Shadow's Edge

Book 2: The Night Angel Trilogy

by Brent Weeks

Genres: Epic Fantasy; Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure

Synopsis

The action-packed second book in the Night Angel series, from international bestseller Brent Weeks - an astonishing and epic tale of magic, violence and revenge.

Kylar has rejected the assassin's life. In the wake of the Godking's violent coup, both his master and his closest friend are dead. His friend was Logan Gyre, heir to Cenaria's throne, but few of the ruling class survive to mourn his loss. So Kylar is starting over: new city, new companions, and new profession.

But when he learns that Logan might be alive, trapped and in hiding, Kylar faces an impossible choice. He could give up the way of shadows forever, and find peace with his young family. Or Kylar could succumb to his flair for destruction, the years of training, to save his friend and his country - and lose all he holds precious.

'Brent Weeks has a style of immediacy and detail that pulls the reader relentlessly into his story. He doesn't allow you to look away' Robin Hobb

'Nobody does break-neck pacing and amazingly-executed plot twists like Brent Weeks' Brian McClellan

'Weeks creates a rich blend of politics, culture and character . . . then throws in magic-using assassins' Peter V. Brett

'Unforgettable characters, a plot that kept me guessing, non-stop action and the kind of in-depth storytelling that makes me admire a writer's work' Terry Brooks

'Weeks has truly cemented his place among the great epic fantasy writers of our time' British Fantasy Society

For more from Brent Weeks, check out:

Night Angel
The Way of Shadows
Shadow's Edge
Beyond the Shadows

The Kylar Chronicles
Night Angel Nemesis

Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella
The Way of Shadows: The Graphic Novel

Lightbringer
The Black Prism
The Blinding Knife
The Broken Eye
The Blood Mirror
The Burning White

Release date: November 1, 2008

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 656

Sample

We’ve got a contract for you,” Momma K said. As always, she sat like a queen, her back straight, sumptuous dress perfect, hair
immaculately coifed if gray at the roots. This morning she had dark circles under her eyes. Kylar guessed that none of the
Sa’kagé’s surviving leaders had slept much since the Khalidoran invasion.


“Good morning to you, too,” Kylar said, settling into the wing-backed chair in the study. Momma K didn’t turn to face him,
looking instead out her window. Last night’s rain had quenched most of the fires in the city, but many still smoked, bathing
the city in a crimson dawn. The waters of the Plith River that divided rich eastern Cenaria from the Warrens looked as red
as blood. Kylar wasn’t sure that was all because of the smoke-obscured sun, either. In the week since the coup, the Khalidoran
invaders had massacred thousands.


Momma K said, “There’s a wrinkle. The deader knows it’s coming.”

“How’s he know?” The Sa’kagé wasn’t usually so sloppy.

“We told him.”

Kylar rubbed his temples. The Sa’kagé would only tell someone so that if the attempt failed, the Sa’kagé wouldn’t be committed.
That meant the deader could only be one man: Cenaria’s conqueror, Khalidor’s Godking, Garoth Ursuul.


“I just came to get my money,” Kylar said. “All of Durzo’s—my safe houses burned down. I only need enough to bribe the gate
guards.” He’d been giving her a cut of his wages to invest since he was a child. She should have plenty for a few bribes.


Momma K flipped silently through sheets of rice paper on her desk and handed one to Kylar. At first, he was stunned by the
numbers. He was involved in the illegal importation of riot weed and half a dozen other addictive plants, owned a race horse,
had a stake in a brewery and several other businesses, part of a loan shark’s portfolio, and owned partial cargos of items
like silks and gems that were legitimate except for the fact the Sa’kagé paid 20 percent in bribes rather than 50 percent
in tariffs. The sheer amount of information on the page was mind-boggling. He didn’t know what half of it meant.


“I own a house?” Kylar asked.

“Owned,” Momma K said. “This column denotes merchandise lost in the fires or looting.” There were checks next to all but a
silk expedition and one for riot weed. Almost everything he had owned was lost. “Neither expedition will return for months,
if at all. If the Godking keeps seizing civilian vessels, they won’t come back at all. Of course, if he were dead—”


He could see where this was going. “This says my share is still worth ten to fifteen thousand. I’ll sell it to you for a thousand.
That’s all I need.”


