Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [11]
But was Fileon the one being fooled? When she had been assigned to the Far Passage, she’d been given her magical ring, told that it would let her see in the deepest shadows. That had been a lie. Thorn pulled the ring from her finger, as she had done many a night before. Her vision was unchanged, every detail revealed in sharp black and white.
Never a gift at all. It was the crone Sora Teraza who had said that—the infamous oracle of Droaam. Never a gift at all, she’d said, handing Thorn her ring. This is not the gift you were given, and what you were given was not a gift.
There was nothing for it. She needed to talk to her partner.
She leaned over and pulled her belt from the bedpost. She drew Steel and laid the blade across her legs.
We are not being observed by magical means. His voice was clear and calm, a deep whisper in her mind.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s talk about the first man I killed.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Dragon Towers
Lharvion 16, 999 YK
You’ll have to be more specific. Steel’s psionic voice was calm, betraying no hint of emotion. The first man you killed on this assignment? Since we became partners? In your life?
“Why was I chosen for this mission, Steel?”
House Cannith and the Twelve are concerned about the apparent growth of House Tarkanan in recent years. Specifically, they believe that a new leader within the house poses a threat to their operations. Cannith barons approached the Citadel, which agreed to investigate the matter both as a favor to House Cannith and as a matter of Brelish security … and to eliminate the threat if it exists.
“I know all that,” Thorn said, slightly annoyed. The dagger’s psychic voice had a condescending tone that often got on her nerves. “But why was I chosen for this assignment?”
The nature of the mission precluded the use of any local Sharn Lanterns. You were available. You’re proficient in the operation of Riedran tattoos, something required by this assignment.
“That’s all?”
Need there be more?
“I don’t know,” Thorn said. She ran a finger across her false mark. “Yesterday, Fileon asked me to tell him about the first time I killed someone with my aberrant dragonmark.”
And your answer appeared to satisfy him. Of course, the mark you’ve been given doesn’t actually kill. However, given the diversity seen in aberrant marks, this shouldn’t be a concern. The worst outcome I can imagine is that he will believe that you’re holding back.
“Am I?”
No. The tattoo allows you to cause debilitating pain but would only kill someone who is in a severely weakened condition.
“I’m not talking about the tattoo.” Thorn held the dagger before her, studying the unreflective black steel of the blade.
What then?
“Toli. Perhaps you remember him? Tall, King’s Shield, a little hairy in the end … and dead because I touched him.”
Your point, Lantern Thorn?
“Do I have an aberrant dragonmark?”
Don’t be ridiculous. Surely you remember when this mark was applied. And it does not kill.
“But I do, it seems.”
Toli died under mysterious circumstances. Perhaps it was a side effect of the curse that transformed and controlled him. Even if you were somehow responsible, you have no mark of your own—and if you have no mark, it logically follows that you have no dragonmark.
“And are you so certain that I don’t have a mark? What if it’s hidden beneath my hair? What if it’s invisible?” She touched the dragonshard embedded at the base of her neck. “What about this? Could there be power within it?”
No, Steel said. One of my primary functions is the analysis and identification of magical auras. If there were any power in those stones, I would know.
Thorn said nothing. Steel knew as well as she did that auras could be hidden. And beyond that … Steel was the closest thing she had to a partner. But ever since Droaam, she sometimes wondered whether she could trust him. She knew that his first loyalty was to the Citadel. He’d withheld information from her before, sharing the details of a mission when