Secret Seller: Prequel to The Famine Cycle, an epic fantasy thief saga

11: The City of Whispers

The events afterward blurred together. I remember staring down at my hands still curled around the knife's hilt, heat and cold still washing over me in feverish waves, while blood pooled around the blade in Iela's neck. I watched until the life went out of the woman's eyes. I remember kneeling there until Talan, shivering and blue-lipped, led me out of the alley, frost still tinging the ugly purple bruises on his arms.

We walked from the alley as dawn began to light the day. The intense cold that had seized me faded, but another weakness still lingered. My hands were wet. I knew I shouldn't look down as the Guilder led me away, but I couldn't help it, and my gaze inexorably fell to them.

Blood. I'd never had so much blood on me, had barely seen so much blood at once. Only once at the shipyard where my father worked, when a mast collapsed on a man and crushed his chest. But this blood I had spilled. Her blood. I'd killed her. And we'd left her body in the alley for someone else to discover, just as the city guards had discovered Thero.

But no. That wasn't the same. She had killed Thero for insane, incomprehensible reasons, while I had killed to save myself and Talan. I closed my eyes and wished I could believe it was so simple.

Even though she would have killed me and my family, and likely Talan, Nomusa, and Xaron as well. Even though she had murdered Thero, and had likely murdered many more. It still broke some part of me that I had taken her life away. In my own eyes at least, it didn't make me any less of a murderer.

Talan bent his head close. "Breathe," he told me. I tried to obey, gulping in long, deep breaths. But even as the guilt wracked me worse than the pain in my limbs, my hands shaking, my teeth chattering, I knew I would survive this. Perhaps it would take me a while to get over it, to stop seeing the red on my hands, but eventually, the color would wash away. Perhaps that was what scared me most, that forgetting that would inevitably come, and obscure my ugly deeds even from myself.

In the way the Guilder held me, unflinching and steady, I sensed I wasn't alone in my guilt. That at some point in the past, he, too, had felt as I did now. I wondered again about that shadowed past of his. It wasn't exactly a comforting realization, but somehow, it made a difference.

After I had calmed, I pushed away from Talan and walked unsteadily on my own. "We must hurry," I said faintly. "We can't be seen like this."

Talan nodded. "I have a place nearby I can change at. But I can return you to your tower."

I considered him for a moment. How long had the Guilder watched us before he stepped out from the shadows? Somehow, I couldn't summon up the unease I knew I should feel at that. The unease I did feel was that it felt comforting instead. So he was a Guilder, and a feral warden. None of that matter. When I had been in danger, he had come and saved me.

"Come with me," I said. Reaching out, I took his bloody hand in mine. And after a moment's hesitation, he nodded and let me lead him along the street and back to Canopy.

* * *

The reunion in Canopy went as well as could be expected. Xaron and Nomusa were in a panic and rushed to the door as soon as I knocked. I couldn't help but notice the red mark I left on the wood. As soon as it opened, Xaron jumped to conclusions and nearly started a fight with Talan then and there, and I was only just able to talk him out of it.

Once we'd both cleaned up and wore new clothes — Talan looking comical in one of Xaron's bright tunics — they sat me down on the divan and managed to pry the tale out of me. Both were wide-eyed by the end of it.

"Airene," Nomusa said in a hushed voice, her hand squeezing mine.

Xaron looked stricken as he stood before the bay window. "I can't believe we weren't there," he muttered. He cast a sulky look over at the Guilder, who leaned next to the balcony door, his head bowed. Yet I thought I detected the hint of a smile at my friend's look.