Vürdmeister Neph Dada damned Roth Ursuul for the hundredth time of the day. Serving an aetheling of the Godking was supposed to be an honor. Like all the God-king’s honors, this one came with strings attached. If an aetheling failed his uurdthan, his Vürdmeister was punished with him. And obedience was required. Total obedience, except in things that might displease the Godking.
Which was why Neph was cursing. He wasn’t precisely disobeying Roth, but he was undoing something the prince had begun. Something, in fact, that Roth believed he had accomplished. Something that it was taking all of Neph’s abilities to stop. Mercifully, Roth had been too busy securing the castle and the city to ask where his Vürdmeister was. Besides, he had sixty meisters to command now, three of them Vürdmeisters almost as powerful as Neph. If Roth had sent men after him, the small servant’s room Neph had commandeered was isolated enough that they had never been able to find him.
His work—his petty deceit, and rebellion, and gamble for the Godking’s favor—lay stretched out on the bed. She was a beautiful girl—not that the Godking needed another beautiful girl—but she had spirit. Fiery, intelligent, and best of all a widowed, virgin bride, and a princess. Jenine Gyre was a prize indeed. A prize to crown the Godking’s harem. A prize Neph had snatched from the very jaws of Death.
Every Vürdmeister as old as he was knew volumes about preserving life, of course. It was in their own self-interest as they grew old. But I am a genius. A genius.
His plan had crystallized as Roth had ranted, meaningless words exploding from the boy like diarrhea. As usual. His cut had been fortunate. Just one side of the neck, not so deep that it cut the windpipe. Neph let her bleed until she was losing strength, then tickled a little tendril of magic against her diaphragm to push the air from her lungs, two more to close her eyes, a fourth to seal the wound on her neck, some quick movement to take attention away from her body so no one would notice that she was still breathing, and the girl had been his.
He’d killed seven serving girls looking for the right kind of blood for her. Sloppy work. He should have done better, but it had been enough. He’d decided to leave the scar. It gave the princess a certain something. And as a finishing touch, he’d found a girl in the city who looked like the princess and had her head mounted over the east gate with the rest of the royal family’s. If you got the right color of hair and styled it correctly, all you had to do was beat the face enough, and it could look like anyone’s head. Still, he thought, he’d done brilliant work, even if it had been exhausting.
Tomorrow morning, the Godking would arrive and he’d dispense either favor or punishment to Roth Ursuul. Either way, Neph would prosper.
Something made him pause before he went out the door. Something felt odd outside. He walked to his window, threw open the wooden shutters—no glass for the servants’ rooms—and stared through the hole into the ghastly Cenarian statue garden.
The meisters had set up their camp there, figuring it to be a center of power. Vürdmeister Goroel had always enjoyed thumbing his nose at the conquered countries’ gods and dead kings. It was pure playacting not to take rooms in the castle, but when the meisters went to war, Goroel liked to show the Godking that they were roughing it. Insufferable.
A man climbed up onto one of the statues. Neph couldn’t see his features clearly, but he certainly wasn’t Khalidoran. Sethi? What’s a Sethi man with a sword doing climbing a statue in the middle of a war? A giant of a blacksmith with blond hair stood below him, looking around anxiously. Neph shook his head. Vürdmeister Goroel wouldn’t take such an insult lightly.
“Wytches of the Godking!” the man shouted, his voice booming, amplified a dozen times over with magic. A mage? “Wytches of the false Godking, hear me! Come to me! This day, on this rock, you will be shattered! Come and let your arrogance find its reward!”
Had he not spoken heresy, the wytches might have let Vürdmeister Goroel deal with him, but heresy would be stopped. Must be stopped. Instantly. Fully thirty meisters drew on their vir.
Neph’s magical senses exploded. He lurched against the wall and collapsed. It felt like a thousand demons were screaming in unison into each of his ears. Magic like a bonfire—like a second sun—exploded through the castle. Neph felt his vir tingling, burning as magic washed toward him. He hadn’t been holding his vir, and that was surely the only thing that saved him. The power pouring through the castle was more magic than he’d ever imagined. More magic than the Godking himself could wield.
