When I was young—too young to be where I was—I once saw a dead body lying in the alley next to the alley I called home. Old woman, no visible wounds, might have been mugged, might have just been unlucky.
I was fresh, then. Never held a blade, never had a dose of pesh, never had a sip of wine. Death was still something scary, something bad that happened to good people. I remember I got scared, started to cry, started to panic.
And Sem had taken me by the shoulders and said: “Cry over every corpse, you’ll run out of tears. Don’t worry about why she’s dead, worry about whether or not what killed her is still here.”
Sem wasn’t a sage. But there was wisdom in those words.
In this business, foresight’s good, but hindsight will get you killed. The people you’ve burned, the lies you’ve spun; look over your shoulder too much, you’ll never see what’s ahead of you.
That thought always brought me comfort.
Not a lot, but enough.
Enough comfort to leave First Solace and its many dead behind. Enough comfort to leave the centaurs running back to the woods, confused and angry. Enough comfort to have plucked a bottle of whiskey from First Solace on our way back and given it to Halamox upon our arrival, claiming it to be a cure.
Sure, there would be more dead. Sure, the centaurs would come back. Sure, Halamox might eventually figure out he’d been deceived. But those were things I’d put behind me.
Ahead of me were the streets of Yanmass, dark and slick and disappearing beneath my feet as I rushed down them. Ahead of me, the lights of House Sidara burned in the windows, tiny and soft fireflies in the distant darkness.
There was something about those lights, so unlike the cold and distant brightness of the bigger manors’ lampposts and massive windows. House Sidara’s distant lamps looked gentler, softer, like the glow from hearths in the windows of cozy homes I used to peer into on the colder nights in Katapesh.
Some nights, huddled under an awning in a dark alley, I’d dream about running into one of those homes. And for a minute there, in the darkness of Yanmass, I could almost pretend that was just what I was doing: running headlong toward a home that would welcome me.
But as dangerous as hindsight is, dreams are worse. Dreams are an excuse not to look at reality. And as nice as it would have been to pretend that I’d go running into that warm home and its soft light and be welcomed, my reality was something darker, colder, and armed with big sharp blades.
I saw them as I neared the yard: men and women in dark clothing, their swords painted black as they prowled the unkempt lawn of House Sidara. I slowed my stride, forced my breathing slower, ducked low as I crept up to its fences and hid behind a shrubbery. But even as my breathing slowed, my thoughts raced.
Too late. Too gods-damned late.
Stelvan’s thugs. They had to be. She had found out. She had discovered my presence. She knew everything. She was already out for Dalaris. She probably already had Dalaris.
I was too late. I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t smart enough. All those people dead in First Solace, all for nothing, all because I—
Easy.
I could almost hear Sem’s voice in my head.
Breathe.
The old words that had seen me through those cold nights in Katapesh.
Look.
Hindsight was useless. Whatever I had failed to do, pointless to dwell on. What lay ahead of me, that was what I had to focus on.
I peered around the shrubbery, forced my mind quiet and my breath slow.
I counted three of them: two men, one woman, all wrapped in black cloth and holding short blades in their hands. They crept low to the ground, eyes open as they scanned the walls of House Sidara, stopping to scrutinize bushes and dry patches of lawn.
They were still searching, then. If they had found Dalaris, they’d already be gone.
Still time, I told myself, letting out a long breath. There’s still time.
How much time, I didn’t know. But it couldn’t be much.
Which meant this was going to be ugly.
My knife slid into my palm. I hopped the fence, crouched low behind a shrubbery and watched the three of them creeping across the lawn.
Their blades looked sharp enough for dirty work, but their movements—the overexaggerated hunch, the tiptoeing creep, the slow pace—were the marks of amateurs. These were people who had an idea of what they thought stealthy business looked like, but had never seen a true professional work.
Some lessons you learn the hard way.
I watched them until one of them slipped farther away from the others, rounding a corner. I cast a quick glance to make sure the other two weren’t looking before I slipped away from the bush. I darted quickly to the next hedge, then one more before he was in my sights.
A short burst of quick movement. A hand clapped over his mouth. A swift jab in the side of his neck. His body fell, he twitched briefly, his eyes glassed over. And the last thing he saw was his blood leaking out onto the lawn.
