by Sam Sykes
Alarin chuckled at that. The skinny noble cleared his throat and looked away. But my eyes were on the lady herself. She fixed me with a gaze that suggested, had she a weapon in hand at that moment, she would not have had to look very far at all for a reason to use it.
“At any rate,” Alarin said, “there are other contracts we may free up, prices adjusted accordingly. We can discuss them over dinner in a week.” He smiled at Vishera broadly. “My cousin will be there. Perhaps you might bring your son?”
If Alarin’s face was made of porcelain, then Vishera’s was made of flint: a cold, harsh stone that quickly sharpened itself into a point so fine I thought it might impale Alarin then and there. Her eyes narrowed to slits and she spoke her next words through clenched teeth.
“Visheron is indisposed.”
“Week after next, then,” Alarin offered.
“He remains indisposed for the foreseeable future.”
“Still? How do you ever hope to get him married off, Vishera?”
“Perhaps my lady simply desires to enhance the mystery for any potential suitor?” I offered, smiling. “After all, what woman would not find herself enamored with a wealthy aristocrat who does not show his—”
Admittedly, I had intended to goad her just a little. Her crack about my heritage still rankled me.
However touchy I was about being confused with a Qadiran, though, it wasn’t nearly as touchy as she was about her son.
Or so I assumed, anyway, when she swung her open palm around and delivered a hard slap across my face.
The crowd around us fell silent. So silent I could hear my wineglass as it spilled across my chest and shattered on the floor. So silent I could hear myself in my own thoughts.
Easy, Shy. Don’t stab her. Madame Shadeaux would not stab her.
“Well,” Alarin observed dryly, turning back to Stelvan. “I feel as though perhaps you should leave, Lady Stelvan.”
The noblewoman’s face trembled with barely contained ire as she swung her glower from me to him to the surrounding nobles, all staring with keen interest. She said nothing as she turned and stalked toward the double doors, the various nobles and servants sweeping out of her way as she did so.
“Forgive me, darling,” Alarin said, turning to me and taking my hand. “I should have warned you that Lady Stelvan is rather sensitive with regard to three subjects: her son, Qadirans, and being spoken to.”
“So noted,” I muttered, wiping at the wine staining my dress. “I don’t suppose she cares much about the fact that I’m not Qadiran?”
“Not likely,” Alarin said. “Her father was a rather unfortunate casualty in Qadira’s last incursion across Taldor’s borders. She’s never really seen the virtue in differentiating between people from the deserts.”
He glanced up and waved down a servant, who rushed over swiftly.
“Would you kindly escort Madame Shadeaux upstairs?” he asked. “Take her to a washroom and assist her in cleaning up? And make a note to have a bottle of wine sent in apology to Lady Stelvan.”
“Apology?” The incredulousness in the glare I cast him was not exactly conducive to the act of a simpering noblewoman, but damned if he didn’t deserve it.
“Forgive me again, madame,” Alarin offered sheepishly. “There are certain protocols one follows in Yanmass’s upper circles, particularly when it comes to people who account for a quarter of my business.”
I stared at him thoughtfully. I drank in that smile of his, those perfectly even teeth and that single dimple on his right cheek. I watched the sincerity and apology reflected in every tooth.
Slowly, I matched it. Slowly, I nodded.
“Of course, my lord.”
I kept his smile in mind as the servant beckoned me to follow. I recalled every crease it left on his face as the servant led me to the staircase at the end of the great hall. I remembered every twitch, every crook, every angle to that perfect, porcelain smile of his.
So that I might imagine how satisfying it would be to knock it clean off his face.
12
Perfumed Shadows
“Katapesh, was it? Can’t say I’ve ever been far from Yanmass, let alone outside of Taldor’s borders.” The servant, a tall gangly fellow just out of his teenage years by the look, led the way across the upper gallery, beneath the stares of the ancestral portraits.
“Of course, there hasn’t been much call to. I had dreams of visiting other nations, of course. I got a cousin in Galt … or I had a cousin in Galt. Got his head cut off in one of their revolutions. Put an end to my desire to see the world.”
Balancing a tray of wineglasses, most of them empty or half empty, he turned sharply down a corner and traipsed down a long, carpeted hallway flanked by ornately carved doors.
“But I suppose there’s no need. Master Amalien treats me well, pays me well. I’ve got food, a nice place to stay, good friends. Pity about the other Master Amalien—his brother cared for him deeply—but we’ve still got one.”
He stopped at one of the doors and set the tray of wineglasses down on a nearby table.
“I’ll need to visit the kitchen with those,” he muttered.
He fumbled with a key ring, choosing a large silver key and fiddling with the doorknob.
“This is the master’s personal washroom. Feel free to use anything you need to make yourself presentable, madame.” He pushed the door open and smiled. “Anything else I can do for you?”
I resisted the urge to ask him to turn around so I could smash the wine tray against the back of his head for suggesting I wasn’t “presentable.”
Instead, I simply smiled.
“You’ve been quite helpful,” I said. “Would you mind terribly informing Lord Amalien that I’ll be a while? I’ve simply,” I paused to sound suitably breathless, “never seen such magnificent quarters.”