Specks of magic leapt up to meet it. The meisters, Neph could tell. The meisters who hadn’t already been holding their vir grabbed it. They might as well have been flies trying to extinguish a bonfire with the wind from their wings. The magic sought them out, wrapped around them, burned them to pillars of ash. He could feel the tendrils of their power snapping, bursting apart one by one.
The conflagration was in the courtyard, in that odd Cenarian statue garden. Should Neph stay here and live? Did he dare go face that fire? What would this titan of a mage do if Neph dared to confront him? What would the God-king do to him if he didn’t?
An odd, detached thought came to Kylar as he opened the last door and walked toward the throne room. That’s why those guards outside the Maw were nervous—they were bait. Now I am, too.
His next thought was of Durzo’s creed: Life is empty. It was a creed Durzo himself had betrayed, an empty creed. It neither saved life nor made it better. For a wetboy, it made life safer because it obliterated his conscience. Or tried to. Durzo had tried to live that creed and had found himself too noble for it.
Kylar wondered what had brought him to this. He was ready to die. Was it pride, that he thought he could defy any odds? Was it duty to Durzo, that he thought he had to pay back the debt of his life by saving Uly? Was it revenge, that he hated Roth so much that he would die to kill him? Was it love?
Love? I’m a fool. He felt something for Elene, it was true. Something intense and intoxicating and unreasonable. Maybe it was love, but what did he love, Elene or an image of her, glimpsed from afar, pieced together with the glue of assumption?
Maybe it was just some last vestige of romanticism that had brought him here, some sludge left over from the stories of princes and heroes Ulana Drake had read to him. Maybe he’d spent too long with people who believed in false virtues like valor and self-sacrifice that Durzo had tried to teach him to despise. Maybe he’d been infected.
But why he was here didn’t really matter. This was the right thing to do. He was worthless. If his empty life could ransom Elene’s life, then he would have accomplished something good. It would be the only thing he had ever done that he could be proud of. And if he gave Uly a chance too, so much the better.
He’d have his own chance, too: his chance at Roth. Kylar had gone into other fights feeling confident, but this was different. As he stepped into the short hall to the throne room, Kylar felt at peace.
A high-pitched whine cut the air. The men who’d been standing in the room looking to the door adjusted their grips on their weapons.
A magical alarm to tell them I’ve arrived, then.
There were highlanders, of course. He’d expected that. But he hadn’t expected thirty. And there were wytches. He’d expected that, too. But not five.
The doors at the dead end where he’d lifted Elene and Uly banged open and another ten highlanders poured in behind him.
Taking a few quick steps, Kylar leapt into the throne room at the level of the floor, hoping to make it past the first attacks. The room was huge, the ivory and horn throne set above the seats of the assembly by two broad sets of seven steps separated by a flat landing. Roth sat in the throne, flanked by two wytches. The others stood on the landing. The highlanders were spread around the perimeter of the room.
The leap took him past the whirring swords of two highlanders who were cutting blindly at the air in front of the door, hoping to get lucky and hit the invisible wetboy.
Drawing Retribution from its back scabbard, Kylar rolled to his feet.
A swarm of tiny hands appeared in the air as the wytches chanted. The hands were looking for him, plucking at him. They seethed over the ground leaping and clawing at each other as they groped for him.
He jumped away, cutting at the hands, but his sword passed through them harmlessly; there was nothing for him to cut.
They swarmed over him and the hands thickened, strengthened as two of the wytches chanted in time with each other. Then, as the hands pulled him upright, Kylar felt something else seize him. He felt like a baby caught in giant’s fingers.
It tore at him and he felt the ka’kari’s cloaking strip open. He let it go. It wouldn’t do him much good to be partly invisible if he couldn’t move.
Well, that was glorious. In all the history of stupid men intentionally springing traps set for them, that was probably the lamest result ever.
Kylar had hoped—hell, expected—that he’d at least take a few guards with him. Maybe a wytch. Two would have been nice. Durzo would be shaking his head in disgust.
