Black as Master Kell’s right eye.
He squinted to make sure, then called to Gen. When his compatriot didn’t answer, he turned and saw the guard watching a young man—no, a girl in men’s clothes, and strange dull clothes at that—weaving through the crowd toward the palace.
Gen was frowning at her faintly, as if she looked odd, out of place, and she did, but not as odd as the woman with black eyes. Parrish grabbed Gen’s arm and dragged his attention forcefully away.
“Kers?” growled Gen, nearly spilling his wine. What?
“That woman there in blue,” said Parrish, turning back to the crowd. “Her eyes…” But he trailed off. The black-eyed woman was gone.
“Smitten, are you?”
“It’s not that. I swear her eyes—they were black.”
Gen raised a brow and took a sip from his cup.
“Perhaps you’ve done a little too much celebrating after all,” he said, clapping the other guard on the arm. Over his shoulder, Parrish watched the girl in boy’s clothes disappear into a tent before Gen frowned and added, “Looks like you’re not the only one.”
Parrish followed his gaze and saw a man, his back to them, embracing a woman in the middle of the market. The man’s hands were wandering a bit too much, even for a celebration day, and the woman didn’t seem to be enjoying herself. She brought her hands to the man’s chest, as if to push away, but he responded by kissing her deeper. Gen and Parrish abandoned their post and made their way toward the couple. And then, abruptly, the woman stopped struggling. Her hands fell to her sides and her head lolled, and when the man released her a moment later, she swayed on her feet and slumped into a seat. The man, meanwhile, simply turned and walked away, half walking, half stumbling through the crowd.
Parrish and Gen both followed, closing the gap in a slow, steady way so as not to cause alarm. The man appeared and disappeared through the crowd before finally cutting between tents toward the riverbank. The guards picked up their pace and reached the gap right after the man vanished through.
“You there,” called Gen, taking the lead. He always did. “Stop.”
The man heading for the Isle now slowed to a halt.
“Turn around,” ordered Gen when he was nearly to him, one hand on his sword.
The man did. Parrish’s eyes widened as they snagged on the stranger’s face. Two pools, shining and black as river stones at night, sat where eyes should be, the skin around them veined with black. When the man tugged his mouth into a smile, flecks drifted off like ash.
“Asan narana,” he said in a language that wasn’t Arnesian. He held out his hand, and Parrish recoiled when he saw that it was entirely black, the fingertips tapering into charred bone points.
“What in king’s name—” started Gen, but he didn’t have a chance to finish because the man smiled and thrust his blackened hand through the armor and into the guard’s chest.
“Dark heart,” he said, this time in Royal.
Parrish stood frozen with shock and horror as the man, or whatever he was, withdrew his hand, what was left of his fingers wet with blood. Gen crumpled to the ground, and Parrish’s shock shattered into motion. He charged forward, drawing his royal short sword, and thrust the blade into the stomach of the black-eyed monster.
For an instant, the creature looked amused. And then Parrish’s sword began to glow as the spellwork on the enchanted blade took effect and severed the man from his magic. His eyes went wide, the black retreating from them, and from his veins, until he looked more or less like an ordinary man again (albeit a dying one). He drew in a rattling breath and gripped Parrish’s armor—he bore an X, the mark of cutthroats, on the back of his hand—and then he crumbled to ash around Parrish’s blade.
“Sanct,” he swore, staring at the mound of soot as it began to blow away.
And then, out of nowhere, pain blossomed in his back, white-hot, and he looked down to see the tip of a sword protruding from his chest. It slid out with a horrible, wet sound, and Parrish’s knees buckled as his attacker rounded him.
He took a shuddering breath, his lungs filling with blood, and looked up to see Gen looming over him, the blood-slicked blade hanging at his side.
“Why?” whispered Parrish.
Gen gazed down at him with two black eyes and a grim smile. “Asan harana,” he said. “Noble heart.”
And then he raised the sword above his head and swung it down.
ELEVEN
MASQUERADE