Daughter of Dusk (14 page)

“I’ve not seen much of you these few days,” Kyra said. “Have you been busy?”

He paused for just a moment, looking very tired. “I’ve been performing some duties for my father.”

“Oh,” Kyra said. “Everything is all right, I hope?”

“They’re fine. I mean—” He wasn’t exactly avoiding her eyes, but he wasn’t looking straight at her either. “They’re not fine, but that’s to
be expected. We’ve been having some troubles at our manor with Demon Riders. My father asked me to spend some time here negotiating on the family’s behalf.”

Tristam rarely mentioned his duties to his family. As far as Kyra knew, his older brothers bore the majority of the responsibility. “Do the negotiations have something to do with the Demon
Rider attacks?”

“There’s a family from Parna offering to help us with our defenses.” He rubbed his temples. “How have you been? How is Idalee?”

“Idalee’s doing much better. Ilona says she might be able to come home in a few…” Kyra trailed off. Tristam’s thoughts were clearly elsewhere.
“Tristam?”

“I’m sorry, Kyra. I’m a bit distracted.” He paused again. “I should go. There’s a courtier expecting me.”

He continued on his way before Kyra finished saying good-bye.

E I G H T

“H
ow much do you hate me, James?” Kyra stood at the opposite side of his cell, shifting her weight from one foot to the other when she
tired. She had no desire to lean against the damp moldy walls.

James looked slightly better this time. None of his wounds looked fresh. Perhaps everyone was too busy dealing with the Demon Rider threat to spend much time on him. “Were I free right
now, I would slit your throat, though I’d regret having to do so.”

“That’s sentimental of you.”

“You let your talents go to waste. I’ve always thought that, even before I found out what you really are.”

She shifted uncomfortably. Insults and threats, she was prepared for. Praise, though, felt wrong. “There’s to be a war,” she said. “Willem wants to launch an all-out
attack against the Demon Riders, and he’s conscripting soldiers from the city to do it.”

“Why tell me this?”

“It will be a bloodbath. Hundreds will die, most of them from the poor. And meanwhile, Willem will be marked a hero.”
More people will die than perished in James’s Demon
Rider raids.
That thought disturbed her in more ways than one.

A guard’s footsteps came through the door of the cell. James looked on in amusement as Kyra froze, then relaxed as the guard walked away. “There’s more,” he said.
“You’d not come to me again simply out of concern for your city. They’ve conscripted someone important to you, haven’t they?”

She didn’t answer, but Kyra guessed that her thoughts were plain on her face. James gave a satisfied nod. “It’s always personal. You can handle the abuse when it happens to
others, or at least you don’t care enough to make an extra effort to stop it. But when they take someone you care about, that’s when you’re willing to put yourself on the
line.”

It was frightening sometimes how right he could be. First Idalee, then Flick. And each time, Kyra became willing to do just a little bit more. Was this what had happened with James? Kyra thought
about Thalia, the mysterious girl whom James had fallen in love with, and who had died at a nobleman’s hand. How much of what James had done was because of her?

“Do you still think about Thalia?” The anonymity of the dungeon made it easier to ask such questions.

For a long moment, he didn’t respond, and Kyra wondered if she’d inadvertently ended the conversation. The only sound in the room was the occasional drip of water somewhere in the
darkness.

“Every day,” James finally said. As he spoke, Kyra caught a hint of fatigue in his voice, true exhaustion that for a moment was written all over the lines of his body.

“What would she think of everything you’ve done?”

James lifted his head, his eyes regaining their steely focus. “We’ll never know, will we?”

That answer hung between them, heavy with its implications. There was an entire lost lifetime in those words. Decades in which a woman Kyra had never met might have loved, fought, and grown old.
Kyra realized that this was one story she would never know.

Finally James shifted. “I tire of this conversation. Tell me what you came for.”

“You’ve got spies in the Palace,” said Kyra. “I know you do. If I knew more about what Willem was doing, if I could find something against him, I might stop
this.”

“If you wanted my help, mayhap you shouldn’t have handed me over to the Palace.”

“We’re not allies, James, but we have a common enemy. I’m offering you another chance to bring Willem down. You said you didn’t give me up to the Palace because you might
still get something from me. This could be it. Mayhap I can do something with that information to serve both of us.”

His eyes were shrewd as he considered her offer. “Everything about my spies stays with you. No word of this goes to Malikel or any wallhugger.”

Kyra thought for a moment. “I can do that.”

“Make no mistake, Kyra. You’ll owe me for this. Someday I’ll call in a favor from you, and I’ll hold you to it.”

Kyra stepped back, widening the space between them. “There are some things I won’t do. You know that.”

“I know your limits,” said James. The way he said it made it sound like a weakness. “I won’t push you to break them. But you’ll be indebted to me. I want your
word.”

Dealing with James was never straightforward. He was so quick, so deadly most of the time that it was easy to think violence his only weapon. But you couldn’t discount his subtler skills.
He understood people, knew how to assess their strengths and manipulate their motivations. On the surface, he was asking for a promise he couldn’t enforce, but Kyra knew better than to make
such a vow lightly. She didn’t know his whole game. She never did, but that was a risk she would take.

“I won’t help you escape,” said Kyra. “But you have my word that I will repay you within the limits of my conscience.”

