The Dragon's Path

table.
    “Good evening.”
    She didn’t answer. He clicked his tongue against his teeth.
    “I was hoping I might offer you a meal, a bottle of wine. An apology. It was unkind of the governor to bring you in that way.”
    “I don’t want anything from you,” she said.
    “Cithrin—”
    “I don’t want sight or sound of you ever again for as longas I live,” she said, each word cool and sharp and deliberate. “And if you come near me, I will ask my captain of guard to kill you. And he’d do it.”
    Qahuar’s expression hardened.
    “I see. I admit I am disappointed, Magistra. I’d thought better of you.”
    “
You’d
thought better of
me
?”
    “Yes. I hadn’t imagined you the sort of woman to throw tantrums. But clearly I’ve misjudged. I would remind you that you were the one who put yourself in my bed. You are the one who crept through my halls. It’s mean and small of you to blame me for anticipating it.”
    You don’t know what this was,
Cithrin thought.
You don’t know what it meant for me. They’re going to take away my bank.
    Qahuar stood and placed three small coins on the table to pay the taproom. The light caught the roughness of his bronze skin, making him look older. This summer was her eighteenth solstice. It was his thirty-fifth.
    “We’re traders, Magistra,” he said. “I very much apologize that the delivery of the news was unpleasant, but I cannot be sorry that I can take this agreement to my clan elders. I hope you have a more pleasant evening.”
    He pushed back the bench, wood rasping against the stone floor, and stepped around her.
    “Qahuar,” she said sharply.
    He paused. She gathered herself. The words were cast in lead, almost too heavy to pull up her throat.
    “I’m sorry I betrayed you,” she said. “Tried to betray you.”
    “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s the game we play.”
    Some time later, the taproom’s servant came, took up the coins, and cleared away Qahuar Em’s drink. Cithrin looked up at her.
    “Your usual?”
    Cithrin shook her head. Everything from her throat down to her belly felt solid as stone. She lifted her hand, surprised to find her soft cap still there. She pulled it off, let down her hair, and held the silver-and-lapis pin up. It seemed almost to glow with its own light in the gloom. The servant girl blinked at it.
    “That’s very beautiful,” she said.
    “Take it,” Cithrin said. “Bring me what you think it’s worth.”
    “Magistra?”
    “Fortified wine. Farmer’s beer. I don’t care. Just bring it.”

Geder
     
    T he high priest—Basrahip or possibly
the
Basrahip, it was hard to tell—leaned back on his leather-and-iron stool. His thick, powerful fingers rubbed at his forehead. Around them, the candles flickered and hissed, their smoke filling the room with the smell of burning fat. Geder licked his lips.
    “My first tutor was a Tralgu,” he said.
    Basrahip pursed his lips, considered Geder, and shook his wide head.
No.
Geder swallowed his delight and tried again.
    “I learned to swim at the seashore.”
    The broad head shook slowly.
No.
    “I had a favorite dog when I was young. A hunting beast named Mo.”
    The high priest’s smile was beatific. His teeth seemed almost unnaturally wide. He pointed a thick finger at Geder’s chest.
    “Yes,” he said.
    Geder clapped his hands and laughed. It wasn’t the first time the high priest had made the demonstration, but it was always a source of amazement. No matter what the lie, no matter what voice Geder told it in, how he held his body or changed the pitch of his voice, the huge man knew whichwords were false and which true. He never guessed incorrectly.
    “And it’s really a goddess that lets you do this?” Geder said. “Because I never came across a reference to that. The Righteous Servant was supposed to have been something Morade created, like the thirteen races and the dragon’s roads.”
    “No. We were here before the dragons. When the great web was strung and the stars hung upon it, the goddess was present. The Sinir Kushku is her gift to the faithful. When the great collapse came, the dragons were fearful of her power. They fought against each other, each wishing the friendship and patronage of the Sinir Kushku for himself. The great Morade pretended an alliance, but the goddess knew when treachery came into his heart. She guided us here, where we might be safe, far from the world and its struggles, to wait until the time came for our