Tivi's Dagger Read Online Free Page B

brown travellers’
britches, thick socks, sturdy leather boots, and furs over which
they hung a silver tunic, made of the same cloth as their own
robes. Finally, he bowed, and Mother Kiti, with tears in her eyes,
kissed him on the forehead.
    They knelt together and raised their glasses
to the sky, drank as one, and then it was done.
    When the elder monks had gathered their mats
and retreated back inside the main building, Kari stood for a
moment staring after them, touching the tips of his hair with a
distant expression on his face. Stripped of his monk’s robes he
looked so different, so much younger with the shorter hair. He had
clearly forgotten I was there and was looking so bemused that I had
the sudden thought it would be us who would have to guide him,
rather than the other way around.
    I went over to where he stood and put my
hand on his shoulder. “Are you well?”
    He swallowed a couple of times before
gesturing around with a vague sweep of his hand. “Ah, Ned! I am
trying very hard not to appear so sorrowful! This monastery has
been my whole life. It will be a wrench to leave them, especially
my grandmother, for she was ever formidable when we passed through
Khar Tam together. But the feeling will pass, as do all things. And
anyhow, I’ll return to them in time.” He turned to me and smiled a
bit too brightly. “I must pack the last of my belongings. When
you’ve eaten and gathered yourselves, I will be waiting.”
    He bowed and left me to my thoughts as the
wind picked up and blew a shower of dead leaves across the gravel.
The goat bleated and the birds sang overhead. Something caught my
eye, flopping over the toe of my boot. I knelt down. It was a dark
lock of Kari’s discarded hair, soft and still damp from his morning
ablutions. I wound the curl around my finger from root to tip. It
was soft and smooth and I had the feeling that it would somehow
bring me luck. Curling it into a tight coil, I slipped the ringlet
into the locket I wore around my neck. My grandmother’s likeness
glared out at me, the knot-browed frown of the devout, so like
Brin’s. The coil of hair hid her expression nicely and I snapped
the locket shut and tucked it back under my shirt.
    It was cold against my heart, for a
second.
     
    ***
     
    The monks had provided so much breakfast
that by the time we finally set off, I felt bloated and idle.
Mother Kiti had offered Brin some bottles of wine for the journey,
which – much to everyone’s disappointment – he had refused. My
spirits dipped as I contemplated what lay ahead, all of which was
to be endured in a condition of unwelcome sobriety. A foot-numbing
trudge through a land full of poisonous creatures and mistrustful
inhabitants – not to mention the apparently treacherous cavernous
pass Brin had neglected to inform us of – to a little-known shrine
in the back arse of nowhere, where I would kneel to the Thirteen,
none of whom I believed in, and force words of penance I did not
mean to spill from my mouth, all in order to satisfy my
brother.
    It was remarkable how firmly Brin believed
that I would return to Lis a changed man – not the same wretch who
would, after having visited the holiest of sites, resume drinking
and fornicating as I had every intention of doing. Brin’s
convictions had always been his strength and his tragedy. He had
fully believed the Protectors would welcome him back into the fold
right up until the moment they stripped him, held him down, and
forced the burning brand against his flesh. For a moment I felt
sorry for him, but then I stumbled on a stone and wrenched my
ankle. When I’d limped off the pain, I trailed sullenly behind the
group, cursing my brother once again and feeling more than sorry
for myself.
    What would they say at the Duck and Swan if
they could see me now? Nedim Melchion, heir to the Melchion title
and fortune, a desirable bachelor in his prime who had the pick of
the most beautiful and discreet women the city had to offer –