The Kingdoms of Dust (5 page)

She let him draw her close and kiss her neck. He still wanted it all—a partner and a lover, but one he could throw to the jackals the moment it would advance his career. Not that she wouldn’t do the same.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his breath tickling her nape as he kneaded the taut muscles in her shoulders.

“Too long on that damned boat.” She conjured a smile; he could read her duplicity as well as she could his. She wasn’t going to sleep anyway. “Send for the wine.”

T
wo days later, Isyllt took Adam shopping.

They left Moth sleeping on the low couch, curled and twitching with kitten dreams, and walked two blocks from the quiet of Mulberry Lane to find a carriage. As the stink and clamor of the city rose to meet them, Adam’s heart raced like it had before his first battle. The carriage slowed as they neared the Great Bazaar, and the coach shook from the crowds pressing around them. Adam scrubbed his palms on his thighs.

Isyllt’s lips thinned, and she craned her head out the window to shout at the driver. The din swallowed most of it, but Adam heard
Istara Carsisi
. A smaller market in an older, less-trafficked neighborhood. The driver yelled to the horses and cursed pedestrians, and the carriage began to turn.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Adam said as Isyllt settled back in her seat. “I can take it.”

“It would be embarrassing if you cut someone’s head off in the market, and I can’t afford to buy you out of the
Çirağan
again. Besides, if our shadow follows us today, I want to be able to see him.”

The blue domes of the Istara rose above the rooftops as they approached, smaller and fewer than those of the Great Bazaar. Banners flapped in the breeze, reflecting the nationalities of the merchants inside: the crown and stars of the Ataskar Empire, altered and reused by Skarra and Iskar alike; Assar’s three-headed lion on crimson; the silver tree on blue of Vallorn; Selafai’s white tower and crescent on grey; and a dozen others besides. Even the knotwork horse of the Steppes clans, gold on sky-blue.

Colors dazzled as he stepped out of the carriage—gleaming spires, tangling flags, buildings painted ochre and orange, pinks and reds and blues. Sunlight sparked off brass chimes and windowpanes. Dogs barked and snarled after food carts, and goats bleated on their way to the slaughterhouse. Adam was full of sympathy as he followed Isyllt through the wide arch. At least the market had a roof to protect him from the yawning mouth of sky.

Light streamed through high windows, swirling with dust from the packed earthen floors. Sweat and spices and the heat of bodies thickened the air, enough to make him sneeze. Every draft carried a new scent—fruit, bread, oiled leather, wool, incense—a map to guide him through the labyrinthine aisles.

Isyllt didn’t haggle well, but still managed to collect bread and persimmons for a good price. She wore a glove over her black diamond ring, but her pallor and sharp cheeks and sharper smile served just as well. Few merchants found it worthwhile to antagonize a witch over pennies. The cheesemonger, however, was less impressed, and charged her three clipped silver kurush for a round of wine-soaked cheese.

She bought clothes and boots for Adam as well. Everything practical, but he saw her gaze and fingers stray to southern styles more than once. She was considering Asheris’s offer more seriously than she would admit.

By the time they left the clothiers’ row Adam’s neck had begun to itch. Even small markets in Kehribar were crowded, and too many people had brushed or bumped or shoved him already, but the watched sensation didn’t change.

The next aisle belonged to the metalworkers, booth after booth of gold and silver, bronze and steel, polished and gleaming. The bitter smell of oil and metal soothed him; the sight of sword racks soothed him even more.

“Have you seen our friend yet?” Isyllt whispered in Selafaïn, leaning close as a lover as he studied a row of blades. Her breath chilled the sweaty stubble above his ear.

A flicker of movement in mirror-bright steel, and he knew. “The brown man.” Brown skin, brown clothes, brown mien. The kind of man who left a gap in a watcher’s memory, but Adam had seen the same gap too many times to discount him.

“Damn.” She turned her head with a laugh and leaned in again, her lips brushing his ear. “Then there are two of them.”

They didn’t leave the bazaar after Adam found a sword, but retired to one of the inner balconies to drink coffee and study the crowd. The upper level was still hot, but a breeze wafted through the windows, drying the sweat on his scalp and neck.

“Who’s your second shadow?” Adam asked, running his hand over the pommel at his hip. Three merchants had nearly come to blows over his choice, all swearing the quality of their goods on a lengthening line of dead ancestors. Each told the truth, but no matter how well crafted the yatagans and kilijes, how lovely their curves, the balance of chopping blades wasn’t right in his hand. He’d refused them all until the last vendor unearthed a western longsword in the bottom of a trunk.

