Hot, barely restrained rage flares in his eyes. The boy picks himself up and takes a moment to master his anger. I watch his eyes closely. Finally, he says, "There were six ka'kari. One for each of Emperor Jorsin Alkestes' Champions of Light. They were created by Jorsin's archmage, Ezra, during the Battle of Black Barrow. The Society of the Second Sun believes they confer immortality-the bearers of the ka'kari can still be killed, but if not killed, you live forever. Maybe not forever, but at least seven hundred years, which seems close enough to me. Most in the Society believe that you were originally Shrad Marden, bearer of the blue ka'kari, friend of Jorsin Alkestes."

Friend? Did you have friends, Jorsin? I thought I was one, but now I'm not so sure. "And you? What do you believe?"

"I think you were and are Eric Daadrul, the bearer of the silver ka'kari. Impervious to blades and able to form them in your hands by thought alone."

"There's a small rumor that Polus Merit might be dead," Gwinvere Kirena said. "Something about him giving a fortune to one of my girls." They were in one of her houses, in a small, well-appointed library. She was wearing a casual blue dress that still managed to accentuate her curves.

"Can you hush it up?" Gaelan asked.

"This is the kind of thing that can get worse if you try to quash it. Wetboys frequently disappear for weeks at a time. Sometimes they give money to their favorite rent girl in case they don't come back. It doesn't mean anything yet. I don't know the girl well enough to lean on her and be completely sure what she'd do. So I'd say we have four nights."

"Who's next?" Gaelan asked.

"Saron and Jade Marion."

"Two at once? Siblings?"

"Husband and wife. More than a little crazy."

"Anyone who chooses this work is crazy," Gaelan said.

"They have a seven-year-old son."

"So I'm making an orphan. Fantastic."

"They're already teaching him the business. Crazy."

"Oh, so now I'm doing him a favor?" Gaelan asked.

"In this life, some people are finished before they begin, Gaelan."

"You'll take care of him."

Her eyebrows lifted. First you were worried for him, now you want me to kill him?

"I mean, provide for him," Gaelan said. "You're not going to put him on the street. He gets a chance. Small as it may be."

"Done," Gwinvere said.

They were beating the boy when Gaelan arrived, landing on a neighbor's rooftop. He supposed that should have made it easier. The Marions' home, bamboo and rice paper with a steep slate roof, was in a nicer arean the southeast side of the city. The home itself was small, but had a large yard, surrounded by a high fence so their neighbors couldn't watch them train.

It was oddly careless for two wetboys, but then Gaelan supposed if you had a child, it was hard to move surrept.i.tiously between safe houses. And any robber who accidentally came here would quickly wish he hadn't. And if someone knew he was attacking two wetboys and decided to do it anyway, he was probably powerful enough to find you regardless.

Still. Odd.

And it was the mother doing the beating. "Faster, Hubert! Pathetic. You disgust me." The boy was curled up on the ground, and she was punching him, her fist stabbing in past his blocks, efficient, crisp, remorseless.

Will you serve me in this?

~What are you doing, Acaelus?~ Serve me or abandon me, black heart. I'm going.

Gaelan leapt from the roof. There were good tactical reasons to do this-there were doubtless b.o.o.by traps on the fence, on the wetboys' own roof, and at their doors-but really, he just wanted to get it over with.

Problem with jumping-you can't change course in midair. Jade screamed something just before Gaelan descended. Gaelan's sword was out, aimed squarely for Saron's back, going for the heart.

But Saron jumped instantly, and used his Talent to do so.

Gaelan's sword struck deeply enough that the blade stuck and was ripped out of his hands by the force of Saron's jump.

Gaelan hit the ground off-balance and rolled, popping to his feet and throwing a pair of knives at Jade.

She stood still, apparently stunned by his appearance.

The knives pa.s.sed through her, and she popped.

Mirage! Of course. Jade was a master of illusions.

A door slammed. The back door of the house. Jade had already escaped.

The boy had risen. He was staring at Gaelan wide-eyed.

"Sorry, kid," Gaelan said. "Nothing to do with you." He jumped over the fence into the neighbor's much smaller yard-approximately where he thought Saron should have landed.

Saron was in the yard, standing on trembling legs, leaning against a sapling for support. Gaelan's sword had entered his back and exited below his belly b.u.t.ton. The force of his jump had yanked it downward, but it hadn't cut all the way through his pelvis-so the blade was sticking out of his crotch, angled down. Blood dripped off the sword's point like p.i.s.s dribbling off a p.e.n.i.s.

"You won't get it," Saron said.

"Get what?" Gaelan asked, playing along.

"The red stone. The fire ruby."

The red ka'kari? What the h.e.l.l? "You're dying," Gaelan said. "If you don't make your move soon, you won't have the strength."

Saron shifted, and a gush of blood and worse splurted onto the ground fr his groin. A knife tumbled out of his nerveless fingers. He grunted, face contorted in pain. "Too late. Curse you."

"How much does she love you?" Gaelan asked quietly.

"What?" Saron's eyes suddenly showed a bit of real fear.

Gaelan lowered his voice further. "Because I want to know if I'm going to have to chase Jade down, or if she'll come back if I stand here talking to you long enough."

~You're despicable, Gaelan.~ Spare me.

"I'll kill you!" Saron shouted.

Raising his voice. Doubtless to cover the approach of- Gaelan threw himself to the side.

A spear pierced the air where he'd stood a second before. A mistake. She should have attacked with projectiles. She thrust again immediately as he moved in. The blade cut his tunic as it pa.s.sed between his torso and his arm.

