“Yes.” Zolin leaned forward with sudden zeal so that the moonlight touched his features in feathery strokes: Sebastian saw glittering eyes, a hawkish nose, a sagging chin. “You speak true. I want her death to be one of those—what did you call them?—acts of pure fucking depravity that bought you your reputation. That is why I hired you and not some nameless riff-raff. How you do it is not my concern, only that you will, and do so with your signature flair for the violent, the gruesome, and the deplorable.”
He stabbed a gnarled finger on the table, as Sebastian had with his dagger. “I hired you, Bloody Bastian, because I want Selena Koren to suffer.”
Sebastian fought to keep his features as placid as a becalmed sea, but Zolin’s eagerness for this murder brought bile to the back of Sebastian’s throat. He pushed it down; down, down into the depths of six years’ worth of spilled blood.
One last job. This one, and then I’m done.
“You have doubts,” Zolin began.
“No…”
“You do,” the High Vicar said and his sleepy, slurring words took on a sharp, biting edge, “Usually, I can read a man as if his inner heart and soul were spilled upon parchment for my perusal. But you…you’re a wily one. Walled off. A closed man, one might say of you.”
Sebastian shifted in his seat, suddenly acutely aware of the other two Bazira behind Zolin. Powerful shadow adherents, it was said, sometimes could delve into a man’s mind; read his secrets. Psyonicists, they called them. Zolin was one, surely. Sebastian wondered if any one of the two Bazira in the room were as well, attempting to read him now; crawling around in his mind like thieves searching for something shiny and valuable amid the dark clutter.
No, I’d feel it. My thoughts are mine.
“But I’m not all together empty-handed,” Zolin said, jarring Sebastian. “Would you care to hear what I have deduced?”
“I can’t wait.”
“You want my gold. No, you need my gold,” Zolin said and the slight slur in to his words was gone. “Your boots are shabby and so is your coat. It could be a ruse, a disguise to keep me guessing about your situation, but I don’t think so. I think you haven’t worked in some time—those four years, perhaps—and not because you’ve been drunk on a beach. I think you’re not working by choice. Losing your taste for it, is my thinking. You killed those two young fools I set on you, but only after you let them go first. So here you are,” Zolin said. “One big job. Maybe your final job. Maybe you’re after retiring; hanging up Bloody Bastian’s bloody boots for bloody good.”
The High Vicar chortled then, to watch Sebastian’s face grow pale. A slow smile spread over Jude’s face behind him.
“So to that end, I’m going to have to change the terms of our agreement.” Zolin emptied his wine glass and set it down hard enough to crack its base.
“Is that a fact?” Sebastian said, not bothering to hide his anger and hoping that anger concealed the fear that iced his heart. “You promised me four hundred gold doubloons. Two hundred now and two hundred when the job is done. That is standard.”
“It is standard. Our situation is not. I’m going to pay you just enough to purchase whatever supplies you might need for your voyage and not a penny more. You will sail to cut off Selena Koren’s passage. You will follow her or join her, befriend her or fuck her, and after she has killed Accora, you will kill her. And that’s it.”
Sebastian barked a harsh laugh. “Yes, you’re right. That’s it. This meeting is over and thanks for wasting my bloody time…”
“Sit down,” the High Vicar said when the assassin rose to his feet, and his adherents drew their swords. “I wasn’t finished. Sit.”
Sebastian clenched his teeth. “The last man who talked to me as if I were a dog, died with a sword up his arse for a tail, and with his tongue hanging out of his fucking throat.”
“Chilling,” the High Vicar said, “and I’m relieved to hear a little violence out of you. Please sit, my young friend. I haven’t yet told you our new arrangement. I believe you will find it acceptable.”
Sebastian sat. Slowly.
“I am in quite a quandary,” Zolin said. “I don’t believe there is anyone on Lunos but you who can kill that Aluren bitch, except for Bacchus himself, and that is not a battle I wish to risk. However, I cannot trust you. There is weakness in you. A churning tempest in your little black heart. A hesitation—”
“I have no hesitation—”
“Liar,” Zolin snapped. “Your olive coloring speaks of the Forgotten Isles where the Zak’reth committed the worst of their war crimes. Your most violent atrocities were perpetrated on them. Selena Koren killed many thousands more. Therefore, you might think twice before killing the woman who wiped out their armada, ended their hopes of conquest, and sent the few survivors back to their islands like whipped dogs. You might,” Zolin said, “admire the bitch for such a deed.”
“I told you,” Sebastian said, “my word is my oath.”
“And I say your oath is whale shit. But your talent is worth the risk. That is why when you bring the heads of Selena Koren and Accora to me in a bag and tumble them out at my feet, I shall give you eight hundred gold doubloons. I will pay you for Accora’s death no matter if she met it at your hands or not.”
Eight hundred. Sebastian fought to keep his expression blank. I could buy my own atoll…
Zolin lunged forward, jarring Sebastian from his thoughts.
“But if you betray me, I will send every last Bazira to scour the oceans until you’re found, and when I do, believe me, you will consider death the richest remuneration.” Zolin smiled. “You will find, Bloody Bastian, I can be pretty fucking depraved too.”
Sebastian’s palms were greased with sweat and his breath was short. The chamber was wide and drafty, and yet he felt just as trapped as if they’d put him in that cell. He could feel the old man’s triumph.
“Do you accept?”
He’s right. He’s right about all of it. Do I accept? Do I agree to kill the woman who did what I have done in my dreams a thousand nights? The woman who laid waste to the Zak’reth?
“Sebastian Vaas. The Black Star. Bloody, bloody Bastian, killed the captain…” Zolin’s singing was like a small animal strangling to death. Then he ceased his tune and leaned forward.
“Do… you… accept?”
One last job.
There was a heavy silence. Sebastian could feel the gaze of the other Bazira guards on him, the young man and woman.
They’re laughing at me. I should kill them all...
“I accept.”
Mutiny
The ship rocked gently. A wooden creak accompanied every dip of the prow and slants of light infiltrated the planks in narrows shafts. Selena knelt on the floor so that one ray fell across her face and another her hands. But the tingle of heat was faint along her skin.
Thank you, my god. Thank you for Hearing me, at long last, and setting me on this course.
She thought to ask the god for peace in her heart as well, but pushed the thought away and sought to fill her soul with gratitude. But since departing Isle Lillomet six days before, every morning aboard the Grey Gull was the same: waking with a surge of hope that the god Heard her at last, but with vestiges of the Alliance meeting clinging to that hope like a murky shadow.
“What say you, Paladin?” Celestine asked.