She ignored him. “They need a third wetboy to make sure it works. Fifty thousand gunders for one kill, Kylar. With that much,
you can take Elene and Uly anywhere. You’ll have done the world a good turn, and you’ll never have to work again. It’s just
one last job.”


He wavered only for a moment. “There’s always one last job. I’m finished.”

“This is because of Elene, isn’t it?” Momma K asked.

“Momma K, do you think a man can change?”

She looked at him with a profound sadness. “No. And he’ll end up hating anyone who asks him to.”

Kylar got up and walked out the door. In the hallway, he ran into Jarl. Jarl was grinning like he used to when they were growing
up on the streets and he was up to no good. Jarl was wearing what must be the new fashion, a long tunic with exaggerated shoulders
paired with slim trousers tucked into high boots. It looked vaguely Khalidoran. His hair was worked into elaborate microbraids
capped with gold beads that set off his black skin.


“I’ve got the perfect job for you,” Jarl said, his voice lowered, but unrepentant about eavesdropping.

“No killing?” Kylar asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Your Holiness, the cowards stand ready to redeem themselves,” Vürdmeister Neph Dada announced, his voice carrying over the
crowd. He was an old man, veiny, liver-spotted, stooped, stinking of death held at bay with magic, his breath rattling from
the exertion of climbing up the platform in Cenaria Castle’s great yard. Twelve knotted cords hung over the shoulders of his
black robes for the twelve shu’ras he’d mastered. Neph knelt with difficulty and offered a handful of straw to the Godking.


Godking Garoth Ursuul stood on the platform inspecting his troops. Front and center were nearly two hundred Graavar highlanders,
tall, barrel-chested, blue-eyed savages who wore their black hair short and their mustaches long. On either side stood the
other elite highland tribes that had captured the castle. Beyond them waited the rest of the regular army that had marched
into Cenaria since the liberation.


Mists rose from the Plith River on either side of the castle and slid under the rusty teeth of the iron portcullises to chill
the crowd. The Graavar had been broken into fifteen groups of thirteen each, and they alone had no weapons, armor, or tunics.
They stood in their trousers, pale faces fixed, but sweating instead of shivering in the cool autumn morning.


There was never commotion when the Godking inspected his troops, but today the silence ached despite the thousands gathered
to watch. Garoth had gathered every soldier possible and allowed the Cenarian servants and nobles and smallfolk to watch as
well. Meisters in their black-and-red half-cloaks stood shoulder to shoulder with robed Vürdmeisters, soldiers, crofters,
coopers, nobles, field hands, maids, sailors, and Cenarian spies.


The Godking wore a broad white cloak edged with ermine thrown back to make his broad shoulders look huge. Beneath that was
a sleeveless white tunic over wide white trousers. All the white made his pallid Khalidoran skin look ghostly, and drew sharp
attention to the vir playing across his skin. Black tendrils of power rose to the surface of his arms. Great knots rose and
fell, knots edged with thorns that moved not just back and forth but up and down in waves, pressing out from his skin. Claws
raked his skin from beneath. Nor were his vir confined to his arms. They rose to frame his face. They rose to his bald scalp
and pierced the skin, forming a thorny, quivering black crown. Blood trickled down the sides of his face.


For many Cenarians, it was their first glimpse of the Godking. Their jaws hung slack. They shivered as his gaze passed over
them. It was exactly as he intended.


Finally, Garoth selected one of the pieces of straw from Neph Dada and broke it in half. He threw away one half and took twelve
full-length pieces. “Thus shall Khali speak,” he said, his voice robust with power.


He signaled the Graavar to climb the platform. During the liberation, they had been ordered to hold this yard to contain the
Cenarian nobles for slaughter. Instead, the highlanders had been routed, and Terah Graesin and her nobles had escaped. That
was unacceptable, inexplicable, uncharacteristic for the fierce Graavar. Garoth didn’t understand what made men fight one
day and flee the next.


What he did understand was shame. For the past week, the Graavar had been mucking stables, emptying chamber pots, and scrubbing
floors. They had not been allowed to sleep, instead spending the nights polishing their betters’ armor and weapons. Today,
they would expiate their guilt, and for the next year, they would be eager to prove their heroism. As he approached the first
group with Neph at his side, Garoth calmed the vir from his hands. When the men drew their straws, they must think it not
the working of magic or the Godking’s pleasure that spared one and condemned another. Rather, it was simple fate, the inexorable
consequence of their own cowardice.


