“I’m going out to check on Mistress Vatsen,” Aunt Mea said. “Do you need anything?”
“Um, uh, no,” he said. Surely she couldn’t have that bland look on her face if she’d heard what he just said.
“Kylar, are you all right?” she asked. She touched his hot cheek. “You look strangely flushed.” She rummaged through the newly organized shelves—it seemed to take her longer than when they had been a mess—and tucked a few things in her basket. When she walked past Kylar, who was bent over the potion as if it took all of his concentration, she pinched his butt.
He practically hit the ceiling, though he strangled back a shout. Uly looked at him quizzically.
“You’re right,” Aunt Mea said at the door. “But don’t you get any ideas. I’m too old for you.”
Kylar flushed brighter and she laughed. He could hear her continuing to laugh heartily even as she walked down the street.
“Crazy old coot,” he said. “Noranton seed.”
Uly handed him the vial of flat, purplish seeds, and screwed her mouth into a tight line. “Kylar, if things don’t work out with Elene, will you marry me?”
He dropped the entire vial into the mixture.
“WHAT?”
“I asked Elene how old you were and she said twenty. And Aunt Mea said her husband was nine years older than her and that’s even further apart than you and me. And I love you and you love me and you and Elene fight all the time but you and me never fight…”
Kylar was confused at first. He and Elene hadn’t fought for more than a week. Then he realized that Uly had been spending her nights over at one of her new friend’s houses—probably because Kylar and Elene’s fighting had upset her so much. Now Uly had an eager, scared look on her face that told him how he answered her could break her heart. Specifically, the first thought that popped into his head—I don’t love you like that—was not going to be a good choice.
How did I get into this? I’ve got to be the first father in Midcyru to ever have to explain sex to his daughter while still a virgin myself.
What was he supposed to say? “I’m not actually married to Elene yet, so when we fight we can’t make up the way I’d like. In fact, if we could make up the way I’d like, we probably wouldn’t fight in the first place”? Kylar couldn’t wait until he actually married Elene. All their conflicts about sex would finally be behind them. What a relief!
In the meantime, Uly was staring at him, waiting, big eyes wide, uncertain. Oh no, that looked like a lip quiver.
The opening door saved him. A well-dressed man stepped inside, a house crest embroidered in the chest of his tunic. He was tall and spare, but his face was pinched, making him look like a rodent.
“Is this Aunt Mea’s?” he asked.
“Yes, it is,” Kylar said. “But I’m afraid Aunt Mea just stepped out for a while.”
“Oh that’s fine,” the man said. “You’re her assistant, Kyle?”
“Kylar.”
“Ah, yes. You’re younger than I expected. I’ve come here for your help.”
“Mine?”
“You’re the man who saved Lord Aevan, aren’t you? He’s been telling everyone who will listen that you did with one potion what a dozen physickers couldn’t with months of treatment. I am the head steward of High Lord Garazul. My lord has gout.”
Kylar rubbed his jaw. He stared at the bottles lining the walls.
“I can return later if you wish,” the steward said.
“No, it won’t take a minute,” Kylar said. He started grabbing bottles and giving orders to Uly. She was the perfect helper, quick and silent. He soon had four bowls mixing simultaneously, two over heat, two cold. In another two minutes, he was done. The steward looked utterly fascinated by the whole process. It made Kylar think that Grand Master Haylin was onto something in showing off the creation process. He knew in that moment that if he ever had a big shop, he’d set it up in exactly the same way—give people a show along with their potions. It was an oddly satisfying little dream.
“Here’s what you need to do,” Kylar said. “Give him two spoonfuls of this every four hours. I’m guessing your master is fat, hardly ever gets out? Loves his drink?”
The steward said, “He’s got a little extra… well, yes, fat as a leviathan, in fact. Drinks like one, too.”
