Which made it all the stranger that she’d allowed me back.
“Yes. There is that.” He cleared his throat again. “We… I… need your help, Galen.”
I glanced at Cael. She’d remained silent, staring at the waves as they crashed along the rocks, but the rigidity to her spine and the way she cocked her head to the side told me that she listened to everything that was said.
“What kind of help? What do you need me for that you can’t do?”
“I need someone with your particular set of skills. I need the assassin. You need to kill Josun Elvraeth.”
4
The morning sun crept up over the rocks, leaving streaks of color across the sky. I rarely saw the sunrise, and usually only when I’d been awake too late. This was no exception.
The sounds of the city fell upon me, a vibrant cacophony of noise. Horses and carts making their way along the streets, blacksmiths starting their work, a few street vendors already trying to hawk their wares. All of it was familiar to what I experienced in Eban, though there a dark undercurrent seemed to hover over everything, tied to Orly or the Binders.
But this wasn’t Eban. This wasn’t even Elaeavn. This was Asador, one of the great cities far to the north, sitting along the coast and nestled into a deep water harbor where hundreds of ships made their way in and out throughout the day, some coming in even now.
Lorst had brought me—us—here when I had agreed to his job.
The transportation, taking one step and traveling leagues, still amazed me. Distances were no limitation to a man like Lorst, and neither were walls. Were he a real assassin, trained as I had trained, he would be more deadly than he already was. Though were he a real assassin, I wonder if he would have put the same effort in that I had. With gifts such as he possessed, there must be the urge to rely on them too much. I’d seen men more skilled than me get simply outworked. That was something that I refused to allow to happen.
“I don’t care for the smells,” Cael said.
I took a deep breath. From the smells she referred to, I suspected we were near a slaughterhouse. The line of butchers, some with smoke trailing into the sky, made it even more likely. “You’d rather have stayed in Elaeavn?”
“I’m glad that I’m with you,” she said.
“You might not be before this is all over.”
Her jaw clenched. In our time together, Cael had been exposed to much more than I suspected she ever had before. She had proven herself a strong woman, one unafraid of what might come to her, and more resourceful than I had ever expected. Without her, I might have died a handful of times.
“As long as we stay away from them,” she said.
She didn’t tell me, but the comment made it clear how much what had happened to her in the tavern had bothered her. She hadn’t been able to Read Lorst or the woman we’d discovered was named Jessa. Brusus had some ability that clouded her as well, though she hadn’t said much about him. It was Lorst and Jessa who had troubled her.
“You think coming to Asador will be any safer?”
She bit her lip as she peered around, shifting the cloak that hung heavy on her shoulders. “It’s not Eban at least.”
I smiled. “There’s a certain allure in Eban.”
She chuckled. “I remember the allure from where you found me. There were plenty of women with such allure.”
“I’d say it was those women who got you to safety.”
As they should. Orly might have tried to break up the Binders, but there would be only so much influence that he could have. I think some of the truce worked out between he and Carth revolved around the amount of influence he would be allowed. Less than he wanted, but probably more than any other had ever been granted.
“You got me to safety, Galen. Never forget that.”
When Lorst had told us where to start, I knew it had to be more than coincidence that it was Asador. Other than Eban, Asador was the only city where I knew a place to find information if I was willing to open myself to my past. I wasn’t sure I had much choice anymore.
As we walked, I checked my pouch and began filling the tips of darts, separating them into coxberry tipped and terad tipped. I had a few other poisons I could use, but those had become my two standard choices. Coxberry when I was uncertain, and terad when I needed to ensure that someone wouldn’t get back up.
“You can do that while walking?” she asked.
“I can do it running if I have to.” When she frowned, I offered more explanation. I suspected she could Read me and reach for whatever information that she wanted, but there wasn’t any reason not to share with Cael, especially about this. “When I was exiled from the city and took up with Isander, he had certain tasks that he demanded of me. One was making sure I could protect myself at all times. I think he would have preferred I use knives like Lorst,” I said, smiling as I remembered the way that Isander had pushed me toward them, but there had been a perfect beauty to the darts, and I had gravitated toward them naturally. “But knives get expensive. Darts can be made with anything. And I know enough that I can find these toxins wherever I go.”
We stopped at the docks. A dozen or more ships moored in the bay, all tied up with thick coils of rope holding them in place. Men and women hurried from ship to ship, loading or unloading. Crates and fish and people moved quickly, coming on and off the docks in something that seemed almost a pattern, or a dance. Children moved unnoticed, more than I’d seen in other cities. As I watched, more than one man had their purse lifted by one of the children.
“You suffered,” Cael said when I remained silent, choosing our path through the city. I made my way along the dock road, heading north. If my directions were accurate, I was close.
“Only when I did something stupid,” I answered.
“How often was that?”
