He’d washed up on the rocks on the Vos Island side under East Kingsbridge, directly across the river from the Jadwin estate. The bank of the river where he stood was also the foundation of the castle wall, so to go upstream, he had to half climb and half swim. It took him ten exhausting minutes to get to a point where he could climb out of the water again.
The docks where he’d seen Roth were at the northern tip of the island. To get there, he’d have to either continue through the water and the boulders along the river, or he’d have to go through the squat, stinking building that covered the Vos Island Crack.
Kylar didn’t think he could make it over the rocks for another ten or twenty minutes. Even if Roth were still there when he arrived, Kylar was too weak to go that way. His nose had finally stopped bleeding, and he’d wrapped his hand so it wasn’t bleeding too badly, but if he tried to swim, it would bleed again. His hand throbbed and his whole body felt weak from the blood he’d lost.
If it were any other night, Kylar would have left. He was in no shape to attempt an assassination. But logic didn’t mean much. Not tonight. Not after what Roth had done.
The building on the Vos Island Crack was built of stone in a square, thirty paces on a side and only a single story above ground. It was supposed to be a marvel of engineering, but Kylar knew little about it. He supposed nobles weren’t impressed by a marvel that smelled like rotten eggs.
It was stupidity to go on. Kylar was so exhausted he could barely even think of using his Talent. It took a certain kind of strength of its own to do that. He propped himself against the heavy door, gathering his strength. He was still holding Retribution. Looking down at the blade, he stared at the word etched into the blade. JUSTICE. Except it didn’t say “justice” now. He blinked.
MERCY, it said in the same silver script, exactly where it used to say JUSTICE in black. On the hilt, perpendicular to that, now also silver where it had been ka’kari-black, it said VENGEANCE.
The ka’kari was gone. Kylar was so tired-stupid that for a moment he despaired. Then he remembered where it had gone. It went into my skin? Just how tired was he? Surely that must have been his imagination. A hallucination.
He turned his hand over and black sweat suddenly poured from his palm like oil, fluid for an instant, then suddenly congealing into a warm metal sphere. It was midnight black now, utterly featureless. A black ka’kari. Logan’s stories had mentioned only six: white, green, brown, silver, red, and blue. Emperor Jorsin Alkestes and his archmagus Ezra had given them to six champions, slighting one of Jorsin’s best friends, who then betrayed him. After the war, the six ka’kari had been objects of great lust, and those who carried them died quickly.
Kylar tried to remember the name of the betrayer. It was Acaelus Thorne. Jorsin hadn’t slighted him after all. By pretending to slight him, Jorsin had given his best friend a way to escape—and keep an artifact out of enemy hands. Because no one had known of the black’s existence, Acaelus hadn’t been hunted. Acaelus had survived.
Durzo had signed his letter “A Thorne.”
“Oh, gods,” Kylar breathed. He couldn’t think about it now, couldn’t stop or he wouldn’t be able to start moving again. “Help me,” Kylar said to the ka’kari. “Please. Serve me.” He squeezed the ka’kari and it dissolved, rushing along his skin, up over his clothes, over his face, over his eyes. He flinched, but he could still see perfectly—still see through the dark as if it were natural. He looked down at his hands, his black sword, and saw them shimmer with magic and disappear. They weren’t just cloaked in shadows, as wetboys cloaked themselves. They disappeared. Kylar wasn’t a shadow like before. He was invisible.
There was no time to marvel; he had work to do. It had been ten minutes or more since he’d seen Roth on the dock. If Roth was going to die tonight, Kylar needed to move. He picked the lock and stepped inside.
The inside of the building was stiflingly hot. Wooden catwalks surrounded a mammoth central chimney fifteen paces in diameter. It was made of broad sheets of metal riveted together