Isyllt lifted her coffee cup. “The woman in black,” she said, hiding her lips behind the rim. “By the glassmaker’s table.”

A slender woman, neither short nor tall, wearing loose robes and a veil hiding her hair and the bottom half of her face. Another nondescript darkness in the press of shoppers, but something in her stance nagged at him, the bend of her wrist as she lifted a glass. Try as he might, he couldn’t pin the memory down.

Adam raised his own cup but didn’t drink. The liquid was thick enough to stand a spoon in, rich with cardamom and so sour it was almost salty. His hands tingled from the few sips he’d taken. “Lose her? Follow her?” The brown man had vanished when they sat down, but the woman lingered.

“There’s no need to rush.” Isyllt pulled a persimmon from her satchel and a small folding knife from her pocket. Juice ran down the blade as she carved the orange fruit into slices. She only used the thumb and forefinger of her left hand—the other three fingers curled toward her palm, hidden in a black glove. “She buys things to keep from being noticed. The longer we sit here, the more she spends.”

Adam laughed and took the slice she offered. The sweetness shocked him, nearly as potent as the coffee. “Cruel.”

Sure enough, the woman handed the merchant a handful of coins in exchange for a glass perfume bottle. He read annoyance in the set of her shoulders as she turned away, losing herself in the current of the crowd.

Isyllt wiped her knife clean and tucked it away. “Do you two want to be alone?”

When he frowned, she tilted her head toward the sword angled across his lap. His left hand hadn’t left the hilt, absently tracing the grain of the wyrmskin wrappings. An eastern touch on a western blade—the great serpents were rare, and never seen west of the Zaratan Sea. The chunk of amber set in the cross-guard was another, an unblinking orange eye.

Adam snorted and took his hand away. “It’s been a long time.”

That earned him a sideways glance and the slow lift of her eyebrows. He blushed, and cursed the sallow pallor of his skin that let her see it.

Her gaze sharpened and turned back to the market floor. “Now,” she said, taking a last sip of coffee and grimacing at the dregs. “She’s distracted again. Let’s go.”

They moved casually, twisting through the press toward the doors. “I want to catch her,” Isyllt said. “Are you up for a fight?”

His hand tightened on the sword. His palms were soft, and his shoulder ached from the weight of the satchel he carried. “No.” The word was bitter, or maybe that was just the coffee on his tongue.

“I don’t know that I am either.”

They shared a wry glance. Three years ago, that might not have stopped either of them.

Sweat sprang up on Adam’s brow as they stepped into the hammerfall of sunlight, thickened with billowing dust. Isyllt squinted into the glare and shook her head. “We’re getting old.”

“Speak for yourself,” he said. But the lost year was another pushing him closer to forty. Grey flecked the stubble on his scalp for the first time. Not quite doddering yet, but an age when a mercenary had to plan for the future—or rush headlong toward it.

They ignored the waiting carriages and ducked around the side of the building, where the alleys were crowded with more merchants selling fruit and crafts and fabrics from baskets and handcarts. Adam’s knees and hips and shoulders ached from dodging the crowd, and the light and noise fed the headache growing behind his eyes. He breathed deep and forced the discomfort away, keeping pace with Isyllt’s long-legged stride. The world wouldn’t wait for him to catch his breath.

Adam watched the entrance while Isyllt pretended to peruse a stand billowing with silk shawls. The bazaar had smaller doors for merchants and security, but if their shadow meant to follow them she would come this way. Heartbeats slipped into moments, and she didn’t appear. Had she lost track of them? Given up? Wrapped herself in sorcery and slipped away unseen?

Isyllt’s own tactic backfired—she eventually paid the shawl-seller for a black-and-silver scarf and shoved it into her bag. “Where did she go?”

“I don’t—” Adam broke off as his shoulder blades began to prickle. He spun, to hell with stealth, and caught the brown man watching them from the far end of the alley. The man vanished between stalls as soon as their eyes met.

“Shadows,” Isyllt swore, and hurried after him.

They found the alley their tail had taken, a narrow dusty lane shadowed by buildings. Isyllt scanned the rooftops and kept going.

“You know this is a trap,” Adam said. His breath came rough and painful, but the rush of a chase gave him new strength.