“Pretty much every day.” Isander could be a hard teacher, but he expected excellence. Not only with knowledge—he expected me to know all the poisons we worked with, not only by sight or smell but also how they acted, recognizing the effects were they used on me. That knowledge had saved my life countless times. Many of the poisons that Isander taught me had antidotes. If I knew what was used on me, I would be able to find a way to counter it. Some, like terad, didn’t have much of an antidote, but there were other ways to survive.
“I find it interesting that you don’t hate him,” Cael said as we stopped along a line of shops.
A florist, one trading in the brightly colored flowers that came in pots off the ships, was two buildings away, its fragrances drifting down the street. Another, a seamstress with two dresses in the windows cut in a fashion that would have been risqué even in Eban, was across from us. Behind me was a candlemaker, the thick stink of melted wax heavy in the air already this morning. Other shops, many I couldn’t easily identify, surrounded us.
“I can sense some of what you went through, though others of it are so deeply buried that I can’t fully understand. What I can tells me that you went through what I’d call torture. How many times did you nearly die?” she asked me.
I smiled at the question. I could do that now. There was a time when I couldn’t. When I didn’t dare smile at what happened to me. Isander took smiles as weakness, though he took many things as signs of weakness. “Nearly a dozen with him,” I said.
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
I shrugged, turning my attention to the seamstress. Women came and went, most dressed more formally than the two dresses in the window. I smiled, thinking how perfect such a setting would be, and how different from what was found in Eban. But Asador was a different city than Eban, with different pressures. With the port here, and the people coming and going, the fashion here would be more important than in other places.
“It bothered me once,” I said. “But what he taught me has saved my life more times than I can count. So I might have almost died while training with Isander nearly a dozen times, but it was the times I didn’t after I left him that mattered.”
“He wouldn’t have let you die?”
I had wondered about that. There had been a time when I thought that Isander would protect me from anything, even from myself, but then he didn’t. Had I not hoarded a stash of narcass, and had it on me when attacked during a “training” session, I would have died. Isander would likely have watched, and might even have mourned me, but he would not have saved me, not when it would have been my fault.
“He didn’t,” I said.
The door to the seamstress opened again, and a blond-haired woman hurried out carrying a bundle of dresses. Other than the dresses, only the flicker of green eyes made me notice her. Few outside of Elaeavn had green eyes, almost as if it were a trait that the Great Watcher had given our people alone.
I considered following the woman. If she were of Elaeavn, and here in Asador, she might know something about the Forgotten still remaining in the city. And from there, I could find Josun. Maybe not directly, and not at first, but eventually.
But there was no guarantee that the woman was even of Elaeavn. Or if she was, that she had been Forgotten. There were others of our kind born outside the city, those who had parents who were exiled, or who had left on their own, or were traders leaving the city—though such a thing was rare. No, finding someone with green eyes wasn’t the kind of lead that we needed.
The group of women who’d entered the shop emerged again, heading away from the docks with arms laden with packages. I grabbed Cael’s hand and pulled her across the street, weaving around the horse and carriage that threatened to barrel us over, and stopped at the door to the seamstress.
“Do you really think I need a new dress?” she asked.
“Maybe one of those,” I suggested, pointing to the dresses in the window.
“Would you like that?”
I considered the low cut to the dress and the slender profile either would have on Cael. A hot flush worked through me. “I wouldn’t argue if you said you wanted one.”
She laughed as we entered the shop.
Rolls of fabric hung all around the walls. A corner of the shop seemed dedicated to lace and another to different colors of thread. I’d never seen anything like it.
There were a few others in the store, and they glanced over as we entered.
One woman came from the back, a long length of cloth hanging from her neck, numbers written upon it. She had dark hair, and her dress looked much like one of those from the window. She scanned the shop, and when her eyes alighted on me, they widened. A wide smile spread across her face.
“Galen!”
She threw herself on me and gave me a tight hug, relaxing slowly. Once, having her this close to me would have been more affection than I could imagine, and certainly more than I thought that I deserved, but that was before meeting Cael.
I felt Cael tense next to me.
“Talia,” I said, “it’s great to see you.”
5
I had known Talia since my earliest days in Eban. With her dark hair and easy smile, she cut a beautiful profile. The years since I last saw her hadn’t changed that about her.
Much had changed for me. When we last saw each other—really saw each other—there had been a moment where I thought that something might come of us. And had I not been the person I was, and had Talia not been who she was, it was possible that it would have. Both of us knew that.
Which made coming here and with Cael in tow all the harder.
Talia whispered something to the women in the shop and then escorted us behind a curtain in the back. Behind it, there was nearly as much flourish as in the shop, with rolls and rolls of fabric, spools of lace, and massive amounts of thread. A few women sat busily sewing and hardly glanced up as Talia led us through.
A simple door was set into the back of this part, and she motioned toward it. The other side was sparse: a narrow hall leading to three other doors and a stair. Talia stopped and turned to face me, almost as if making a point of not looking at Cael.
