“Uly!” Elene said, mortified.
The man turned and drew himself to his full height. “I hail from Alitaera, by the grace of the God the greatest nation in all Midcyru.”
“The gods, you mean,” the Waeddryner he was bargaining with said.
“No, unlike you Waeddryner dogs, Alitaerans say what they mean,” the merchant said, and in a moment they were arguing about religion and politics and Uly was forgotten.
“I am pretty amazing,” Kylar said.
Elene groaned. “You’re probably Alitaeran yourself.”
Kylar laughed, but that “probably” soured in his mouth. Probably, because he was a guild rat, an orphan, maybe slaveborn. Like that Alitaeran, he couldn’t even guess where his parents had been from. He couldn’t guess why they’d abandoned him. Were they dead? Alive? Important somehow, like every orphan dreams? While Jarl had been busy saving pennies to get out of the guild, Kylar had been dreaming of why his noble parents might have been forced to abandon him. It was useless, foolish, and he thought he’d given it up long ago.
The closest thing he’d had to a father was Durzo—and Kylar had become what all men curse: a patricide. Now here he was, a loose string, tied to nothing before or behind.
No, that wasn’t true. He had Elene and Uly. And he had the freedom to love. That freedom cost something, but it was worth the price.
“Are you all right?” Elene asked him, her brown eyes concerned.
“No,” Kylar said. “As long as we’re together, I’m great.”
In a few minutes, they had left the northern markets and were getting deeper into the shipping district. Even here almost all the buildings were stone—a big change from Cenaria, where stone was so expensive that most of the houses were wood and rice paper. Local punks lounged in the stoops of houses and warehouses and mills, sullenly watching them go past with the universal expression of adolescents with something to prove.
“Are you sure this is the right road?” Kylar asked.
Elene winced. “No?”
Kylar kept the wagon moving, but it didn’t matter. Six of the teens stood and followed a black-toothed man with a mop of greasy black hair toward them. The youths reached under steps or beneath piles of trash to find weapons. They were street weapons, clubs and knives and a length of heavy chain. The man leading them stood in front of the wagon and grabbed the near horse’s bridle.
“Well, honey,” Kylar said, “time to meet our friendly neighborhood Sa’kagé.”
“Kylar, remember what you promised,” Elene said, taking his arm.
“You don’t really expect me to …” He let the question die as he saw the look in her eyes.
“Afternoon,” their leader said, slapping a club into his palm. He smiled broadly, showing off two black front teeth.
“Honey,” Kylar said, ignoring him. “This is different. You have to see that.”
“Other people get through this sort of thing without anybody dying.”
“Nobody will die if we do this my way,” Kylar said.
The black-toothed man cleared his throat. Dirt looked permanently tattooed into his visage and two protruding, crooked, and blackened front teeth dominated his face. “Excuse me, lovers. I don’t mean to interrupt—”
“You can wait,” Kylar said in a tone that brooked no argument. He turned back to Elene. “Honey.”
“Either do what you promised or do what you’ve always done,” Elene said.
“That’s not permission.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Excuse me,” the man said again. “This—”
“Let me guess,” Kylar said, mimicking the man’s swagger and accent. “This here’s a toll road, and we need to pay a toll.”
“Uh. That’s right,” the man allowed.
“How’d I guess?”
“I was gonna ask that—hey, you shut your mouth. I’m Tom Gray and this here—”
“Is your road. Sure. How much?” Kylar asked.
Tom Gray scowled. “Thirteen silvers,” he said.
Kylar counted the seven men aloud. “Wait, doesn’t that screw your bashers? They get one silver each and you get six?” Kylar asked. Tom Gray blanched. The boys looked at him angrily. Kylar was right, of course. Small-time thugs. “I’ll give you seven,” Kylar said.
He pulled out his small coin purse and started tossing silvers to each of the young men. “You get that much with no effort. Why risk a fight? That’s as much as Tom was going to give you anyway.”
“Hold on,” Tom said. “If he gave us that much that easy he’s got to have more. Let’s take him.”
But the young men weren’t buying it. They shrugged, shook their heads, and shuffled back to their stoops.
“What are you doing?” Tom demanded. “Hey!”
Kylar flicked the reins and the horses started forward. Tom had to jump aside to avoid being crushed. He twisted his ankle as he landed. Kylar pulled his front lips back to make himself look as buck-toothed as Tom and raised his hands helplessly. The young men and Uly laughed.
10
They spent the night at an inn, and Aunt Mea found them early in the morning and guided them through a tangle of alleys to her house. She was in her forties, looked a decade older, and had been widowed for almost twenty years, since soon after her son, Braen, was born. Her husband had been a successful rug merchant, so her house was large, and she assured Kylar and Elene that they could stay as long as they liked. Aunt Mea was a midwife and healer with plain features, twinkling eyes, and shoulders like a longshoreman.
“So,” Aunt Mea said, after a breakfast of eggs and ham, “how long have you two been married?”
“About a year,” Kylar said. He figured that if he initiated the lies, Elene might be able to keep them going. Elene was a terrible liar. He looked at her, and sure enough, she was blushing.
Aunt Mea took it to be embarrassment and laughed. “Well, I did figure you were a little young to be this young lady’s natural mother. How’d you find your new mother and father, Uly?”
Kylar sat back, stifling the urge to supply the answer himself. If he answered for everyone, not only would he look like an ass, he’d look suspicious. Sometimes you just had to let the bones roll where they may.
“The war,” Uly said. She swallowed, looked down at her plate, and said nothing more. It wasn’t even a lie, and the emotion on Uly’s face was plainly real. Uly’s nurse had been killed in the fighting. Uly still cried about it sometimes.
“She was at the castle during the coup,” Elene said.
Aunt Mea set down her knife and spoon—they didn’t use forks in Caernarvon, much to Kylar’s irritation. “I tell you what, Uly. We’re going to take good care of you. You’ll be safe and you’ll even have your own room.”
“And toys?” Uly asked.
Something about the open, hopeful expression on Uly’s face made Kylar ache. Little girls should be playing with dolls—why hadn’t he ever given Uly a doll?—not fishing bodies out of rivers.
Aunt Mea laughed. “And toys,” she said.
“Aunt Mea,” Elene said. “We’re already putting you out enough. We have money for toys, and Uly can stay with us. You’ve already—”