belt. 'You murdered Rath in cold blood?'
'And if I did?'
'Then I can see why Myrin has left you.' She reached across the table for his wrist but he drew away. 'Ah, Kalen! You and I know too much darkness for a soft thing like her.'
'Yes,' Kalen murmured. 'I suppose we do.'
She narrowed her eyes. 'Are you-and this is my last question- here to fight me, rather than claim me for your own?'
Kalen said nothing.
Fayne sighed. 'Of course. Well-it would have been joyous, saer, but I can't say as I disagree. You and I were not meant for one another. Irreconcilable philosophical differences.'
Kalen shrugged. 'I suppose this is where I ask how you intend to kill me.' He gestured to the wine goblets- hers empry, his full. 'I suppose one of those was poisoned.'
'Mayhap.' Fayne looked him up and down. 'You seem to be alive.',
'This likely would have been some game of yours,' Kalen continued. 'You'd suggest we both drink, and let me choose which wine to take for myself. You just had to decide which I would drink-and poison that cup.' He gestured to them. 'Apologies if I spoiled your plan.'
'And I apologize for insulting you earlier,' she said. 'Mayhap the gods did endow you with some brain after all-just not enough. You've missed one little detail.' When Kalen narrowed his eyes warily, she laughed. 'I'll tell you for free-a free lesson in Waterdeep, aye?'
'What could you teach me, Fayne?'
'Every thief,' she said, 'knows that the first rule of thievery is misdirection.'
When Kalen frowned, Fayne gestured to his chair. The paladin reached down tentatively, as though to scratch an itch, and felt one of the tiny, poison-coated needles that were stabbing into his legs, buttocks, and back-needles Fayne had placed there an hour gone.
The irony, she hoped, was not lost on him. Because of his sickness, he'd not have been able to feel them pierce his flesh when he sat down, and by then it was far too late.
'Farewell, lover,' Fayne said. She gathered her feet off the table and stood. 'I would have liked to share a tumble with you again, but
… we never would have come to pass.' Then, dipping low to give him one last eyeful down her bodice, she claimed his wine goblet and drank. When she was done, she licked her lips. 'You and I are too much alike, and yet not enough.'
She started to go, but Kalen laid his bandaged right hand on her wrist. The hand was shattered-only partly healed-and had no strength to stay her, but she stopped anyway.
'You're sweet,' she said. 'But with that much poison in you, you won't even be wakeful but for a few more heartbeats-and your heart will stop in a ten-count. Hardly time for-'
He started to rise. He came away from the needles, leaking trickles of blood, and rose before her like a black specter. She saw, in the folds of his stained gray cloak, the edge of a watchsword, which he drew into his bare left hand.
'There's-there's no way you could fight off that poison,' said Fayne. 'Unless-'
'Unless I managed to restrain myself'-he rose fully to his feet and kicked the table aside-'took Rath to the Watch instead of killing him'-with a flick of his wrist, he laid the watchsword across her throat-'and retained the favor of my three-faced god.'
And thus speaking, Kalen began to glow with silver-white light, as though his skin itself was aflame, as though a deity had chosen that moment to smile upon him-and gaze through him. In the face of that divine radiance, the other patrons stared, transfixed.
'Well.' Fayne trembled a little bit, then smiled. 'Well played, Kalen-you really are a cold-hearted bastard.' Her eyes flicked down to the steel he held at her throat, then up to him. 'And you saved your soul to spend on me? I'm flattered.'
He looked at her impassively.
She smiled bewitchingly. 'I've waited many years for someone as clever as you-a foe who could defeat me. I'm glad he was so handsome, too.'
Kalen's eyes were cold.
'Come now, lover-don't you want me?' She stepped forward, letting his blade cut a tiny red trail along her throat. She purred. 'Don't you want to hurt me? I've hurt you, haven't I-killed your little sister and chased off your blue-haired tart?'
Her face was almost against his. Only the sword, keen enough to slit her throat with a twitch of Kalen's arm-one false step-stopped her from kissing him.
'When you think about that,' Fayne said, 'when you look at me-you don't have even just a little hate in your heart?' She tapped Kalen's chest. 'That big, strong, dying heart?'
Kalen tightened his hand on the sword hilt.
He shoved her back. She fell to the floor and looked up at him, eyes and hair wild, sneering as he stepped forward. Her heart was pounding and she knew this was the end.
'No,' he said. He sheathed the sword at his hip and turned his gaze aside.
Fayne trembled. She didn't dare move-he could whirl and open her throat at any instant. But he just stood, silent and still. Death might as well have taken him as he stood-his sickness crept up and slain him. She panted on the floor behind him, blood trickling down her heaving chest from the wound she had inflicted on herself.
Fayne rose. She dusted her leathers and smoothed her hair.
'Well, then-farewell, Kalen, though I don't expect you will.' She winked. 'Cellica's dead, Myrin has undoubtedly left, and you just pushed away the only other woman who could have made you happy. But I suppose you'll always have the memories.'
She started to walk away.
'Fayne,' Kalen commanded. 'One last question.' She turned. His back was to her. 'Yes, lover mine?' 'What's your real name?' She pursed her lips. 'I told you, it's-'
He whirled and smashed her nose with a left hook. She landed on her backside, dazed and dizzy and coughing.
'Just because I don't hate you,' Kalen said, 'doesn't mean I'm letting you go.'
Fayne tried to retort, but her face exploded in pain.
Kalen pulled a set of manacles out of his belt. 'You and Rath might just share a cell,' he said. 'Perhaps you'll have a nice conversation about how you betrayed him-but I doubt it.'
Fayne only moaned on the floor, clutching her bloody face.
'No clever quip?' Kalen sheathed his sword. 'Fayne, I'm crushed.'
Drizzling blood from her broken nose, she smiled up at him with surprisingly sharp incisors. Her eyes drifted up his frame, lingering in places.
'I've had better, you know,' she said.
Kalen smiled. 'So have I.'
FORTY
Fayne hadn't stopped smiling all day. She'd smiled silently when the Watch stripped her of her possessions, including her mother's wand and her ritual amulet, crippling her magic. She'd pressed herself hard against each of them in turn, inviting with her eyes, but none of them had taken her offer. Pity.
She'd smiled silently when they asked for her name-then again when the stuffed peacock from the Watchful Order of Magists had threatened to call the Blackstaff to interrogate her personally. He didn't realize that the red- haired half-elf was a false face, though, so he had not tried to break her transmutation. Thank Beshaba for small blessings.
She'd smiled silently, regardless of how much it hurt, when the gray-faced priest of Ilmater set and bandaged her broken nose. She did lick his hand once, because it amused her. She loved the look in his eyes-desire warring