Garoth held up his hands, and together, all the Khalidorans prayed: “Khali vas, Khalivos ras en me, Khali mevirtu rapt, recu virtum defite.”

As the words faded, the first soldier approached. He was barely sixteen, the least fringe of a mustache on his lip. He looked
on the verge of collapse as his eyes flitted from the Godking’s icy face to the straws. His naked chest shone with sweat in
the rising morning light, his muscles twitching. He drew a straw. It was long.


Half of the tension whooshed out of his body, but only half. The young man next to him, who looked so alike he must have been
his older brother, licked his lips and grabbed a straw. It was short.


Queasy relief washed over the rest of the squad, and the thousands watching who couldn’t possibly see the short straw knew
that it had been drawn from their reactions. The man who’d drawn the short straw looked at his little brother. The younger
man looked away. The condemned man turned disbelieving eyes on the Godking and handed him the short straw.


Garoth stepped back. “Khali has spoken,” he announced. There was a collective intake of breath, and he nodded to the squad.

They closed on the young man, every one of them—even his brother—and began beating him.

It would have been faster if Garoth had let the squad wear gauntlets or use the butts of spears or the flat of blades, but
he thought it was better this way. When the blood began flowing and spraying off flesh as it was pummeled, it shouldn’t get
on the squad’s clothing. It should get on their skin. Let them feel the warmth of the young man’s blood as he died. Let them
know the cost of cowardice. Khalidorans did not flee.


The squad attacked with gusto. The circle closed and screams rose. There was something intimate about naked meat slapping
naked meat. The young man disappeared and all that could be seen was elbows rising and disappearing with every punch and feet
being drawn back for new kicks. And moments later, blood. With the short straw, the young man had become their weakness. It
was Khali’s decree. He was no longer brother or friend, he was all they had done wrong.


In two minutes, the young man was dead.

The squad reformed, blood-spattered and blowing hard from exertion and emotion. They didn’t look at the corpse at their feet.
Garoth regarded each in turn, meeting the eyes of every one, and lingering on the brother. Standing over the corpse, Garoth
extended a hand. The vir poked out of his wrist and extended, clawlike, ragged, and gripped the corpse’s head. Then the claws
convulsed and the head popped with a wet sound that left dozens of Cenarians retching.


“Your sacrifice is accepted. Thus are you cleansed,” he announced, and saluted them.

They returned his salute proudly and took their places back in the formation in the courtyard as the body was dragged away.

He motioned the next squad. The next fourteen iterations would be nothing but more of the same. Though tension still arced
through every squad—even the squads who’d finished would lose friends and family in other squads—Garoth lost interest. “Neph,
tell me what you’ve learned about this man, this Night Angel who killed my son.”


Cenaria Castle wasn’t high on Kylar’s list of places to visit. He was disguised as a tanner, a temporary dye staining his
hands and arms to the elbow, a spattered woolen tradesman’s tunic, and a number of drops of a special perfume his dead master
Durzo Blint had developed. He reeked only slightly less than a real tanner would. Durzo had always preferred disguises of
tanners, pig farmers, beggars, and other types that respectable people did their best not to see because they couldn’t help
but smell them. The perfume was applied only to the outer garments so if need arose, they could be shed. Some of the stench
would still cling, but every disguise had drawbacks. The art was matching the drawbacks to the job.


East Kingsbridge had burned during the coup, and though the meisters had repaired most of its length, it was still closed,
so Kylar crossed West Kingsbridge. The Khalidoran guards barely glanced at him as he passed them. It seemed everyone’s attention—even
the meisters’—was riveted to a platform in the center of the castle yard and a group of highlanders standing bare-chested
in the cold. Kylar ignored the squad on the platform as he scanned for threats. He still wasn’t sure if meisters could see
his Talent, though he suspected they couldn’t as long as he wasn’t using it. Their abilities seemed much more tied to smell
than magi’s—which was the main reason he’d come as a tanner. If a meister came close, Kylar could only hope that mundane smells
interfered with magical ones.


Four guards stood on each side of the gate, six on each segment of the diamond-shaped castle wall, and perhaps a thousand
in formation in the yard, in addition to the two hundred or so Graavar highlanders. In the crowd of several thousand, fifty
meisters were placed at regular intervals. In the center of it all, on the temporary platform, were a number of Cenarian nobles,
mutilated corpses, and Godking Garoth Ursuul himself, speaking with a Vürdmeister. It was ridiculous, but even with the number
of soldiers and meisters here, this was probably the best chance a wetboy would have to kill the man.


