“Hmmph,” Aunt Mea said, looking at Elene. “Well. If you’re finished with your breakfast, why don’t we go meet my son?”
Braen Smith worked in a shop attached to the house. He had his mother’s broad, plain features and wide shoulders. As they approached, he threw a barrel hoop he was shaping onto a stack of similar ones and removed his gloves. “Morning,” he said.
His eyes immediately went to Elene. A quick glance at her scarred face and then a too-appreciative weighing of her assets. It wasn’t the quick up-and-down that men instinctively gave every woman. Kylar wouldn’t have minded that. But this wasn’t a look. It was a linger, and right to Elene’s face. Or rather, right to her breasts.
“Niceta meetcha,” Braen said, sticking his hand out to Kylar. He looked at Kylar, weighing, evaluating. Predictably enough, he tried to crush Kylar’s hand.
A trickle of Talent took care of that. Without a whisper of tension in his face or his forearm, Kylar clamped down on the monstrous paw in his grip and took it right to the edge of breaking. A little more and every bone in the man’s hand would shatter. After a moment, he backed off and merely matched the man, rough hand to rough hand, muscle to muscle, and eye to eye—even if he did have to look up and Braen outweighed him by a third. The panic cleared from Braen’s eyes and Kylar could see him wondering if he’d imagined the initial force of Kylar’s grip.
“Kylar,” Elene muttered through clenched teeth as if he were making a spectacle of himself. But Kylar didn’t break eye contact. There was something being settled here, and if it was primal and barbaric and petty and stupid, it was still important.
Elene didn’t like being ignored. “I suppose next you’ll compare the size of your—” she broke off, embarrassed.
“Good idea,” Kylar said as the man finally released his hand. “What do you say, Braen?” Kylar loosened his belt.
Mercifully, Braen laughed. The rest of them followed, but Kylar still didn’t like him. Braen still didn’t like him, either. Kylar could tell.
“Well, niceta meetcha,” Braen said again. “I got a big order to finish.” He bobbed his head and picked up a hammer, flexing his pained fingers surreptiously.
For the rest of the morning and afternoon, Aunt Mea showed them around Caernarvon. Though it was larger than Cenaria, the city didn’t have the chaotic feel of Kylar’s home. Most streets were paved and wide enough for two wagons and numerous pedestrians to pass at the same time. Vendors who set up shop infringing on that space were so quickly punished that few tried it. Sudden crushes pushed the crowds together whenever two wagons did pass, but there were accepted standards here and had been long enough that the wagons all traveled in six-inch-deep ruts in the paving stones. Even the sewers in the streets passed through pipes, with grates at intervals for the collection of new sewage. It made the city almost not smell like a city.
Castle Caernarvon dominated the north side. It was sometimes called the Blue Giant for its bluish granite. The blue walls were seamless, as flat and smooth as glass except for the numerous arrow slits and murder holes at the gates. Two hundred years ago, Aunt Mea said, eighteen men had held the castle for six days against five thousand.
Around the castle, of course, were the great houses. The city got dirtier and more crowded the closer it came to the docks. As in most places, the rich and noble liked to live away from everyone else and everyone else liked to live as close to the rich as they could. Here though, that was one line that was not regulated—unlike Cenaria’s poor, who were legally bound to the west side of the Plith. Those who made the money to move could do so here. The possibility for advancement seemed to energize the entire city.
Caernarvon was the gold and glittering fools’ gold of hope. Its vice was greed. In his own imagination, every merchant here was the emperor of the next trading empire. Cenaria was the smothering, stinking blanket of despair. Its vice was envy. No one built empires there. They just wanted a piece of someone else’s.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Elene said.
“It’s different here,” Kylar said. “Even before Khalidor came, Cenaria was sick. This is better. I think we can make a home here.”
Gods, he was about to become one of those merchants he’d been despising. Not that he