“Yes, but I was lying to Juval. The lady’s priests weren’t looking for me—my grandfather hadn’t been an active priest of Thaena since before I was born.”
“He’s not the only one who speaks to her.” She paused, as if deciding to change tactics. “I am well familiar with Darzin D’Mon, the one you call ‘Pretty Boy.’ Do you know why?”
Without waiting for my answer, she continued. “He once sought access to our order. He once sought to be part of the Black Brotherhood, to seek solace from his imagined pains and injustices in the embrace of the Lady of Death. She refused him as an unworthy suitor and, like an unworthy suitor who would force himself on a lady who does not love him, he obsesses over her. He glories in murder, each one an offering to a goddess who does not seek them, each innocent life a rotted rose left before Thaena’s gate. Had you been able to go through with your grand plan, he would have added another flower to his macabre bouquet.”
“You still don’t know that.”
“Oh, I do.” She shook her head. “At least once a week, sometimes more, your ‘Pretty Boy’ goes to the Winding Sheet in Velvet Town. As someone who grew up in that part of the Capital, I trust you are familiar with that particular brothel and its reputation?”
My mouth tasted like ash. “I know what they sell.”
“Once a week, ‘Pretty Boy’ makes a special request, one difficult to fulfill, so it requires the services of a priest of Caless to make sure that the young men provided are exotic: gold-haired and blue-eyed. Just like you. Temporary, but the illusion need not last for more than a few hours. Would you like to know what ‘Pretty Boy’ does with his pretty boys? How many mangled flowers he has left on the lady’s doorstep?”
I looked away. “No.” Damn me though, I imagined well enough. The catamites and whores of the Winding Sheet aren’t rented, but purchased.
One does not rent something whose purpose is to be destroyed.
I shuddered.
Khaemezra stood up. “Please think on my words. We are not your enemy, and you are in dire need of friends. Sooner or later, you will have to trust someone.”
After she left, I sat there with my fist wrapped around the Stone of Shackles and thought about my options. I had no way to tell what had happened to my real family, if Ola still lived. I had no way to tell what had been done to those I loved while I traveled in chains to Kishna-Farriga, or what might still happen while I was under the Black Brotherhood’s control. Training, Khaemezra had said. Maybe they would train me. Maybe not.
More than anything, I wondered how much of what I had just been told was truth, and how much was lie, and if I had any way to know the difference.
10: DEMON IN THE STREETS
(Talon’s story)
The sights, smells, and sounds of the City assaulted Kihrin the moment he and his father left the shaded comfort of the Shattered Veil. The late afternoon sun was a red ball of fire in the summer sky, heating the white stone streets of Velvet Town to an oven’s warmth.
Those streets were empty. The afternoon was too hot for whores and drinking. Anyone with sense was sequestered in whatever shade they could find. Wispy clouds teased the teal sky, but it would be months before those clouds exploded into the monsoon season’s fury. Until then, the Capital City roasted in its own juices.
Kihrin enjoyed the heat himself, and he preferred to travel when few people were about: early morning before the dawn or late afternoon when everyone napped. In the first case, it meant less chance of witnesses to Kihrin’s burglaries, and in the second case, the empty streets made navigating with Surdyeh easier.
Surdyeh was quiet as they turned down Peddler’s Lane, a shortcut to Simillion’s Crossing,* where their patron Landril kept his penthouse and his mistresses.
Kihrin knew something was bothering his father, but he could only guess at the cause. Surdyeh did hate it when he thought Kihrin was spending time in velvet-girl cribs. He always made a point of reminding Kihrin that the girls at the Shattered Veil Club weren’t there of their own free will. Surdyeh would then follow that by stating—with a significant look in Kihrin’s direction—that any man who exploited such circumstances for his own pleasure was no man at all.
Surdyeh was a hypocrite. His father had no problem taking Ola’s metal or performing in front of the men who came to the brothel. He passed judgment on every customer without giving any consideration to the fact the velvet girls and boys needed that business to earn their freedom. And Ola was even worse: for all her talk about how she had been a slave herself once, she still bought slaves and she still whored them out to anyone willing to put enough metal in her pockets.
And Butterbelly had wondered why Kihrin wanted to get out.
Kihrin scowled as he remembered his father’s taunt, that Ola spoiled him like a prince. Kihrin couldn’t be Ogenra. It wasn’t possible. He knew it wasn’t possible because he didn’t look Quuros, which meant he didn’t look like Quuros royalty either. He knew it wasn’t possible too because someone—a friend, or enemy of his “royal” family—would have come looking for him.
Mostly, it wasn’t possible because if Ola had had the slightest inkling he originated from a Royal House, she’d have turned him in for the reward years ago. She may have helped raise him; she may have taught him everything he ever knew about tricking a gull; she may have been his introduction to the Shadowdancers; she may have been his closest thing to a mother—but he would never underestimate her greed. Ola Nathera’s number one priority in life was Ola Nathera, and anyone who failed to remember that deserved everything they got.
He wished he were Ogenra though, if just for Morea’s sake.
Kihrin cringed when he thought of Morea. He hadn’t wanted their conversation to turn out like that. He’d meant to be suave, to be charming. Instead, he’d turned on her at the first sign her interest was in any way ulterior. He’d lashed out at her when he liked her. He really liked her.
She hated him now and he deserved it.
He snapped back to awareness as he felt his father release his arm. He turned to see what was wrong. Had a pickpocket been foolish enough to try something? As he turned, he continued walking—and slammed into a wall.
A wall? In the middle of Peddler’s Lane?
Kihrin heard shocked gasps from the few pedestrians still on the streets. His eyes focused on the white wall suddenly before him. Its stone bricks were rounded from age and tinged with green moss. Kihrin stared, not understanding how a wall had materialized in the middle of his shortcut. The wall stank too: seaweed and sulfur and old, stale sex.
A purple vein throbbed over the surface of a brick, pulsing where the rock burrowed in to form a small round recess. Then the stone rippled.
He inhaled sharply and looked up. He wasn’t looking at a wall; he was looking at a stomach.