The Witch's Betrayal (2 page)

She smiled sadly and said, "I'll be praying to the spirits of the river that you don't."

#

After I left Leila's house I slipped through the shadows until I came to a
bar
on the edge of the city, one that was open despite the late hour. It was also completely empty, and the waiter watched me with alarm as I moved across the room and took a table in the corner
, no doubt recognizing the dark robes and carved armor that
branded
me a member of the Order.
That has always been the hardest part of being Jadorr'a. The way people look at you like you're a monster.

I stared at the waiter until he
came over and
took my order, and then I slouched back in my chair and drummed my fingers against the table. I was putting off communicating with the Order, to be sure, but I also wanted to consider the best way to track the target -- Lisim Sarr. Without my magic, I would have to use his name.

I hated thinking on the names of my targets.

The waiter brought my drink, a slim glass of sugar wine imported from the south. I drank it fast enough that my head spun. I could feel the waiter cowering next to his stack of coffee cups even though I took pains not to look at him.

I supposed I should start by finding
out
who my target
was
.

I finished my sugar wine and gestured the waiter over. He picked up the empty glass with trembling hands. "Anything else, sir?"

I pulled out three sheets of pressed copper, twice what the wine cost. "Do you know anyone named Lisim Sarr?"

The waiter stared at me like he thought I was playing a trick.

"Well?" I asked. "Do you?"

"No, sir."

I studied his face carefully, but I saw no hint that he was lying. No matter. I hadn't expected things to go
that
easily.

"Ah
,
well," I told him. "Thank you anyway."

I pushed away from my table and walked out of the
bar
, leaving the waiter shivering in my wake. I needed an inn. It was ridiculous, that I should have to stay in an inn in my own city, but under no circumstance
s
could I return to the Order's manor house unless my commission was complete. And so I traveled through the shadows to the pleasure district, where I would have to endure filthier rooms but fewer questions. I selected an inn close to the docks and requested a room that looked over the sea. The sea and the river aren't the same, of course, but the lapping of the waves reminded me of Leila.

After I paid for my room, I asked the innkeeper the same question I had asked the waiter at the
bar
.

"Sarr?" he said, caught unawares.

I nodded.

"No, I don't --" His eyes flicked away from me. "I'm afraid I haven't heard of him, no."

I leaned
close
and drew out the shadows enough that they crawled
over the counter.
The innkeeper stumbled backward.

"You shouldn't lie to me," I said.

"I ain't lying, honest -- I've heard the name, but I don't -- don't
know
him. Don't want to know him." He tossed the key at me. I caught it
,
and the shadows retreated into the light.

"Where have you heard the name?"

"Here and there, you know. The girls don't like him." He jerked his head in the direction of the street. "I always give 'em a free meal if they bring their business here, and I've heard 'em whispering."

"That's it? You've only heard his name from the street girls?"

"Nah, you hear it from others sometimes too. But I don't know nothing about him, I swear. It's just a name."

"Thank you for your cooperation," I said. This had turned out more useful than I might have expected, and it made sense that an innkeeper in the pleasure district would know of a dangerous man. If Sarr was indeed as dangerous as Leila was claiming.

Doubtful.

In my room, I locked the door
,
took off my armor and turned down the sheets on my shabby, creaking bed. I stood in the window and looked out over the ocean glimmering beneath the stars. I was wasting time in every way I could think of. But I knew I couldn't put off contacting the Order forever.

When I finally decided to get it over with, sunlight was just beginning to creep up over the water. I fell away from the room, through shadows, through Kajjil, until I was a shade in the flickering firelight of the Order's assignment room. Zahir was waiting for me with a glass of dark red wine.
Seeing him filled me with a dull, familiar dread that I did my best to ignore.

"This is taking longer than we expected, Naji."

I
felt like I was a child again, being scolded for doing poorly in training.

"I encountered complications." My voice reverberated against my ears. My body was still in the inn, stretched out on the bed, surrounded by dawn's light and the scent of the sea, but my voice and thoughts, all the rest of me, were at the Order.

"Complications?"

I chose my words carefully. "Yes. Someone ha
s
helped him. He evaded my tracking spells."

Zahir said nothing.

"I'm confident I'll be able to track him."

"This was not meant to be an involved operation."

"And it won't be. It should be completed by tomorrow evening."

Zahir snorted into his glass. "Do you have any idea how many times 'tomorrow evening' becomes 'two months from now'?"

"I've already begun my investigation. I don't foresee it taking two months."

"Let's hope not." Zahir set his glass down and looked at me -- looked at my shade. He seemed bored, sleepy, irritated. Which was fair:
h
e was an old man. I imagine he didn't appreciate staying up all night waiting for me to bring word. "I'll give you until tomorrow's sunrise. I
f it
takes any longer than that, expect punishment."

I shivered.

"Yes, of course. Thank you, Zahir."

He snorted again and waved me away. Five heartbeats later I was back in the inn room, weak gr
a
y sunlight filtering through the window.

Tomorrow's sunrise
.

One full day.

I could find the most dangerous man in Lisirra in one full day.

#

I only allowed myself to sleep for four hours. When I woke up, the sunlight was a bright, sparkling mass choking out the air of my bedroom. It hurt my eyes. But I couldn't allow myself the luxury of sleep right now.