But Kylar wasn’t here to kill. He was here to study a man for the strangest job he’d ever accepted. He scanned the crowd for
the man Jarl had told him about and found him quickly. Baron Kirof had been a vassal of the Gyres. With his lord dead and
his lands close to the city, he’d been one of the first Cenarian nobles to bend the knee to Garoth Ursuul. He was a fat man
with a red beard cut in the angular lowland Khalidoran style, a large crooked nose, weak chin, and great bushy eyebrows.


Kylar moved closer. Baron Kirof was sweating, wiping his palms on his tunic, speaking nervously to the Khalidoran nobles he
stood with. Kylar was easing around a tall, stinking blacksmith when the man suddenly threw an elbow into Kylar’s solar plexus.


The blow knocked the wind from Kylar, and even as he hunched over, the ka’kari pooled in his hand and formed a punch dagger.

“You want a better look, you get here early, like the rest of us did,” the blacksmith said. He folded his arms, pushing up
his sleeves to show off massive biceps.


With effort, Kylar willed the ka’kari back into his skin and apologized, eyes downcast. The blacksmith sneered and went back
to watching the fun.


Kylar settled for a decent view of Baron Kirof. The Godking had worked his way through half of the squads, and Sa’kagé bookies
were already taking bets on which number out of each group of thirteen would die. The Khalidoran soldiers noticed. Kylar wondered
how many Cenarians would die for the bookies’ callousness when the Khalidoran soldiers went roaming the city tonight, in grief
for their dead and fury at how the Sa’kagé fouled everything it touched.


I’ve got to get out of this damned city.

The next squad had made it through ten men without one drawing the short straw. It was almost worth paying attention as the
men got more and more desperate as each of their neighbors was spared and their own chances became grimmer. The eleventh man,
fortyish and all sinew and gristle, pulled the short straw. He chewed on the end of his mustache as he handed the straw back
to the Godking, but otherwise didn’t betray any emotion.


Neph glanced to where Duchess Jadwin and her husband were seated on the platform. “I examined the throne room, and I felt
something I’ve never encountered before. The entire castle smells of the magic that killed so many of our meisters. But some
spots in the throne room simply… don’t. It’s like there was a fire in the house, but you walk into one room and it doesn’t
smell like smoke.”


Blood was flying now, and Garoth was reasonably certain that the man must be dead, but the squad continued beating, beating,
beating.


“That doesn’t match what we know of the silver ka’kari,” Garoth said.

“No, Your Holiness. I think there’s a seventh ka’kari, a secret ka’kari. I think it negates magic, and I think this Night
Angel has it.”


Garoth thought about that as the ranks reformed, leaving a corpse before them. The man’s face had been utterly destroyed.
It was impressive work. The squad had either worked hard to prove their commitment or they hadn’t liked the poor bastard.
Garoth nodded, pleased. He extended the vir claw again and crushed the corpse’s head. “Your sacrifice is accepted. Thus are
you cleansed.”


Two of his bodyguards moved the corpse to the side of the platform. They were stacked there in their gore so that even though
the Cenarians couldn’t see each man’s death, they would see the aftermath.


When the next squad began, Garoth said, “A ka’kari hidden for seven hundred years? What mastery does it bestow? Hiding? What
does that do for me?”


“Your Holiness, with such a ka’kari, you or your agent could walk into the heart of the Chantry and take every treasure they
have. Unseen. It’s possible your agent could enter Ezra’s Wood itself and take seven centuries’ worth of artifacts for you.
There would then be no more need for armies or subtlety. At one stroke, you could take all Midcyru by the throat.”


My agent. No doubt Neph would bravely volunteer to undertake the perilous task. Still, the mere thought of such a ka’kari occupied
Garoth through the deaths of another teenager, two men in their prime, and a seasoned campaigner wearing one of the highest
awards for merit that the Godking bestowed. That man alone had something akin to treason in his eyes.


