“That pain you feel,” Master Blint said almost gently, “is the pain of abandoning a delusion. The delusion is meaning, Kylar. There is no higher purpose. There are no gods. No arbiters of right and wrong. I don’t ask you to like reality. I only ask you to be strong enough to face it. There is nothing beyond this. There is only the perfection we attain by becoming weapons, as strong and merciless as a sword. There is no essential good in living. Life is nothing in itself. It’s a place marker that proves who’s winning, and we are the winners. We are always the winners. There is nothing but the winning. Even winning means nothing. We win because it’s an insult to lose. The ends don’t justify the means. The means don’t justify the ends. There is no one to justify to. There is no justification. There is no justice. Do you know how many people I’ve killed?”
Kylar shook his head.
“Me neither. I used to. I remembered the name of every person I killed outside of battle. Then it was too many. I just remembered the number. Then I remembered only the innocents. Then I forgot even that. Do you know what punishments I’ve endured for my crimes, my sins? None. I am proof of the absurdity of men’s most treasured abstractions. A just universe wouldn’t tolerate my existence.”
He took Kylar’s hands. “On your knees,” he said. Kylar knelt at the edge of a pool of the blood seeping from the woman’s body.
“This is your baptism,” Master Blint said, putting both of Kylar’s hands in the blood. It was warm. “This is your new religion. If you must worship, worship as the other wetboys do. Worship Nysos, god of blood, semen, and wine. At least those have power. Nysos is a lie like all the gods, but at least he won’t make you weak. Today, you’ve become an assassin. Now get out, and don’t wash your hands. And one more thing: when you’ve got to kill an innocent, don’t let them talk.”
Kylar staggered through the streets like a drunk. Something was wrong with him. He should feel something, but instead, there was only emptiness. It was like the blood on his hands had burst from some soul wound.
The blood was drying now, getting sticky, the bright red fading to brown everywhere but inside his clenched fists. He hid his hands, hid the blood, hid himself, and his mind—less numb than his heart—knew that there was a point in this, too. He would be a wetboy, and he would always be hiding. Kylar himself was a mask, an identity assumed for convenience. That mask and every other would fit because before his training was done, every distinguishing feature of the Azoth who had been would be obliterated. Every mask would fit, every mask would fool every inspector, because there would be nothing underneath those masks.
Kylar couldn’t wear his courier disguise into the Warrens—couriers never went to the Warrens—so he headed to an east side safe house on a block crowded with the tiny homes of artisans and those servants not housed at their lords’ estates. He rounded a corner and ran straight into a girl. She would have gone sprawling if he hadn’t grabbed her arms to catch her.
“Sorry,” he said. His eyes took in the simple servant’s white dress, hair bound back, and a basket full of fresh herbs. Last, he saw the gory red smears he’d just left on each of her sleeves. Before he could disappear, start running down the street before she saw how he’d stained her, the arcs and crosses of scars on her face clicked into place like the pieces of a puzzle.
They were white now, scars now, where he had branded them into his mind as deep, red, inflamed cuts, burst tissue, dribbling blood, the rough scrape and muted gurgle of blood being swallowed, blood bursting in little bubbles around a destroyed nose. He only had time to see unmistakable scars and unmistakable big brown eyes.
Doll Girl looked down demurely, not recognizing this murderer as her Azoth. The downward glance showed her the gore on her sleeves, and she looked up, horror etched every feature not already etched with scars.
“My God,” she said, “you’re bleeding. Are you all right?”
He was already running, sprinting heedlessly through the market. But no matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t outrun the concern and the horror in those beautiful eyes. Those big brown eyes followed him. Somehow, he knew they always would.
25
You ready to be a champion?” Master Blint asked.
“What are you talking about?” Kylar asked. They’d finished the morning’s sparring and he’d done better than usual. He didn’t even think he’d be sore tomorrow. He was sixteen years old now, and it seemed like the training was finally starting to pay off. Of course, he still hadn’t won a single fight with Master Blint, but he was starting to have hope. On the other hand, Blint had been in a foul mood all week.
“The king’s tourney,” Master Blint said.
Kylar grabbed a rag and mopped his face. This safe house was small and it got stiflingly hot. King Aleine Gunder IX had convinced the Blademasters to certify a tourney in Cenaria. Of course, they might watch and decide that not even the winner was good enough to be a Blademaster, but on the other hand, they might decide that three or four contestants were. Even a first echelon Blademaster could find great work at any royal court in Midcyru. But, typically, Blint had sneered about the whole affair. Kylar said, “You said the king’s tourney was for the desperate, the rich, and the foolish.”
“Mm-hmm,” Blint said.
“But you want me to fight anyway,” Kylar said. He guessed that made him “desperate.” Most children’s Talent quickened by their early teens. His still hadn’t, and Blint was losing his patience.
“The king’s holding the tourney so he can hire the winners to be bodyguards. He wants to make sure he isn’t hiring any wetboys, so this tourney has a special rule: no one Talented allowed. There will be a maja at the tourney to check all the contestants, a Chantry-trained healer. She’s also there to ward the swords so the contestants don’t kill each other and to heal anyone who gets hurt. The Nine have decided to flex their muscle. They want one of their own to win, to remind everyone who’s who in this city. So it’s a situation that fits you like a peg leg fits a cripple. Not that that’s a coincidence. This tourney wouldn’t even be happening if they hadn’t suggested it. The Nine knows all about you and your little problem.”
“What?” Kylar was incredulous. He hadn’t even known they knew who he was. What if he lost?
“Hu Gibbet showed off his apprentice Viridiana to the Nine this week. A girl, Kylar. I watched her fight. She’s Talented, of course. She’d take you, no problem.”
Kylar felt a wave of shame. Hu Gibbet was a murderer of the vilest sort. Hu loved murder, loved cruelty for its own sake. Hu never failed, but he also always killed more than just the target. Blint despised him. Kylar was making his master look second-best to a butcher.
“Wait,” Kylar said. “Isn’t the tourney today?”
It was noon when Kylar arrived at the stadium on the north side of the Warrens. It had only been used for horse races for the last twelve years. Before that, it had been the home of the Death Games. As Kylar approached, he could hear the crowds within. The stadium could hold fifteen thousand people, and it sounded full.
He walked in a cocky glide. It was meant not only to suggest an arrogant young swordsman, but also to disguise his own natural stride. Count Drake wouldn’t attend an event that he saw as reminiscent of the Death Games, but Logan Gyre might, as would any number of the young nobles Kylar had to interact with on a fairly regular basis. Usually, Kylar felt no anxiety when he was disguised. First, he was good enough with disguises now that he didn’t feel much danger. Second, anxiety drew attention like a lodestone. But now his stomach was in an uproar because his disguise was no disguise at all.