Before I left, I cast a tracking spell to double check. According to my magic, Sarr was still nestled safely in that house in the desert. I muttered a few profanities, directing them at Leila.

Then I set a ward on my room and went downstairs. The inn's main room was empty save for the innkeeper, who wouldn't look at me. Outside, the pleasure district was just beginning to stir. It was nearly noon. I bought a meat pie from a street vendor and ate it as I walked down the street, keeping my eyes out for street girls. Since the innkeeper had mentioned they sometimes spoke of Sarr, I thought they were the best place to begin my investigation.

Without magic, I would have to track Sarr through the trails all people leave, through his connections and relationships. And right now, the only relationship I had uncovered was with the girls who prowled the pleasure district's streets after dark, providing it with its name.

However, uncovering street girls during the middle of the day proved more difficult than I thought. I wound up at a dancehall after half an hour of wandering. It had only just opened, strings of magic-cast lanterns blinking red and blue and gold, washed out in the sunlight.
I went in. Most of the tables were empty and the
air was thick with pipe smoke.
Magic jangled in the background, emanating from a
n unenthusiastic
band in the corner. A few women danced onstage, looking as bored as the band.

A wom
a
n came to ask if I wanted anything to drink. She wore a spangled dress that caught the light and
threw
dots of color across the floor. Her eyes were made
-
up with same dark
shades
that Leila favored.

Like Leila, and unlike most people in the city, she didn't act frightened of me.

"I don't need anything to drink," I told her, making sure to smile, to put her at ease. "But I do need your help."

She looked at me warily.

"I'm looking for someone," I said. "Lisim Sarr."

Her eyes went wide when I said his name. She glanced over her shoulder, toward the door, then back to me. The music played on.

"Are you going to kill him?" she asked.

"What?"

"You're an assassin, aren't you? Is that why you're looking for him?" She slid into the chair next to me and put her hand on my arm, her touch feather
-
soft. I smiled at her again, and her eyes sparkled a little -- with excitement, I thought. Interest.

"I'm not allowed to tell you that," I said.

"Then why are you looking for him? Do you want to help him?"

I hesitated. I really didn't like tracking people this way. It was too nuanced, too dependent on understanding the network of human connection. But I was astute enough to notice a flicker of fear when she asked if I wanted to help him.

My being Jadorr'a, that didn't scare her. But the thought that I might be helping Sarr --

"No," I said. "I just need to talk to him."

"You won't be able to. He's mad
.
" She pulled her hand away from me and slouched in h
er
chair. Her hair fell across her face. The band finished their song and
desultory
applause scattered across the room. The woman picked her head
up
a little. "That's what everyone says, anyway.
And he’s wicked as well. Although
isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Kill
wicked men?"

Her words surprised me
.
I regarded her for a moment. There aren't many people in the Empire who understand the
history of the Order, who understand that we were formed long ago to keep the
people of the
desertlands safe from
kings would rather rage war with each other than rule
.
Most only know us as the killers for hire that
we’ve bec
ome, and not for what we are supposed to be
.

Of course, we had never exactly
been vigilantes hunting down all the wickedness in the desert, but the notion was close enough.

"Yes," I said.

"Then you should kill Sarr. He's the wicked
est
man in Lisirra." She pushed her hair away
from her face
and looked up at the stage. A new song had begun, slow and slippery and sad, and the dancer writhed in the smoky blue light. "I'm not just a waitress. Or a dancer. I own this place." She glanced at me. "I don't normally take drink orders, but my daytime waitress is dead. He killed her."

"How do you know it was him?"

"The whispers." She paused, then explained
.
"The girls, the ones who work at night, they bring us information. Who's dangerous, who isn't, that sort of thing. We call it the whispers." Silence. "He uses his victims to work magic. He does different things to them. With my waitress he took out all her insides and filled her with stones from the desert. For a spell. They wouldn't tell me what it did."

I didn't say anything, but I felt a tightness in my chest, that Leila had helped someone like this.

"The thing about Sarr," she went on, "is that he's powerful, powerful enough to change his appearance. So you can't go by that. It's always the powerful ones who are the cruelest." She sighed. "You're not going to kill him. Someone has to hire you, isn't that how it works? And who would hire the assassins to come kill someone terrorizing the pleasure district girls?"

She said this all matter-of-factly, a resigned fierceness in her features.

"I can't talk about it," I said. "I'm sorry."

She watched me across the table. Then she touched my arm again, her fingers grazing across my skin.

"I've no idea where to find him," she said, "but the whispers say he used to work with Naim Ajeeri. Do you know who that is?"

I shook my head.

"He runs the night market here. Another wizard." She shrugged. "He's mad, too, but in a different way. He might be able to help you. He lives in an apartment down by the sea. It's easy to find.
T
he walls are white but t
he door is p
ainted bright red."

"Thank you." I pulled out a handful of pressed silver and laid
i
t on the table. The woman stared at the
silver
for a few moments
;
then
she
covered
i
t with her hand. When she slid her hand away from the table,
i
t w
as
gone.

She looked up at me. "You're not how I pictured an assassin."

"Is that so?"

"You're younger. And more handsome." She stood up. She moved like liquid in the ashy light.