Winters were fiercer in Luskan, along the choppy waters of the Sea of Swords, than they were inland in Barnslow. Kyla always managed to get it together to keep her brother warm, accepting donations from her colleagues with other sons and spending what she could on woolen breaches and socks and boots for the boy's rapidly growing feet. The year in which Kyrwan would turn twelve was a lean one, though. Kyla was in her mid twenties by this point, but looked older, still lovely most of the time, but she'd caught an infection the year before that kept her coughing raggedly and gaunt as a wraith when she had a spell. They would last a week or two, and then she would glow with health or another month before she fell ill again. But when she was sick, few men would pay for her company, and those who would would treat her worse and pay her less. And Kyrwan was shooting up like a weed in spring. He did his best to hide from her the chillblains on his ankles from where his too-short breeches left his lower calves exposed to the biting wind and the snow melted through his threadbare socks.

On Midwinter's Night, he came home late. The Trovos had had him over. He did his best not to wolf down the food in front of him, but he could barely help himself. He was never hungry, precisely, but he was rarely full, either. Kyla was working that night, comforting soldiers and sailors far away from their families for the holiday. Mrs. Trovo had left the whoring life behind the year before – her present to herself for having made it to thirty-five without being murdered or catching something deadly – and taken up knitting, selling socks and blankets and gloves out of her house on the docks. She presented an oversized set of woolen socks to Kyrwan with a wink. The walk home to his flat was not nearly as uncomfortable as the walk to the Trovos' had been.

What he found there, however, would have put a chill all over him, wool socks or no. Kyla was out cold, her eye swollen shit and a gash on her forehead. She'd gotten into bed. Karnwyr, the puppy she had bought him for his eleventh birthday, had grown into a lean, gray creature with shaggy fur and perky ears, obviously more wolf than dog. The hulking she-wolf was sprawled out at the foot of her mistress's bed, protecting her from whatever other evil could befall her. She opened yellow eyes at the boy as he walked in.

"Lad."

He nearly jumped out of his skin. Karnwyr uttered a rumbling growl, obviously not intended for him, but for whomever had just addressed him.

Out of the shadows in the corner of the flat melted a black-cloaked figure. As it came into the flickering firelight of a midwinter's night, Kyrwan recognized the green eyes and yellow hair of Dayven the assassin. He seemed sober this time.

"What happened?" he asked without intonation.

"I've got a midwinter's present for you, lad," Dayven said.

"What happened?" Kyrwan asked again.

"Found her in the alley outside the Cuckoo's Nest," Dayven said, "Addie and I dragged her back here."

"Do you know who did it?"

"That's your present," Dayven replied, "You're going to have to put this on."

He handed Kyrwan a length of black fabric. Obediently, Kyrwan tied it over his own eyes.

"How old are you, lad?"

"Eleven, about to be twelve."

"Good lad," Dayven said. He took him by the shoulder and guided him down the stairs out into the street, Kyrwan knew where the gaslights were along the road. He peeked over the top of the blindfold, and saw one light in one window across the street. Dayven's wife, the blackhaired barmaid, was standing in the window, looking down at them. Both of her eyes were blackened, and she was holding a handkerchief to her nose. He quickly pulled the blindfold up so he couldn't see her.

At first, he was able to tell where Dayven was leading him. He prided himself on being able to tell where he was at all times without his sense of sight. He knew they were passing one of the flophouses down on Fisherman's Row – the smell of stale piss and fish guts was distinctive. Then the tobacconist's shop with its sweet, dusty pipeweed smell, and the sound of the ship timbers creaking in the waves as they reached the spot where the buildings tapered off and there was nothing between them and Luskan Harbor.

Then they turned inland. He could tell by the way the streets sloped uphill. If he were correct, they were taking one of the smaller roads, near the northern part of the harbor. Its incline was not as steep, but it was not lit after dark and made a good place for those who were up to no good. He paid close attention to the street. It got steep very quickly, and then again it was a gentle slope.

They got out of the docks district. He could tell as the sound of the waves pounding the jetties disappeared into the distance. He wasn't familiar with this part of town, not up this street. He knew what happened to young boys who wandered away from the beaten path in Luskan. He felt a little silly, near grown, but he took comfort in the assassin's hand on his shoulder, guiding him.

All of a sudden, he was aware of two other people beside him. He could hear their breathing, their footfalls on the damp cobblestones. One was a human woman, the other was male, but not human. Elven maybe, or half-elven with the build of an elf.

"Are you going to kill me?" he asked.

"Of course not, lad, why would I do that?" asked Dayven.

"Why are there three of you?"

"Because we want to be sure you arrive in style," Dayven replied.

