76: BETRAYAL
(Talon’s story)
Bear with me, love. We’re almost finished, Kihrin. At least, as finished as my story can be.
Escaping from the Blue Palace proved to be distressingly easy.
Now that Kihrin understood his skill at stealth had a magical source, he used it to shelter Galen and himself as they snuck their way out of the Upper Circle. They wouldn’t have been able to escape without it: with Alshena murdered, the High Lord had locked tight the entire palace for mourning.
“Where are we going?” Galen whispered.
“The Standing Keg. It’s a pub in the Copper Quarter,” Kihrin told him. They had left wearing sallí cloaks and brown kef, and nothing on them anywhere that was blue. They’d left any traceable valuables behind too, stopping only long enough for Kihrin to collect his promissory notes from the Temple of Tavris before heading down to the Copper Quarter.
Kihrin didn’t need House D’Mon. He had enough savings for him to live on comfortably for the rest of his life. Enough for Galen and Kihrin both.
The Standing Keg was all but empty as customers instead lingered in the New Year’s Festival stalls and wine gardens. And Kihrin gave no sign he recognized the aging Zheriaso woman tending drinks as Ola. He and Galen claimed a table, and he allowed himself to relax just a little. Step one was complete.
“Who are we waiting for?” Galen asked.
“You’ll see—” Kihrin’s words cut off as the door opened, and Thurvishar stepped through, accompanied by his slave, Talea.
Kihrin waved them over.
Thurvishar’s presence was noticed; he wasn’t a man easy to overlook. He towered over the two boys before he pulled out a chair to sit.
“This is irregular,” Thurvishar told them. “But I admit I am intrigued. My condolences on your mother.” He said this last to Galen.
“Thank you,” Galen said, his voice wooden.
“It’s simple enough,” Kihrin said. “I have a business proposition for you.” Then he paused as the old dark-skinned Zheriaso waitress approached. Kihrin pretended not to recognize Ola and waved her over. “Oh, uh, I suppose we should order something.” He looked at Thurvishar.
The bald man raised an eyebrow. He cast his eyes around the bar as if a place like this couldn’t possibly have anything to offer a palate as refined as his. “What is your best then?”
“Kirpis grape wine, my lord, from the vineyard at Rainbow Lake,” Ola told him. “It’s fresh. This year’s stock.”
He sighed. “A bottle of that and four glasses.”
The waitress looked at the three men. “Four?”
Thurvishar seemed amused. “Look again, woman. There are four of us here.” He nodded his head toward Talea.
Ola cleared her throat. “Uh, right. Sorry, m’lord. I’ll bring your wine at once.” She left.
“Are you enjoying your stay with Thurvishar D’Lorus?” Kihrin asked Talea.
The slave girl eyed Kihrin as if she had not yet decided whether he was a snake. “I am. Very much.”
“But wouldn’t you rather be free?”
The slave’s eyes widened with undisguised shock.
“Very inappropriate,” Thurvishar murmured.
Kihrin turned back to him. “I know that you’re not a fan of Darzin D’Mon. And I know that you, he, and a third man are plotting something together. You’re the man who warned us away. You’re the one who knew we were listening at the door.” He leaned forward. “All I want is for Talea to have her freedom. I promised her sister that much—”
“My sister? What about my sister?” Talea interrupted.
“How unfortunate,” Thurvishar said. “Do you wish to explain to her or shall I?”
Kihrin breathed deep and addressed Talea. “I knew your sister before she was murdered. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Talea stared at him, stared at him like a woman stabbed, like a woman in shock from pain.
No one had told her that her sister was dead.
Kihrin said to Thurvishar, “I know my money doesn’t mean much to you, but you’d be vexing Darzin if you let her go, and I bet that does.”
Ola came back and uncorked the bottle in front of Thurvishar, then poured four tin goblets with the dark red wine. Thurvishar thanked her and did not drink.
Kihrin rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you the paranoid one?” He drank deep from his own cup and motioned for Galen to do the same.
“I have enemies who would gladly kill me just for my potential,” Thurvishar said. “But allow me to understand your meaning. You want me to free Talea and hand her over to you—for what? The possibility it might annoy Darzin?” He chuckled and took a drink of wine, wincing. “Talea, dear, don’t drink this. It’s not worth touching your lips to it.”
The slave girl’s grimace suggested the warning had come too late.
“I can pay metal. I know what you paid for her. You’d take no loss.” Kihrin ignored the ugly looks that Talea gave him. It didn’t matter if Talea liked him, but it mattered he freed her, if only for Morea’s sake.