“That potion will take care of the pain in his feet and joints. It will help the gout a little, but as long as he’s fat and drinks a lot of wine, he’ll never get better. He’ll need to buy this same potion every time his gout flares up for the rest of his life. You tell him if he wants the gout gone, he needs to stop drinking. If he won’t, which I’m betting will be the case, start putting two drops of this—” Kylar handed the man the second vial, “in every glass of his wine. It will give him a terrific headache. Make sure you do it every time he takes wine. While you’re at it, you can give him this each morning and night for his bad stomach. And feed him less. Give a little of this last one with each meal, it should help him feel full sooner.”
“How’d you know he had a bad stomach?”
Kylar smiled mysteriously. “And take him off everything else the physickers have ordered, especially the bloodletting and the leeches. He should be a new man in six weeks, if you make him lose weight.”
“How much?” the steward asked.
“Depends on how fat he is,” Kylar said.
The steward laughed. “No, how much do I owe you?”
Kylar thought about it. He did some math of what the ingredients had cost and doubled it. He told the steward.
The mousy man looked at him, astonished. “A bit of advice, young man. You should get a shop on the north side, because if this works, there’s a lot of noble business that’s going to be coming your way. And another thing: if this even helps a little, you should charge twice that. If it actually does what you said, you should charge ten times that—otherwise the nobles won’t believe it’s real.”
Kylar smiled, warmed just to hear someone speak to him as if he knew what he was doing—which he did. “Well then, you owe me ten times what I said before.”
The steward laughed. “If Lord Garazul gets better, I’ll do better than that. Here’s all I’ve got on me in the meantime.” He tossed Kylar two new silver coins. “Good day, young master.”
Watching the man go, Kylar was surprised how good it felt. Maybe it was better to heal than to kill. Or maybe it was just good to feel appreciated. How had Durzo done it? He’d been a dozen different heroes over the ages—maybe scores of different heroes. Hadn’t he ever wanted to just announce himself? Tell everyone who he was, and have them show the proper awe? Here I am, adore me.
But Durzo had never come across like that. Kylar had grown up with him and had never had a clue that his master was the Night Angel, much less any of the other identities he’d had. Why not? Durzo had seemed arrogant in certain parts of his life. He’d certainly shown a huge disdain for most wetboys and most of the Sa’kagé, but he’d never equated himself with the great heroes of history.
The pang of loss cut Kylar again. Gods, Durzo had been dead three months—and despite the passage of time, it wasn’t getting any better.
Kylar felt the little box in his pocket. He died so I could have Elene. Kylar tried to push Durzo from his mind with that thought. Let’s just get through Uly’s birthday, and then I can ask Elene to marry me. Then Uly can hear more creaking than she’s ever imagined.
“Kylar,” Uly said, jerking him out of his reverie. “Are you going to answer my question?”
Ah, shit. “Uly,” he said gently. “I know you don’t feel like it, and you’re certainly as smart as someone a lot older, but you’re still a…” He furrowed his brow, knowing the next part wasn’t going to go over well. “You’re still a child.” It was true, dammit.
“No I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I just had my first moon blood this week. Aunt Mea says that means I’m a woman now. It really hurt and it scared me at fir
st. My stomach got real sore and my back and then—”
“Ah!” Kylar waved his hands, trying to make her stop.
“What? Aunt Mea said it was nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Aunt Mea’s not your father!”
“Who is?” Uly asked, quick as a whip.
Kylar said nothing.
“And who’s my mother? You know, don’t you? My nurses always treated me different from the other children. The last one always got scared whenever I got hurt. When I got a cut on my face once, she was so afraid it would be a scar that she didn’t sleep for weeks. Sometimes a lady would watch us play in the gardens, but she always wore a cloak and hood. Was she my mother?”
Mute, Kylar nodded. It was exactly what Momma K would have done. She had doubtless stayed away for Uly’s safety as much as she could bear, but every once in a while, the defenses would have broken down.
“She’s important?” Uly asked. Every orphan’s wish. Kylar knew.
Kylar nodded again.
“Why’d she leave me?”
Kylar blew out a breath. “You deserve the answer to that, Uly, but I can’t tell you. It’s one of the secrets I know that don’t belong to me. I promise I’ll tell you when I can.”
“Are you going to leave me? If we got married, I could go with you.”
