Kylar hurried to the castle. Even going as fast as he could, he might be too late. The effects of the coup were being felt throughout the city. The Sa’kagé’s bashers had been among the first to figure out the most practical consequence of a coup: with no one to report to, and no one to pay them, the city guards didn’t work. No guards, no law. The corrupt guards who had worked for the Sa’kagé for years were the first to start looting. After that, the looting spread like plague. Khalidoran highlanders and meisters were stationed on Vanden Bridge and on the east bank of the Plith to keep the looting confined to the Warrens. Apparently, Khalidor’s invasion leaders wanted the city intact, or at least they wanted to do the more profitable looting themselves.
Kylar killed two men about to murder a woman, but otherwise didn’t pay any attention to the looters. He cloaked himself and snuck across the river, dodging meisters who should have been more attentive.
When he got to the east side, he stole a horse. He was thinking about the Night Angels. Blint had talked about them over the years, but Kylar had never paid any attention to him. He’d always thought them just another superstition, some last vestige of old, dead gods.
Then Kylar thought about how Elene would take it even if he did rescue her. The thought made him ill. She was in gaol because of him. She thought he’d killed the prince. She hated him. He tried to plan how he was going to kill Roth—a man who would be guarded by meisters, Khalidoran highlanders, and maybe the odd Sa’kagé basher. That didn’t make Kylar feel any better. The more he thought, the worse he felt.
He didn’t even know if meisters could see him when he was cloaked, but the only way he could test that had serious drawbacks. He had, however, finally used his head and taken a look at himself in a mirror to see if the ka’kari was as effective as he thought. He’d been amazed. Wetboys bragged about being ghosts, about being invisible, but that was all it was: braggadocio. No one was invisible.
The only other wetboy Kylar had seen go stealthing looked like a big blob of an indeterminate something. Blint had looked like a six foot smear of mottled darkness—good enough for all practical purposes when the light was poor. And when Blint held still, he dwindled to a shadow of a shadow.
But Kylar was invisible. All wetboys became more visible when they moved. When Kylar moved, there wasn’t so much as a distortion in the air.
It almost irritated him that he’d spent so much time learning to sneak without his Talent. It seemed like wasted effort. Then he thought of having to sneak past the wytches. Maybe the effort wasn’t wasted after all.
He rode up Sidlin Way to Horak Road, then veered around the Jadwin estate, leaving his horse and cloaking himself with the ka’kari. The sun was setting as he scouted East Kingsbridge.
As he’d expected, the security was daunting. A score of Khalidoran regulars were stationed in front of the gate. Two meisters paced among them. Two more talked together on the other side of the gate. At least four boats patrolled Vos Island, going around it in measured circles.
It was a good thing Kylar wasn’t planning on getting into the castle. It was a good thing he’d come with a small arsenal. Dodging from rock to rock, tree to shrub, Kylar moved to the bridge. He unlimbered the heavy crossbow from his pack. He hated crossbows. They were unwieldy, slow, and could be shot by any idiot who could point.
Kylar fitted the special bolt in place, checked the silk spool and braced his body against the side of the bridge. What was it that Blint used to tell him? That he should practice more with weapons he didn’t like?
Scowling, Kylar aimed. Thanks to the iron sheathing on the bridge pilings, his target was tiny. He’d have to hit the last piling above the iron sheathing where the wood was exposed, a target four inches wide from forty paces away, with a slight breeze. This crossbow’s accuracy at that range was within two inches. So he had two inches to spare.
If he erred, he had to make sure he erred right. Up or down and the bolt would hit iron—and the sound would wake the dead. Left and the bolt would fly past the bridge and hit the rocks of the castle, and probably rebound to splash in the river.
Kylar hated crossbows.
He waited until the boat was almost directly underneath the bridge. If he made the shot—when he made it—he’d take advantage of the boatmen having just left the brilliance of the dying sun and coming into the shadow of the castle. Their vision wouldn’t be good. He exhaled half a breath and pulled smoothly, riding the release point until the catch gave.
The bolt sped from the crossbow, the spool whizzing faintly—and the bolt sailed four inches to the right of the last piling.
Kylar grabbed the still-unreeling rope as it went taut. The bolt jerked to a stop not three feet from the castle wall.
