reddening her lips and cheeks, lining her eyes to make them look larger. Silver earrings went in her ears, and a matching necklace around her neck. Caina wished the dress had a lower neckline, but the Istarish were more conservative in their dress than the people of the Empire or New Kyre. When Caina finished, she stepped back, examined herself in the mirror, and nodded.
Kylon was staying at one of the more respectable inns within the Old Quarter, disguised as a Kyracian merchant. Caina would go to the inn, and she would find an excuse to go someplace alone with him.
And then…
And then she would see what happened. Perhaps nothing. Maybe they would simply talk and share a meal, and that would be that.
Caina was pretty sure that would not be the only thing that happened if they were alone together.
She put down her hairbrush, her hand trembling a little, partly from fear, partly from excitement. Perhaps this was folly, but she did not care. There would be dark days ahead, she knew, full of pain and loss. Right now, though…right now she wanted to go to Kylon.
She wanted that very badly, and she thought he felt the same way.
There was only one way to find out.
Caina took a deep breath, checked her reflection one more time, and donned a pair of high-heeled sandals. It would be unpleasant to walk in the damned things, but it was not far to the inn in the Old Quarter. She slipped out of her room, went down the back stairs of the House of Agabyzus, and pushed open the door to the old courtyard behind the coffee house. The fountain with its entrance to the Sanctuary of the Ghosts remained unchanged. The courtyard was deserted, and she stepped out, closing the door behind her.
She turned as she did so…and froze in alarm as a gleam of metal caught her eye.
A curved, slender knife lay upon the ground a few paces away. The blade was smooth and unmarked, its edge razor-sharp, and it was identical to the ones that she had found earlier. Caina had come in through this door an hour ago, and she had been certain, absolutely certain, that the knife had not been there then.
An icy flutter of fear settled in her stomach.
She looked around the courtyard. There was no sign of anyone. No trace of anyone watching from the rooftops. For that matter, there were no footprints in the hard-packed earth of the courtyard. It was as if the damned knife had appeared out of nowhere.
It hadn’t, though.
Someone was following her. Someone had followed her through Istarinmul, even to Korundush in the Vale of Fallen Stars. The knives were a message, and Caina was certain it was not a friendly one.
She picked up the knife and looked down at herself as she did so, at the dress and jewelry and high-heeled sandals, and suddenly felt like an enormous fool.
What the hell was she thinking?
Dark days were indeed coming, and they were aimed right at her. The most powerful men in Istarinmul wanted her dead. Sooner or later they would catch up to her. When that happened she was going to die.
Along with anyone around her. Anyone close to her.
She remembered Kotuluk Iblis’s horrible voice thundering inside her head, the nagataaru prince’s utter certainty that Caina would die in defeat and despair.
What would happen to Kylon if she was too close to him when her enemies caught up with her?
Caina closed her eyes, let out a long breath.
She went back to her room in the House of Agabyzus and spent the night alone.
Perhaps that was for the best.
Chapter 23: Does The World Deserve To Die?
Morgant sat at his usual place in Nasser’s room, his feet propped on Nasser’s table as he ate Nasser’s food and sipped at Nasser’s wine. Despite what he had told Kylon, Morgant did sometimes drink coffee, just to be polite.
It amused him not to be polite around the last Prince of Iramis.
“There is no need to provoke him so,” said Annarah.
Morgant lifted an eyebrow. Annarah sat at the other end of the table, wearing an unremarkable tan dress and headscarf. It had taken every scrap of Morgant’s considerable persuasive powers to get her to lay aside the white robes of a loremaster. Otherwise she would have proclaimed herself openly and walked the streets, healing diseases and tending the wraithblood addicts.
Given that this morning the Grand Wazir had published a bounty of a million bezants upon the head