“You can watch the festivities from your cell. Goodbye, Solon.”

Terah sat impatiently on the black monstrosity of a throne Garoth Ursuul had built. It had taken her half the morning to soothe the Lae’knaught and Chantry ambassadors. Her attempts to figure out who’d arranged her diplomatic disaster had been futile. Fingers pointed this way and that, and there was no telling who was lying.

Finally, Luc came in, resplendent in his cloth-of-gold Lord General’s cloak, calfskin boots, and trim white tunic and breeches. “The rumors are true,” he said, kneeling on the top step in front of her throne. “Logan has arrived with fourteen hundred men.”

“They didn’t lose anyone breaking through the Ceuran army?” Terah asked. The first report merely said that Logan had made it to the gates. Her orders not to open the gates for him had been diverted or ignored. She’d hoped the Ceurans might kill him for her.

Luc looked confused. “They didn’t break through. They signed a treaty.” Seeing the look on his sister’s face, Luc hurried on. “When I demanded to know by what right they’d negotiated a treaty, they said by yours. They were surprised I didn’t know.”

Terah sagged into the throne. This had the Sa’kagé’s grubby fingerprints all over it. “What are the details of the treaty?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Idiot!”

He swallowed. “There are Ceuran wagons full of rice and grain going to every corner of the city. They’re giving the Ceurans’ food to our people.”

“They let the Ceuran army inside the walls?”

“Just Lantano Garuwashi and the wagons. But the gates are still open. People are going out to the Ceuran camp and celebrating with them.”

In minutes, Terah was on a balcony, looking over the city. It was a crisp autumn day, the sun bright but barely warm. Vanden Bridge was aglitter with sunlight reflected off hundreds of men in armor. “Logan’s parading through the Warrens?” Terah asked. Why would he do such a thing? Who would feel safe there?

“The Rabbits worship him,” Luc said.

The procession filed back to the east side and turned toward the castle. The streets had been crowded when Terah’s army had paraded, but as Logan came, the city seemed to have emptied itself. The cheering itself sounded different. It scared the hell out of her.

“Summon my advisers,” she said. “I need to know everything about this treaty before Garuwashi reaches the castle. Is he my ally, my vassal, or my overlord? Gods forbid, is he my husband? Go, Luc, go!”

34

After applying the appropriate makeup, Kylar secured Retribution to his back, dressed in loose rags so stinking and filthy he was loath to wear them, and donned a satchel full of nobleman’s clothes. He reset the door’s traps with poisons that would sicken but not kill and then perched on the ladder. It was early morning now and the exit was blind. He’d been waiting a quarter of an hour, attuning himself to the sounds of the street.

He heard the loud clop of a horse’s hoof strike his flagstone. That was it. He waited one more second as he drew the ka’kari over his clothing and went invisible. He threw open the flagstone as a wagon passed overhead, crawled out, spun on his stomach, dropped the hidden door closed, and flung dust over the clean flagstone. The wagon’s back axle caught on Retribution. It spun Kylar back around and dragged him for several feet before he twisted free. The driver cursed and looked back, but saw nothing.

Kylar stood, invisible, and made his way into an alley. He dropped the shadows and examined his rags to see what damage the ka’kari had inflicted on them this time. It wasn’t bad, except for a few new holes in the back that might show Retribution. He twisted the satchel to lie across his back, affected a limp, and headed for the Heron’s Rest. It was at the crossroads of Sidlin and Vanden, and thus one of the few inns in the city where he could enter in rags and leave in silks without attracting attention.

He hadn’t gone two blocks when he saw the ambush. Guild kids were hiding amid the ashes and rubble that clotted the alley. Most of them held rocks, but he caught glimpses of one or two clutching Khalidoran swords, relics, no doubt, of the Nocta Hemata. There was time to turn aside, but Kylar didn’t for one reason: he saw Blue. He’d forgotten to hide the money he’d promised her. She might have even lived up to her side of the bargain and moved her crew, though he doubted it.

The biggest kid in the guild was the first to stand up. He was short for sixteen, and gaunt like all of them, though he didn’t have the distended belly of malnourishment that some of the littles had. He held a Khalidoran sword and his eyes darted around to the other kids for support. “Give us your coin and that bag and you can go,” he said. He licked his lips.

Kylar looked around the circle. Seventeen of them, all scared witless, most of them littles. Blue was squinting at him suspiciously. He grinned at her. “I forgot to give you this,” he said, fishing in a pocket for a gold coin. It was far more than he’d promised, but these kids could use it. He tossed it to her.

One of the bigs mistook the move and whipped his rock at Kylar’s head. Kylar dodged and the missile nearly brained another big on the other side. That big flung his rock and in a moment, the circle exploded in flying rocks and slashing steel.

With a surge of Talent, Kylar leapt ten feet in the air, flipped, drew Retribution, coated it with the ka’kari. As he landed, he spun in a circle, Silver Bear Falls to Garran’s Zephyr, hacking the blades from the hilts of three swords. From Retribution, the ka’kari released a pulse of magic that rushed over Kylar’s skin.

What was that?

~Impressive. Look.~

The guild had frozen, and even those bigs who were suddenly holding broken swords were staring at Kylar, not their swords. He glanced at himself and saw that somehow he’d lost his tunic and his skin was shining as if lit from within, as if he were bursting with barely restrained power. I didn’t tell you to do that.

~You wanted to stop them without killing them, didn’t you?~

“I told you it was him,” Blue said.

Kylar had an awful feeling of déjà vu. They thought he was Durzo. Had the ka’kari put that face on him, too? He was standing as Durzo had stood over a decade ago when Azoth’s guild had tried to mug him. But now he was standing on Durzo’s side. It looked different from here.

“It’s Kylar,” Blue whispered.

“Kylar,” two kids echoed. The awe in their voices made it clear that they thought they were mugging a legend. Around the circle, rocks rattled to the ground. The circle drew back, the guild caught between flight and curiosity. Only now did the bigs turn wide eyes to their faintly smoking swords, a few absently rubbing limbs or ribs bruised from flying rocks.

“How do you know that name?” Kylar demanded, feeling a sudden shiver of fear.

“I heard Jarl talking at Momma K’s once,” Blue said. “He said you were his best friend, he said you used to be Black Dragons. And Momma K told us once that the best Black Dragon ever apprenticed with Durzo Blint. I put it together.”

Kylar couldn’t move. Durzo had said it long ago, the truth always comes out. If these kids knew that Kylar was a wetboy and Durzo’s apprentice, there was no telling how long before an enemy knew it. It might have spilled already, or his enemies might never think to ask a bunch of guild rats. There was no way to know.

It wasn’t Kylar’s fault, but “Kylar” had to disappear. His time was finished. If he ever came back to Cenaria, it would have to be as a different man with a different name and different friends or none. Kylar would have to abandon everything, as Durzo had abandoned everything every ten or twenty years. It was the price of immortality.