Gaelan locked his elbow around the spear's shaft, trapping it as he twisted, bringing up his other hand and snapping the shaft below the spearhead before Jade could s.n.a.t.c.h it back.

Give her this. She'd been overcome by emotion for a moment-wanting to kill him immediately so she could tend to her dying husband-but she was cool now. She instantly lashed out again with the broken weapon, using it as a staff, unfazed.

Unarmed, Gaelan dodged behind the sapling where Saron was leaning, dying. Her strike rattled the whole tree, making Saron groan.

She stabbed at Gaelan, right past Saron. Once, twice. Gaelan dodged, dodged, then blocked, absorbing the blow and throwing her back. He ripped his sword free of Saron's back.

Jade was blonde, with appropriately green eyes, hard and skinny. A muscular beauty.

She began spinning the staff in great, fast circles, while she circled Gaelan widdershins. Saron was groaning again. He'd fallen to the ground, propped awkwardly against the little sapling.

Jade made no move to attack, her face a mask of intensity, stance low, staff whirling.

Gaelan would have been fooled if his eyes weren't so good, ka'kari aided. But there was a slight shimmer to Jade's figure. And that spinning staff made no noise as it cut the air.

Dropping low, Gaelan spun, attacking behind himself, his sword cutting a gleaming arc-batting aside a shadowy sword as the real Jade, shadow-cloaked, attacked from behind him.

Gaelan's lightning-fast riposte cut halfway through her neck. Jade dropped instantly. His blade had cut her spine. Arterial blood jetted over his face as his sword slid out of her neck. The shadows she'd wrapped around her body retreated. Disappeared.

The illusion of her-her distraction, her doppelganger-continued circling, whirling the phantasmal staff. Jade had split it off from herself when Gaelan had turned away to grab his sword. Then she'd wrapped herself in shadows, and had circled him the opposite way. Clever.

The illusory Jade circled all the way to Gaelan, intent ong r staff.

At Gaelan's touch, the illusion fell apart.

When Gaelan turned again, Jade was dead. Her illusions had outlived her.

Not so different, are we?

The Marions' little boy, Hubert, came running into the yard with a little, child-sized crossbow in his hands, crying. "Father! Faather!"

Not ten paces away, wrapped in shadows, gathered in the arms of the night, Gaelan watched. With one hand, he rubbed his temples.

"Mother! Mother!" The boy, the orphan, ran to her corpse.

Darkness.

Gwinvere guided Gaelan to the basin, washed the blood off his hands. He knew he should snap out of it, but he was wooden, leaden, numb. Dead.

Jade, blond hair stained into a black halo around her head, neck cut at a sharp upward angle from collarbone to chin.

Jerissa, pet.i.te Cenarian with brown eyes, expression blank, never again to show her quirky grin, dress matted with blood from a single sword stroke through her heart.

Ysel, round Ymmuri face angelic, chest crushed, every rib snapped.

Lithel, kinky Ladeshian hair pulled into many small braids, eyes open, blackballed from the blow that had crushed the back of her skull.

Hannan, still a beauty at seventy, hair like ivory, smile lines by the dozen. The bruise prints of strangling hands around her neck.

Direla, her dusky Sethi skin fine, nose patrician, hair almost blue-black. The violence that had killed her hadn't left any marks-at least not on her face.

Fayima, features so demolished he wouldn't have been able to recognize the young princess if not for the little mole on the side of her neck.

Platinum-blond Ahnuwk. Aelin, the fire dancer. Kir, exiled d.u.c.h.ess turned pirate.

And on it went. A line of women, young and old. His wives and lovers from over the centuries. All dead. All dead because of him. One way or the other.

He turned and saw a line of dead children. His children. His dead. His fault.

Gwinvere pulled his tunic over his head like he was a child. He was standing beside a steaming tub of water. He hadn't even noticed it being brought in.

"You've come a long way, Tal Drakkan-or is it Gaelan Starfire now? So hard to run from the past, isn't it?" The man sat astride his fine midnight warhorse. A self-satisfied smirker. He was the kind of man you knew was headed for a fall, but not for a while.

Gaelan sneered. Said nothing. Continued walking home.

"You're a duke, not a dirt farmer. This is beneath you. You're a warrior! I want you to fight for me, Gaelan Starfire," Baron Rikku said, "and I won't take no for an answer."

"Oh yes you will."

Gaelan was working in the field, repairing his fence after the heaving and shifting of the ground in the winter, stacking the big, flat rocks back into their places while his big, s.h.a.ggy aurochs looked at him quizzically.

"Sure," he told the big one he called Oren. "Pretend you won't try to jump this soon as I turn my back."

Gaelan found one of the boulders that had slipped and rolled from its place. He looked left and right to see if any of the neighboring farmers were within sight. They already wondered how he was able to do so much of the heavy work by himself.

No one.

He grabbed the boulder and, with his Talent surging, picked it up and set it back in place.

"Not bad? Huh?" he said, slapping his hands free of dirt and mud.

Oren didn't seem impressed.

Gaelan liked being a farmer. Enough physical labor to keep him fit without the use of body magic. The imposition of order on the chaos of nature. The straight lines of plowing. The simplicity of his neighbors, who didn't ask anything of him except a helping hand once in a while for a barn raising.

He fixed a full league of fence before darkfall. And walked home, dirty, sweaty, and happy.

When he got home, on the big oak out front, he found his daughter and his pregnant wife. Hanged.