The King's Blood

walked back out. He felt like he’d been in the gymnasium, down in the fighting pits getting a fist sunk just under his ribs. The world was unchanged, but it was also different. Porte Oliva seemed smaller. Thin. As if the only thing that had given the city any sense of reality was that Cithrin lived here. And if this wasn’t her city, then it was an encrustation of buildings stuck on a rock overlooking the sea. Wasn’t much charm in that.
    He walked slowly, retracing his steps. The rain was still falling, though if anything less now than it had been. The streets were wet and slick, and they stank. In an hour, maybe two, the heat would loosen its grasp a little. He’d still be sweating through his shirts until morning. It would be like that until the days got short again. But he would be here when it happened. He’d be working for Pyk Usterhall and the Medean bank and waiting for Cithrin to come home until it was clear that she wouldn’t.
    He held the thought in his mind like pressing his tongue to a sore tooth.
    “She’s not my daughter,” he said to himself. A small voice in the far, dark reaches of his mind answered, She’s Cithrin .
    He wasn’t sure what he’d thought. What he’d expected. That they would stay there, he supposed. That he and Yardem would keep her and her bank safe, if not forever, then for years at the least. It wasn’t something Cithrin had promised him or that he’d asked from her. If she found a better path, a better plan, taking it wasn’t any betrayal of him.
    A beggar came up to him with her hand out, then met his eyes, started, and backed away. He was almost back at the taproom before he knew he was going there. The sound of the voices in the courtyard was just as loud. Maybe louder. He made his way in. He saw Yardem see him. The Tralgu’s ears went up and forward, straining at him, but Marcus only lifted a hand, more acknowledgment than greeting.
    Qahuar Em and his client were sitting at a small table in the shade of a wide white wall. Seagulls were screeching and wheeling out beyond them, grey against the white sky. Marcus hesitated. He’d taken enough lovers in the years after Ellis that he knew what sex would ease and what it wouldn’t. Right now, his body wasn’t hungry. He didn’t need release for its own sake. The thing that would soothe him now, he wasn’t going to find in a woman’s bed.
    Or anywhere else.
    We have steady work for fair pay. We have shelter and we have food. Interesting if that’s not what we were looking for.
    And more than that? What did he want that was more than that? What had Cithrin taken with her that left him angry with no one to be angry at?
    The woman with Qahuar Em looked over, saw him, smiled. Marcus smiled back. This was a mistake, but it was his to make. He found the serving boy, made his order, and gave him a silver coin that would have paid twice over. When he approached the table, Qahuar Em smiled and lifted his eyebrows.
    “Evening,” Marcus said. “I hoped I could return your kindness. Stand you to a round?”
    “Of course,” Qahuar Em said. “This is Arinn Costallin, a dear friend of mine from Herez.”
    “Marcus Wester,” he said, taking her hand. “So I’ve heard,” she said.
    Y
    ardem found him by the seawall just before dawn. Marcus wasn’t drunk anymore. The rain had stopped sometime after midnight, and the clouds had scattered. Yardem had a sack of roasted nuts in his hand. When he squatted down next to Marcus, he held its open mouth toward him. Marcus took a handful. They tasted sweet and meaty.
    “Didn’t see you at the barracks,” Yardem said.
    “I am an ass.”
    Yardem nodded and bit down on a nut. They chewed together quietly for a time. A seagull called, lofting up into the darkness, then, as if confused, swung back and landed on the cliff face below them.
    “Moved too fast with her, sir?”
    “Did.”
    “Should we be expecting children?”
    “No. I was careful about that, at least. But then after, I started talking about…”
    Marcus leaned forward, his head in his hands.
    “Might have been a little early to talk about them, sir.”
    “Might have.”
    “Scared her off of you.”
    “Did,” Marcus said. Below them, fishing boats had put out to sea for the day. Tiny black dots on a nearly black sea.
    “Was this about Alys and Merian?” Yardem asked. “Or was it about the magistra?”
    “Cithrin.”
    “You think she isn’t coming back, then.”
    “I think she may not. I wouldn’t