Page 21 of The Half King
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked. “What was the point of telling me all of this? What is it you expect me to do, apart from feel horrible?”
“Remember the perceptive old man I mentioned?” Daerick said. “The man who’s definitely not a soothsayer because you don’t believe that soothsayers exist?”
“Yes. And I asked you what truth he perceives.”
“He perceives the dark and forbidden. Specifically blood curses—and how to break them. Now can you see why I would like to meet him?”
Cerise grimaced. She had heard stories of dark priests, fallen members of the Order who had deserted their temples and now slunk throughout the lands, hiding in caves and casting enchantments for coin. Was this the sort of man Daerick wanted her to meet? If so, he didn’t understand what he was asking of her. To encounter a rogue priest—and then fail to report him—would make her complicit in his crime of sorcery. Even if she kept the truth to herself, someone in the Order might eventually suspect her, and then Father Padron could compel a confession out of her as easily as blinking.
But when she opened her mouth, the eager look on Daerick’s face stole her words. He had hope. He had put his faith in her, even though she didn’t deserve it. She couldn’t stand by and wait for his Claiming Day to ruin him. Nor could she watch the king disappear into the shadows without lifting a finger to try to help him. If there was the slightest chance that Daerick’s “perceptive” acquaintance could lead them to breaking the noble curses, she had to take it.
6
Cerise didn’t know where she had expected Daerick to take her, but an underground hovel on the fringe of the city’s pleasure district was the last place she’d had in mind. She frowned at a set of uneven clay steps descending steeply into the ground. Beyond the packed dirt at the bottom, she could see nothing but shadow. Her only clue as to what she might find down there was the occasional sound of violent retching.
“Delightful,” she whispered, gathering the fabric of her neckline around her face. “I won’t ask how you know about this place.”
“Best that you don’t,” Daerick agreed. “I’ve never met this particular soothsayer before, but I’ve had many dealings here, and I doubt you would approve of any of them.”
“I thought you were a gentleman.”
“Well, sometimes the pursuit of knowledge comes before propriety.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Do I have to come in? I would rather wait here while you…” She trailed off when a man from the other side of the street whistled to her and offered her a copper bit for five minutes of her company.
“You were saying?” Daerick asked.
“Never mind. Lead the way.”
She kept her nose covered and her eyes fixed on the back of Daerick’s head as she followed him into the bowels of the den. They crossed through a dim, open room littered with bodies, some of them unconscious, others engaged in activities that she blocked from her peripheral vision by adjusting her cap.
Soon they reached a door, and Daerick knocked on it in a code of three slow raps followed by two quick ones. Someone from the other side spoke in a language she didn’t understand. Daerick answered in the same language, and the door opened.
Musky incense enveloped her. She entered a tiny room, clean and brightly lit by an assortment of candles resting on the polished floor. It seemed like the perfect meeting place, cleverly concealed as it was in a hovel where no one would think to look. Plush seating cushions were scattered about. Two of the cushions were occupied, one by a young man the approximate size of an ox, and the other by a withered elder who was clearly the “perceptive” man that Daerick had brought her to see. As she approached the pair, she noticed with a start that the elderly man had no eyes. His sockets were covered by skin and sunken with age, as though he had been born that way.
The younger man stiffened protectively and glared at Cerise. “Who is this? She’s new.”
“She’s my cousin,” Daerick said. He indicated the difference between his pale skin and her olive tone and clarified, “Twice removed.”
The old man wheezed a laugh. “No, she’s not. I can smell the difference in your blood.”
Cerise glanced at Daerick, who nudged her a step closer toward the man.
“Come,” the elder said and patted the spot in front of him.
With some reluctance, she sat beside Daerick on a floor cushion, leaving an arm’s length of distance between herself and the two men facing her. As soon as she and Daerick were situated, the elderly man leaned forward and inhaled deeply through his nose.
“You’re a Calatris,” he said to Daerick. “A firstborn. I can smell the curse on you.”
That didn’t necessarily impress Cerise. Daerick was a member of court, a public figure of sorts. Maybe the elderly man had recognized his voice or his cologne.
“But the girl,” the man said and then inhaled again. “She is something else.”
She waited for him to go on.
The elder drew another deep breath through his nose. “I detect a hint of Solon in your veins.”
“My father is a Solon,” she said.
