slowed as it approached Durzo’s knee as if it were sinking into a spring, then bounced back, spinning him hard and throwing him in a tangle to the floor.
“Do you see what just happened?” Durzo asked.
“You kicked my ass again,” Kylar said.
“Before that.”
“I almost hit you,” Kylar said.
“You fooled me and you would have destroyed me, but I used my Talent and you still refuse to use yours. Why?”
Because I’m broken. Since meeting Drissa Nile four years ago, Kylar had thought a hundred times about telling Durzo Blint what she’d told him: he didn’t have a conduit, and it couldn’t be fixed. But the rules had always been clear. Kylar became a wetboy, or he died. And as Blint had just proved again, Kylar wouldn’t be a wetboy without the Talent. Telling Blint the truth had always seemed like a quick way to die. Kylar had tried everything to get his Talent to work or to learn about anything that might help, but had found nothing.
Blint breathed deeply. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. “It’s time for some truth, Kylar. You’re a good fighter. Deficient still with pole arms and clubs and crossbows and—” He was starting to lecture but noticed it. “Regardless, you’re as good at hand-to-hand fighting and with those Ceuran hand-and-a-half swords you like as any fighter I’ve seen. Today you would’ve had me. You won’t win next time, but you’ll start winning. Your body knows what to do, and your mind has got it mostly figured out, too. In the next few years, your body will get a bit faster, a bit stronger, and you’ll get cleverer by half. But your weapons training is finished, Kylar. The rest is practice.”
“And?” Kylar asked.
“Follow me. I’ve got something that may help you.”
Kylar followed Blint to his workroom. This one was smaller than the one Azoth had first seen in Blint’s old safe house, but at least this house had doors between the animals’ pens and the work area. It smelled much better. It was also familiar now. The books lining the shelves were like old friends. He and Blint had even added dozens of recipes to them. In the past nine years, he had come to appreciate Blint’s mastery of poisons.
Every wetboy used poisons, of course. Hemlock, and blood flower, and mandrake root, and ariamu were all local and fairly deadly. But Blint knew hundreds of poisons. There were entire pages of his books crossed out, notes scrawled in Durzo’s tight angular hand, “Fool. Dilutes the poison.” Other entries were amended, from how long it took for the poison to take effect to what the best methods for delivery were, to how to keep the plants alive in foreign climes.
Master Blint picked up a box. “Sit.”
Kylar sat at the high table, propping an elbow on the wood and holding his chin. Blint upended the box in front of him.
A white snake slid onto the table with a thump. Kylar barely had time to register what it was before it struck at his face. He saw its mouth open, huge, fangs glittering. He was moving back, but too slowly.
Then the snake disappeared and Kylar was falling backward off the stool. He landed flat on his back but bounced up to his feet in an instant.
Blint was holding the snake behind the head. He had grabbed it out of the air while it was striking. “Do you know what this is, Kylar?”
“It’s a white asp.” It was one of the most deadly snakes in the world. They were small, rarely growing longer than a man’s forearm, but those they bit died within seconds.
“No, it’s the price of failure. Kylar, you fight as well as any non-Talented man I’ve ever seen. But you’re no wetboy. You’ve mastered the poisons; you know the techniques of killing. Your reaction speed is peerless; your instincts are good. You hide well, disguise well, fight well. But doing those things well is shit, it’s nothing. An assassin does those things well. That’s why assassins have targets. Wetboys have deaders. Why do we call them deaders? Because when we take a contract, the rest of their short lives is a formality. You have the Talent, Kylar, but you aren’t using it. Won’t use it. You’ve seen a little of what I have to teach you, but I can’t teach it to you until you tap your Talent.”
“I know. I know,” Kylar said, refusing to meet his master’s gaze.