“I knew you’d come, Blint,” Roth crowed from the throne. He hopped to his feet and waved to the wytches. Kylar was lifted off his feet and shot forward, carried magically up the stairs and deposited on the landing below the throne.
Blint? Gods. I sprang a trap that wasn’t even set for me.
The magic fingers tore away Kylar’s mask. “Kylar?” Roth said, astonished. He burst out laughing.
“My prince, beware,” a red-haired wytch at Roth’s right said. “He has the ka’kari.”
Roth slapped his hands together and laughed again, as if unable to believe his luck. “And just in time! Oh, Kylar, if I were another man, I’d almost let you live.”
The witty riposte dried on Kylar’s tongue as he saw into Roth’s eyes. If most of his deaders had a cupful of darkness in their souls, Roth had a river, boundless and bleak, a roaring, devouring darkness with a voice like thunder. Here was a man who hated all that was lovely.
“Captain,” Roth said, “where are the girl and the scarred wench?”
One of the men who’d entered after Kylar said, “We’ve lost them, Your Majesty.”
“I’m disappointed, Captain,” Roth said, but his voice was jubilant. “Unlose them.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the soldier said. He grabbed his ten highlanders and headed back into the hall.
Roth turned back to Kylar. “Now,” he said. “Dessert. Kylar, do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”
Kylar blinked and tore himself away, somehow shut his senses off to the evil in the man before him. He forced nonchalance into his voice. “Since I’m the man who’s going to kill you, I’d guess—oh, since you first looked in a mirror and realized just how damn ugly you are.”
Roth clapped his hands. “How droll. You know, Kylar, I feel like you’ve been in my shadow for years, opposing everything I’ve done. Stealing my ka’kari really irritated me.”
“Well, I aim to vex,” Kylar said. He wasn’t really listening. Opposing him for years? Roth really was crazy. Kylar didn’t even know him. But let the man rant as long as he wanted. Kylar surreptitiously flexed against the bonds of magic.
They were like steel. This was not going well. Kylar didn’t have a plan. He didn’t even have the beginning of a plan. He didn’t think that there was a plan that might have worked even if he’d been smart enough to think of it. The Khalidoran soldiers had encircled him, the wytches were watching him like vultures, their vir wiggling faintly, and Roth looked altogether far too pleased with himself.
“And vex you do. You seem to turn up at the most inopportune moments.”
“Just like that rash you picked up from the rent boys, huh?”
“Oh, personality. Excellent. I haven’t had a really satisfying kill since yesterday.”
“If you fell on your sword, we’d all be satisfied.”
“You had your chance to kill me, Kylar.” Roth shrugged. “You failed. But I didn’t know you were a wetboy. I only got your real name yesterday, and killing you had to wait while I gained a kingdom for my father.”
“I won’t hold it against you.” I had my chance?
“So gracious in defeat. Did Durzo teach you that?”
Kylar had no response. It was probably stupid at this point to feel irked that he seemed to have lost a point in the battle of wits, but then if Kylar had been smarter, he wouldn’t have been here in the first place.
“I must say,” Roth said. “I’ve not been impressed with this generation of wetboys. Hu’s apprentice was as much of a disappointment as you are. I mean, really. Durzo would have at least killed one of my men before we caught him, don’t you think? I’m afraid you’re a poor shadow of your master, Kylar. By the way, where is he? It’s not like him to have an inferior do a job that concerns him.”
“I killed him last night. For working for you.”
The prince clapped his hands with glee and giggled. “I think that’s the most lovely thing I’ve ever heard. He betrayed me by saving you, and you betrayed him for working for me. Oh, Kylar,” Roth came down the steps to stand in front of him. “If I could trust you damn wetboys, I’d hire you in a heartbeat. But you’re too dangerous. And, of course, you’ve bonded my ka’kari.”
Roth’s wytch shifted, obviously nervous to have Roth standing so close to Kylar.
The wytch must know something I don’t, Kylar thought. He couldn’t move a muscle. He was totally helpless.