“Of course.” She tugged off her right glove and the cabochon diamond shone dully.

Another turn, and this time they caught their quarry ducking around a bend. Adam had the man’s scent now, and it was as bland and forgettable as the rest of him. They dodged sleeping beggars and a startled dog and turned again. They were gaining.

The next twist led to a dead end. Adam cursed as they stared at a grimy brick wall. The man might have climbed it, but there was no sign of him on the roofs.

Isyllt nudged him till they stood side by side in the alley mouth. “Look.”

Tracks in the dirt. Dust recently disturbed settled slowly. Adam breathed in, and that bland brown scent filled his nose. Close.

“Why are you following me?” Isyllt asked softly, speaking to the wall.

No. Adam tilted his head and saw the shadow against the bricks. The outline that didn’t quite blend. Sorcery, cunning as a chameleon’s changing skin. His sword hissed free of its scabbard; the sound made his blood sing. Instinct, at least, hadn’t atrophied.

Isyllt held out a hand. Pale light flickered in her diamond. “I want answers, not blood.”

The shadow wavered and resolved into the brown man. He drew a long dagger from beneath his cloak. The blade was painted matte. “And if I wanted your blood, I would have spilled it by now. Let me pass.”

Isyllt had spoken in Selafaïn and he answered in the same tongue. The words were muffled by the dun scarf across his mouth; Adam couldn’t guess his native language.

She didn’t budge. “Why are you following me?”

His eyes creased. “Can’t you guess?”

“I’m tired of guessing. Enlighten me.”

He stepped forward, slow and cautious, hands wide and nonthreatening. “If you must know—”

A flare of nostrils, a shift of weight. A heartbeat’s warning.

The man moved like water, his blade a black blur. Adam lunged, swung. Too slow. Too weak. At least he was a distraction; the brown man twisted mid-strike, only inches from Isyllt, to block Adam’s blow. Steel rang. A twist, and the hilt wrenched from his fingers. In one smooth move the man drove his knee home, and Adam fell retching.

Through watering eyes he watched Isyllt collide with the assassin, black hair flying as her scarf fell away. She hadn’t drawn her knife, but she could kill with a touch.

So why, heartbeats later, were they still scrabbling in the dust? Adam pushed himself up, groping across packed earth for his sword.

Isyllt’s hands were around the man’s neck, his face already a mess of scratches. Blood smeared hers. She held on like a terrier, but he wedged a boot into her gut and flung her back.

“Bitch,” the man choked, a note of admiration in his voice. He rolled to his feet, still graceful despite his purpling throat. “I would have made this easier—”

He choked and stumbled sideways, a scarlet bubble bursting on his lips. A dark stain spread down his shoulder. Adam knocked Isyllt aside as the man’s knife thumped against the dust. The man followed a heartbeat later, knees buckling. As his bloody hand fell away, Adam saw the weighted dart that pierced his throat. Red mist sprayed from his nose and mouth as he tried to breathe.

Black cloth swirled on the rooftop and was gone.

They waited, breath held, pressed against the cool plaster while the brown man kicked and gurgled his last, his dun scarf soaked red. His dullness faded as he did—the smell of blood and shit filled the narrow alley, as strong as any death.

For a long moment Isyllt lay still, Adam’s arm pressing her into the dust. As the shock of battle faded, her pulse pounded in scrapes and bruises. The chill in her diamond numbed her right hand.

It was only when Adam pulled away that she realized the chill was greater than a simple death would cause. Her eyes narrowed, looking
otherwise
, and she saw the pale, smoke-tattered shape of a fresh ghost lingering beside the corpse.

“
Kastanos!
”

A Selafaïn word that meant only “dark-haired”—hardly a name to conjure with, but it was the best she could do in her haste. All the same, the ghost paused, swaying toward her. As she focused on him, she felt a shivering connection between them, frail as a spider’s web.

Names were best for binding souls—knowledge took the place of consent—but other things formed a connection that a clever vinculator could exploit. This man had followed her for decads, chosen to risk his life to murder her. He had tied himself to her through his actions, and she’d be damned if she’d let him escape a second time. Her right hand rose, clenched in the ephemeral gossamer ice of his soul. Her ring blazed white and blinding.

He fought. Even in the confusion of death his will was strong. But she had years of training and the strength of anger. Her grip held and the diamond opened, swallowing the brown man into its crystalline depths. Her arm ached to the shoulder with cold.