“Look into it,” Garoth said. He wondered if Khali knew of this seventh ka’kari. He wondered if Dorian knew of it. Dorian his
first acknowledged son, Dorian who would have been his heir, Dorian the prophet, Dorian the Betrayer. Dorian had been here,
Garoth was sure of it. Only Dorian could have brought Curoch, Jorsin Alkestes’ mighty sword. Some magus had appeared with
it for a single moment and obliterated fifty meisters and three Vürdmeisters, then disappeared. Neph was obviously waiting
for Garoth to ask about it, but Garoth had given up on finding Curoch. Dorian was no fool. He wouldn’t have brought Curoch
so close if he thought he might lose it. How do you outmaneuver a man who can see the future?


The Godking squinted as he crushed another head. Every time he did that, he got blood on his own snow-white clothing. It was
deliberate—but irritating all the same, and there was nothing dignified about having blood squirt in your eye. “Your sacrifice
is accepted,” he told the men. “Thus are you cleansed.” He stood at the front of the platform as the squad took its place
back on the parade ground. For the entire review, he hadn’t turned to face the Cenarians who were sitting on the platform
behind him. Now he did.


The vir flared to life as he turned. Black tendrils crawled up his face, swarmed over his arms, through his legs, and even
out from his pupils. He allowed them a moment to suck in light, so that the Godking appeared to be an unnatural splotch of
darkness in the rising morning light. Then he put an end to that. He wanted the nobles to see him.


There wasn’t an eye that wasn’t huge. It wasn’t solely the vir or Garoth’s inherent majesty that stunned them. It was the
corpses stacked like cordwood to each side and behind him, framing him like a picture. It was the blood-and-brain-spattered
white clothing he wore. He was awesome in his power, and terrible in his majesty. Perhaps, if she survived, he’d have Duchess
Trudana Jadwin paint the scene.


The Godking regarded the nobles and the nobles on the platform regarded the Godking. He wondered if any of them had yet counted
their own number: thirteen.


He extended his handful of straw toward his nobles. “Come,” he told them. “Khali will cleanse you.” This time, he had no intention
of letting fate decide who would die.


Commander Gher looked at the Godking. “Your Holiness, there must be some—” he stopped. Godkings didn’t make mistakes. Gher’s
face drained of color. He drew a long straw. It was several moments before it occurred to him not to appear too relieved.


Most of the rest were lesser nobles—the men and women who’d made the late King Aleine Gunder IX’s government work. They had
all been so easily subverted. Extortion could be so simple. But it gained Garoth nothing to kill these peons, even if they
had failed him.


That brought him to a sweating Trudana Jadwin. She was the twelfth in the line, and her husband was last.

Garoth paused. He let them look at each other. They knew, everyone who was watching knew that one or the other of them would
die, and it all depended on Trudana’s draw. The duke was swallowing compulsively. Garoth said, “Out of all the nobles here,
you, Duke Jadwin, are the only one who was never in my employ. So obviously you didn’t fail me. Your wife, on the other hand,
did.”


“What?” the duke asked. He looked at Trudana.

“Didn’t you know she was cheating on you with the prince? She murdered him on my orders,” Garoth said.

There was something beautiful about standing in the middle of what should be an intensely private moment. The duke’s fear-pale
face went gray. He had clearly been even less perceptive than most cuckolds. Garoth could see realization pounding the poor
man. Every dim suspicion he’d ever brushed aside, every poor excuse he’d ever heard was hammering him.


Intriguingly, Trudana Jadwin looked stricken. Her expression wasn’t the self-righteousness Garoth expected. He’d thought she’d
point the finger, tell her husband why it was his fault. Instead, her eyes spoke pure culpability. Garoth could only guess
that the duke had been a decent husband and she knew it. She had cheated because she had wanted to, and now two decades of
lies were collapsing.


“Trudana,” the Godking said before either could speak, “you have served well, but you could have served better. So here is
your reward and your punishment.” He extended the straws toward her. “The short straw is on your left.”


She looked into Garoth’s vir-darkened eyes and at the straws and then into her husband’s eyes. It was an immortal moment.
Garoth knew that the plaintive look in the duke’s eyes would haunt Trudana Jadwin for as long she lived. The Godking had no
doubt what she would choose, but obviously Trudana thought herself capable of self-sacrifice.


Steeling herself, she reached for the short straw, then stopped. She looked at her husband, looked away, and pulled the long
straw for herself.


The duke howled. It was lovely. The sound pierced every Cenarian heart in the courtyard. It seemed pitched perfectly to carry
the Godking’s message: this could be you.