The bolt started falling and Kylar pulled it in hand over hand as fast as he could. The rope draped over one of the crossbeams to the right of the piling he’d aimed for. It swung back toward the piling. Kylar dragged in rope as fast as he could, but the bolt pinged off the iron sheathing.
The hooks on the bolt caught and Kylar drew the rope taut, flush against the underside of the bridge.
A meister stepped to the edge of the bridge, holding onto the railing nervously. He looked down and saw the boat passing under the bridge. “Hey!” he called. “Watch it!”
A lightly armed boatman looked up, squinting in the gloom. “Right, you piece of—” He swallowed his words as he realized he was speaking to a meister.
The meister disappeared and the boatman starting haranguing his rowers. Both boatman and wytch thought the other had made the sound.
Without pausing to consider how lucky he was, Kylar secured his end of the line and hid the crossbow. The next boat was still a good distance away. Kylar threw a leg over the line, approached the precipice that sloped off to the river, and slipped out into space.
For a long time, he thought he was going to die as the silk rope drooped toward the river. It’s come free! But he held on, and the rope finally accepted his weight. He climbed across the chasm almost upside down, pulling himself with his hands, his legs crossed over the rope. The droop of the rope meant that after he crossed the halfway point he was climbing sideways and up.
Instead of fighting it, Kylar just pulled himself as far as the second-to-last piling. He looked at the iron sheathing. It was pitted with age and exposure. It was also vertical. Not exactly the best climbing surface.
There was no good choice. Kylar had to get off the rope before the next boat came. He was invisible, but the drooping rope wasn’t.
He flung himself from the rope to the piling—and fell. He slapped all of his limbs around the iron sheathing, but its diameter was so great that his arms couldn’t reach around it. The uneven iron surface didn’t provide enough friction to stop his descent, but it was enough to tear at the skin on the insides of his arms and his inner thighs.
He hit the water slowly enough that the splash was quiet. He clambered back up to the surface and held himself against the piling as the next boat passed.
With the number of weapons he was wearing, he couldn’t swim, but when he pushed himself off the piling, he sank close enough to shore that he was able to walk along the river bottom and pull himself out of the water before he drowned. Barely.
He moved north, along the same route he’d followed the night before. Kylar was glad Blint was dead. The wetboy would never have let him live this down. Between the missed shot and the undoubtedly embarrassing cuts he’d have on his inner thighs, Blint would have had gibes for a decade. Kylar could hear it now: “Remember that time you tried to hump the bridge?”
Kylar found a perch inside the boathouse and cleaned his weapons. He’d have to assume that all of his poisons had washed away—for the second day in a row. He wrung out his clothes, but didn’t dare take the time to let them dry fully. Now that he was here, he wanted to get in and get out, fast. He looked around the boathouse. It wasn’t guarded. Evidently the Khalidorans thought their patrols were enough.
Two men guarded the long ramp down that led to the Maw. They were tense, obviously uncomfortable with their assignment. Kylar didn’t blame them. Between the stink, the periodic cries, and the occasional rumblings in the earth, he wouldn’t have been comfortable either.
Retribution slashed left and right and the men died. He pulled their bodies into the brush and took the keys to the door.
The entrance to the Maw was designed to terrify the men and women incarcerated there. On opening the gate, Kylar saw that the ramp down did indeed look like a tongue leading down a gigantic throat. Hooked teeth were carved out of the black volcanic glass around him, and torches were set behind red glass to look like two flickering, demonic eyes.
Nice. Kylar ignored everything except for the sounds of men. He glided down the tongue and turned down a hall toward the nobles’ cells. From Durzo’s friends he’d gained a rough idea of the layout of the place, but he’d certainly never had any wish to visit.
He found the cell he was looking for, checked the door for traps, and spent a moment waiting in the hallway, just listening. It was insane—he was afraid to open the door. He was more afraid to face Elene and Uly than he was to sneak past wytches and fight the Sa’kagé.
Gods! He was here to save Elene, and he was scared what she would say. Ridiculous. Or maybe what she wouldn’t say, just how she’d look at him. He’d given everything for her! But she didn’t know that. All she could know was that she’d done nothing and now she was in jail.
Well, it wasn’t going to get any better by waiting.
Kylar picked the lock, released the ka’kari’s cloaking, and pulled down his black mask.