“As you said, metal means little.” Thurvishar paused. “What about the harp you played so well last night? One couldn’t fail to notice the aura of magic laced around it like silken thread.”
Kihrin’s heart sank. “She was stolen last night.”
Thurvishar shook his head as he drank more of the wine. “How inconvenient for both of us.” He studied Talea with those dark, all-black eyes before returning his attention to Kihrin. “I’ll take your necklace then.”
Kihrin put his hand to his throat. “I can’t give you—”
“You can.” Thurvishar reached into his robes and pulled out a pair of charms, enameled dragons wrought from silver. “These will protect you both from scrying.* Nothing so powerful as what you wear, but enough to keep your family from tracking you down. You can have Talea, these necklaces, and my silence—but you give me the tsali stone.”
Kihrin’s expression hardened. “I can’t do that—and how did you know—?”
Thurvishar smiled. “Perhaps you mistake my meaning. This has stopped being a deal from which you can walk away. You’re not planning on returning to the Blue Palace, sending the young lady on her way in life with a smile and a small stipend while you resume your noble, pampered life. You’re planning to run. To do so, you must buy my silence, because even if I cannot scry for you, I can scry for him.” He pointed to Galen, who turned red and looked like he was on the verge of tears.
“You wouldn’t . . .” Kihrin said.
Thurvishar raised an eyebrow. “Truly?”
Kihrin stared at him. “Why do you want it so badly?”
“Because you have no idea what you wear around your neck,” Thurvishar said. His voice was sad.*
Kihrin reached for the clasp at the back of his neck, a clasp that had never been unfastened in all his life. He didn’t know if it still functioned, and as he worked the latch, his fingers felt thick, clumsy, and heavy. It was all he could do to lift his hands behind his shoulders.
Kihrin stood. “I can’t.” He listed.
“You mean you won’t,” Thurvishar corrected.
“No, I mean—”
Galen collapsed at that moment, wine spilling as the young man’s tin cup fell from his hand and his head hit the wooden table. Kihrin fell to his knees. He gasped, looking over at Ola. “You—you—”
“I’m so sorry, Bright-Eyes,” Ola murmured. “He’d have noticed if I hadn’t drugged everyone’s wine.” Her whispered confession was punctuated by the sound of Talea collapsing in an unconscious heap. “I’m so sorry.”
As darkness overtook Kihrin, Thurvishar yelled, “Trickery!” Then came a loud cracking noise, blinding light, and ozone.*
It was quiet.
Talea’s eyes opened, although to be fair, it would be more correct to say Talon’s eyes opened. Part of the inn was on fire. People panicked, screaming, but all that mattered to Talon was the sickly sweet scent of burning flesh.
Talon ran over to where Ola lay on the ground, electrocuted.
Thurvishar hadn’t meant to hit Ola, but his blind random strike had done the job all the same. The wizard had held on for far longer than Talon had expected—the drug slower to act with him than any of the others.* Talon had to fight down the urge to murder him, the blood-borne desire to make him pay for killing Ola, but she knew she couldn’t.
Instead, Talon wept over Ola’s body. “You won’t die,” she murmured to her former lover. “We’ll live together forever, you and I. Surdyeh has missed you. We’ll be together. You’ll see. I have one thing I need to do first. One little thing.”
Talon returned to Kihrin’s side, changing as she went. Until when she stood above him, she looked like Kihrin’s old enemy Faris, hand missing and scowl attached. It would be better this way. Witnesses would remember Faris, and Faris was the sort it would be easy to claim had fought too hard to bring back alive—assuming he was ever found at all.
He wouldn’t be.*
Talon reached down to touch Kihrin’s face. “Ducky, your father Surdyeh and I have been talking,” she told him, although she knew he couldn’t hear her. “You know, he’s the one who started this all. Giving you to Ola. Making sure you learned certain skills. He wasn’t behind the job at Kazivar House where you first saw Darzin—if I had to put metal on it, I’d blame the Goddess of Luck for that. But he works for Emperor Sandus, and he’s brought me around to his way of thinking. We’ve decided that this is for the best. I know it won’t be pleasant, but sending one’s child away to school never is. Trust us: it will hurt us a lot more than it hurts you.” She paused. “Although to be fair, it’ll hurt you rather a lot.”
She patted down Kihrin’s body until she came away with an intaglio ruby ring. Talon smiled at it. “The gryphon must fly,” she quoted in a fond tone, as she threaded the ring onto a chain and fastened the chain around her neck.*
Then she tossed Kihrin over her shoulder and set out from the bar, heading for the docks, and the slave ships.