Fate's Edge (39 page)

She leaned forward, rocking on her toes to stand a little closer to his face. “You will break my heart, Kaldar. We both know it. And now, since we have everything out in the open, how about we forget we had this conversation? You go back to your room, and tomorrow, we’ll flirt and laugh and act like nothing happened.”

He just stood there.

“Fine. You want it the other way, we can do that, too. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that’s not what you’ve imagined, and, for once in your life, don’t lie.”

Kaldar leaned forward, his eyes dark. “I imagined that you might want to have a little bit of fun before you went back to wasting your life. You have the brains, the talent, and the looks, and you use all that to take dirty pictures of adulterers and flirt with insurance cheats. Is that really it, Audrey? Is that who you aspire to be?”

She recoiled.

“You’re right,” Kaldar said. “When it’s over, I
will
fly off on a wyvern, and you will go back to your dull existence, suppressing everything that makes you you. I may not be married or trustworthy, but what I do matters, and I’m good at it.”

“What I do matters, too!”

“To whom? Anyone can do your job, Audrey. Of course, you are the best at it. You have so much talent and experience, you have no competition. You’re playing with marked cards at a table full of blind players. Is that it? Are you afraid of competition? Afraid to try to see how good you really are? Because I’ve never seen better.”

“You can leave now.”

“Oh, I’m going. Don’t worry. Think about what I said, Audrey. You were born to steal, to grift, and to outwit people who need to be stopped. But you insist on withering your soul instead. You say you want honesty. Try being honest with yourself. Why did you break into the Pyramid of Ptah? Why, when I came to you with this possibly fatal proposition to fight the Hand and the Edge barons, did it take you less than ten minutes to take me up on it?”

He turned and walked out of the room.

The door clicked closed.

Audrey flung herself on the bed. It had to be said. Of course it had to be said. If anything, it was a wonder both of them had stayed in the room as long as they had. Most conmen ran when called on it, and neither she nor Kaldar were an exception to that rule. Audrey stared at the door. She wanted it to burst open. She wanted him to charge into the room, grab her, kiss her, and tell her he loved her. It was such a stupid little-girl fantasy, and yet she sat there, desperate, and stared at the door.

She was right. Everything she had said was perfectly valid. Everything he had said was perfectly valid, too. She had known the safest thing would have been to walk away from this adventure the first chance she got. And when she had climbed the mountain slope to Gnome’s house, hyper-aware of Kaldar behind her, that possibility had entered her head. But she had stayed. She had stayed because it was right, she had stayed because every twist and every challenge sent the excitement of anticipation through her. She had stayed because she cared what would happen to Gaston, Jack, and George. And she had stayed because being near Kaldar made her dream.

Audrey didn’t know what she would do when it was all over. She couldn’t go back to the Broken. In a twisted way, all her fears had come true: Kaldar had destroyed her life, and up until tonight, she had blissfully helped him dismantle it brick by brick.

Half an hour later, she knew he wouldn’t be coming. She cried quietly until she was too exhausted to sob. Then she washed her face with cold water to keep it from being puffy and red in the morning, turned off the lights, and climbed into her bed.

The night shadows claimed the room. She usually welcomed darkness, but tonight it felt sinister. She lay for a long minute, torn between the fear of darkness and the irrational worry that if she stepped down to turn on the lights, something would grab her ankle.

This was ridiculous.

She got out of bed, turned on the lights, went to the next suite, and knocked on the door. The door swung open, and Gaston grinned at her.

“Can I borrow a knife?”

“A peel-an-apple knife or a serious knife?”

“A serious knife.”

He stepped into the room and handed her a long wavy dagger with a silvery blade. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.”
I’m just afraid to go to sleep by myself.
“I just realized that I have no weapon.”

Understanding sparked in his eyes. “Have you seen my uncle? I thought he was with you.”

“He came by but left a while ago. Thank you for the dagger.”

“No problem.”

She went back into her room, locked the door, put the dagger on the night table next to the bed, turned off the lights, and lay down. If any of the Hand’s freaks decided to hide under her bed, she would turn it into mincemeat.