The ten-by-ten cell was occupied by a pallet and a pretty little urchin sitting on Elene’s lap. Kylar hardly noticed the little girl. His eyes were glued on Elene. She stared back at him, stunned. Her face was a mask—more literally than Kylar would have liked, since both of her eyes were blackened from when he’d hit her. She looked like a scarred raccoon.
If it wasn’t his fault and it were someone else, Kylar would have chuckled.
“Father!” the little girl cried out. She squirmed out of Elene’s lap. Still staring at Kylar, Elene barely noticed her go. Uly threw her arms around Kylar and hugged. “Mother said you’d come! She swore you’d save us. Is she with you?”
Tearing his gaze away from Elene, whose eyes had suddenly narrowed, Kylar tried to pry the little girl loose. “Uh, you must be Uly,” he said.
Mother? Did she mean Momma K? Or her nurse? He’d straighten out this “father” business later. What was he going to say? “Sorry, your mother’s probably dead and I’m the one who killed her but I changed my mind about it and gave her the antidote so it’s not my fault if she is dead, and I killed your father last night, too. I’m his friend. Sorry.”
He bent down so she could look him in the eye. “Your mother isn’t with me, Uly. But I am here to save you. Can you be very very quiet?”
“Quiet as a mouse,” she said. The kid was fearless. Either she had no sense, or Elene had done a helluva job calming her fears.
“Hello, Elene,” he said, standing.
“Hello, whatever your name is.”
“His name’s Durzo, but we can call him Zoey,” Uly said. Kylar winked at her, glad for the interruption. Even if children were generally intolerable, she’d averted a conversation he wasn’t interested in having—especially not now, not here.
Elene glanced at Uly then back to him, her eyes asking, Is she yours? Kylar shook his head. “You coming?” he asked.
She scowled. He took it for a yes.
“Follow me,” he told Uly. “Quiet as a mouse, right?” Best to get moving, and fast. Messy emotional issues could wait until later, or never.
They followed as he walked, visible and nervous, to the ramp. Elene walked holding Uly’s hand and stopped as Kylar went ahead. When they got to the carvings of teeth, Elene pulled Uly close and began speaking to her in soothing tones.
Kylar walked up the ramp and eased the door open a crack.
The door shook as three arrows smacked into the wood.
“Shit!” Kylar said.
It had been too easy. Kylar should have known. He’d been counting on the chaos to throw everyone off. Locking the door again, Kylar snapped the key off in the lock. Let the bastards break it down.
“Back up the tunnel!” he said, pulling Elene into a jog. “You won’t see me, but I’ll be here. I’ll protect you. Just listen for my voice,” he said as the black ooze of the ka’kari bubbled out of his pores.
If Elene were startled to have him disappear before her eyes, she hid it well. She jogged, pulling Uly along. “Do I need to run?” she asked the empty air.
“Just walk fast,” Kylar said.
The gate that led underground to the castle was unguarded. Thank the gods for that. Maybe the chaos of taking over an entire country would help him. Maybe a patrol outside had just stumbled across the bodies.
Kylar locked the gate and broke off the other key. They climbed a staircase slowly and emerged in a service hallway in the castle proper.
From the hallway, they quickly came upon an intersection. Down one hall, off-duty Khalidoran soldiers were slouching against a wall and sharing a joke. Kylar stopped Elene and walked toward them, then heard one of them call something to someone inside the open room behind them.
If he killed them, whoever was in that room would sound an alarm. He could make it, but Elene and Uly wouldn’t. He went back to Elene.
“Go when I say,” he said. “Now.”
Elene threw her shawl over her head and struggled across the hallway, her back bent and her face down, one foot turned in and dragging along the floor. She looked like an old crone. And she blocked most of Uly from view.
It took her longer to get across the opening, but when one of the soldiers saw her, he didn’t even say anything to the others.
“Nice trick,” Kylar said, catching up with her as she resumed her normal fast stride.
“Where I grew up, stupid girls don’t stay virgins,” Elene said.
“You grew up on the east side,” Kylar said. “It’s not exactly like the Warrens over there.”
“You think it’s safer to work around oversexed nobles?”
“Where are we going?” Uly asked.
“Shh,” Kylar said as they approached another intersection. The hallway they had been following led to the kitchens. From the raucous voices there, though, that wasn’t the way to take Elene and Uly. The door to the right was locked, and the hall left was clear.
Kylar pulled out his picks, risking the possibility of someone stepping out of the kitchens. He didn’t like the idea of following the path of least resistance.
