Watching the man go, Kylar was surprised how good it felt. Maybe it was better to heal than to kill. Or maybe it was just good to feel appreciated. How had Durzo done it? He’d been a dozen different heroes over the ages—maybe scores of different heroes. Hadn’t he ever wanted to just announce himself? Tell everyone who he was, and have them show the proper awe? Here I am, adore me.
But Durzo had never come across like that. Kylar had grown up with him and had never had a clue that his master was the Night Angel, much less any of the other identities he’d had. Why not? Durzo had seemed arrogant in certain parts of his life. He’d certainly shown a huge disdain for most wetboys and most of the Sa’kagé, but he’d never equated himself with the great heroes of history.
The pang of loss cut Kylar again. Gods, Durzo had been dead three months—and despite the passage of time, it wasn’t getting any better.
Kylar felt the little box in his pocket. He died so I could have Elene. Kylar tried to push Durzo from his mind with that thought. Let’s just get through Uly’s birthday, and then I can ask Elene to marry me. Then Uly can hear more creaking than she’s ever imagined.
“Kylar,” Uly said, jerking him out of his reverie. “Are you going to answer my question?”
Ah, shit. “Uly,” he said gently. “I know you don’t feel like it, and you’re certainly as smart as someone a lot older, but you’re still a …” He furrowed his brow, knowing the next part wasn’t going to go over well. “You’re still a child.” It was true, dammit.
“No I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I just had my first moon blood this week. Aunt Mea says that means I’m a woman now. It really hurt and it scared me at first. My stomach got real sore and my back and then—”
“Ah!” Kylar waved his hands, trying to make her stop.
“What? Aunt Mea said it was nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Aunt Mea’s not your father!”
“Who is?” Uly asked, quick as a whip.
Kylar said nothing.
“And who’s my mother? You know, don’t you? My nurses always treated me different from the other children. The last one always got scared whenever I got hurt. When I got a cut on my face once, she was so afraid it would be a scar that she didn’t sleep for weeks. Sometimes a lady would watch us play in the gardens, but she always wore a cloak and hood. Was she my mother?”
Mute, Kylar nodded. It was exactly what Momma K would have done. She had doubtless stayed away for Uly’s safety as much as she could bear, but every once in a while, the defenses would have broken down.
“She’s important?” Uly asked. Every orphan’s wish. Kylar knew.
Kylar nodded again.
“Why’d she leave me?”
Kylar blew out a breath. “You deserve the answer to that, Uly, but I can’t tell you. It’s one of the secrets I know that don’t belong to me. I promise I’ll tell you when I can.”
“Are you going to leave me? If we got married, I could go with you.”
If anyone thought children couldn’t suffer pain as deeply as adults, Kylar wished they could see Uly’s eyes now. For all he loved her, he’d been treating her as a child rather than as a human being. Uly’s brief life was a history of abandonment: her father, her mother, one nurse after another. She just wanted something solid in her life.
Kylar hugged her. “I won’t abandon you,” he swore. “Not ever. Not. Ever.”
24
Vi rode into Caernarvon as the sun set. In her weeks on the trail, she’d decided her strategy. Surely Kylar would be known to the Sa’kagé here. If he was at all like Hu Gibbet, he wouldn’t like to go long without killing. If he had taken any jobs, the Shinga would know him. Such a skilled wetboy wouldn’t pass without notice.
On the other hand, if Kylar hadn’t taken any work, chances were still good that the Sa’kagé’s eyes and ears would know he had come to Caernarvon. Vi had heard precious little praise for Caernarvon’s Sa’kagé, and if Kylar were truly committed to hiding himself, Vi would never find him, but it had been three months. Criminals always went back to their crimes, even if they had plenty of money, if only because they didn’t know what else to do with themselves. What was a wetboy without killing?
The shops were all closed. The decent families were home for the night, and the inns and brothels were just starting to roar as Vi passed deeper into the southern section of the city. She was wearing white fawn-skin riding pants and a loose men’s tunic of cotton. Her red hair was pulled back in a simple tight ponytail. In Cenaria, the rainy season was starting, but here the summer lingered on and Vi believed in being comfortable as she traveled, fashion be damned. She only worried about fashion when she needed something from it. Still, after two hard weeks in the saddle, she wouldn’t mind a bath.
She rode down the fourth bad street in a row, wondering why she hadn’t been mugged yet. She’d concealed all her weapons to make herself look totally vulnerable. What was wrong with these people?
Twenty minutes later, someone finally stepped out of the shadows.
“Nice night we’re having, innit?” the man said. He was scruffy, dirty, inebriated. Perfect. He held a cudgel in one hand and a wineskin in the other.
“Are you robbing me?” Vi asked.
Half a dozen teenagers came out of the shadows and surrounded her.
“Well, I—” the man grinned, displaying two black front teeth. “This here’s a toll road and you’re going to have—”
“If you’re not robbing me, get the hell out of my way. Or are you a complete idiot?”
The smile disappeared. “Well, I am,” he said, finally. “Robbing you, that is. Tom Gray don’t get outta no bitch’s way.” Then he almost brained himself as he tried to drink from his cudgel instead of the wineskin. The boys laughed, but one of them took her black mare’s reins.
“I need to see the Shinga,” she said. “Can you take me to him, or do I need to find someone else to mug me?”
“You’re not going anywhere until you give me thirteen—”
One of the boys coughed.
“—err, fourteen silvers.” His eyes traced over her breasts, and he added, “And maybe a little somethin’ somethin’ besides.”
“How about you take me to the Shinga, and I’ll leave your pathetic manhood intact?” Vi said.
Tom’s face darkened. He threw the wineskin to one of the boys and stepped toward Vi, raising his cudgel. He grabbed her sleeve and yanked her out of the saddle.
Using the momentum of his pull, Vi flipped off the saddle and kicked him in the face, landing lightly on her feet as Tom Gray went sprawling.
“Can any of the rest of you take me to the Shinga?” she asked, ignoring Tom.
They all looked confused at how Tom had ended up on the other side of the street with a bloody nose, but after a moment, a scrawny young man with a big nose said, “Shinga Sniggle don’t let us just come up to him any old time. But Tom’s friends with him.”
“Sniggle?” Vi asked, smirking. “That’s not really his name, is it?”
Tom picked himself up off the ground. He roared and charged Vi.