56

The antechamber at the base of the north tower stank overwhelmingly of blood and feces released in death, the bitter tang of urine threaded through the stench. Kylar gagged as he opened the barred door.

A quick glance told the story. The men had been trapped in the room, ambushed by a crossbowman. Kylar scowled. A crossbowman? In a room this small?

Then he saw the narrow platform by the ceiling, plainly visible in the shadows that now welcomed Kylar’s eyes. From the way the bodies were scattered, it had just been the one man, shooting the royal guards and nobles like fish in a barrel.

So this was what happened to the men who’d come to save their prince. From the streaks of blood going out the door, it looked like only one man had survived to drag himself away.

Sickened, Kylar ran up the stairs. He found six dead Khalidorans at the entryway. The rest of the story was clear enough. Caught in bed with his wife—Logan’s clothes were scattered around the room—Logan had sprung up and fought. He’d killed six fully armed Khalidorans, but from the burn marks on the floor, he’d been hurt or disabled with magic.

Then, from the wide, sticky puddle of blood, it was obvious that Roth had either killed Logan slowly so that he bled copiously, or had killed both him and his wife. Neither body was in the room. The Khalidorans would want Logan’s body along with the rest of the royal family’s bodies so the whole kingdom could see they were dead, the line of succession wiped out.

A torn nightgown lay on the floor. The princess, young and beautiful as she was, was probably in a room somewhere being raped until she died of it.

Kylar tried to interpret it another way. His mind analyzed the scene, trying to ward off the shock of despair. Was it possible the princess had been killed and Logan was alive?

But soldiers wouldn’t keep Logan alive and kill a princess whom they could rape. Logan was a warrior, a renowned swordsman, and the heir to the throne. The assassinations of the rest of the royal family had been carried out brutally but precisely, carefully. If the Khalidorans were going to make an exception and spare one life for any length of time, it wouldn’t be Logan’s.

Grief hit Kylar like a physical blow. Logan was dead. His best friend was dead. Dead, and the blame could only be placed on Kylar.

He could have stopped it. Kylar could have killed Durzo last night. Durzo’s back had been there, a target he couldn’t miss. Dorian had told him. Told him!

What pain hadn’t he inflicted on Logan? He’d allowed the murder of Logan’s friend Aleine, concealed the truth about Serah’s and Aleine’s affair, got him sent to prison for murder, and forced him to break his engagement. Now Logan had been forced to marry a girl he didn’t know and had been murdered, his wife of less than an hour raped and killed.

Sinking to the floor, Kylar wept. “Logan, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.” He reached a hand to steady himself, and found it in the puddle of blood. He looked at his bloody, bloody hand. Bloody as it had been bloodied in this very chamber, five years ago when he’d finished his first solo kill. Bloody as it had been bloody continually since he murdered his first innocent. This was where murder had brought him. It had brought him full circle, his murder of one innocent leading inexorably to the murder of more. In the last five years, he’d done exactly what he’d intended to do: he’d become more and more like Durzo Blint. He’d become a killer. He slept uneasily, so he slept light, so he was ever more dangerous. He was always on edge, and the blood that first covered his hands in this very room had never been washed clean. It had only been added to. It was no mistake that Logan’s blood was on his hands now, no coincidence.

The Drakes liked to talk about a divine economy: the God turning weeping into laughter, sorrow into joy. A wetboy was the merchant prince of the satanic economy. Murder begat murder, and as Durzo had said, others always paid the price.

Must others always pay for my failures? Is there no other way? The blood on his hands said no, no. This is reality; it’s hard, uncomfortable, hateful, but it’s true.

“I’m breaking my own rules,” a blur of shadows said.

Kylar didn’t look up. He didn’t care if he died. But the man said no more. After a long moment, Kylar asked bitterly, “‘Don’t play fair. A kill is a kill’?”

Durzo stepped out of the shadows. “Kylar, I have one last rule to teach you.”

“And what’s that, master?”

“You’re almost a wetboy now, Kylar. And now that you’ve learned to win almost any fight, there’s one more rule: Never fight when you can’t win.”

“Fine,” Kylar said. “You win.”

Durzo stood there a long moment. “Come, apprentice. Here is your Crucible.”

“Is that all your life is?” Kylar asked, finally looking up. “Tests and challenges?”

“My life? That’s all life is.”

“That’s not good enough,” Kylar said. “These people shouldn’t be dying. Khalidor shouldn’t be winning. It’s not right.”

“I never said it’s right. My world isn’t cut into black and white, right and wrong, Kylar. Yours shouldn’t be either. Our world only has better and worse, shadows lighter and darker. Cenaria couldn’t win against Khalidor no matter what happened tonight. This way, a few nobles die rather than tens of thousands of peasants. It’s better this way.”

“Better? My best friend’s dead and they’re probably raping his wife! How can you stand by and do nothing? How can you help them?”

“Because life’s empty,” Durzo said.

“Bullshit! If you believed that, you’d have died a long time ago!”

“I did die a long time ago. All the good passes by and all the evil passes by, and we can’t do a damn thing to change anything or anybody, Kylar. Least of all ourselves. This war will come and go, there will be a victor, and people will die for nothing. But we’ll be alive. Like always. At least, I will.”

“It’s not right!”

“What do you want? Justice? Justice is a fairy tale. A myth with soft fur and reassuring strength.”

“A myth you believed in, once upon a time,” Kylar said, gesturing to the word JUSTICE etched into Retribution’s blade.

“I used to believe a lot of things. That doesn’t make them true,” Durzo said.

“Who’s better off? Logan or us? Logan could sleep at night. I hate myself. I dream of murder and wake in cold sweat. You drink yourself oblivious and blow your money on whores.”

“Logan’s dead,” Durzo said. “Maybe he’ll wear a crown in the next life, but that doesn’t do him much good now, does it?”

Kylar looked at Durzo strangely. “And you’re the one who says life is empty, meaningless. That we don’t take anything of value when we take a life. Look how you hold on to yours. You fucking hypocrite.”

“Every man worth a damn is a hypocrite.” Durzo reached into a breast pocket and pulled out a folded scrap of paper. “If you kill me, this is for you. It explains things. Consider it your inheritance. If I kill you …well, when I die, I’ll take a break on my way to the lowest plane of hell and stop to talk.”

Durzo tucked the paper in a breast pocket and drew a huge sword with a long red ribbon dangling from its hilt. It was a longer, heavier blade than Retribution, but with his Talent, Durzo could wield it with a single hand.

“Don’t do this,” Kylar said. “I don’t want to fight you.”

The wetboy closed on him. Kylar stood still, making no move to defend himself. “Did you already give him the Globe of Edges?” Kylar asked.

The wetboy stopped. He reached into a pouch and pulled out the silvery globe. “This?” he said. “This is nothing. Another fake.” He hurled the globe through at the window. Glass broke as it punched through the window and sailed out into darkness.

“What have you done?” Kylar asked.