That’s how a professional does it.
Not quite as glamorous as black-painted blades and creeping around at night, but it gets the job done.
I turned back, slipping back to the shrubberies. I caught a glimpse of one of them searching a nearby wall, maybe for a secret passage he thought was there. The last one, the woman, was nearby inspecting another bush. They must have been at this for a while if they were searching the gods-damned foliage.
Almost seemed a shame to kill people whose last task on this dark earth was to look real hard at a plant.
But I’d live with it.
Another short sprint and I was behind him. I wrapped my arm around his throat, pulled him close. He had just enough time to let out a gasp before I jammed my blade into his side, singing out an ugly poem in three short, bloody stanzas.
I released him, slipped back into the bushes. He let out a long, agonized groan as he fell to the ground, clutching the wound in his side.
He’d bleed out in another few minutes. Sloppy work. Hell of a way to go. Not something I was fond of doing in the first place, but like I said, I had to get ugly.
His groan drew his companion. She came running to see what was wrong and, bless her heart, she immediately let out a cry for her fallen friend and ran to his side. With his last moments of life, he reached up a shaking finger and pointed over her shoulder. She whirled around, eyes wide in shock.
I like to think she didn’t even see me when I thrust my knife up into her chin. I like to think that everything just went dark and she fell down, lifeless, atop her friend, who soon followed her into limp, bloodless slumber.
But I couldn’t afford to wonder if she had.
I slipped up to the wall, peered up and into one of the windows. Against the soft firelight, I could see shadows moving. More Stelvan guards, searching Dalaris’s home. But they weren’t moving fast, which meant they had no idea that three of their friends were currently watering the lawn.
Good news.
At a rough count, I could see maybe ten of them in there.
Less good.
I couldn’t take them all head-on and there wasn’t enough cover or time to cut them out the careful way—besides, Dalaris would never forgive me for getting so much blood on her carpets.
No. My best bet was to get in, find Dalaris, and get out. But if a dozen thugs hadn’t found her so far, my luck didn’t look a lot better.
She must have been using her magic to hide. Vishera probably had some item that could detect magic, but I’d be willing to bet that most of these other nobles also had similar junk—she couldn’t deploy big magic of her own without all of them noticing and seeing what was up.
Nothing for it, then. I’d have to get in, do my own search, and hope Dalaris revealed herself to me.
This was all assuming she hadn’t already left. But something about her told me she hadn’t. She was smart, yes, but also sentimental and timid; I’d known enough of those types to know they clung close to home in case of danger.
Unless I was wrong. In which case, I’d be found, captured, and tortured for information before being executed and dumped in a ditch somewhere.
So, you know, educated guesses and all.
I kept low and close to the wall, made my way around the house to the servants’ entrance around back. I froze at the corner, knife in hand, at the sight of a body squatting by the wall in ambush. But after I waited a few breaths, I could see it wasn’t taking any of its own. A body, but not breathing; and not squatting, but slumped, with an empty crossbow in his hands and a lot of red streaking his beard.
Ah, Harges, you poor bastard. I hoped he’d at least wounded one of them with that thing before they got him.
I’d have given him more of an elegy than a cringe and a hop over his corpse, but I knew he’d want me to think of Dalaris before his body. So I slipped past him, through the shabby stables out back and toward the servants’ entrance. The door was shut. I reached out and jiggled the handle, feeling no resistance of a lock. I pressed my ear against it, could hear a muted grumble from beyond the wood.
Guard at the door. Naturally. And from the feel of it, he was leaning against it.
I readied my knife in my right hand, took the door handle in my left and jerked it open. There was the barest of cries as the guard came crashing down and landed before me. I suppose he would have made a louder noise had I not jammed my blade up under his throat.
I hauled the body out of the way, pressed the door shut as quickly as I dared, and waited for the sound of an alarm. Nothing. No one had noticed him disappearing.
If I were an idiot, I’d say Norgorber was looking out for me. But since I wasn’t, I’d just say he was enjoying the corpses I was leaving in my wake.
I pulled the door open, slipped into the kitchens. Small by noble standards, they were nonetheless rife with tables, cabinets, and the shadows they cast. I darted between them, made my way to the door leading out to the living room, and peered out.
