The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

but it lasted for weeks. He was preparing himself. It was a sensation he’d had before, once, and it brought the nightmares.
    There was no single moment when the western edge of the Keshet became the eastern reaches of Suddapal. No garrison marked the border, no tax man squatted by the side of the road. The oases and crossroads only became a little larger, a little more permanent, until at last they were villages. The dragon’s road became better traveled, and then thick. The flood of war refugees was mostly Timzinae, but Jasuru and Tralgu and Firstblood families were among them in numbers enough that Marcus and Kit could fold themselves in among them unremarked.
    They approached the fivefold city from the east, passing through farmlands and pastures Marcus had never seen. The commons were so thick with tents that it was as if new towns were forming within the city, and men stood in lines at the larger houses, negotiating hospitality from the locals or else begging it. Everywhere, the word was that Antea’s army was on the march, that they would be in Suddapal very, very soon.
    Displacement was a part of war, and Marcus had lived his life around it. It was a tissue of misery, fear, and uncertainty. Children would be sleeping hungry and in the streets tonight and tomorrow and likely for months if not years to come, provided nothing worse happened.
    “We can go to Ela and Epetchi,” Kit said. It took Marcus a moment to place the names as belonging to the café owners they’d stayed with before leaving for Lyoneia. “They’ll take us in if they can.”
    “You should stay with them for a few days,” Marcus agreed.
    Kit shot a glance at him, and Marcus shrugged. There wasn’t anything more to say. They both understood why he’d chosen Suddapal. When they reached the café, it was already full to the top with refugees, but they found room for Kitap. And they knew the way to the branch of the Medean bank. It was in the western end of the cities, and a way inland. Marcus thanked them, bought a bowl of charred mutton with a few coins Kit gave him, and walked out into the city.
    For months, he’d traveled with Kit. In the unfamiliar jungles of deep Lyoneia and the unforgiving mountains and planes of the Keshet, over the Inner Sea and back. The sense of being alone again, even on the busy streets and crowded commons of the city, surprised him and left him comforted. He wondered how much he’d been worried about carrying Kit and keeping him from despair. He wouldn’t have said he was much concerned, except that now he felt relieved in his isolation. Or maybe it was only that he now didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t hunting.
    Yardem Hane was one of the best fighters Marcus had ever known, and the acuity of the Tralgu’s great, mobile ears had saved them from ambush more than once. Marcus’s advantage was that he knew his old companion as well as he was known by him, and Yardem didn’t know he’d come. He would only have one opportunity.
    The compound of the Medean bank in Suddapal was a wide, low group of buildings around a vast yard. It looked more like a small, self-contained village than a bank. The streets were wide, which was good in that he could get a clear line of sight without coming too near the place, and bad in that there wasn’t cover enough to safely move in close. He found a place in the shadows of an alley and sat patiently, his face hidden and his shoulders sloped in dejection. Another doomed wanderer in a city sick with them. He waited. He watched. He noted the rhythms of the compound and its people. For a large place, it was well watched. He needed to wait until Yardem stepped out.
    Or until everyone else did.
    Three days later was Tenthday. The population of the city shed their shoes and marched together through the streets to the temples. Marcus watched them come out. Among the Timzinae guardsmen, Enen the Kurtadam stood out. But not so much as Cithrin. Marcus felt the sight of her like a blow. She looked taller. No, that wasn’t right. Not taller, but older. Her pale hair was pulled back and her green velvet gown was well cut without being boastful. She was walking arm in arm with an older Timzinae woman, her expression sharp with concentration. Seeing her from the distance of the alley was dreamlike and strange. The last time he’d been this near to her, she’d been leaving for Carse and telling him that taking him to Northcoast would be a mistake. If he’d fought against that,