They had come to a place that was very unfamiliar indeed. He caught a whiff of expensive spices. Someone was having mulled wine with their Midwinter's Feast. His footfalls echoed with a different quality, too, as the sound bounced not off of the plaster and wooden structures of the docks but off of the fine stone walls that supported the turrets and towers of the rich mens' houses further inland.

"Arrive in style where?" he dared to ask.

"Where do you think?" Dayven asked.

He knew better than to ask again, and instead turned his mind to memorizing things about this route. They had obviously blindfolded him to prevent him from finding it again on his own once they'd let him loose. That meant they intended on letting him loose, which he considered to be a good sign. It also meant that wherever they were taking him, it was a place that was secret enough that they didn't want him wandering in off of the street, but not secret enough that they wouldn't allow an uninitiated eleven-year-old boy in in the first place.

They took a hard right turn, and he could hear that the walls of the buildings around them had drawn close together. He could see some dancing lights through the black blindfold, too, but smelled no smoke, meaning this place was lit not with torches or gaslights, but by some type of magic. He heard a door open in front of them. Well-oiled hinges, nothing creaked, but by the noise it made as it hit the wall beside him he could tell that it was of some heavy wood – oak or maple – and banded with iron. It was not a door to be trifled with. Dayven guided him in, warning him about the step, which he took. The door swung shut with a dull thud behind them, and he heard a deadbolt being thrown across it.

They took the blindfold away, and he rubbed his eyes. They were in a large room, with no doors save the one they had come through. The ceiling was low, and it was lit by flickering torches. The ceilings were made of wood, meaning they were on the ground floor of some building or another, but the walls all around it were the gray stone that all of the buildings in the wealthier districts were crafted from. The floor, too, was paved with gray flagstones, but they were stained. He knew that stain. It was the same stain that had marred the kitchen floor at home, no matter how many times Mother had tried to wash it down. Father had always tracked in blood from the killing floor in the barn, which had stained the flagstones of the kitchen a dark and rusty brown. So too were the stones of this room. The blood seemed to carve a dried river to a drain in the corner. He followed it, and saw that it lead to a stone chair, fastened to the ground with great iron bolts.

In the chair was a man, a great fat man. He was bound, and the ropes cut deeply into his soft flesh so that it stood out in purpled bunches between the knots. There was a hood over his head, but Kyrwan knew almost instantly who it was. Edrick Falringer, father of that pig Rigard, one of Kyla's johns who was training his son up to be just as loathsome as himself.

"I told you I had a present," Dayven said. Kyrwan looked up at him. His green eyes were bloodshot in the torchlight, and his teeth white as he grinned down at the boy.

"What do you say, lad?" one of the other assassins grunted at him. Kyrwan looked. Under the hood was, as he had thought, an elven man. He was pale-skinned and darkhaired, probably at least one-quarter drow, though the rest seemed to be wood or moon elf.

"Thank you," Kyrwan said, uncertainly, "Am I supposed to kill him?"

"No," the third assassin said. Her voice was high and babyish. She looked to be in her late teens, not much older than Kyrwan himself, "Guild rules would prohibit that."

Dayven walked up to the man and snatched the hood from his head. Edrick's eyes bulged, blue and bloodshot, and rolled this way and that, "I'm sorry!" he exclaimed, "I didn't mean to offend anybody! I swear! I just wanted to..."

"You wanted to sell secrets out from under the nose of the Master of the Fifth Tower," Dayven concluded the sentence, "You wanted to cross Black Garius himself for personal gain. Do you not think he knows how long you have been in the pay of the Ruathym?"

"It was only a dusty old book!" Edrick cried, "Really, it had been sitting in the library for years and nobody had touched it! Please, what harm could I have done? I've a wife, and a son! Please, spare me! I'll leave Luskan forever, I promise, and you shall have my estate, my wealth, anything!"

"Your wealth!" scoffed Dayven, "And what care the loyal servants of Cyric for wealth?"

Kyrwan's eyes went wide as he saw the fear wash over Edrick's face, his eyes rolling in terror as he realized exactly whom he was dealing with.

"All my lands to make it a quick death," he said, his voice hoarse.

"That's not up to me," Dayve said, "That would be up to his young man right here." He walked up to Kyrwan and slung his arm about his shoulders, "I've brought you here to teach you not to steal from your masters, but I think that while I'm at it, I should teach you not to mistreat your whores."

"You!" Edrick looked at him. He didn't recognize him, didn't know the boy who sat in the back of the class whenever he came by to escort Rigard home, "You, lad, I've a son about your age. You wouldn't torture a man like your father, would you?"

