you weren’t my first choice.” He stopped abruptly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jarl wouldn’t meet his eye. “I didn’t mean—”
“What were you about to say?” Kylar said in a dangerous tone.
“We had to be sure, Kylar. We were very respectful, I want you to know that. It was Momma K’s idea. He used to be immortal, we had to make sure . . .”
“You dug up my master’s corpse?” Kylar demanded.
“We put it—him—back just how you’d buried him.” Jarl winced. “It was maybe a week after the invasion—”
“You dug him up while I was still in the city?”
“We couldn’t tell you beforehand, and afterward there was no reason to. Momma K said the body would be there, that Durzo had given his immortality to you, but when she saw him. . . . It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, Kylar. I mean, I was practically raised by the woman and I’ve never seen her like that. Hysterical, weeping and screaming—here we are, in the middle of the cloudy night, we’d paddled out to VosIsland with oars wrapped in wool, and she starts wailing, out of her mind. I was so sure a patrol would come that I wanted to get off the island immediately, but she wouldn’t leave until he was just how you left him.”
Like Kylar cared that Durzo be left on that damned rock. If they were going to dig him up, they could have at least brought him. . . . Where? Home? What home did Durzo Blint ever have?
“How’d he look?” Kylar asked quietly.
“Shit. He looked like he’d been in the ground a week, what do you think?”
Of course he did. Dammit, Master Blint, why’d you give me your immortality? Were you just sick of living? Why didn’t you tell me anything? But then, maybe he had told him in the note he’d given Kylar: the note that had been soaked with blood, illegible. “You want me to break into the Hole and save Logan?”
“Do you know who the Godking keeps as his concubines? Young girls from noble families. Prefers virgins. He guesses how much humiliation and debasement each girl can take. Puts them in tower rooms with balconies where all the railings have been torn off so the jump beckons every day. It’s a game for him.”
Kylar kept his voice hard. “Get to the point.”
“He took Serah and Mags Drake. Serah killed herself in the first week. Mags is still there.”
Serah and Mags were practically Kylar’s sisters. Mags had always been his pal. Always quick with a laugh, always smiling. He’d been so self-absorbed since the coup that he’d barely thought of them.
Jarl said, “I want you to rescue Logan, and then I want you to assassinate the Godking.”
“Is that all?” Coldly amused. It was a tone Kylar had heard Durzo use a hundred times. “Let me guess, Logan first because my odds with the Godking aren’t so great?”
“That’s right,” Jarl said angrily. “That’s how I have to think, Kylar. I’m fighting a war, and people better than us are dying in it every day. And you’re sitting around because of what some girl thinks?”
“Don’t you talk about Elene.”
“Or what? You’ll breathe heavily on me? You’re the dumbass who swore off violence. Yes, I know about that. Let me tell you something. Roth made a lot of people miserable. I’m glad you killed him, all right? He fucked me up bad. But he doesn’t hold a candle to his father.” Jarl swore. “Look at yourself! I know this hit is impossible. I’m sending you after a god. But if anyone in the world can do it, it’s you. You were made for this, Kylar. Do you think you made it through all the shit you made it through so you can sell hangover potions? Some things are bigger than your happiness, Kylar. You can give hope to an entire nation.”
“It’ll only cost me everything,” Kylar whispered. His face was gray.
“You’re an immortal. There’ll be other girls.”
Kylar gave him a disgusted look.
Jarl’s expression changed instantly. “I’m sorry. I guess there will be other Godkings and other Shingas too. I just . . . we need you. Logan will die if you don’t come. So will Mags, and so will a lot of other people you’ll never know.”
It would have been easier if he disagreed with anything Jarl said. Kylar had asked Momma K, “Can a man change?” Here was his answer, and it sucked the life right out of him. “All right,” Kylar said. “I’ll