 

KALDAR leaned on the rail of a long balcony wrapping the third floor of the hotel. Below him, a landscaped courtyard tried to tempt him with a small pool. Mmm. A swim wouldn’t be unwelcome right about now. A paved walkway wound around it and stretched on toward some small river winding its way between green shores. A full moon hung above all of it, like a pale coin in the dark sky. In the moonlight, the river’s water glistened like volcanic glass.

Regret filled him, and when he looked at the moon’s face, it seemed mournful to him.

He had blown it with Audrey. He said things he should’ve kept to himself if he entertained any hope of ever being with her. What he had said was the truth, but it would change nothing. When they were done, she would return to her life in the Broken and persist in slowly wasting away. He truly had never seen anyone better, and it brought him nearly physical pain to think she would waste it all. He sighed, hoping to exhale his frustration into the night.

Careful footsteps came from the stairwell. A moment, and Gaston leaned on the rail next to him. “Here you are, Uncle. I was worried.”

“I’m touched,” Kaldar replied out of habit, but his voice sounded devoid of mirth even to him.

Gaston’s eyes caught the moonlight and reflected it in bright silver. He gathered himself, his gaze fixed on the pale disk as if wanting to reach for it. The thoas always had a thing for the moon.

“Does it speak to you?” Kaldar asked.

“No. But there is something about it. It’s this beautiful thing you can never reach. No matter what you do, you’ll never touch it. You can only look and imagine what it would be like to hold it.” Gaston turned and looked at him. “Something’s bothering you, Uncle.”

“How old was your father when he had you? Twenty-eight?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“And you’re the youngest of the three.”

Gaston nodded.

“I’ve been thinking,” Kaldar said. “Before the Hand decimated the family, we had seven men within five years of my age. None of them were unmarried.”

Gaston frowned at the moon. “No, except for Richard.”

Yes, Richard.
Bringing up his older brother’s marriage was like worrying an old scab—it had healed over, but it still hurt. Richard’s wife had left him, as their mother had left their father a decade before. Richard had never recovered. Come to think of it, neither had he.

Kaldar had arranged that marriage. He’d arranged most marriages within the family. Love was one thing. Getting two swamp clans to settle on the dowry and terms was another. At the time, he had no misgivings. Richard and Meline seemed perfect for each other. Both serious, both focused. In retrospect, they had been too alike.

“It’s Memaw’s fault,” Gaston said. “She nags everyone into marriage. I remember my older brother complaining. The moment he turned twenty, she started after him with the guilt. ‘Oh, I will die soon and won’t get to see you have the little ones. If only you’d find yourself a nice girl, I could go to the funeral pyre happy.’ She’s like an ere-vaurg—once she gets her teeth into you, she won’t let go until you give up.”

“She never brought it up with me.”

“Strange. You always had the prettiest girls.” Gaston grinned. “Maybe she was scared, Uncle. If we had Kaldar number two and Kaldar number three around, nothing would stay put. You’d set something down and whoosh, it would be gone, and nobody would know what had happened to it.”

Kaldar looked at the river. He had to give Audrey that one. Nobody had ever expected him to settle down. Not even his own family. He didn’t inspire the family-man kind of confidence.

Thinking back, he remembered faces and names, men he used to know in the Mire. Men who were his friends. One by one, he’d stop seeing them around, and a year or two later, he’d find out they were married. They’d run into each other, they’d introduce their wives and watch him with more diligence than needed. He could imagine the conversation around the dinner table. Wives had little use for him—he was liable to get their husbands into trouble, and his former friends weren’t too keen on letting him talk to their women too much.

Marriage was a trap. The moment the man said the words “I do” at the altar, he surrendered his freedom. He was no longer free to pursue other women. Staying out past the appointed hour required his wife’s permission. Getting drunk with his friends resulted in a fight when he got home. He’d have to report where he went, when he would be back, who he would be with, and why he would choose to do something else rather than stay home and pick out fabric for new drapes. A married man was no longer carefree. He was a provider, a husband, and a father. His castle was no longer his. He was permitted to live there on someone else’s terms. He already had Nancy Virai telling him where to go and what to do there. That was as much supervision as he cared to accept.