He puffed up, as though this were all his wealth I was admiring. “Lord Amalien will be thrilled to hear it. He does appreciate people who appreciate his tastes.”
“Indeed.” I quirked a brow, stepped a little closer. I let a finger curl around the inside of his vest, drew it down toward his belt. “Lord Amalien should be commended on his eye.”
I saw the emotions play out on his face in rapid succession: the wide eyes of realization, the pursed lips of lust, the jaw-clenching terror of realizing what could happen if Alarin heard of him flirting with the woman he had eyes on. He tore away from me— and lucky he did, as a few more moments and the poor boy might have exploded—muttered a hasty farewell, and took off.
Missing a set of keys.
Don’t get me wrong, bashing him over the head with the tray and then locking him in the washroom while I worked crossed my mind. But this way, even if he noticed his missing keys, he’d never find the courage to come questioning me for them. I had no idea how he’d explain this to his superiors. I didn’t envy him.
But then, I didn’t think of him for another second, either.
I set off down the hall—swiftly, lest I get caught—and began to try the doors. One after the other: a bedroom here, a library there, another bedroom here, a wine room there, a room that I could only assume was designed specifically for housing statues of naked ladies there …
By the tenth room I tried, with the knowledge that there were Norgorber knows how many other halls in this house, the daunting nature of the task had begun to wear on me. And by the eleventh, I had begun to wonder if I wasn’t perhaps completely mistaken in my assumptions that Alarin had killed Gerowan.
Actual interaction with the man had left me with next to no clue as to his guilt. The man had barely shown me so much as a single emotion through that perfect porcelain of his face, and what little he had shown me was contradictory.
On the one hand, he had expressed open contempt for the nobles who had come to feast on his brother’s assets.
On the other hand, he had referred to it as little more than an unfortunate incident and hardly seemed in poor spirits that evening.
> On the other other hand, I just couldn’t get that empty expression he had let slip out of my head.
Had he done it, then? What motive could he have had?
Money? He had sold Gerowan’s shares in the family ore business off for wine. And while it had been some damn fine wine, I doubted it made him more gold than selling the ore for weapons to Vishera Stelvan—she did, after all, look like a very wealthy woman.
Perhaps he had been driven by a baser desire, then? Perhaps he had wanted Dalaris for himself, unable to give her away to Gerowan. But that hardly seemed any more likely. He had said little more than a few sentences to her.
Besides, I thought with just a touch of smugness, he seemed to go for the dark and mysterious type.
So, he hadn’t done it for gold or for sex—what other motives even were there?
Revenge? Maybe Gerowan had once told him his pantaloons made him look graciously endowed in the posterior? Some folk would kill for an ass like that man had.
I was one door away from giving up and going back down to admire it when I tried the last door on the right. I inserted the key, gave it a twist, and … nothing.
I tried another key. And another. And another, until I had gone through the entire ring and not found a single one that would work.
This was not a door meant for servants.
Which meant it was not a room meant to be seen by just anyone.
Which meant it was not a door I could afford not to break into.
I once knew a Katapeshi man, an elderly fellow who had spent a lifetime accumulating vast amounts of gold. The only thing he had more of than wealth was paranoia. His vaults were guarded by sleepless hellhounds, countless spells, and a golem big as a tree and twice as heavy.
And if I had robbed his ass blind, I couldn’t imagine a single door could stop me much.
I reached beneath my skirts, found the leather pouch I had strapped to my leg, and fished out my lockpicks. With a quick glance down the hall to see if anyone was coming, I set to work.
Alarin being a wealthy man, the lock on the door was of rather solid quality. Which meant it took me six shakes of a rat’s ass to break, rather than two. I turned the knob, pushed the door open with a creak.
A cold, dark room greeted me. Unlike the bright warmth designed to flaunt the styles and wealth of the other rooms, this perfectly square, cramped office was home to no ornamentation and barely any furniture.
A bookshelf loomed large against the wall, but the tomes lining its shelves were stark and had titles like Mercantile Law and Taldan Trade Agreements: A History, and likely didn’t have any fight scenes or sex scenes in them. Naturally and quite understandably, I didn’t look at them for very long.
More noticeable was the massive slab of a desk seated against the window. Among the sheaves of papers and ledgers dotting its surface, I spotted an abacus, a scale, and various maps indicating caravan routes.
I wagered this was where Alarin did much of his business, then.
Which meant this was where I wanted to be.
I darted to the desk, began skimming the papers. I’d done this sort of thing before—scroll jobs, we called them back in Katapesh—and my eyes were already searching for what I knew had to be here: a stray receipt for a business that could serve as a front for something shadier, a letter penned in code that no one would recognize unless they knew what to look for …
But with every page flipped, my search yielded nothing. Nothing that wasn’t completely expected for an office, that is: receipts, ledgers, shipping notices. And none of them looked even a little suspect. The caravan maps looked all in order, the receipts were exactly for what you’d expect Alarin to work in, and even his penmanship was perfectly …
Wait.
I caught a glimpse of something wedged between the letters, stuffed there without a second thought. I tugged it free, flipped it over. It was crumpled up, like it had been tucked away hastily, but even that hadn’t destroyed the broken wax seal at its edges.
