Grimacing, Kylar said, “You tell me, if I promised you that I was going to get something for you, would you want it now or in ten years?”

“If you try now, you’ll die. In ten years, you’ll have a chance.”

A month ago, Kylar had one goal: to convince his girlfriend Elene that eighteen years as a virgin was quite enough. Then Jarl had been murdered while delivering the news that Logan Gyre was trapped in his own dungeon. Kylar’s loyalties to the living and the dead had given him two new goals that had cost him the first. He’d abandoned Elene as he’d sworn he wouldn’t in order to save Logan and avenge Jarl by killing the Godking. It had cost him an arm, a magical bond to the beautiful disaster named Vi Sovari, and an oath to steal Garuwashi’s blade.

Now all Kylar wanted was to make sure his sacrifices hadn’t been for nothing, and then to go make things right with Elene.

As if to punish him for his faithlessness, he now imagined her saying, “An oath you only keep when it’s convenient isn’t an oath at all.”

“I can’t put it off,” Kylar said. “Sorry.”

Garuwashi shrugged. “It is a matter of honor, yes? I understand. That is a—”

“Pit wyrm!” Feir shouted, leaping to his feet.

Kylar turned and all he could see was a hole tearing in space ten paces away, and through it, hell and rushing fire-cracked skin. In the forest, a big-nosed, big-eared Vürdmeister was laughing.

8

Piss. You’re different, Halfman,” Hopper said. He was a tall, lean, white-haired old eunuch who was training Dorian—Halfman, he reminded himself. Hopper handed him a pot.

“What do you mean?” Halfman asked.

“Two shits.” Hopper handed Halfman two more chamber pots. Halfman emptied half of the piss into each, swished it around, and emptied the pots into an enormous clay jar set in a wicker frame. “A piss for every two shits. The rest of the pisses go last. They’re easy. You get a puke or a slippery, you use two pisses on those. No one wants to smell that all day.”