Wait. That’s it. That’s exactly why he’s nervous. He thinks the ka’kari’s a threat. And if he thinks it is, maybe it is.
Roth drew a beautiful long sword from a hip scabbard. “I’m disappointed with you.”
“Why’s that?” Kylar asked, racking his brain to think of how he might use the ka’kari. What did he know about it? It enabled his Talent. It made him see through shadows. It made him invisible. It came out of his skin, and hid him more perfectly than any wetboy could hide.
But how?
“I’d hoped this would be fun,” Roth said. “I was going to tell you how hard you made my life. But you’re like Blint. You don’t even care if you live or die.” Roth raised the sword.
“Sure I do,” Kylar said, showing fear. “How hard have I made your life?”
“Sorry, I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.”
Oh, come on! “Not for me,” Kylar said. “You know your father’s meisters and soldiers are going to report everything they’ve seen and heard to him. Why not give them the whole story?” It was clumsy, but with his life on the line, it was harder to think quickly than he would have imagined.
Roth paused, thinking.
It was useless. The ka’kari just did what it did. It had eaten a knife last night, for the God’s sake! There was no telling by what logic it operated—if any. It was just magic.
Absorbs. Eats. That’s what it does! He’d felt a huge jolt of power after it had absorbed the knife. The Devourer. Blint had called it the Devourer. He was close, maybe.
“Sorry,” Roth said. “I don’t perform for anyone. Not even you. This is just between us, Azoth.” Roth handed his sword to the wytch to his left and smoothed his long hair back over his ears—
Except he didn’t have ears. The left ear looked like it had been melted off. The right ear had been cut off.
Azoth had been pushed to his knees in the middle of the boat shop. It had been hard to get Rat to come into the dark shop, but he’d done it. Now Rat’s foot was squarely in the middle of the noose Azoth had laid on the floor, but Azoth couldn’t move. He couldn’t draw a full breath. Rat was inches away, terrifying in his nakedness, giving an order. He clouted Azoth. Azoth tasted blood. He found himself moving. He grabbed the noose and snugged the knot tight against Rat’s ankle. Rat shouted and raised his knee sharply into Azoth’s face.
He landed on the big rock and scraped his back, falling between the rock and the hole in the floor where boats had once been lowered into the river’s foul waters. He scrambled and braced his thin arms against the rock, and lifted his eyes, expecting the older boy to be already to be on him.
Rat looked at Azoth, at the hole, at the rock, at the rope, at his ankle. Azoth would never forget the look in Rat’s eyes. It was terror. Then Rat lunged, and Azoth shoved the rock into the hole.
The rope went tight and Rat was pulled to the side in midlunge. He scrambled, grabbing for Azoth, missing. His fingers raked the rotting wood floor as he slid and disappeared into the hole. There was a splash.
But moments later, Azoth heard crying. He walked to the edge of the hole.
Rat was holding on by his fingertips, begging. It was impossible. Then Azoth saw that his rock had landed on one of the lattice-like support beams that held the shop up over the river. It was balanced precariously, but as long as Rat held tension on the rope, it wouldn’t drag him into the depths.
Azoth walked to Rat’s pile of clothing and found his dagger. Rat was pleading, tears coursing down his pimply cheeks, but Azoth heard only the roar of blood in his ears. He squatted by Rat, careful but fearless. Even now, Rat’s arms were shaking from holding his weight; he was too fat to hold himself for long, too fat to let go with one hand and grab Azoth.
With a quick motion, Azoth grabbed his ear and sliced it off. Rat screamed and let go.
His body hit the rock, dislodged it. The last thing Azoth saw was his terrified face as he was pulled under the water, then even that was obscured by his hands churning, reaching for something, anything—finding nothing.
Azoth waited and waited, and then staggered away.
The pimples were gone. He’d grown a beard to cover the few pits they’d left. The build was right, though he’d lost weight since he left the Warrens, but that jaggedly cut ear, and his eyes—gods! how didn’t I notice those dead eyes?—the eyes were the same.
“Rat,” Kylar breathed. His plan burst into a thousand shards. His heart stopped. He felt like a child again, waiting in line for Rat to beat him, too cowardly to do anything but weep.