The lock came open quickly, but something heavy had been wedged against the door on the other side. Probably a servant had done his best to block it during the coup.
“Where are we going?” Uly asked again.
Kylar had known her cuteness would grate on him; he’d just hoped it would take longer than this. He let Elene hush her this time.
With his Talent, he could kick through the door and whatever was blocking it—but the noise would bring whoever was in the kitchens, and Kylar felt a sense of urgency. He didn’t want to leave the girls here while he scouted.
“Left,” he whispered.
This corridor twisted and rose up several flights of steps. Kylar heard the jingling of mail and the slap of feet in hobnailed boots behind them.
“Hurry!” he said. The men behind them were moving at a slow jog, so they weren’t chasing escaped prisoners but just responding to orders. Kylar dropped back to the staircase and caught a brief glimpse of at least twenty men.
He ran to catch up with Elene and Uly. They were passing doors, and heedless of who might hear, Kylar started testing the latches. Every one was locked.
“Why are we going to the throne room?” Uly asked.
Kylar stopped. Elene stared at Uly, looking as surprised as he felt. “What?” he asked.
“Why are we going—”
“How do you know where we’re going?” Kylar asked.
“I live here. Mother’s a maid. Our room’s just—”
“Uly, do you know a way out? A way that doesn’t go to the throne room? Quick!”
“I’m not supposed to come up here,” she said. “I get in trouble.”
“Dammit!” Kylar said. “Do you know a way out or not?!”
She shook her head, frightened. That would have just been too easy, wouldn’t it?
“Great with children, aren’t you?” Elene said. She touched Uly’s cheek and squatted on her heels to look her in the face. “Have you come up here, Uly?” Elene asked gently. “We won’t be angry if you have, I promise.”
But Uly was too frightened to say anything.
The footsteps were getting closer.
“Move!” Kylar said, grabbing Elene’s hand to get her running, making her drag the brat.
He didn’t like this. It was too tidy. Too convenient that there was only one path.
One path. That’s it! There’s never just one path in this castle. Kylar scanned the walls and ceilings as he ran. He didn’t even try the doors that they passed. They turned another corner. Kylar skittered to a stop.
He shimmered back into visibility. “Elene, do you see that third panel?” He pointed up.
“No,” she said. “But what do I need to do?”
“Push on it. I’ll lift you. There are secret corridors throughout the castle. Find your way out. Maybe Uly can help you.”
She nodded and Kylar squatted against the wall. Elene hitched up her skirts and stepped on his thigh. She scowled as she realized that climbing up on him would drape her skirts over his head, but she didn’t hesitate to step up to his shoulders and finally into his hands. She walked her hands up the wall for balance. Then Kylar stood and extended his hands, lifting her high into the air.
Elene pushed the panel open and slipped inside a crawl space. She had turned around by the time Kylar picked up Uly.
“Can you catch?” he asked.
“I’d better,” she said. The footsteps were almost on top of them.
Kylar tossed Uly up in the air easily. Damn but the Talent is useful.
Elene caught her and started to slip until her own shoulders were sticking out over space. Then she must have braced herself against something inside the crawl space, because she stopped. She grunted, and with Uly wiggling to help, was able to pull the girl up with her.
“Oh, I’ve been here,” Uly said.
Kylar took out a dagger and tossed it up to Elene.
She caught it. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Aside from the obvious?” he asked.
“Thanks. Now come on. There’s room. Hurry.”
Kylar didn’t move. Dorian said, ‘If you do the right thing twice, it will cost you your life.’ Blint said, ‘There are things more valuable than life.’ The count said, ‘You can’t pay for all you’ve done. But you aren’t beyond redemption. There’s always a way out. And if you’re willing to make the sacrifice, the God will give you the chance to save something priceless.’
He looked at Elene. Something priceless indeed. He smiled at her. She looked at him like he was crazy.
“Kylar, hurry!”
“It’s a trap, Elene. If they lose me here, they’ll search the hidden passages. I can’t protect you in the crawlspaces, they’re too cramped. Get out of the castle. Go to Jarl at the Blue Boar, he’ll help you.”
“They’ll kill you, Kylar. If it’s a trap you can’t—”
“I did look,” he interrupted. He smirked. “And you’ve got great legs.”
He winked—and disappeared.