The place was a mess: furniture overturned, portraits torn down, bookshelves toppled. The guards were tearing it apart in their search for Dalaris. Even if she were invisible, this was too crowded for Dalaris to hide. She would have gone upstairs, I wagered.
And if she hadn’t—capture, torture, death, ditch, and so forth, you get me.
I slipped into the room. Fortunately, the chaos left in the guards’ wake left a lot of places to hide that they weren’t keen on searching again. I made my way swiftly and quietly to the stairs and darted up them, all the while praying that I wouldn’t be spotted.
No alarm was raised. Good.
No knife was in my back, either. Better.
Either Norgorber was watching over me or someone else was, for I slipped down the hall and into Dalaris’s bedroom without so much as a sound. As I expected, I found it tossed—bed overturned, dresser drawers pulled out, wardrobe emptied. But to my relief, I found no signs of a struggle—no bloodstains anywhere, no signs of magic being expelled.
Dalaris wouldn’t have gone without a fight. They hadn’t gotten her.
But still, there was no sign of her, either. Had I been wrong? Had she fled already? Gone and disappeared into Yanmass somewhere? My body ached at the idea of combing an entire city for her, and my heart followed at the thought of Vishera’s men prowling the alleys for her, knives bared and glistening in the dark.
My eyes drifted to the wall.
For as much carnage as I’d seen in my life, it never bothered me half as much as the scenes that followed: those times when I arrived too late and could only guess at what had happened. A warehouse in Katapesh with corpses stacked like crates, a home in Oppara drenched in blood, a young girl’s cold corpse in a cold alley in a cold city, looking almost peaceful as she lay on the stones staring up into the night sky with empty eyes …
Compared to that, I’d forgive you for thinking that a rich girl’s trashed room wouldn’t be that noteworthy. But it’s funny the things you notice in those moments of aftermath; it’s never the blood or the bodies, but the little things that give you just the barest idea of who these people were before they died. Sometimes it’s a corpse reaching blindly out for aid that never came, a message written in blood, a single locket clasped in a dead girl’s hands …
Or, in this case, a portrait crooked on the wall.
Dalaris’s mother, still serene despite the scene before her, hung at an angle. Someone had started to pull her off the wall, realized how dumb it was to be looking for a fully grown woman behind a portrait, and let it fall back haphazardly. Perhaps that might sound like an odd thing to notice here.
Just like it might seem odd that I took the time to carefully right the portrait. I’d explain why, but I don’t know if I could. It wasn’t going to fix anything, wasn’t going to make the shit I was in any less deep. But, like I said, it’s funny the things you notice in the aftermath.
Just like it’s funny the things that make you feel like it can get better, somehow.
I stepped back from the wall and instantly froze as a hand fell on my shoulder.
I resisted the urge to thrust my knife backward. I was still breathing, so whoever had gotten the jump on me didn’t want me dead. But it wasn’t until I heard that voice that I relaxed a little.
“Shy,” Dalaris whispered.
I turned. The magic around her faded, shed like a cloak. The air shimmered as she came tumbling out of the invisibility spell and collapsed into my arms. Her body shook with contained sobs as she buried her face in my shoulder.
“Hey, kid,” I whispered as I pulled her closer.
That probably wasn’t the right thing to say. But hell if I knew what I was doing—I didn’t usually let people get so close to me without one of us being drunk and nude.
“I heard them in the night,” she whispered, voice trembling. “One of them knocked over a vase and I got up and looked downstairs and they were coming in through the window. So I ran and used a spell and … and…”
“Yeah, I know.” I stroked her hair, pulled her closer. No idea what good it would do—but I remembered all three times someone had held me like this, and those were the closest I’d ever come to feeling good about myself. “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be fine.”
For all the lies I’d told in my life, I’d never felt guilty until that one.
“It’s Stelvan’s people down there,” I whispered. “She’s up to some foul shit in her house, Dalaris. We’ve got to get out of here.”
I laid my hands on her shoulders, gently eased her away from me. She looked back at me with those huge, intense eyes. The tears at their corners made them seem like they were living, twitching things ready to leap right out of her skull. But those tears didn’t go farther than the corners of her eyes. She was going to be all right.