“Why did you come here, Galen?”
I glanced back at the shop. “A seamstress? I knew that you had talents, Talia, but would never have expected you to run a shop like this.”
“The shop is legitimate, if that’s your concern.”
“You know that it’s not.”
She finally looked at Cael, eyeing her from her dress to the necklace she wore, and to the dark green eyes that Cael couldn’t hide. “There were many things I thought I knew,” she said. “I hadn’t expected Galen to settle, and for one of the Elvraeth at that.”
“I didn’t settle, Talia.”
She pulled her gaze off Cael. “No, I suppose that you wouldn’t.” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “Why did you come here?”
“I need the help of your resources.”
“This isn’t a tavern, Galen. There are no Binders here.”
“Maybe not a tavern, but the effect is the same, isn’t it? I saw the women coming and going. A place like Asador, a seamstress might find out as much as a tavern would discover in Eban.”
“It’s not like that.”
“No? You don’t still serve Carth?” She had been the one to tell me how to find Talia.
The corners of her eyes wrinkled, and her mouth twitched, only a little. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Carth is dead. The Binders are no more.”
I nearly stumbled. “What?” When she nodded, I squeezed my eyes closed. I had planned on Carth being able to help me find Josun Elvraeth. If she was gone… “How would Carth have died?”
I had never met a person so capable as Carth. She was what I imagined Lorst could be with the right training, and with enough time and experience. When I first had faced her, I think she played with me. I had never had the sense that I had been so easily handled as I had when working with Carth. For her to be dead… that meant that there was another out there with as much ability—or luck. The idea troubled me, especially given the reason we came to Asador.
Talia shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. None of us do.”
“Where did it happen?” I was surprised at how hard I took hearing of Carth’s passing. It wasn’t that Carth and I were close, but there had been a certain reassurance in knowing that someone like her was out there, especially knowing as I did that she was more like me than someone like Orly.
“There are plenty of rumors about where it happened,” Talia said. “Some have said she died in Eban.” I arched a brow, and she raised her hands. “Not that I said that she had. I think you would have come for me sooner had that been the case. Other rumors have her dying in Asador, or Thyr, or Neeland, or Paichau, or—”
“I get the picture,” I said.
“With her, it’s hard to know what’s true,” Talia said.
“Then how do you know she’s even dead?” I asked.
Talia met my eyes. “Know that I do.”
There would likely have been some form of communication between them, I suspect. And if that were compromised, then another form of communication, and possibly another. Knowing what I did of Carth’s women, it would difficult for something to have happened and none to have known. And Talia was as well established with Carth as any.
“When did she die?” I should have heard something, shouldn’t I? But maybe I wouldn’t know. Before I’d left Eban, Orly would have no reason to share with me if he had heard, and my connections outside the city aren’t what they once had been.
“There are plenty of rumors about that as well,” Talia said. “Tell me, Galen. If you didn’t come here because of Carth, what did bring you to Asador? I imagine it has something to do with the reason that you’re with one of the Elvraeth, but the Galen I knew wouldn’t have had anything to do with them.”
“Things change, Talia.”
“Yes,” she said. “They do.”
I glanced over at Cael. She stood silently, but there was tension in her posture that she couldn’t hide, even if she were to wa
nt to, and I wasn’t sure that she did. I hadn’t told Cael about Talia, and honestly, there really hadn’t been a reason to do so. Talia and I had never been anything more than friends. There might have been a desire on both our parts for there to be something more, but the Great Watcher hadn’t put us in that position.
There had been a time when I had wondered what might have happened had she remained in Eban. Would I have continued taking jobs, many for Orly, with Talia still there? Would she have continued to serve Carth, leading the Binders in Eban, or would our relationship have prevented that as well?
In some ways, it had been better that we were separated. In others, I couldn’t deny the fact that questions remained with me about what could have been.
“Why don’t I leave the two of you to talk,” Cael suggested when silence grew between us. “Mistress Talia, I would assume you have women who would be able to help me?”
Talia nodded and poked her head out the door to say a few words. A younger woman appeared and waited for Cael. She looked from me to Talia and then went with the younger woman, leaving the two of us alone.
How much of my thoughts had she Read? Enough that she understood the feelings I had for Talia? Enough to know that there was still a part of those feelings that was raw, a hurt that remained in spite of all the time that we’d been apart. She hadn’t only been someone I might have once had feelings for; Talia had been my friend. In Eban, I had precious few of them.
“Galen,” she began softly, reaching a hand toward me before pulling it back. She touched her neck, shifting the scarf that I knew covered a long scar across her throat. That had been my contribution to her life. Had I not reached her in time, she would have died in the streets of Eban, one more person lost to the dark underworld. And I still didn’t know the reason that she’d been attacked that night. Carth had never shared, and I never had any reason to find out. “It’s… it’s good to see you.”
I swallowed. The ache in her voice matched the one I still felt for her. “Talia.”
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