I edged closer to the window, drew back the curtain to let a bit of moonlight in. Elegant lettering greeted me.
Lord Amalien,
You will excuse the lack of formalities preceding this letter. I had hoped to break your seal and discover a business proposal to more formerly align your mining companies with my smithies. Imagine, if you will, the infinite span of my displeasure to discover yet another overture to merge family instead of business.
This may seem curt, Lord Amalien, but my patience and concern dwindle in equal measure with regard to this subject. I have no interest in a marriage between my son and your cousin, Analine. I have no interest in reading lists of her apparent virtues of homemaking and entertaining. I have no interest in formalizing our relationship through marriage.
I understand that this practice is becoming more accepted among families that mistake exotic for sensible, but Visheron is possessed of immense potential. Potential, if I may be blunt, that could only serve to be diminished by a union of inferior stock.
Kindly do not send additional inquiries unless they are about business.
Yours,
Lady Vishera Stelvan
I experienced, in that moment, two revelations.
The first, that Lady Stelvan was just a bit of a bitch, was hardly a discovery.
The second, however, all but made my heart leap out of my chest.
They matched.
The letters. The penmanship. The styles.
They matched.
I remembered back in Halamox’s camp, the letter I had found in his cabin. Plain as a gods-damned wart on a goddess’s nose, I remembered that perfect, unerring—a precise match for the letter I held in my hand.
Stelvan.
Lady Vishera Stelvan.
She was the one supporting the centaur attacks. She was the one smuggling weapons to them. She was the one feeding them information.
She was the one who had Gerowan killed.
Her sigil had been on the crates that had been lost. Her caravan routes had been the ones protected while she directed the centaurs to attack others. Her clues had given the centaurs the insight they needed to attack First Solace.
It all added up.
Except for the most important part.
Why?
To get at Gerowan’s shares? Awful big risk to take just for a little more money. But then, I’d met men and women both who killed more for less.
My head hurt as the story I had built inside it came crashing down. Alarin, I thought I knew. Alarin made sense. Vishera, I didn’t know at all.
But I knew who would.
I glanced up. The moon was waning. I’d be missed by now, I was sure. My lips twitched as I started rehearsing my most brainless smile, going over in my head what I was going to say.
“Oh dear, I’m terribly sorry,” I said, “this house is simply so large and complicated. Not at all like what we have in Katapesh. I left the washroom and I suppose I lost my way.”
That sounded pretty good.
“I agree with that, wholeheartedly.”
That did not.
A voice came from behind me. A hand followed.
A black glove clamped over my mouth before I could even think to scream. A blade flashed in the dark, pressed against my throat before I could even think to fight back. And by the time I could even think to pray to whoever up there might be listening, I could hear a thick, rasping voice in my ear.
“You are far from home, Shaia.”
13
Scars Left by Thin Knives
Ask a warrior, a ranger, a priest: they all have just one word for “trouble.”
Pack of goblins? Trouble. Hobgoblin army? Trouble. Rampaging dragon strafing the countryside, devouring virgins or whatever? Yeah, that’s trouble, too. And they solve all their trouble the same way: by stabbing, shooting, or burning it.
In my line of work, a greater sense of delicacy is required. And if you do this sort of thing long enough, you start developing different definitions
of trouble.
There’s the fleeting, annoying, gnat-behind-your-ears trouble that you can solve with a quick knife in the dark. There’s the kind of trouble that makes sweat pool on your brow and makes your hands go real steady and your fingers like whispers.
And then there’s the kind of trouble that tastes metallic in your mouth. The kind you swallow and let cut up your throat and make your chest clench before it settles in your belly like a cold knife in your guts.
I’ll give you three guesses as to what kind of trouble I was in. First two don’t count.
I remembered everything in fragments, shattered pieces of a window with a brick thrown through it. I remembered a knife at my throat. I remembered a heavy force cracking against the back of my head. I remembered hitting the floor, the world swimming around me before it dove into a dark place and took me with it.
And once I woke up, I remembered nothing but pain.
My heart pounded. My skull throbbed. My breath ran dry down a throat scratched raw. Everywhere I looked, I saw only blackness. The stink of my wine-soaked breath mingled with the reek of my sweat and conspired to choke me.
And around all of this—in every pain and ache, scraped raw over my skin and sunk deep in my bones—was that feeling: that cold-knife trouble lodged in my stomach.
I shook my head. Shook all my other thoughts clear out my ears so that I had nothing left but emptiness and quiet.
“Time and breath. So long as you’ve got those, you’ve got the means to survive.”
Sem told me that, once.
I listened back then. I survived back then.
And so, like I did back then, I slowed down. I closed my eyes. I breathed.
Heart pounding, skin sweating, cold fear: I couldn’t use these. They told me nothing I didn’t already know.
The stuffy breath, the pain in my body, the sweat peeling down my skin: I could use these.
I breathed. The reek of wine on my breath hit my nostrils. A drop of sweat slipped into my mouth. In another moment, I could smell the burlap of the sack tied around my head.