Kyrwan snickered, "You've clearly never met my father, if you believe that." His voice sounded sure and forthright, but his gut was churning. He had dreamed sometimes of slicing men up, those who were cruel, those who had hurt him and his sister. He had a particularly lovely one about his own father, of seizing his head in some sort of mechanism that would tighten and tighten until his skull cracked like an egg, just like Dad used to do to him when he was little, squeeze his little head until he was afraid his skull would cave right in. Now, though, that a target was bound and begging before him, he didn't know.

"Lad..." Edrick said, his voice pleading.

Kyrwan looked up at Dayven, "Why bother?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Dayven asked.

"You ain't asking him nothing. Why bother torturing him?" he asked.

"Cyric commands it," the lady assassin said coldly.

What a strange command from a God, he thought, but did not say.

"Cut his hands off if you want," he said, "I don't give two fucks about this nobody. He's already dead."

This seemed to be the exact wrong – or exact right – thing to say. Threats of loss of land and home and wealth and limb were nothing, but when threatened with obscurity. "How dare you?" Edrick roared, "Do you not know who I am?!"

"Nobody will know who you were," Kyrwan said. The desperation in the man's voice touched him somewhere on the inside, and the fear and pain tickled him. He thought about those fleshy fists on his sister's face, and poked at the wound a little more, "You will not be known as a traitor. Your name will be erased from the record books. None will know that you were in the employ of the Master of the Fifth Tower. None will know of your treachery. You will not exist." The idea of the physical torture did not appeal to him. He didn't really care for blood or guts – his father's trade had left him with distaste for that – but listening to the fear in a person's voice, watching them cringe and cower and wet themselves – that appealed to him greatly. Now he had found it, the one thing that Edrick feared most.

"Lies! My wife, my son, they will tell of me!" Edrick cried, "Do whatever you will to me, I will be remembered!"

"Your wife will find some other fatass with a purse to hang onto, and your son might actually have a chance or receiving some come-uppance and keep from turning in to a toad like you," Kyrwan said, "With your name forgotten, none will come to his aid."

"I am Edrick Falringer! My father was a Squire of Luskan!" he cried.

"Don't you understand?" the boy asked, his voice high and cold as ice, "Nobody cares."

Dayven punctuated this statement by pulling his hand back and driving his curved dagger through the back of Edrick's neck, severing his spinal cord. The lord convulsed once, twice, his fat jiggling as he did, and he slumped over in his chair, his face too his fleshy bosom.

"You're very clever," the elven assassin said, "How old are you?"

"I'll be twelve near the equinox," Kyrwan said, truthfully.

"You've a presence about you already," he said, "You struck fear into him, even at your size."

"I told you, the lad is a natural," Dayven said, grinning. Kyrwan was distracted, watching the blood drain from the corpse in the chair and through the grate on the floor, "He'll be of age soon enough."

"I'd like to go home now," Kyrwan said. The corpse was making him uncomfortable. Its eyes were open, wide and blue with shock. For him, it was now and would forever be the moment of his death.

"Past your bedtime, eh, lad?" the woman assassin said, "It's all right. Dayven will take you home."

He put on the blindfold himself again, grateful not to see the staring, lifeless eyes of Edrick Falringer anymore. He couldn't concentrate on mapping the streets in his head on the way back, could see nothing but the way the man had convulsed, his fat flapping, sweat dripping down his smooth skin, the blood draining into the floor. It was not the first corpse he'd seen, not by a long shot, but it was the first once he'd seen die before his eyes. His mind drew an odd parallel, remembering the tiny corpse that had been born and died all in an hour nearly a year before.

They came to his stoop. Dayven removed the blindfold, and melted off into the night. Kyrwan dragged himself up to his flat, where Kyla was still asleep. He sat by the window and watched the gaslights' dancing flames for a moment. There was one light on, still, the window in Dayven's flat. Funny, the assassin did not go home. He had just gone. But the girl, Addie, was sitting in the window, smoking, and taking swigs from a bottle of pale amber whiskey. He could see the tears shimmering on her cheeks as one, and then another squeezed from her swollen eyes. He knew who had roughed up Kyla, the man who sat, dead in a chair, somewhere inland. He wondered who had laid his hand on the little barmaid, and if she had given out as good as she's gotten.

As he wondered that, he saw her rise, and staggering, rear back and throw the nearly empty bottle of whiskey out of the window. He heard it shatter on the cobblestones, and made a mental note to watch where he stepped the next day, "Fuck you Dayven Elhandrien," she slurred, "And fuck you Luskan! A curse on this city!" She hiccuped. "Fuck all of this."

He hurried back, shut and bolted the window, and went to bed.