and Elene going to be all right?” Uly asked. They were working together that evening, Uly fetching ingredients while Kylar brewed a draught that reduced fevers.
“Of course we are. Why?”
“Aunt Mea says it’s fine you fight so much. She says that if I’m scared I just have to listen and if I hear the bed creaking after you fight, I’ll know things will be all right. She says that means that you’ve made up. But I never hear the bed creaking.”
Blood rushed to Kylar’s cheeks. “I, well, I think… You know, that’s a question you should ask Elene.”
“She said to ask you, and she got all embarrassed too.”
“I’m not embarrassed!” Kylar said. “Hand me the mayberry.”
“Aunt Mea says it’s wrong to lie. I’ve seen horses mating at the castle, but Aunt Mea says it’s not scary like that.”
“No,” Kylar said quietly, mashing the mayberry with a pestle, “it’s scary in its own way.”
“What?” Uly asked.
“Uly, you are way too young for us to have this conversation. Yarrow root.”
“Aunt Mea said you might say that. She said she’d talk to me about it if you were too embarrassed. She just made me promise to ask you first.” Uly handed him the knotted brown root.
“Aunt Mea,” Kylar said, “thinks about sex too much.”
“Ahem,” a voice said behind Kylar. He flinched.