He hesitated. Then said, “Yes.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “A bad man would have lied.”

“Maybe I’m an honest villain.” He turned away.

“I think you’re still the boy who shared his bread with his friends when he was starving.”

“I always took the biggest piece,” he whispered.

“Then we remember differently,” Elene said. She heaved a deep breath and brushed her tears away. “Are you …are you here for work?”

It was a shot in the solar plexus. “There’s a wetboy coming to kill someone at the party tonight and steal something. I need an invitation to get in.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

In truth, Kylar had barely thought about it. “I’m going to kill him,” he said. And it was the truth. Hu Gibbet was the kind of twist who started killing beggars when he had to go too long between jobs. He needed murder like a drunkard needs wine. If Kylar came and stole the silver ka’kari first, Hu Gibbet would come after him. Hu was a full wetboy, and reputed to be as strong of a fighter as Durzo. Kylar’s only chance to kill him would be to catch him off-guard. Tonight.

Elene still didn’t look at him. “If you’re a wetboy, you’ve got other ways to get in. You must know forgers. Kylar Stern must have contacts. Maybe an invitation from me would be the easiest way in, but that’s not why you came. You came here to case the place, didn’t you?”

His silence was answer enough.

“All these years,” Elene said, turning her back, “I thought Azoth was dead. And maybe he is. Maybe I helped kill him. I’m sorry, Kylar. I’d give my life to help you. But I can’t give you what’s not mine to give. My loyalty, my honor, belongs to the God. I can’t betray my lady’s trust.I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

It was a gentler banishment than he deserved, but banishment all the same. Kylar hunched and curled his fingers into arthritic claws and left. He turned once he reached the gate, but Elene wasn’t even watching him go.

37

Like all good ambushes, this one came at a time and place where they least expected it. Solon and Regnus and his men had made it down the mountains, over the central plains, and had come within two miles of Cenaria’s sprawling northern edge.

Duke Gyre and his men were between two wide rice paddies on the raised road when they came upon a man leading a cart horse. Several peasants were working in the paddies, but they were dressed simply, trouser legs rolled up to their knees, obviously devoid of armor or weapons. The carter pulled his old horse to the side, looking at the men in armor intently.

Solon should have noticed it earlier, of course. Peasants didn’t wear long sleeves in the paddies. But it wasn’t until he was within twenty paces of the carter that he saw it. The Vürdmeister dropped the horse’s reins and brought his wrists together, green fire roaring down his vir and filling each hand. He clapped his wrists together and wytchfire spurted forward.

The wytchfire hit the guard to Solon’s left and went right through him. The magic was designed to melt off in layers like an icicle as it punched through each man. It was the size of a man’s head as it went through the first man, then the size of a man’s fist as it hit the second, then the size of a man’s thumb as it hit the third. In an instant, all three were dead, flames roaring off their flesh, burning on the blood that spilled out of the men as if it were oil.

A second later, wytchfire hit the guards from each side as a Vürdmeister on either side of the road hurled death into their midst. Another three men dropped.

That left Solon, Duke Gyre, and two guards. It was a tribute to the men’s discipline that they did anything at all, but Solon knew they were doomed. One guard rode right. Duke Gyre and the other guard rode left, leaving Solon to take care of the Vürdmeister on the road.

Solon didn’t move. The Vürdmeister had set their ambush so they’d have ample time to get off two or three balls of wytchfire. Twelve swordsmen were no match for three wytches.

There was no time to weigh the consequences. Not even time to draw the sunlight streaming onto the paddies into magic. Solon drew directly on his glore vyrden and threw three tiny sparks through the air. They flew as fast as arrows and somehow avoided hitting the duke or his guards. Both Vürdmeister were gathering green fire again as the sparks, each hardly as big as a fingertip, touched their skin.

They weren’t even close to lethal. Solon didn’t have enough magic to face even one Vürdmeister alone, much less all of them together. But the sparks shocked them. A small shock, but enough to tense their muscles for a second and totally break their concentration. Before they could gather their wits, three swords descended with all the force of three galloping horses and three battle- hardened arms, and the two wytches to either side of the road died.

Solon threw the spark at the wytch on the road last, and the man blocked it. Indeed, it wasn’t so much blocking as merely snuffing. The spark flew toward him and then died as if it were a fiery twig being dropped in the ocean. His counterattack was a gush of fire that roared toward Solon with the sound and rage of a dragon’s breath.

There was no blocking it. Solon flung himself from the saddle and threw another spark as he fell to the ground and rolled off the road.

The wytch didn’t even bother to quench the spark as it flew a good ten feet wide of him. He turned, bridling almost fifty feet of fire as if it were a living thing and turning it in his hands to follow Solon.

The spark hit the cart horse’s flank. The old beast was already terrified by the blood, the sounds, and the flash of unnatural fire. It jerked against the cart and then reared and lashed out with its hooves.

The Vürdmeister never even heard the horse’s whinny beneath the roar of the flames. One second, he was reining the stream of fire down the bank of the road onto Solon, and the next, a hoof caught him in the back. He dropped on all fours, not knowing anything but that something was terribly wrong. He gasped and turned to see the horse regain its balance. Then horse and cart ran right over the man, crushing him into the road.

Solon pulled himself out of the water and mud of the rice paddy as the cart horse ran as it must not have run in ten years. His own horse was dead, of course, its skull a smoking ruin and the smell of burnt hair and cooked meat mingling over its half-ruined corpse.

The wytchfire was barely smoldering on the bodies of the dead guards now. Even as he watched, it guttered out. Wytchfire spread horribly fast, but only lasted about ten seconds.

Ten seconds? Has it only been that long?

The sound of hooves brought Solon back into reality. He looked up at Duke Gyre, whose face was still and hard.

“You’re a mage,” the duke said.

“Yes, my lord,” Solon said heavily. The lines were written now, by Solon’s silence. The duke had no choice. Confronted with such a surprise, a more clever man would have pretended to have known Solon was a mage all along. Then he could have decided what to do with him later. Duke Gyre was too straightforward for that. It was his strength and his weakness.

“And you’ve been reporting on me to other mages.”

“Only, only to friends, my lord.” It was weak, and it made him sound weak to say it, Solon knew, but he couldn’t imagine that it could all disappear like this. Surely his friendship with Regnus, surely ten years of service were worth more than this.

“No, Solon,” Duke Gyre said. “Loyal vassals don’t spy on their lords. You’ve saved my life this day, but you’ve been betraying me for years. How could you?”

“It wasn’t—”

“For my life, I give you yours. Begone. Take one of the horses and go. If I ever see your face again, I’ll kill you.”