If anyone thought children couldn’t suffer pain as deeply as adults, Kylar wished they could see Uly’s eyes now. For all he loved her, he’d been treating her as a child rather than as a human being. Uly’s brief life was a history of abandonment: her father, her mother, one nurse after another. She just wanted something solid in her life.
Kylar hugged her. “I won’t abandon you,” he swore. “Not ever. Not. Ever.”
24
Vi rode into Caernarvon as the sun set. In her weeks on the trail, she’d decided her strategy. Surely Kylar would be known to the Sa’kagé here. If he was at all like Hu Gibbet, he wouldn’t like to go long without killing. If he had taken any jobs, the Shinga would know him. Such a skilled wetboy wouldn’t pass without notice.
On the other hand, if Kylar hadn’t taken any work, chances were still good that the Sa’kagé’s eyes and ears would know he had come to Caernarvon. Vi had heard precious little praise for Caernarvon’s Sa’kagé, and if Kylar were truly committed to hiding himself, Vi would never find him, but it had been three months. Criminals always went back to their crimes, even if they had plenty of money, if only because they didn’t know what else to do with themselves. What was a wetboy without killing?
The shops were all closed. The decent families were home for the night, and the inns and brothels were just starting to roar as Vi passed deeper into the southern section of the city. She was wearing white fawn-skin riding pants and a loose men’s tunic of cotton. Her red hair was pulled back in a simple tight ponytail. In Cenaria, the rainy season was starting, but here the summer lingered on and Vi believed in being comfortable as she traveled, fashion be damned. She only worried about fashion when she needed something from it. Still, after two hard weeks in the saddle, she wouldn’t mind a bath.
She rode down the fourth bad street in a row, wondering why she hadn’t been mugged yet. She’d concealed all her weapons to make herself look totally vulnerable. What was wrong with these people?
Twenty minutes later, someone finally stepped out of the shadows.
“Nice night we’re having, innit?” the man said. He was scruffy, dirty, inebriated. Perfect. He held a cudgel in one hand and a wineskin in the other.
“Are you robbing me?” Vi asked.
Half a dozen teenagers came out of the shadows and surrounded her.
“Well, I—” the man grinned, displaying two black front teeth. “This here’s a toll road and you’re going to have—”
“If you’re not robbing me, get the hell out of my way. Or are you a complete idiot?”
The smile disappeared. “Well, I am,” he said, finally. “Robbing you, that is. Tom Gray don’t get outta no bitch’s way.” Then he almost brained himself as he tried to drink from his cudgel instead of the wineskin. The boys laughed, but one of them took her black mare’s reins.
“I need to see the Shinga,” she said. “Can you take me to him, or do I need to find someone else to mug me?”
“You’re not going anywhere until you give me thirteen—”
One of the boys coughed.
“—err, fourteen silvers.” His eyes traced over her breasts, and he added, “And maybe a little somethin’ somethin’ besides.”
“How about you take me to the Shinga, and I’ll leave your pathetic manhood intact?” Vi said.
Tom’s face darkened. He threw the wineskin to one of the boys and stepped toward Vi, raising his cudgel. He grabbed her sleeve and yanked her out of the saddle.
Using the momentum of his pull, Vi flipped off the saddle and kicked him in the face, landing lightly on her feet as Tom Gray went sprawling.
“Can any of the rest of you take me to the Shinga?” she asked, ignoring Tom.
They all looked confused at how Tom had ended up on the other side of the street with a bloody nose, but after a moment, a scrawny young man with a big nose said, “Shinga Sniggle don’t let us just come up to him any old time. But Tom’s friends with him.”
“Sniggle?” Vi asked, smirking. “That’s not really his name, is it?”
Tom picked himself up off the ground. He roared and charged Vi.
Not even looking at him, she waited until he was two steps away and poked her foot into his hip in mid-stride. When his foot didn’t come forward to take the next step as he’d expected, he went skidding across the cobblestones at Vi’s feet. She didn’t break eye contact with the boy.
“I, uh, yes, Barush Sniggle,” the boy said, looking at Tom. He didn’t seem to find anything comical about it. “Who are you?” he asked.
