Ghost in the Cowl Read Free Page B

Corvalis, remembered his strong arms around her. His dark wit, and the way his green eyes flashed when he found something funny. The aplomb with which he had masqueraded as Anton Kularus, merchant of coffee. His mouth against hers, his body against hers…
    She did not know what might have passed over her expression, but dread flooded the Collector’s face.
    “I want Corvalis back,” she told him, “but I will settle for one less slave trader in the world.”
    He started to scream, but her dagger cut the cry short.
    Caina cleaned her weapons and her hands and stepped over the mess to the door. Whoever found the dead Collectors would likely assume they had fallen to fighting and accidentally knocked over the sacks. So long as Caina departed quickly, she need not worry about vengeance from the Brotherhood or the dead men’s families. 
    Odd, that. She had just killed four men…and she felt nothing at all. Once she would have felt guilty over it. But now, it seemed, she felt nothing but grief. 
    And rage.
    Still, the Collectors had deserved it. How many innocent men and women and children had they sold into slavery? 
    Again Caina felt the overwhelming sense of futility, but shoved it aside with some effort. 
    She left the warehouse, made sure she was unobserved, and set off for the Cyrican Quarter and the House of Agabyzus.

Chapter 2 - The House of Agabyzus
    An hour later, Caina walked into the Cyrican Bazaar. 
    The Cyrican Quarter lacked the squalor of the dockside districts. It faced west, toward the Empire’s province of Cyrica, which Caina supposed explained the name. The district housed small shops and houses, and Caina saw fewer slaves here. The Bazaar hosted a bustling maze of stalls and booths, merchants selling carpets and pans and knives and fried skewers of meat. Women in bright robes and headscarves bought and sold, and slaves hurried about the errands of their masters.
    Caina stopped before a stall selling gleaming pots and pans and scrutinized her reflection, checking for spots of blood. If she was masquerading as a courier for the Imperial Collegium of Jewelers, she could not show up at the House of Agabyzus spotted with the blood of four dead Collectors. Fortunately, none of the Collectors’ blood had gotten on her clothes and face.
    For a moment her reflection held her attention. Her face looked harsher than she remembered, thinner, the lines of her cheekbones sharper. Dark shadows encircled her blue eyes, and her long blond hair, tied back in a tail, had started going black at the roots. The dye she had used was wearing off. Not that it mattered – she had used the dye to disguise herself as Sonya Tornesti, the mistress of the wealthy coffee merchant Anton Kularus. But Anton Kularus was merely the disguise of Corvalis, and Corvalis was dead. 
    Again that wave of searing pain went through Caina.
    “Are you going to buy anything, or shall you gawk at my merchandise all day?”
    Caina saw the pan merchant, a short little man in a florid robe and turban, glaring at her.
    “Which way,” said Caina, surprised at the calm in her voice, “to the House of Agabyzus?”
    “The coffeehouse?” said the merchant. “Over there, across the Bazaar. Are you drunk? This is clearly not the coffeehouse.”
    “No,” said Caina, turning away.
    “And you will buy nothing?” shouted the merchant. “Your mother was a diseased whore!”
    “That,” said Caina without looking back, “would have been an improvement.” 
    A short walk took her to the House of Agabyzus. It was a flat-roofed building of whitewashed stone, with the coffeehouse on the main floor and rooms for rent on the top two levels. The smell of roasting coffee filled Caina’s nostrils, and a storm of memories washed through her mind. Sitting in the coffeehouse of Catekharon with Corvalis and Kylon of House Kardamnos, planning to stop Mihaela’s cruel scheme. Standing upon the floor of the House of Kularus in Malarae, masquerading as Sonya