Relatively, anyway.
“No one saw you?” I asked. “Before you used your spell?”
Dalaris shook her head. “No one. They don’t know I have magic, so—”
“So they didn’t come ready for it,” I muttered.
I crept to the door, put my ear to it. No sound of footsteps upstairs; Vishera’s thugs must still be rooting around below, searching for a secret passage or something. No better chance than now.
“Okay,” I said. “We’re going to head to the end of the hall. I’ll climb out the window, head down to the grounds below. You’re going to have to jump down to me.” I glanced over my shoulder at her. “Can you do that?”
Dalaris stiffened, nodded. I couldn’t help but smile. There are two types of people in this world: tough people beneath a layer of tears and teary people beneath a layer of toughness. Dalaris, thankfully, was the former.
“We’ll get away from here, head for Alarin’s manor. We’ll be safe there and I can explain everything Stelvan is up to.” I put a hand on the door handle, took a breath. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Dalaris whispered, coming up behind me.
“Stay low, move quick, stop when I stop.” I pulled the door open. “And if I tell you to run, you run for the window and never look—”
That last part was supposed to be “look back.” But it was hard to concentrate just then.
What with the magic wand pointing in my face and all.
I had just enough time to look past the bony arm clutching it and into the cold blues of Vishera’s eyes. Her thin lips spoke a word I couldn’t understand. A dark light burst from the tip of the wand; a hungry light, one that drank the stars and moonlight seeping through the window and doused the room in blackness.
I staggered backward, shielding my eyes. I blinked them clear and, for a moment, looked at my hands. Skin still on, bones not turning to snakes or whatever. Maybe it took me longer than it should have to realize that nothing was happening.
I looked up, saw Vishera quirk a brow at me, a lot less worried than she should be that her spell had failed. I took my blade in hand, rushed toward her.
And that’s when it hit me.
I opened my mouth to scream; nothing came out.
I raised my knife to stab; it was too heavy for me.
I turned to run to Dalaris; my legs turned to jelly beneath me.
My stomach sank inside me. My throat tightened up. Fever boiled behind my eyes. I felt things inside me go dark, cold. I felt the magic eat, grow fat on my pain, settle in the pit of my stomach, glutted and content and grinning.
I hate magic.
“SHY!”
Barely any light, just enough to see Dalaris falling over me. She grabbed me by the shoulders, tried to pull me to my feet. Her eyes were looking over me and, bless her, for a moment they looked big and bright enough that they might just see what the hell Vishera had done to me.
And then they were filled with something else. A brightness that ceased to be welcoming and became searing.
That same brightness blossomed on her hand as she thrust it out toward the darkness beyond. A bright ray of flame burst from her fingers, lashing out into the gloom. I could hear a scream from beyond, smell leather catching ablaze.
Good girl. She got one of them.
Not the right one, though. Another word, harsh and arcane. Another light, purple and crackling. Violet arcs of electricity coursed across Dalaris’s skin and she went rigid as a board. Paralyzed, she toppled over, face frozen in terror, eyes wide and unblinking. I tried to reach out for her, but my limbs wouldn’t work. They lay limp on the floor, bloodless hunks of meat that couldn’t so much as twitch their fingers.
Which was rather unfortunate, because in another moment, Vishera’s scrawny, withered neck was well within reach and fit for strangling.
She knelt beside me, looked me over with a cold, appraising stare, like I was some piece of tarnished jewelry she was considering throwing away. Apparently reaching a decision, she sneered at me.
“We’ve had quite an adventure today, haven’t we?” she asked, voice harsh and ragged.
“How…” I gasped.
“It wasn’t easy, if it makes you feel any better,” Vishera said. “I knew the lady of the house was using magic to hide from me.”
“So you used something … some kind of ring … some bullshit.”
“That would have been easy, but no. I don’t like tempting the other houses into thinking they need to keep up with my little collection of trinkets.” She glanced to the wand in her hand, slid it back to join the other wand in her belt. “I’m risking quite a bit by bringing these little dears out to begin with, I wager.”
So I was right. It was hard to feel good about it, though.
