The Dragon's Path

lost her place with me, and we’ve helped protect your work here. You’re hurt, but Yardem Hane isn’t. Or Cithrin. I won’t say there’s no harm done, but I hope there’s room for mercy.”
    “Thank you, Kit,” Opal said.
    Marcus squinted up. The eastern sky had begun to show the first faint lightening of dawn. The stars in the great arch above him still glittered and shone, but the faintest of them had vanished. More would go out in the next few minutes. He’d been told that, in truth, the stars were always there, only during the day you couldn’t see them. He’d heard the same thing said about the souls of the dead. He didn’t believe that either.
    “I’d need to know she wouldn’t come after us again,” he said.
    “I swear it,” Opal said, jumping at his words. “I swear to all the gods that I won’t make another try.”
    Master Kit made a sudden, pained sound, as if someone had struck him. Marcus took a step toward him, but when the man spoke, his voice was clear and strong and unutterably sad.
    “Oh, my poor, dear Opal.”
    “Kit,” she said, and there was an intimacy in the way she formed the word that made Marcus reassess everything he thought he knew about the two and their past.
    “She’s lying, Captain,” Master Kit said. “I wish that she wasn’t, but you have my word that she is. If she leaves here now, it’s with the intention to come back.”
    “Well, then,” Marcus said. “That’s a problem.”
    The shadow that was Opal turned and tried to bolt, but Marcus stepped in front of her. She clawed at his eyes and made an inexpert try to knee his groin.
    “Please. He’s wrong. Kit’s wrong.
Please
let me go.”
    The desperation in her voice, the
fear,
made him want to step aside. He was a soldier and a mercenary, not the kind of feral thug who killed women for the joy of it. He moved half a step back, but then remembered Cithrin again, sitting on the cot with her legs drawn to her knees, facing the swords of the patrol with awkward song. He’d promised to protect her if he could. Not only when it was pleasant.
    He knew what had to happen next.
    “I’m sorry about this,” Marcus said.

Geder
     
    G eder had known, of course, that Klin’s favorites had been given the better accommodations, and that men like himself had taken the leavings. The scale of the insult, however, hadn’t been clear. He sat on a low divan upholstered in silk. High windows spilled light over the floors like God upending a milk jug. Incense touched the air with vanilla and patchai. The goldwork and gems that glowed over the fire grate hadn’t been wrenched apart in the sack. Even before the soldiers of Antea had taken the streets below, it had been understood that the prince’s house was sacrosanct. Not because it was the prince’s, but because it was Ternigan’s. And then Klin’s. And now, unthinkably, his own.
    “My Lord Protector?”
    Geder jumped to his feet as if he’d been caught touching something he shouldn’t. The chief of household was an old Timzinae slave, his dark scales greying and cracked. He wore the grey and blue of House Palliako now, or as close to them as could be scrounged.
    “Your secretaries await, sir,” the Timzinae said.
    “Yes,” Geder said, plucking at the black leather cloak he’d brought from his old rooms. “Yes, of course. Take me there.”
    The orders had come three days before. The Lord Marshal had called Alan Klin back to Camnipol, to the despairof some, the delight of others, and the surprise of no one. The astonishing development was who Ternigan had chosen as his replacement until such time as King Simeon named a permanent governor. Geder had read the order ten times at least, checked the seal and signature, and then read it again. Sir Geder Palliako, son of Viscount of Rivenhalm Lerer Palliako, was now Protector of Vanai. He had the order still, folded in a pouch at his belt like a religious relic: mysterious and awesome and entirely unsafe.
    His first thought after the first wave of raw disbelief had passed was that Klin had discovered Geder’s betrayal, and that this was his revenge. As he stepped into the meeting chamber, Klin’s appointees peopling every seat except the one on the dais at the front reserved for himself, Geder had the suspicion again. His belly sloshed and he felt his hands trembling. His blood felt weak as water as he took the two steps up and lowered himself uncomfortably into the presentation seat. Once, the room had