Beyond the Shadows

Whatever else Kylar’s time straddling Cenaria’s worlds had done to him, Logan saw that his friend had learned the way of rumors among both the peasants and the nobility. He’d fingered exactly the questions people would ask. Indeed, he’d set up everything so the questions could have only one answer. Logan had wondered why Kylar had allowed himself to be caught. He had no illusions that it had been because Kylar couldn’t escape. Now he saw all the connections that Kylar had known other people would make. The first question when someone was assassinated was always, who benefits? When Terah Graesin died, the answer was clearly Logan. That wasn’t why Kylar had killed her, though. He’d killed her for all of Cenaria’s people, because she would have been a disaster as a queen. So Kylar had needed to kill her in a way that freed Logan of suspicion.

In a way, Logan had forced Kylar’s hand with the seating arrangements at the coronation. The Sterns had been there. If Kylar hadn’t been placed so prominently, he might have escaped attention, but with too much scrutiny, Kylar’s disguise would collapse. When it collapsed, everyone would have known that Logan’s best friend was in the Sa’kagé—that would be damning enough. After all, how could Logan be a reformer when he came to the throne smeared with charges of corruption himself? This was Kylar’s answer: to shine a glaring light on everything and force Logan to show decisively where his loyalties lay.

Kylar had no doubt what Logan would do, Logan saw that. It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do. But Logan had recently lost his father, his mother, his fiancée, and his wife. How was he supposed to condemn his best friend to death?

Logan remembered the sick pleasure he’d felt at ordering Gorkhy’s death. It was the pleasure of power, and he’d felt it again when men had bowed before him. But suddenly, he hated his power. Kylar was giving his life so Logan could have power. He trusted Logan that much, and Logan knew he had it in him to be a monster. But there was nothing to do.

His face stony, Logan said, “A pardon is out of the question. You were our friend, but our justice will not be swayed. Whatever your intentions, even if it was to make us king, you have done murder in this realm. Justice demands your death. Justice will be satisfied. As king, I demand you answer one more question. If you answer, we will grant you a merciful death. If not, it will be the wheel. Kagé, what are the names and positions of everyone you know in the Sa’kagé?”

Kylar sighed and shook his head.

53

Kylar sat in the darkness and stench of his cell deep into the night.

He threw the ka’kari into the corner of the room. It bounced eerily noiselessly. He extended a hand and willed it back. It flew through the air as if on invisible strings and slapped into his palm. He threw it again and this time willed it to mold itself into a spike. He sucked it back through the air and when it hit his palm it squished and went back into his body.

He could escape. After he died this time, everything would be different.

He heard the sound of someone speaking in a distant hallway. A door opened, and soon Kylar heard the sound of a big man’s footsteps. The face that eventually appeared, however, wasn’t the one he expected.

“Lantano Garuwashi,” Kylar said, standing and bowing.

“Night Angel.” Garuwashi bowed equally low. “May I come in?”

Kylar smirked at how the man was treating this like a social visit. “Please.”

Garuwashi unlocked the door and came in.

“How’d you get here?” Kylar asked.

“I asked permission.”

“Ah.”

“You rob me, Night Angel.”

“How so?” Kylar asked.

“Our duel. It was to have been the height of our glory. A duel for the ages.”

Kylar didn’t know why, but that Lantano Garuwashi was peeved not to get to fight him five years hence somehow warmed Kylar. Perhaps it was the only way Garuwashi had to say that he would have liked to be Kylar’s friend. “The Night Angels keep their word,” Kylar said. “A Night Angel will be there, I promise.”

“He will be your equal?”

“He may even be yours,” Kylar said, grinning.

Garuwashi cracked a smile. He sat on the stone shelf opposite Kylar and folded his legs beneath himself. Kylar sat similarly on his bunk. “I don’t understand Cenarian honor,” Lantano Garuwashi said. “King Gyre will rule whether you do this or not. Why will you die for a people unworthy of you?”

“I don’t know. I only know it felt like the right thing to do.”

“Do you have a lover? Does she approve of this?”

Kylar hadn’t even thought of it. The look on his face must have betrayed him, because Garuwashi shook his head, chuckling.

“You tell me, Night Angel, would you give her life to accomplish this?”

Kylar was as shocked that Lantano Garuwashi was asking the question as he was by the question itself. “I wouldn’t ask anyone to die for my ideals.”

“Yet you ask Logan to kill for them.”

Kylar had no answer.

“Since you’ve never sent men to their deaths, let me make the question easier. Would your lover give her life to change this land?”

“Yes, gladly.”

“Then perhaps she will forgive you one day.”

Well, I plan to come back to life before she finds out. Instead, Kylar said, “I wouldn’t have expected a sa’ceurai to care what a woman thinks.”

Garuwashi burst into laughter. “No sa’ceurai wishes to marry a shadow. A woman should be as fiery as her hair. Ceuran women whisper on the streets and shout in the home. Young sa’ceurai think that means only in the bedroom.” Garuwashi grinned. “They learn.” Kylar couldn’t help but smile too.

After a few more minutes, Garuwashi stood. “I must go,” he said. “I will expect your successor at Midsummer’s in five years. May your sword-soul shine ever brighter, Night Angel.”

Lantano Garuwashi left, and to his surprise, Kylar slept.

He woke at the sound of a lock pick’s scraping. He was alert instantly and stood stealthily. The door opened moments later, telling him that whoever was breaking into his cell was a professional. The locks on the nobles’ cells were tight.

The door cracked open and Scarred Wrable’s face appeared. He grinned to see Kylar awake and in a ready position. “You’re Blint’s apprentice after all, arn’tcha? Morning, lad.”

“What are you doing here?” Kylar asked.

“There are two contracts out on you. One from inside. To kill ya.” He meant inside the Sa’kagé. “The other one’s from some nobles.”

Kylar’s eyes never left Scarred Wrable, though the man didn’t have a weapon drawn. “Terah Graesin’s folk?”

“Actually, some shadow saved a buncha lords during the coup. They think they owe you. You want to guess which contract I took?”

“Depends on who in the Sa’kagé took out the other one,” Kylar said.

Scarred Wrable spat. “The one from inside wasn’t from one of my usual clients, and Momma K likes you. I don’t plan on betting against her. I took the nobles’ contract.” He drew a knife and extended it hilt first.