“But once one of my men saw you returning to the city, I knew it was only a matter of time before you came here,” she continued. “And thus, only a matter of time before she revealed herself to you. It was a waiting game, and an insufferably long one. I discovered your handiwork in my laboratory just moments before I received word that my centaurs were attacking First Solace.” She sighed, reached out and patted my cheek. “I suppose you’ve figured it all out, then?”
“You killed Gerowan,” I gasped. It hurt to talk, but I needed to say it. I wasn’t sure how long I had left. If the truth was all that was to survive, so be it. “Used the centaurs to do it … promised them weapons…”
“Indeed,” Vishera said. “A nationalist is, at best, an incredibly useful idiot. A nationalist without a nation, even more so. I was hoping to use the centaurs to persuade the other nobles of our lack of preparedness, allowing them to be more pliable when I had a champion to lead us in our defense against Qadira. Sadly, Visheron proved too … placid. Flush with his father’s charisma, yet lacking any of his desires. Too flaccid, too whimsical to be of much use. I require someone with more…” Her eyes drifted toward Dalaris. “Purpose.”
My gag reflex was, unmercifully, not paralyzed. I felt bile rise in my throat. I struggled to raise my hand, achieved nothing more than a limp flop of fingers.
“Leave her alone,” I gasped.
“Would that make you happy?” She chuckled. “I don’t intend to harm her. I require her in proper condition to bear an heir.”
“Bitch.” I tried to spit. “You crazy, evil—”
“No.” Her reply was as cold as a stale wind over a grave. “I accede to none of your base accusations, desert filth. I am doing what needs to be done to protect this land and its people. Qadirans press in from the south, Galtans from the north, and Cheliax is all around us. Taldor is weak, rife with fat, slovenly nobles and weak, impotent princes. It requires someone bolder to protect it from the evils of this world.
“The blood of fiends is not enough. They’re merely slavers in waiting. Celestials, too, lack the ambition and daring needed to keep us safe. But the blood of both, in one vessel … just think about it. The power of Hell, the presence of Heaven … I can create the hero that Taldor needs to be strong again.”
“You’re right. That’s not crazy.” I glanced up at the smug smile painted across her face. “They don’t have a word for what kind of lunatic you are.”
It might seem foolish to use my last breaths for a quip, but it wasn’t like I could stab her. At the very least, my relentless wit might bug her a little when she was trying to sleep.
So, you know, bright sides.
“Of low birth, low vision, low intelligence,” Vishera said, shaking her head. “It’s not in your scope to even question me, much less understand me.” She wearily rose up, old body creaking. “But had I the inclination to explain your lack of vision, you don’t have the time to listen.” She tapped the wand against her hip, smiling cruelly. “The magic will do its work soon enough.”
She glanced down at the knife lying in my limp hand.
Still, one wonders if it’s just a touch too cliché to simply wait for you to die.
She had just begun to reach for the blade when the door burst open once more. One of her thugs, a tall man, came breathlessly into the room.
“Madame,” he said, panting. “They’ve arrived sooner than we expected. A few of them outside the house, but there’ll be more.”
“Ah?” Vishera sighed and rose back up. “Well, then, I suppose that moves things up.” She gestured to Dalaris. “Collect the specimen. Return to the manor.” She sneered at my prone form. “Leave this one as a warning.”
I could almost feel it.
I could feel my legs working, desperate to rise up. I could feel my fingers twitching, trying to grasp the knife’s hilt. I could feel myself leaping out, grabbing the thug as he awkwardly plucked up Dalaris’s frozen form, saving the day, saving everyone.
But it wasn’t happening.
I lay there, no more breath for words, no more life in my limbs. That dark light inside me grew hungry again, began gnawing at my insides. A fever swept over me, made my vision go dim at the edges as the thug carried Dalaris out the door.
I knew, then, which god had been watching over me. And it was Norgorber all along. Letting me think I was going to make it out all right, then leaving me to die here on the floor … that was just the sort of thing that would make that old bastard smile right before he took my soul.
It was so cruel, I could have screamed.
But I didn’t.
As my vision faded into darkness and the fever swept over me like a tide, I resolved to save my very last breath so I could spit in Norgorber’s face.