Shadowbane

wanted to talk. So talk.” When she could not form words, he added: “For instance, you might tell me why you seek me.”

“I wish to know what business of the Lady brings you to Luskan.”

“My own,” he said.

Eden swallowed. It was hard to think in his presence. “Might I aid you somehow?”

“No,” he said. “What you can do is not cross my path. In particular, leave the girl Myrin Darkdance be. The others-feel free to dispose of them as you see fit.”

“The girl?” She had plans for that one, for which her wealthy outlander patron was paying her quite well. “But why, my lord?”

“I know all about your business with her and I know all about your employer,” he said. “You’ll leave her be or unpleasant consequences will follow.”

He was beautiful and he was terrible, but no one threatened Eden of the Clearlight, favored servant of the ladies luck, in her own chambers. A wave of anger rose and washed away her fascination with the Horned One, only to replace it with cold scheming.

“What will you give me, then, to ensure my loyalty?” She reached out and laid her hand on his chest. A moment ago, that had seemed like the height of blasphemy. Now, he was just a man, and she knew how to handle men. Her eyes dipped along his body. “Or perhaps I can give you something?”

His smile radiated cold. “Your mockery of a church is a disappointment to the Lady,” he said. “Count it a blessing I don’t murder you right here and now.”

“Do it, if you wish,” she said. “I like it rough.”

“No doubt.” He drew from his coast sleeve a bound and sealed scroll, one that appeared too big to fit there. “Here is your bribe, Eden One-Eye.”

“A scroll?” Eden sneered. “And here I offer myself to you, Chosen of the Lady.”

He stared at her a long, long moment. She felt, suddenly, the weight of his will arrayed against her-he had attempted some sort of magic. It drained away into her two-faced coin, however, leaving her untouched.

“I had forgotten,” he said, acknowledging the coin. “A clever artifice.”

He glanced down at her braced leg, which chose just that moment to seize up. She cried out in pain and fell back onto her divan. In falling, her brace snapped neatly in two, the metal biting into her flesh.

It hurt-gods how it hurt-and yet she found it exhilarating. She had seen him work no magic and yet somehow, misfortune obeyed his whim. What a blessing!

The Horned One spoke. “I have lived far longer than you, child,” he said. “And in all my centuries, I have loved only one woman. And you are not she.”

Then he was gone, as though he’d never been.

Eden fell prone on her divan, stunned. The Horned One himself, in her private chambers! It didn’t seem real, that such a minor servant of the Lady should be so honored. His presence filled her with a pleasure she could not explain.

Yet, he had offended her grievously-rejecting her and making demands on her. For this, she would have revenge on him, favorite of the Lady or no.

With trembling fingers, Eden opened the scroll and scanned its contents. At first, the dark runes startled her. Then her excitement grew. And grew.

So the Horned One didn’t want her to impede the girl-Eden could cope with that instruction. But gold was gold, and the outlander who wanted her had promised much of that. She simply had to keep her hands clean of the business: time for Toytere to do it all himself. If she’d been right about the Fury inside of him, she knew just how to do it. This scroll would help.

But first-

“Come,” she called.

A secret door opened, admitting her favorite sentry. Compared to the Horned One, he was a mere brute, but at least he was hers. “Me lady?”

“I’ve just had a brush with death and it has left me … unfulfilled.” Eden clapped her hands sharply. “Take off your breeches.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

26 KYTHORN (HIGHSUN)

When Kalen returned to the Drowned Rat, the sun was high. The gang ruffians were mostly there, bragging of conquests that night or keeping a low cloak to hide their failures. Toytere took his leave to take care of one thiefly matter or another. Any other day, Kalen might have considered watching him, but at the moment, he had another goal.

Eden. Manipulative, scheming, dangerous Eden.

Eden, who had let slip no opportunity to frame him for stealing food, to add rotted rats to his stew, or to put live spiders in his bed.

Eden, who had ever hated him for reasons he could not name.

Despite all this, he’d loved her after a fashion-really, he’d had little choice. Their mother had scarcely known his name most of the time.

Kalen had been very young at the point their mother drank and drugged herself to death. Rather than stay to care for a brother she’d never loved, Eden had charmed and slept her way into an adventuring party and turned her back on Luskan. Kalen, then only a lad of six, had fallen in with a harsh crowd, including Toytere with his filed teeth. If he hadn’t met Cellica-Toytere’s compassionate and sensible sister-he might have become just as bad as Eden.

That Eden had returned and now ran the greatest of Luskan’s Five troubled him to no end. The fact that her gang held a semblance of respectability about it made resisting them all the harder. The Eden he’d seen today, with her protestations of reverence in “the Lady,” crossed his earliest memories of her. Perhaps she’d truly changed.

Perhaps.

“Her Majesty said what?” one of the Rats shouted.

Kalen turned his attention to the bar. There, Flick engaged one of the Dead Rats in a battle of will.

“You’re to take these here turnips and things down to Old Shim’s at the dock,” Flick said. “Them youngins is low on food, what with the plague and all.”

“But-but them’s our rations!”

Rations. Kalen’s stomach growled even if he didn’t feel hunger. He welcomed the reminder to eat. Flick had taken charge of the larder-a better quartermaster Kalen had never met outside the Guard.

What caught his attention, however, was what Flick said next.

“Orders of Her Majesty,” Flick said. “You take this food and you share it, understand? And you don’t demand no payment, neither.”

The Dead Rat stared at her as though she’d grown a second and third head. Kalen couldn’t blame him. Generosity? From the gang?

“Now get.” Flick shoved the crate into his arms. “Before I gets me cudgel!”

The man ran, crate bouncing against his chest. Flick gave a contented smile, which evaporated as soon as she saw Kalen watching. “Bah!” she said.

“I’ll be godsburned,” Kalen said. “She really did it.”

Myrin had spoken of taking a stand-of teaching the Rats to do the right thing-but he’d never dreamed she could actually do it. He felt a lightness in his chest, stirred by Myrin’s own perseverance. Was it truly possible?

Then he remembered Eden.

He had to get Myrin out of the city soon.