killed at any time.” She took a sip of coffee. “Losing Corvalis was almost too much for me, Damla. If…” She shook her head. “It’s been barely two years since his wife was murdered in front of him. That’s not…it’s not the sort of thing a man recovers from, not really. Corvalis, at least, died saving the world. The Exile’s wife died for nothing, only to satisfy the cruel whims of the assassin sent to kill him. I don’t think he could stand to lose someone else like that. It would…”
She realized that she had started rambling and fell silent.
“It is not my place to offer counsel,” said Damla.
“I wish you would,” said Caina. “I don’t have many people who can offer me advice.”
Damla considered for a moment. “I understand what you are thinking.”
“I know,” said Caina. Damla’s husband had been conscripted into Rezir Shahan’s army and had died in the fighting at Marsis.
“You are right,” said Damla. “All the risks are very real. You might lose him, and he may lose you. With all the risks you run, you might well get killed.” She took a deep breath. “Losing my husband was one of the worst things that happened to me. Yet if I had known it would happen, if I had known from the beginning how things would have ended when I met him…I still would have married him. I regret losing him every day. I would regret never having met him even more.”
“I see,” said Caina. “Thank you.” She liked that counsel. It was what she wanted to do, in truth.
But she couldn’t do what she wanted to do. If she could work her will, she would return to the House of Kularus in Malarae, run the coffee house, and leave behind all the blood and the death and the sorrow that had followed her through the Ghosts. Yet if she did that, there would be no one to stop Callatas. She could not turn her back on Istarinmul, not when she knew the truth.
Trying to take Kylon as a lover would be a dangerous distraction.
Besides, she thought, Kylon was a nobleman of New Kyre. Would he be content to settle down with a woman who wanted to be a coffee merchant? Especially one who could not have children?
“Thank you,” said Caina. “I will think on what you have said.”
“Good luck,” said Damla. “With everything. I will watch the door, and hope to see you walk into my common room. Then I shall give you as much free coffee as you can drink, and you will tell me of your travels.” She smiled. “And anything else interesting that might happen.”
“I look forward to it,” said Caina, and she picked up the wrapped valikon and stepped into the Cyrican Bazaar. Kylon still stood where she had left him, and she saw the dark-clad figure of Morgant standing near him. Morgant seemed amused. Kylon’s face was calm, but she knew him well enough to see the annoyance there. She couldn’t blame him. Morgant was good at a lot of things, and annoying people was chief among them.
That, and killing people.
She stepped forward and stopped as the gleam of metal caught her eye.
Something small and metallic lay in the dust.
Caina went cold.
A small curved knife rested near the door to the House of Agabyzus.
###
“I don’t drink coffee,” said Morgant.
“Don’t you?” said Kylon.
“It makes you too jittery,” said Morgant. “Ruins your nerves. Why, I remember once, I was in Cyrioch, and I…”
Kylon suppressed a sigh. Morgant would interpret a sigh as a sign of weakness, which would only encourage him to talk more. It amused the assassin to put on the guise of a rambling, absent-minded artist, but Kylon could sense the cold flicker of the ancient assassin’s emotions, and the icy iron of his sense never wavered, his pale blue eyes keeping constant watch on the crowds around them.
“You could make bad decisions,” said Morgant. “Come down in the world like a brick dropped into a pond. Go from one of the most powerful men in a small nation to a caravan guard standing in a bazaar next to a stall selling,” he glanced over, “glassware of questionable quality.”
“If you are so subtle,” said Kylon, “I shall never grasp your point.”
“I suppose I shall have to use shorter words,” said Morgant, “considering my audience.”
“Or your skills lie in painting,” said Kylon, “and rhetoric is quite beyond you.”
Morgant’s teeth flashed in a grin. With his pale, gaunt face, it made his