The black harbor water diffracted into diamonds of starlight; a breeze moved whisper-weak across the wharf. The ragged-eared cats with slitted sickly green eyes were stretched out along the damp planks. A mouse, or young rat, skittered up a mooring rope past a cat that didn’t care enough to twitch its tail. If a man held still, like the cats-breathing slow, keeping his mind as calm as the water-he could forget the.heat and slip into a timeless daze that was almost pleasant.
Walegrin sought that oblivion and it eluded him. He was a Rankan soldier, the garrison commander, self-charged with patrolling the city. Such pride as he had stemmed from his ability to fulfill his duties. So his mind churned forward, pursuing the thoughts he’d lost before sunset. He had an appointment to keep: the true reason why tonight, more than any other, he rather than one of his men was making the rounds of Sanctuary’s alleys.
The summer had seen a change in the city’s social fabric that was as profound as it had been unexpected: Official protection had been extended to, and accepted by, the besieged remnants of the PFLS after their leader was betrayed and nearly killed within the palace walls. Gutter-fighters like Zip, whose lives had been measured in hours and minutes at the season’s beginning, now dwelt in the
Stepson barracks beyond Downwind and sweated hot and cold under the tutelage of
Tempus’s lieutenants.
And the cause of this change? None other than Prince Kadakithis’s once-favorite cousin and Molin’s never-favored niece: Chenaya Vigeles, a young woman of considerable talent and little sense. A young woman who had propositioned him with treason and upon whom, with the knowledge and permission of his superiors,