“I’m dead, right? Funny, that’s what they told me about you.” Roth shook his head, but his voice was low. This was just for him. “Neph burned off my other ear to punish me for what you did. You cost me three years, Azoth. Three years before I became a guild head again. I held my breath for—gods it seemed like forever. Forever working at the knot you tied on my ankle, bleeding my life out into that filthy water until Neph finally pulled me out. He watched the whole thing, said he was debating letting me die. Neph had to kill one of my bigs—you remember Roth, don’t you?—and put him in my place before your master came. I had to move to some shitty guild on the opposite side of the Warrens and start all over. You almost made me fail my father.” He was shaking with rage. He exposed his melted ear again. “This was the least of my punishments. And then you conveniently ‘died.’ I never believed it, Azoth. I knew you were out there, just waiting for me. Believe me, if I had time, I would torture you for years, I would push you to the end of human endurance and beyond. I’d heal you just to make you hurt again.” He closed his eyes and lowered his voice once more. “But I don’t have that luxury. If I leave you alive, my father might come up with other plans for you. He might do something else with the ka’kari. I paid for that ka’kari, and I intend to bond it immediately.” He smiled grimly. “Any last words?”
Kylar had lost his focus, gotten distracted. Fear and horror had made his mind wander from the puzzle, when nothing should have been as important. Durzo had taught him better. Fear was to be acknowledged, then ignored. Where had he been? Devourer? Magic? “Shit,” he said, not realizing he spoke aloud.
Roth arched an eyebrow. “Hmm. Boring, but accurate enough.” His grip turn on his sword, and his shoulder rolled back. The blade was coming up. The man was going to cut his head off. Everything in Kylar cried out for help.
A boom sounded somewhere below the range of human hearing, but Kylar felt it wallop his stomach like a thunder crack. His vision went blue-white with magic. He could see the magic streaming through the air as fast as an arrow, a wall of magic.
The castle itself rocked and everyone fell. Everywhere he looked, Kylar saw the same stunned looks. Roth was sprawled on the stairs, his sword still in hand, mouth wide.
Kylar suddenly felt one of the magic bonds holding him snap. He looked toward the others and saw that the magic—it looked like a storm of blue-white rain falling sideways, flying invisibly through walls and people—was spattering against the bonds, collecting around them. The bonds were as black as the wytches’ vir, and the blue magic hissed and spat wherever it touched the black.
Then the blue magic latched on to the wytches’ magic and roared up the black tendrils like wildfire climbing a hill to the wytches holding them.
Shrieks burst from three of the wytches and the bonds holding Kylar disappeared as three living blue torches lit the room. But Kylar’s eyes were drawn to himself. The ka’kari was covering him like a black skin, and everywhere the blue magic pelted him, the magic danced like a puddle in the rain, then disappeared—and the ka’kari swelled more powerful.
The Devourer ate magic, too.
Then the magical shockwave was gone.
There was the briefest silence, then Roth screamed at the wytches who hadn’t been using the vir—the two wytches in the room still alive, “Get him!” Roth plucked his sword from the stairs and swung it at Kylar’s face.
Incredibly, the wytches obeyed instantly. Bonds leapt into place around Kylar’s arms and legs. Everywhere the bonds touched Kylar, in response to his will, the ka’kari swelled, twisted through them, shifted, sucked, and devoured them.
Kylar threw himself back against the bonds even before they were completely dissolved. He burst through them with all the strength of his Talent as Roth’s sword slashed the air inches from his throat.
He tore through the shriveling bonds and flew back clumsily, his feet tearing free last, tripping him. He twisted in the air and threw a knife with his off hand.
A soldier grunted and hit the floor.
Kylar landed below the second flight of steps, flat on his back. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but even as he slid across the floor his sword was moving. Highlanders stood to the left and right of him and his sword flashed twice, cutting through boots and ankles on either side of him.
Three highlanders had fallen, but others were already attacking. Kylar flipped his feet over his head and stood, gasping but ready to fight.