As the nobles—including Trudana—surrounded the duke with death in their hearts, every one of them feeling damned for their
participation but participating all the same, the duke turned to his wife. “I love you, Trudana,” he said. “I’ve always loved
you.” Then he pulled his cloak up over his face and disappeared in the thudding of flesh.


The Godking could only smile.

As Trudana Jadwin hesitated over her choice, Kylar thought that if he had taken Momma K’s job, now would be the perfect moment
to strike. Every eye was on the platform.


Kylar had turned toward Baron Kirof, studying what shock and horror looked like on his face, when he noticed that only five
guards stood on the wall beyond the baron. He recounted quickly: six, but one of them held a bow and a handful of arrows in
his bow hand.


A harsh crack sounded from the center of the yard, and Kylar caught a glimpse of the back section of the temporary platform
splitting off and falling. Something flashing scintillating colors flew up into the air. As everyone else turned toward it,
Kylar turned away. The sparkle bomb exploded with a small concussion and an enormous flash of white light. As hundreds of
civilians and soldiers alike cried out, blinded, Kylar saw the sixth soldier on the wall draw an arrow. It was Jonus Severing,
a wetboy with fifty kills to his name. A gold-tipped arrow streaked toward the Godking.


The Godking’s hands were clasped over his eyes, but shields like bubbles were already blooming around him. The arrow hit the
outermost shield, stuck, and burst into flame as the shield popped. Another arrow was already on the way, and it passed through
the fraying outer shield and hit one closer in. The next popped and the next as Jonus Severing shot with amazing speed. He
was using his Talent to hold his spare arrows in midair so that as soon as he released a shot, the next arrow was already
coming to his fingertips. The shields were breaking faster than the Godking could reform them.


People were screaming, blinded. The fifty meisters around the yard were throwing shields up around themselves, knocking anyone
nearby off their feet.


The wetboy who’d been hiding beneath the platform jumped onto the platform on the Godking’s blind side. He hesitated as one
last wavering shield bloomed inches from the Godking’s skin, and Kylar saw that he wasn’t a wetboy at all. It was a child
of perhaps fourteen, Jonus Severing’s apprentice. The boy was so focused on the Godking, he didn’t keep low, didn’t keep moving.
Kylar heard the snap of a bowstring nearby and saw the boy go down even as the Godking’s last shield popped.


People were charging toward the gates, trampling their neighbors. Several of the meisters, still blinded and panicked, were
flinging green missiles indiscriminately into the crowd and the soldiers around them. One of the Godking’s bodyguards tried
to tackle the Godking to get him out of danger. Dazed, the Godking misinterpreted the move and a hammer of vir blasted the
huge highlander through the nobles on the platform.


Kylar turned to find who’d killed the wetboy’s apprentice. Not ten paces away stood Hu Gibbet, the butcher who had slaughtered
Logan Gyre’s entire family, the best wetboy in the city now that Durzo Blint was dead.


Jonus Severing was already fleeing, not sparing a moment of anguish for his dead apprentice. Hu released a second arrow and
Kylar saw it streak into Jonus Severing’s back. The wetboy pitched forward off the wall and out of view, but Kylar had no
doubt he was dead.


Hu Gibbet had betrayed the Sa’kagé, and now he’d saved the Godking. The ka’kari was in Kylar’s hand before he was even aware
of it. What, I wouldn’t kill the architect of Cenaria’s destruction, but now I’m going to kill a bodyguard? Of course, calling Hu Gibbet a bodyguard was like calling a bear a furry animal, but the point remained. Kylar pulled the
ka’kari back into his skin.


Ducking so Hu wouldn’t see his face, Kylar joined the streams of panicked Cenarians flooding out the castle gate.



The Jadwin estate had survived the fires that had reduced so much of the city to rubble. Kylar came to the heavily guarded
front gate and the guards opened the sally port for him wordlessly. Kylar had only stopped to strip out of his tanner’s disguise
and scrub his body with alcohol to rid himself of the scent, and he was certain that he’d arrived before the duchess, but
word of the duke’s death had flown faster. The guards had black strips of cloth tied around their arms. “Is it true?” one
of them asked.


Kylar nodded and made his way to the hut behind the manse where the Cromwylls lived. Elene had been the last orphan the Cromwylls
took in, and all her siblings had moved on to other trades or to serve other houses. Only her foster mother still served the
Jadwins. Since the coup, Kylar, Elene, and Uly had stayed here. Wi