She contorted her fingers into the thieves’ sign.
“That’s a little different than ours,” the young man said. “Where you from?”
“Cenaria,” she said.
All of them took a step back. “No shit?” he said. “Cenarian Sa’kagé?”
“Now you,” Vi said, grabbing Tom Gray by his greasy hair. “Are you going to take me to the Shinga? Or do I have to break something?”
He swore at her.
She broke his nose.
He sputtered blood and swore again.
“Slow learner, huh?” She hit him in his broken nose, and then grabbed his head. Jamming her fingers deep into the pain points behind his ears, she lifted him to his feet. He screamed with surprising vigor. It was unfortunate she’d broken his nose first, because he sprayed blood all over her. Vi didn’t mind, though. Nysos was the god of the potent liquids: blood, wine, and semen. It had been weeks since she’d given him an offering. Perhaps this would appease him until she found Kylar.
She held her fingers deep in those pain points, letting Tom Gray scream, letting him spray blood over her shirt and face. The boys cowered back, about to break and run.
“Enough!” a voice called from the darkness.
Vi released Tom and he fell.
A short, squat figure walked forward. “I am the Shinga,” he said.
“Barush Sniggle?” she asked. Shinga Barush Sniggle had a potbelly, small eyes under lank blond hair, and a cruel mouth. He walked with a swagger despite his small size. Perhaps the hulking bodyguard by his side helped with that.
“What do you want, wench?” the Shinga demanded.
“I’m hunting. My deader’s name is Lord Kylar Stern. He’s about my height, light blue eyes, dark hair, athletic, about twenty years old.”
“A deader?” Sniggle asked. “Like you’re a wetboy? A wet girl?”
“Wasn’t Kylar the name of that guy who busted Tom’s chops a couple weeks ago?” the big-nosed young man asked one of the other teenagers.
“Sounds like him,” another young man said. “Think he’s still staying with Aunt Mea. But he ain’t no lord.”
&n
bsp; “Shut up,” Barush Sniggle said. “You don’t say another damn word, you got me? Tom, get your ass off the ground and bring that bitch here.”
Amazing. Kylar had made it so simple. He thought he was far enough away, was confident that everyone thought he was dead. She had all she needed now. It would be a simple matter to find him, and it would be an easy matter to kill him, too. She tingled with excitement. She still had a two-inch scar on her shoulder from him, despite having let one of those foul wytches heal her.
“I think I might just have to take you back to my place,” Barush Sniggle said. “We’ll find out how much of a wet girl you are.”
“Never heard that one before,” she said. The bodyguard had one of her arms, and a triumphant Tom Gray had the other.
“She’s one hot bitch, ain’t she?” Tom Gray said, grabbing a breast.
She ignored him. “Don’t make me do something you’ll regret,” she told the Shinga.
“Can I have her after you’re done?” Tom asked. He squeezed her breast again and then he petted her hair.
“DON’T TOUCH MY HAIR!” she yelled.
Both the bodyguard and Tom flinched at her sudden fury. Barush Sniggle forced a laugh a moment later.
“You little guttershite, you sewer froth, you touch my hair and I swear I’ll rip you apart,” Vi said, trembling.
He swore at her and ripped out the leather thong that bound her hair back. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders for the first time in years. She stood exposed, naked, and the men were laughing.
She went out of her mind. She was swearing, the Talent arching through her so powerfully it hurt. Her arms blasted through the men’s hold on them and her fists cracked Tom Gray’s and the bodyguard’s ribs simultaneously. Before Tom could double up, she grabbed his hair in one hand. She stabbed fingers at the corners of his eyes, deep into the sockets, and tore his eyes out. She spun and men were screaming and running and in her confusion and fury she didn’t even know which one to chase.
Vi didn’t know how much time passed while she vented her shame and fury on the two men.
When she came to herself, her hair covered with a blood-soaked rag, she was sitting on a stoop. The Shinga and the boys had fled. There was no one on the street except for her imperturbable horse, standing still until she called it as she trained it, and two man-shaped lumps lying in the street.