Wrayan’s suggestion that Starros should honour Dacendaran whilst seeking revenge against the man responsible for his lover’s death struck a chord in the young man’s heart. Over the next few days he found himself thinking of little else. The need to do . something—anything—to make Mahkas pay for his crimes consumed every waking moment and more than a few of his dreams, too. Secretly, he welcomed the distraction. Plotting all manner of dreadful ends for Mahkas Damaran kept his mind off other things. It kept him from having to face his loss. It kept him from having to deal with his new status as a disciple of the God of Thieves.
But mostly, it kept him from having to feel anything, because that was the most terrifying thing of all.
Starros was coping with the discovery that Damin had ordered his soul traded for a quick recovery better than anybody—Wrayan and Kalan included—suspected. What he couldn’t face was the emptiness, the certain knowledge that Leila was gone and it was his fault. If he’d only turned her away, the first time she came to his room. If he’d only faced the truth about their relationship and made Leila face it sooner. Perhaps then, it might have been over before it started. Over before they could fall in love. Over before Mahkas could find them in each other’s arms. Over before Leila
could be made to believe he was dead and she could take her own life to join him in the afterlife.
Despite what he’d said to her, Starros didn’t really blame Kalan. His outburst a few days ago had been prompted by frustration as much as anger. He was helpless, hiding down here in the Beggars’ Quarter. Helpless and hopeless, not sure where he belonged, just certain he no longer had a place in the life he’d once known as the Chief Assistant Steward of Krakandar Palace.
He was angry at Damin, too, for ordering this drastic change in his circumstances and then leaving him to cope with it alone. It might have been easier to deal with, had Damin been here. At least then, Starros would have something to rail at, a focus for his torment. But Damin had left Krakandar to attend to more important issues. He was Hythria’s heir and the fate of a friend came a distant second to the security of the nation.
The thought both cheered and chilled Starros. Someday, Starros knew, when Damin ascended to the throne, Hythria would finally have a prince prepared to put his nation ahead of his personal concerns, something of which no High Prince had been capable for generations. At the same time, it meant Damin was far more ruthless than any of his recent predecessors. If that thought had occurred to Starros then, eventually, it would occur to the other Warlords, and it might begin to worry them. Worried Warlords, Starros knew, had a bad habit of sharpening their knives. Or hiring the Assassins’ Guild.
“Why the long face?”
Starros, tucked away out of sight in a booth at the back of the Pickpocket’s Retreat, looked up at the man who spoke. He was a tall, balding man in his late forties, his forger’s fingers stained with ink.
Starros frowned, not appreciating the interruption. He’d sought refuge here in the hope of remaining anonymous. The heavy beams holding up the low ceiling, the dim lighting and the low hum of conversation gave the taproom a
cosy, dark feel that suited Starros’s mood well. “Was I looking miserable, Luc? How surprising, seeing as how I’ve got so much to sing and dance about, too.”
Luc North, Wrayan’s second-in-command, smiled grimly, taking the padded bench opposite Starros uninvited. “Wrayan said you might need cheering up.”
“Can you raise the dead?”
“No.”
“Then there’s nothing you can do for me, Luc.”
“How ’bout a little distraction then?”
“Like what?”
“We’ll go honour Dacendaran,” Luc suggested. “I know a house over on Weller Street where there’s a jewellery box just begging to be lifted. And a very obliging lady of the house, too. She could teach you the finer points of ‘taking than the silverware.’”
“Isn’t that what you thieves call rape?”
Luc was obviously offended by the question. “Let’s get something cleared up right now, my friend. No thief rapes anyone while honouring Dacendaran and lives to tell about it.”
“I never realized your people aspired to such a high moral standard.”
“Hang around a bit longer,” Luc advised. “You’d be surprised what us people believe.”
“I’m sorry, Luc. I wasn’t trying to be offensive. I’m just not in the mood for honouring anybody at the moment, least of all the god to whom I now apparently belong.”
“It could be worse,” the forger said philosophically.
“How?” Starros asked.
He smiled crookedly. “They might have sold your soul to Kalianah. You’re a good-looking lad. I reckon you’d have been worn out in a month if you were stuck honouring the Goddess of Love seven or eight times a day.”
Despite himself, Starros smiled, too. “There is that to be thankful for, I suppose.”
“It’s not such a bad life, you know,” Luc told him. “And
considering what’s happened to you lately, old son, it’s a bloody miracle you’re here to enjoy it.”
“I suppose,” Starros agreed, wondering what part of Leila killing herself constituted a miracle.
“So, you interested in a little excursion, or not?”
Starros shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m not sure I’m ready for any … excursions … just yet.”
“Well, just let me know when you are. I’ll see what I can arrange.”
Starros looked at him curiously. “Wrayan’s placed you in charge of my conversion to the God of Thieves, has he?”
“Only because he’s going away.”
That was something Starros hadn’t known. “Where’s he going?”
“Greenharbour,” Luc replied. “He and Lady Kalan are leaving tomorrow. Didn’t he tell you?”
“I heard Kalan talking about it, but I didn’t realise they were planning to depart so soon.”
“I gather if Lady Kalan had her way, they’d have ridden out of Krakandar on Damin Wolfblade’s heels.”
The feeling that his own woes were a secondary concern in the rapidly escalating threat facing Hythria left Starros feeling quite irrelevant. “Well, I suppose now I’m all better, they don’t need to worry about me.”
“It’s not like you to be so petulant, lad.” Luc was obviously trying to be sympathetic, but Starros wasn’t in the mood for pity.
“Nothing’s the same as it used to be, Luc,” he replied, swallowing the last of his ale and climbing to his feet. “Me, most of all.”
He turned for the door at the back of the taproom, thinking the solitude of the safe house he’d been so desperate to escape an hour ago was suddenly the most attractive thing on offer. Luc caught his wrist as Starros walked past him.
“Just remember, lad, ‘taking more than the silverware’ is a game two people have to play willingly. The last thief in
Krakandar who thought he could get away with rape died the very next day.”
“Who killed him?” Starros asked, curious, in spite of himself.
“The man who takes care of all the guild’s difficult problems,” Luc replied. “The head of the guild. Wrayan Lightfinger.”