James scrutinized Kyra, and she stared right back at him. Finally he nodded. “I’ve an informant in Willem’s household. He’s a servant named Orvin, and he’s good at
overhearing things. I pay in silver for each useful piece of information. He’s a tall man with dark brown hair that’s thinning at the front. About forty years of age, and he wears a
tunic with Willem’s family crest when he’s on the Palace grounds. Go talk to him.”

N I N E

K
yra asked one of Malikel’s servants about a man named Orvin in Willem’s household. The man did, in fact, exist. After a couple of days
discreetly watching the pathways leading to Willem’s quarters, Kyra spotted him. When she tailed him home, she saw that he lived on the first floor of a boardinghouse in the merchant
district. Kyra counted at least six children when she peeked in the windows.

Now that she had him, the question was when and how to approach him. The Palace was too dangerous, and surprising him in his house seemed too threatening. Kyra watched his door that night and
followed him as he left the next morning. Luckily, he didn’t head straight for the Palace but instead went to the markets. That would be as good a place as any. Kyra pulled her cloak over her
head and sped up until she fell in step with him. The man was deep in thought, and it took a while for him to notice her. He stopped in his tracks.

“James told me he paid you in silver. That right?” Kyra said.

Stark fear crossed his face.

“I in’t planning on turning you in,” she said quickly, worried that she would have to grab him to keep him from bolting. “Otherwise you’d already be in the
dungeons. But I’d like your help, and I can pay for it.”

The man squinted at her, trying to see beneath her cloak. “Who are you?”

Kyra supposed she didn’t look or sound like anyone from the Palace or the Guild. Marketplace shoppers brushed past them, and the shouts of vendors made it hard to hear. She jerked her head
toward a nearby alleyway. “Best for both of us to be out of sight.” He hesitated to follow her, and Kyra sighed. “You and I can have this chat out here or in the alley. Your
choice.” The look he gave her wasn’t kind, but he followed her to the back street. It was empty and darker than the thoroughfare. The smell of rot that always plagued alleyways near the
markets was dampened by the cold. Kyra glanced around, checking to make sure there were no windows. She dropped her hood.

Fear crossed Orvin’s face again. “You’re Malikel’s woman.”

It looked like her days of anonymity were over. “I’ve sworn no oaths to Malikel, and he doesn’t know I’m here. I just want some information.”

“And if you don’t get it, will you turn me in?”

She had to think before she answered. Blackmail would have been easy, and certainly tempting, but she shook her head. “I won’t betray a city man to the wallhuggers without good
reason. But I’m guessing that you’ve no love for Willem, if you’ve sold information to James before.”

His stance lost a bit of its defensive tilt. “I’ll have you know that I didn’t choose this path lightly,” he finally said. “I have seven mouths to feed, and His
Grace is stingy with his wealth. You’re common-born like me. You know what it’s like to be under them. If it comes out that I’ve betrayed the Palace, my family will
starve.”

“I know,” said Kyra.

He let out a resigned breath. “What do you want to know?”

“Willem’s pushing a strategy against the Demon Riders that’s almost certain to end in many deaths. I’m looking for any weakness on his part that I might be able to use
against him.”

Orvin’s eyes showed clear understanding as he took in her words. “Willem’s ambitious, I’ll give him that. He has a vision of Forge as a bastion of greatness—what
Parna has done, but bolstered with our greater numbers.” He indicated Kyra. “You yourself have benefited from Willem’s ambition. The Palace healers are some of the best in this
part of the world, and it was Willem who invested in their training. Of course, gains made by the more refined layers of society are paid for by the masses. This Demon Rider offensive is just the
latest. Glory for the city, paid for by the blood of soldiers on the ground.” He threw a quick glance over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “I can tell you this. Willem has been
receiving private messengers late at night, about once a week. They come into the Palace past midnight, when the main gates are closed.”

“What messages do they bear?” asked Kyra.

He shook his head. “The meetings are closed, with only Willem and the messengers. I wouldn’t even have known about them had I not been paying extra attention to His Grace’s
movements. But he would not receive the messengers in such secrecy if he had nothing to hide.”

She made note of his words. “One other thing. I suspect Willem might be making changes in the conscription lists. A good friend of mine was in the first conscripted unit, and it seems too
much a coincidence. Do you know anything about that?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” said Orvin. “But I’ve heard nothing of it, though that kind of evidence would be hard to find. You’d have to track down whichever
scribe he persuaded to change the lists.”

That was disappointing, but Kyra was marginally familiar with the Palace’s roster of scribes from all the time she’d spent stealing Palace records. She could look into some of the
more likely suspects. “And what about at court? Does Willem have any new allies or enemies?”

“He’s never been a friend of the Defense Minister, as you surely know. The rivalry seems more pronounced lately after Malikel was voted Second to the Head Councilman last
month.”

“That’s right,” said Kyra. It had happened shortly after Kyra started working for Malikel, and it meant that Malikel would become Head Councilman if something were to happen to
Willem. “But Willem couldn’t possibly think that Malikel would consider foul play, would he?” said Kyra.

“No, I don’t think Willem worries about assassination. But Malikel’s been pushing a good number of controversial measures—a law was passed last week requiring landlords
to wait two months before evicting a tenant. Changes like these tend to be unpopular amongst the nobility who form the core of Willem’s support. So Willem’s been attempting to undermine
Malikel’s competence. He might hope, for example, that your friend’s early conscription into the army would distract you from Malikel’s assignments.”