“Don’t you think someday you’ll need to?” the other woman asked. Their voices were similar.

“If you accept one of us as consort,” the first woman said, “you’d be an enemy.”

“Your mother would issue a complaint by the next court!” he said.

The women laughed.

“Come,” the first commanded, and he rose.

It had to be Verxaen.

Ren crept to a corner as they cavorted, groping, wet and slick. He tried to ignore it and began composing the report he’d write for his master. This was the juiciest bit of gossip he’d ever thought possible: Verxaen Ilor’Zauhune was bedding—in secret—two Roturra priestesses, heiresses or matrons.

Goddess above, Ren thought. How she favors me!

He grew drowsy as shadows enveloped him and he waited for them to finish. Deep silence drew him out of it. They were gone. The braziers sputtered.

He scrambled toward the pillows. They must have left through another portal. Damn this place with its tricks! He crept onto the padded platform that served as a bed and searched for short hair. It didn’t take long. Hands shaking, he collected as many as he could with a small blade. Surely, they cleaned up between guests.

The long ones he placed in a different envelope. Those he’d save. His mentor had always told him to keep information for his own benefit, but he’d always eagerly given his master everything.

He paused as anger built up in him. This time, he’d save this bit of gossip, these precious Roturra hairs, until he needed leverage.

“Leverage,” he said, forgetting himself.

A door latch clicked behind him. Shadows whooshed up around him and he darted toward the other side of the chamber, assuming they’d left that way. He crashed into the wall and searched for a portal plaque.

“Out,” he said to it. “Leave!”

Nothing happened but an intense prickling at the back of his head.

“Entrance,” he said more calmly. He shook his head and thought about it, pressing his hand to the plaque. What could the password be? Bear’s ass, he thought. His mind was blank.

The wall gave way, though, and he stepped through it into another hallway. Not the one he’d entered through. The prickling didn’t stop this time.

Heavy breathing buffeted his shadow.

He froze, looking askance at the end of the hall. Someone was there… Someones. Goddess above, save me! Get me out of here.

He turned slowly, plastered to the wall. Lights flickered, unsure whether to ignite. They bathed the couple in pale light, highlighting every shadow, each groove and ripple of clothing and skin.

“Let’s go to the room,” the man said. His shoulders were broad, his back rippled with thick muscle. His voice was deep and—all hells—his back was unmistakable. Bear’s ass, indeed. It was Vaudin Lor’Baronar, the young bear of Isilurra. Ren had seen him fight in four tournaments. The memories flooded back, and he shook. The limbs torn apart… the mass of bloody flesh.

The woman gripped Vaudin’s neck with both hands, digging into the thick sinews.

“Here, let it be here,” she said.

Vaudin shook his head. “If anyone saw us…” he said.

“Let them gossip,” she said. It was a lovely voice, but also hard-edged, like a dagger.

She gasped as he lifted her. Ren almost did the same.

He’d seen nothing so beautiful. Silver-white hair with goddess-power flared from every strand. Her clothes were like gossamer, the most expensive kind because it was unpretentious. He was shaking, both with desire and absolute terror. He was getting hard under his tunic and could barely breathe.

This is what he had dreaded. This is why he didn’t enter the crater.

A door latch clicked down the hall near the couple.

Vaudin grunted and carried her away, out of sight. Her laughter filled the hall and the sound lashed Ren’s mind. He cupped his mouth to stifle a groan. What power was this? What had she done to him? He stumbled the other way, hoping there’d be no door. He ran into someone and tackled him to the ground.

“Forgive me,” the man said. He gurgled and spat blood on Ren’s face.

Ren pushed away from him and rubbed his face with his sleeve. His small knife had gouged the man’s side, right into the lung. He wasn’t dead but stared wild-eyed in that shifting light. Then, as if the goddess hated Ren, the sconces all lit, and an alarm burbled.

He scrambled away toward where Vaudin and the woman had been and found her veil, a fine bit of cloth with barely any shape to it, like a sliver of mist. He ran back to the now-dead man and dropped the veil near his hand. They’d think he deserved death. The blade was small, like a priestess might use.

Desperate, he summoned shadows, but they quavered. He was exhausted. Ahead, a servant turned the corner with a tray bearing two glass tumblers and a bottle of amber liquid. Then the man kicked at the wall and the latch clicked. He pushed through and disappeared with the tray.

Ren waited for twenty breaths and followed.

His vision tunneled as he pushed past servants and knocked over trays. No one noticed him, still shrouded, and as far as they knew, just another servant. Then, as if favored by every known god, he stumbled out into an alley. He didn’t stop.

Alarms blasted, now. Guards ran across the west side of the alley. The other side of the alley faced Velkamas with its dark, looming towers. He bolted that way, crashing through shrubs, leaping over fountains, marble benches, through a puul grove, and tottering over a chasm. He leapt along the edge until he found a place he could step across to the other side.

It was only when he made his way back to the sanctuary to change his clothes that he noticed a long strand of pulsing white hair stuck to his hand. It must belong to the woman he’d seen with Vaudin.

“Goddess above,” he said weeping. “How lucky can I be?”

He placed that one in a new envelope. It was the most precious thing he owned.

“More leverage,” he said as he cleaned up in the fountain. He’d save it for a day when his master was furious. He imagined that stern face brightening. On that day, he just knew everything would change.

This hair will buy you everything you want, he thought.

He tossed the uniform and stolen badge into a chasm and headed home to the Lows.

34

Beyond the pristine stone of the great estates, white-lacquered and pretentious, wreathed by the crater’s black stone, were the dank, dark alleys of the city that Taul had never cared to learn about. Outside Vaidolin’s gates—those hallowed gates—was Outer Halkamas. The outer city was further divided into upper and lower. The lower, beneath a hundred-foot ridge, was a morass of half-breeds, whores, laborers, fieldhands, debtors, the houseless, and the destitute. There, amidst winding alleys and dark shacks piled atop each other, snarled the wounded and forgotten, the poor and indentured.

Daushalan had no tolerance for such things, and pressed its poor into work gangs far from the crater and stored them in longhouses. Hosmyr had not yet decided what to do with its poor. Or it had merely forgotten.

Taul pulled on his coat collar and drew the hood down to his eyes. He’d borrowed the long coat from one of his overseers, but his boots were finer than anything walking down the alley. They drew looks, disdain. This was their world, and he was the foreigner. He had the feeling, sinking and sad, that just to mention his house would earn him a shank in the gut.

In the valley, there was a dampness which usually pleased him, reminding him of the life that flowed through the orchards. Here, it reeked of waste, beasts, and grime. How did the mysterious lord know about a place like the Blue Wolf? He dared not ask. Wealthy houses needed workers; a master must know every corner of his land to govern it. He knew so little of his own house beyond the goings on within the estate walls and the upper market shops. The chits exchanged there could buy and sell the street he walked on.

How could he find a child here? And of what quality? With each step, he seriously considered turning back.