Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows

“Excuse me?” he said, pulling his gaze back up to her eyes, and blushing even deeper.

“Is there any way I can help you? Would you like me to bring you a glass of Sethi red and explain our range of services?” She seemed amused at his difficulties.

“No thank you, milady,” he said.

“Perhaps you’d prefer to come to the lounge and speak with me more …privately,” she said, running a finger along his jawline.

“Actually, I’d, um, prefer not to. Thank you all the same.”

She arched an eyebrow at him as if he had suggested something devilish. “Normally I like a man to warm me up a little, but if you want to go straight to my room, I’d be—”

“No!” Kylar said, then realized he’d raised his voice and people were turning to look at him. “I mean, no thank you. I’m here to see Jarl.”

“Oh, you’re one of those,” she said, her voice abruptly normal. The switch was total, jarring. Kylar noticed for the first time that she wasn’t even his age. She couldn’t be more than seventeen. Involuntarily, he thought of Mags. “Jarl’s in the office. That way,” she said.

Now that she’d abandoned seducing him, Kylar saw her differently. She looked hard, brittle. As he walked away, he heard her say, “Seems the good-looking ones always hoe the other row.”

He didn’t know what she meant, but he kept walking, worried she was laughing at him. He was halfway through the tables on his way to the office when he looked back. She was plying her trade with an older merchant, whispering something in his ear. The man beamed.

Kylar knocked on the door of the office.

The door opened. “Come in, quickly,” Jarl said.

Kylar stepped inside, his mind a whirl. Jarl—for it was undoubtedly his old friend—had grown into a handsome man. He was impeccably dressed in the newest fashion, his tunic indigo silk, his pants tight fawnskin adorned with a belt of worked silver. Jarl’s dark hair had been woven into a multitude of small long braids, each oiled and drawn back. He had an appraising look in his eyes.

There was a slight sound of cloth on cloth from the corner. Someone moving toward Kylar from behind his field of vision. Kylar kicked instinctively.

His foot caught the bodyguard in the chest. Though the guard was a big man, Kylar could feel ribs cracking. The man flew backward into the wall. He slid down and lay on the floor, unmoving.

Scanning the rest of the room in an instant, Kylar saw no other threats. Jarl had his hands spread to show he had no weapons.

“He wasn’t going to attack you. He was just making sure you didn’t have weapons. I swear it.” Jarl looked at the man on the floor. “By the High King’s balls, you’ve killed him.”

Scowling, Kylar looked at the man, sprawled unconscious in the corner. He knelt by him and put fingers against the man’s neck. Nothing. He ran his hands across the man’s chest to feel if one of the broken ribs might have penetrated his heart. Then he slammed his fist down the man’s chest. And again.

“What the hell are you—” Jarl cut off as the man’s chest suddenly rose.

The bodyguard coughed and moaned. Kylar knew that every breath would be agony for the man. But he’d live.

“Get someone to take care of him,” Kylar said. “His ribs are broken.”

Eyes wide, Jarl went into the main room and came back a few moments later with two more bodyguards. Like the first, they were big and brawny, and looked like they might be able to use the short swords at their sides. They merely glared at Kylar and picked up the big man between them.

They carried him out of the room and Jarl closed the door behind them. “You’ve learned a thing or two, haven’t you?” Jarl said. “I wasn’t testing you. He insisted on being here. I didn’t think …never mind.”

After a moment of staring at his friend, Kylar said, “You look well.”

“Don’t you mean, ‘How in the nine hells did you find me, Jarl?’” Jarl laughed.

“How in the nine hells did you find me, Jarl?”

Jarl smiled. “I never lost you. I never believed you were dead.”

“No?”

“You never could get anything past me, Azoth.”

“Don’t say that name. That boy’s dead.”

“Is he?” Jarl asked. “That’s a shame.”

Silence sat in the room as the men looked at each other. Kylar didn’t know what to do. Jarl had been his friend, Azoth’s friend anyway. But was he Kylar’s friend? That he knew who Kylar was, maybe had known for years, told Kylar that he wasn’t an enemy. At least not yet. Part of Kylar wanted to believe that Jarl just wanted to see him, wanted a chance to say goodbye that they’d never been afforded on the street. But he’d spent too many years with Master Blint to take such a naive view. If Jarl had called him in now, it was because Jarl wanted something.

“We’ve both come a long way, haven’t we?” Jarl asked.

“Is that what you brought me here to talk about?”

“A long way,” Jarl said, disappointed. “Part of me was hoping you hadn’t changed as much as I have, Kylar. I’ve been wanting to see you for years. Ever since you left, really. I wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize?”

“I didn’t mean to let her die, Kylar. I just couldn’t get away much. I tried, but even sometimes when I did get away I couldn’t find her. She had to move around a lot. But then she just disappeared. I never even found out what happened. I’m so sorry.” Tears gleamed in Jarl’s eyes and he looked away, his jaw clenched tight.

He thinks Elene is dead. He blames himself. He’s been living with that guilt for all these years. Kylar opened his mouth to tell him that she was alive, that she was doing well from all the reports he got, that sometimes he watched her from afar on the days she went out shopping, but no sound came. Two can keep a secret, Blint used to say, if one of them is dead. Kylar didn’t know Jarl now. He was managing one of Momma K’s brothels, so Jarl certainly reported to her, but maybe he reported to others as well.

It was too dangerous. Kylar couldn’t tell him. Relationships are ropes that bind. Love is a noose. The only thing that kept Kylar safe was that no one knew there was a noose with his name on it. Even he didn’t know where Elene was. She was safe somewhere on the east side. Maybe married by now. She would be seventeen, after all. Maybe even happy. She looked happy, but he didn’t even sneak close. Master Blint was right. The only thing keeping Elene safe was Kylar’s distance.

Jarl’s guilt wasn’t enough to outweigh Elene’s safety. Nothing was. Dammit, Master Blint, how do you live like this? How can you be so strong, so hard?

“I never held it against you,” Kylar said. It was pathetic. He knew it wouldn’t help, but there was nothing more he could offer.

Jarl blinked and when he met Kylar’s eyes, his dark eyes were dry. “If that were all, I never would have asked you to come. Durzo Blint has enemies, and so do you.”

“That’s not exactly news,” Kylar said. No matter that he and Blint never spoke about the jobs they did, and that anyone who knew of their work firsthand was dead. Word got out. Word always gets out. Another wetboy would attribute a job to them. A client would brag about who he’d hired. They had enemies they’d wronged, and more enemies who only thought that Durzo had wronged them. It was one of the costs of being the best. The families of deaders never attributed a successful hit to a second-rate wetboy.

“Do you remember Roth?”

“One of Rat’s bigs?” Kylar asked.

“Yes. Apparently, he’s smarter than we ever realized. After Rat died …well, everyone left like the guild was burning down. The other guilds moved in and took our territory. Everyone had to scramble to survive. Roth didn’t make any friends when he was Rat’s right hand. He nearly got killed half a dozen times. Apparently he always blamed you.”