The Dragon's Path

scratched his leg, feeling the tooth of the cloth against his fingertips. His hands seemed older than they should. When he thought of them, they still looked like they had when he’d first been on campaign. Strong, smooth, capable. Now there was as much scar to them as skin. The nail of his right thumb had been cut half off once, and it hadn’t grown back quite right. The knuckles were larger than they had been. The calluses had more yellow to them. He turned them over, considering his palms as well. If he looked closely, he could still make out the dots of white where a dog had bitten him once, a lifetime ago.
    “She knows the risks, but she doesn’t understand them,” Marcus said. “I can say everything to her I just said to you, and she’ll answer me back. Argument for argument. She’ll say the regained capital justifies the decision. That the holding company isn’t liable for her, nor are the other branches, so anything they make back is a step above where they were when the money was simply lost.”
    “And yet,” Master Kit said.
    “I know how to protect her from thugs and raiders. I know how to fight pirates. I don’t know how to protect her from herself, and hand to God, that girl is the worst danger she’ll ever face.”
    “It can be hard, can’t it? Losing control,” Master Kit said.
    “I don’t control her,” Marcus said.
    “I think you do, but I’m open to being proven wrong.What are three decisions she’s made before this? In the time you’ve known her, I mean.”
    Yardem Hane loomed up behind the actor, wiping oil from his fingers onto a bit of grey cloth. For a moment, Marcus thought it might offer distraction, but the Tralgu’s passive expression told him that he’d come to listen to the conversation, not to end it.
    “She got that dress of hers,” Marcus said. “And she chose to go to your performances.”
    “Two, then?” Master Kit said.
    “She picked the fish for dinner,” Marcus said.
    “And how would you compare that with other contracts you’ve had?” Master Kit asked. “I don’t believe you have thought of Cithrin as your employer so much as the little girl who’d swum out near the riptide. Has she paid you?”
    “She hasn’t,” the Tralgu rumbled.
    “You can stay out of this,” Marcus said. “She couldn’t. She didn’t have any money of her own. All of this belongs to someone.”
    “And now,” Master Kit said, “it seems she might be able to offer gold. And make decisions of greater weight than whether to have fish or poultry. Or what dress to buy. If this scheme of hers works, she’ll be choosing where to live, how and whether to protect herself, and all the other thousand things that come with her trade. And I suspect you’ll be here as well, at her side and protecting her. But only as her hired captain.”
    “Which isn’t what I’ve been doing all along?” Marcus said.
    “Which isn’t what you’ve been doing,” Master Kit said. “If you had been, you’d have asked Cithrin before you killed Opal.”
    “She’d have told me not to.”
    “And I think that’s why you didn’t ask. And why you dread the time when you have to ask, and you have to defer to her judgment even if you think she’s wrong.”
    “She’s a little girl,” Marcus said.
    “All women were little girls once,” Master Kit said. “Cithrin. Cary. The queen of Birancour. Even Opal.”
    Marcus said something obscene under his breath. Outside in the street, the gambler’s man called out. Great fortune could be theirs. Odds offered on any fair wager.
    “I am sorry about Opal,” Marcus said.
    “I know you are,” Master Kit said. “I am too. I knew her for a very long time, and I enjoyed her company for more than half of that. But she was who she was, and she made her choices.”
    “You were her lover, weren’t you?” Marcus said.
    “Not recently.”
    “And she was a part of your company. She traveled with you. She was one of your people.”
    “She was.”
    “And you let me kill her,” Marcus said.
    “I did,” Master Kit said. “I believe there is a dignity in consequences, Captain. I think there’s a kind of truth in them, and I try to cultivate a profound respect for truth.”
    “Meaning this is Cithrin’s mistake to make.”
    “If that’s what you heard me say.”
    Yardem flicked an ear, his earrings jingling against each other. Marcus knew what the Tralgu was thinking.
She’s not your daughter.
Marcus set his foot against the wall of