Nonetheless, the friendship worked, and Serah Drake helped it work by happening to stop by often so she could be with Logan. She filled in the gaps. Kylar couldn’t count the times he sat silent because he hadn’t understood some reference Logan had made. The silence would begin to stretch, but before Logan could ever ask him why he didn’t understand, Serah would get uncomfortable and launch into something else entirely. The chatter might have driven Kylar mad if he hadn’t been so thankful for it. Anyway, maybe this was how noble girls were.
Kylar was sitting in bed one morning after having spent another night cowering under the covers. He’d dreamed that he had been the one beating Doll Girl, that it had been his feet kicking her, and exultation writhed in his eyes as her beauty melted in the heat of his fury.
Count Drake came in. His fingers were ink-stained and he looked tired. He pulled a chair close to the bed.
“We think the danger’s passed,” he said.
“Excuse me?” Kylar said.
“I’m sorry we’ve had to keep you in the dark, Kylar, but we had to make sure you didn’t do anything rash. In the past few weeks, there have been a number of attempts on your master’s life. And consequently, there are now four fewer wetboys in the city. After three attempts, your master let the king know that if there were any more attempts, the king would die next.”
“Master Blint killed the king?” Kylar asked.
“Shhh! Don’t say that name. Not even here,” Count Drake said. “One of the Nine, Dabin Vosha, the man in charge of the Sa’kagé’s smuggling, heard about your master’s threat to the king. He decided it would be a good time to make his own play for power and sent a wetboy after Durzo, thinking Durzo would either be killed or would kill the king in retaliation. Durzo found out and killed both the wetboy and Vosha.”
“You mean all this has been happening while I’ve been lying in bed.”
“There was no way you could help,” Count Drake said.
“But what did Dabin Vosha have against Master—my master?” Kylar had never even heard the name.
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. That’s the way the Sa’kagé works, Kylar. There are plots within plots, and most of them go nowhere. Most of them take one step and then die, like this one. If you worry about what everyone is trying to do, you become a spectator and not a player.
“Anyway, the king’s learned of the last attempt on your master’s life and has become very frightened. Usually, this would be good news, but he’s rather clumsily consolidating his power. Logan is going to have to spend a while out of the city.”
“He was just starting to be my friend,” Kylar said.
“Believe me, son, a man like Logan Gyre will be your friend for life.”
23
Someone slapped Kylar. Not gently.
“Wake up, boy.”
Kylar clawed his way out of a nightmare and saw the face of Master Blint, a foot away, about to slap him again. “Master—” he stopped. “Master Tulii?”
“Good to see you remember me, Kylar,” Master Blint said.
Master Blint got up and shut the door. “I don’t have much time. Are you well yet? Don’t lie to please me.”
“I’m still a little weak, sir, but I’m getting better.” Kylar’s heart was pounding. He’d been desperate to see Master Blint for weeks, but now that he was here, Kylar was inexplicably angry.
“You’ll probably feel terrible for a few more weeks. Either the kinderperil and avorida paste interacted in a way I didn’t expect, or it might have something to do with your Talent.”
“What’s that mean? The Talent?” Kylar asked. His words were sharper than he’d intended, but Blint didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, if it was that.” Master Blint shrugged. “Sometimes a body doesn’t react well to magic at first.”
“I mean, what does it mean? Will I be able to—”
“Fly? Become invisible? Scale walls? Throw fire? Walk as a god among mortals?” Blint smirked. “Doubtful.”
“I was going to ask if I’ll be able to move as fast as you do.” Again, that edge came into his voice.
“I don’t know yet, Kylar. You’ll be able to move faster than most men without the Talent, but there aren’t many who are as gifted as I am.”
“What will I be able to do, then?”
“You’re weak, Kylar. We’ll talk about this later.”
“I don’t have anything to do! I can’t even get out of bed. No one tells me anything.”
“Fine. It means everything and nothing,” Master Blint said. “In Waeddryn or Alitaera, they’d call you a mage and six different schools would fight over where and what you should study and what color robes you should wear. In Lodricar or Khalidor, they’d call you a meister and you’d grow the vir on your arms like tattoos and worship your king as a god while you plotted how to stab his royal back. In Ymmur, you’d be a stalker, an honored and honorable hunter of animals and sometimes men. In Friaku, you’d be gorathi, a Furied warrior invincible in your clan and one day a king versed in the arts of subjugation and slavery. In the west, well, you’d be in the ocean.” He grinned.
Kylar didn’t.
“The mages guess—they’d say hypothesize to make it more respectable—that different countries produce different Talents and that’s why men with pale skin and blue eyes become wytches while swarthy men are warrior gorathi. They say that’s why the only mages they get from Gandu are Healers. They see men with yellow skin who can heal and proclaim that yellow skin means healing. But they’re wrong. Our world is divided, but the Talent is one. Every people recognizes some form of magic—except for the Lae’knaught who hate magic and simultaneously don’t believe in it, but that’s a different subject—but every people has its own expectations about magic. Gandu once produced some of the most destructive archmagi the world has known. They saw horrors you couldn’t imagine, and because of that, they turned away from magic as weaponry. The only magic they value is healing magic. So as centuries have passed, they’ve added greatly to their knowledge of healing magics, and lost most others. A Gandian who is greatly Talented with fire is a shame to himself and his family.”
“So we’d never hear about him,” Kylar said.
“Right. There’s an intersection between what the people around you know well enough to teach, what you’re naturally good at, and what it is possible for you to learn. So the Talent both is what it is and it is what it has to be. Like your mind.”
Kylar just looked at him.
“Take it this way: some people can add long lists of numbers in their heads, right? And some can speak a dozen languages. To do that, they have to be smart, right?”
“Right.”
“But just because you can learn to add lists of numbers doesn’t mean you will. But a woman who handles account books and has a gift for numbers can. Or a diplomat might have a gift for languages, but if he never learns another language, he’ll still only know one.”
Kylar nodded.
“The woman with a head for numbers could probably learn another language if she worked hard enough, but she’ll never be fluent in a dozen, and the man will never be able to add columns of numbers mentally. Do you see where this is going?”