“Is Audrey doing okay?” Gaston asked.

“She’s fine.”

“Oh good. She came by asking for a knife. I think she’s scared to sleep by herself.”

“It’s a harder thing for her than it is for us,” Kaldar said. “George deals with death every day. He’s come to terms with it. Jack has killed things in the woods since he could walk. He has a simple way of looking at it. You and I are from the Mire. Audrey has had very little experience with brutality. It wasn’t a part of her life.” And the last time she experienced it, it scarred her. She didn’t seem like she was falling apart, but Audrey was an excellent actress.

Genius conman. Yes, there was the pot calling the kettle black.

There were nights when he was afraid to go to sleep by himself as well. He’d planned on making it easier on both of them tonight, but even the best of plans occasionally came crashing down.

“She’s funny,” Gaston said.

Kaldar looked at him.

“And pretty. And she doesn’t buy any of the bullshit you’re selling.”

“I think it’s time for you to go to bed.”

Gaston grinned, his eyes shining. “Whatever you say, Uncle.”

He started toward the stairway and turned, walking backward. “If you had a kid, would he be my cousin once or twice removed?”

“Keep walking.”

Gaston laughed. A moment later, a quick staccato of footsteps announced his going down the stairs.

Kaldar looked back to the moon. It stared back at him, beautiful and indifferent. The moon was the same everywhere, here over some small river in the Broken or back in the Mire, hanging over the dark cypresses, serenaded by ere-vaurgs. He used to look at it like this from the balcony of the old Mar house. Thanks to the Hand, the family home lay abandoned now. None of them could ever return to it.

He missed the Mire but less than he’d expected. The family had built a new house on the edge of the Red Swamps in Adrianglia. The Red Swamps differed from the Mire, but it felt like home. He’d built his own house too, not too far from the family’s, on the edge of a quiet river. It wasn’t grand—the Mirror’s pay wouldn’t buy him a palace, and since the builder had wanted cash, the purchase had wiped out his accounts—but it was large and comfortable, and in the late afternoon, when the sun shone through the living-room windows, the polished floor and wooden walls seemed to glow.

He hadn’t gotten around to putting furniture in it, except for a rocking chair on the porch. But he did own a house. At least that part she was wrong about.

Kaldar closed his eyes and pictured a woman in his kitchen. She laughed, turned, and he realized she was Audrey.

He couldn’t have Audrey. He’d have to think up a different fantasy.

Audrey smiled at him from his kitchen.

They were perfectly in tune. Birds of a feather. She understood him. Oh yes, she understood him too well. She knew exactly how things would play out between them, and she had decided against it. And she was right. One hundred percent right. He was a scoundrel, and he would use her. Both of them would have the time of their lives while they did. But in the end, he wouldn’t be caught, and she refused to try.

It was said that there was honor among thieves; there wasn’t. But there was honor between him and Audrey. Well, aside from the theft of the cross, which she had taken rather badly. She could’ve led him on, she could’ve seduced him into her bed—not that it would have taken much. He’d climb a mountain to taste her again, and then, when he was comfortable and happy, she could’ve tried to trap him with guilt. Most men got married because they were comfortable where they were, and breaking free was too hard and too unpleasant. She didn’t go that route. No, she told him up front that he wasn’t good enough for her.

And why exactly was that? He was good at what he did. The best thief, she’d said. The best swordsman, the sexiest man she’d ever met. The genius conman. Genius. She told him he was better than her father, for crying out loud. It wasn’t often a woman said something like that.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t provide for her. Not that he ever intended to marry, but if he did, his wife wouldn’t want for anything. He was a Mar, after all. Mars took care of their families.

Besides, if he ever did bring Audrey to his house, she wouldn’t stay home and bake pies. She would insist on going with him. Now that would be an unbeatable pairing. The things they could accomplish together . . . It was almost too tempting to contemplate. Not only did Audrey understand his schemes, but she could change direction on the fly. She had no trouble improvising under pressure, and say what you wanted about her aversion to violence, when push came to shove, she’d blow an enemy’s brains out. In their world, there would be no unlocked doors. It would be so much fun.