Aftermath- - Thieves World 10 Read Online Free Page B

holding itself together fiercely, as all around
    them melted into the grayness of despair. Terrel had said that Cade was the stronger. A fighter. Nothing could beat Cade.
    But who was this man, this man with his weapons and armor clanking about him, his ridiculous warbraid—who wore those anymore? She knew so little of him. Terrel had said he was some sort of warrior, but rich. She
    knew that. He had set Terrel up in business, bought this house. Money, yes, but ... a shiver caught her by surprise.
    His eyes, that's what it was. Not the scars of the sword, or even his strange way of talking. It was his eyes. She could see them clearly, reflected in the odd light of the goblet, framed by the hard lined face, the
    thick heavy brows, the impossibly black hair. His eyes. They were black, black like Terrel's, but ...
    She reached out and grabbed the goblet. His eyes, they were like weapons, spearing her, attacking everything they focused on, jabbing about, terrifying. She put the goblet down in front of her. It was bent, imprinted
    by his fingers when he had crushed it, unknowing. But Sarah did not see that. All she could see were those two black eyes.
    Several days later Cade sat on a stone bench in the small courtyard behind Terrel's house sharpening his sword. With one hand he steadied the blade while with the other he held the whetstone, slowly smoothing out the minor imperfections in the razor-sharp edge. The sunlight danced across the blade, hurting Cade's eyes, but he ignored the discomfort. The
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AFTERMATH
    slow, grating scrape of the whetstone on the blade punctuated his thoughts.
    Things were a lot more complicated than they had appeared on the surface.
    Scrape.
    Terrel must have been much more involved in the PFLS than Sarah thought.
    Scrape.
    He had been killed, tortured because of this.
    Scrape.
    Somehow, Terrel had crossed someone in a major way.
    Scrape.
    Damn them all!
    Cade threw the whetstone across the courtyard, against the far wall. Damn. Why hadn't he come to me?
    And that was what kept eating at him, demanding an answer. Why hadn't Terrel asked Cade for help? He knew what his younger brother was, what he did. Cade had always protected Terrel, but this time Terrel had chosen to do it on his own. And he'd paid the price. Whom had he crossed and how?
    Cade ran over the information he'd uncovered so far-Terrel had stayed late at his pottery shop, remaining after his workers had left. He had done that for three months before his death. Why?
    Then there were the shop accounts—confusing. During the worst period of chaos in the history of a town always on the edge of collapse, Terrel had shown a profit. By selling pottery? It made no sense. Why did he stay late? What had he been doing? Cade reached into his tunic, pulling out several receipts. There was something else that bothered him about them. All the buyers had come to pick up their pottery at the shop, no deliveries. Fine. The orders had increased last fall. Terrel
    naturally ordered more clay. Everything had been paid on time, all for the proper price. Damn, it was here somewhere, he knew it; it had to be. Why had he been staying so late?
    Cade mulled over the receipts for another half hour, getting more exasperated by the minute. He knew the answer was here, not on the streets. Targ had covered Sanctuary up and down, Cade had followed in the last five days retracing all the likely leads-All had led nowhere. Terrel
    was liked, respected, not known by anyone who shouldn't know him. His work was good. People were satisfied. None of it made any sense. Even with Terrel giving money to the PFLS, he hadn't given enough to make a real difference. Half the town had been contributing to one faction or another at that time, although not always voluntarily. So why pick on

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    Terrel? An example? Not likely; a bigger target would have served better.
    Besides, the murder had hardly been public. No, something else . . . Why had he been staying late? How had he