Then came Xarius, slinking from the stairwell like a stray patch of darkness, rapiers drawn.
Aarhus advanced—one long, slow stride followed by another—shadowed by Xarius. Kylac found himself stepping protectively in front of his father, hefting his blades.
Aarhus stopped. Though his gaze burned with enmity, a savage grin split his features. “And you thought the boy a lost cause.”
Rohn grunted, his chains clanking with movement. “I nearly had Jedrick do the deed. Loose these irons.”
Kylac blinked, as confused by the strength in his father’s voice as he was by the words. He half turned to find Rohn standing on his own, no longer limp in his shackles.
“A shame he didn’t take Jedrick, too,” said Aarhus. The magistrate stepped nearer, raking a glance at Thumbs. When Kylac snapped toward him, Aarhus stopped.
Xarius snorted. “He doesn’t understand. Look at his face. I doubt he could even tell us where he is.”
“Show him,” said Aarhus.
Xarius grinned before backing toward the stairs. With a reverse thrust, he put a sword through the chest of the unconscious Gaptooth. That drew a startled shout from the waxen-faced Turnip, trussed upon his belly, now fully alert.
“M-m-magistrate. My lord, I—”
A rapier through the back of his neck put an abrupt end to his plea.
Aarhus produced an iron key from a pocket within his robes. “For the master’s manacles. If I may?”
Kylac could not seem to think straight. If the magistrate had come not to harm Rohn…
He felt his arms lowering, sagging beneath the weight of realization. He fell aside a pace, so that he could easily face his father as he did the others. “What scheme is this?”
“The elimination of a troublesome nuisance,” Aarhus replied, closing the distance between himself and Rohn. A long arm reached skyward, fitting his key into the first cuff. “Captain Traeger had become quite rabid of late. I tired of holding his leash.”
“Do you truly believe me so clumsy?” Xarius asked, his tone seething with mockery. “That a scrub girl could note my comings and goings? That you could penetrate my chambers, uninvited, without leaving your blood upon the floor?”
“An assignment,” said Rohn, rubbing his wrists as the second popped free. “Long overdue. Master Aarhus slew his first at the age of seven.”
Their words surrounded Kylac like grit in a funnel cloud…clawing…flaying…Traeger. They had wanted him to kill Traeger. Xarius had goaded him, set him on his way. An assignment, his father called it. To slay his first…
“I’ll admit I doubted you,” Rohn said, while Kylac’s gaze slipped toward the dark pool in which the mutilated body of the captain of the city watch now bathed. “I feared you lacked the fortitude.”
“But all men have it in them,” Aarhus added, placing a reassuring hand on Rohn’s shoulder. “The hunger to take a life, hold it in your palm, and then crush it in your fist. For some, it is buried deeper, is all. But once unleashed…”
Kylac’s gaze snagged upon Traeger’s face, his cleft lip barely noticeable now amid the red wash of his lacerated cheeks. He felt no pride in the act, but neither did he feel remorse. Just the hollow sting of inevitability.
“The first is the hardest,” said Rohn. “Those that follow will become easier and easier.”
“Those that follow?” His words this time, though they sounded to him a stranger’s.
“The time has come to assume your place among us, to lay claim to who and what you are.”
“Seax Lunara,” Kylac whispered. Daggers of the Moon. A fable come to light.
The magistrate inclined his head. “Aarhus Hafoc, I am known, to those of our order.”
“Xarius Talyzar.”
“Rohn Mandrinc, named guildmaster of the Seax Lunara by Ernathian Crennlok.”
So the slain captain had been correct in that, as well. The rest were puppets, his father who pulled their strings. The servants think him guilty…
“By rite of passage,” said Rohn, “choose your name.”
“My name,” Kylac echoed numbly. A mark of initiation. The acceptance of an atrocity committed this night, and those they would have him commit in the future.
“Any you wish,” his father prodded.
Hafoc. Talyzar. Mandrinc. Crennlok. Old Entien names all. Hawk. Wraith. Poison. Dread.