By the time the argument reached the courtyard, half of it had already been decided. Nothing about the wound was fatal, which suggested the intent had been a message.
The technique took eleven breaths. He had, by his own estimate, about seven. It was not a complicated arrangement, which was precisely what made it dangerous.
He understood, then, that he had been the message and not the messenger. The estate was smaller than the rumours, and better defended than the maps.
A merchant with nothing to sell is a merchant with something to hide. The old instructor used to say that a technique you cannot explain is a technique you do not own.
Outside, the market went on shouting about fish, entirely unbothered by the end of an era. Whatever had walked through the outer array had not bothered to close it behind itself.
“I am not asking you to trust me,” he said. “I am asking you to be practical.”
There were two ways out of the valley, and someone had spent real money closing one of them. The array flickered — not the failing flicker of exhausted qi, but the deliberate one of a signal.
There is a difference between a debt and a leash, and the difference is usually paperwork. She read the report twice, then burned it, then wrote down the three sentences worth keeping.
In the capital, a favour is a currency with a floating exchange rate. He counted the guards twice, got two different numbers, and decided the second one was a lie.
The blade was old, badly balanced, and the only honest thing in the room. Three days of travel had rubbed the edges off the plan without improving it.
“You are early,” she said, without looking up. “That is either respect or nerves.”
She did not look back at the gate, which is how everyone knew she intended to return.