First Kill by Jennifer Fallon Read Free Book Online Page B

heard of her,” the jovial Calavandran chuckled. “She usually hangs out at the Bull’s Balls.”
    “You have a tavern called the Bull’s Balls?”
    “Doesn’t everywhere?”
    Kiam paid the man, threw his bag in the small, modest room he’d rented, and then headed back outside to find the tavern. It was some way from the wharf, he discovered, contrary to what he had been told before leaving Greenharbour about Sofya the Siren’s fondness for dock taverns, but it was a minor detail hardly worth quibbling about. Of more concern to Kiam was the number of Xaphista’s priests who seemed to be preaching on almost every corner about the perils of sin and the foolishness of those who refused to acknowledge that there was really only one true God and all the others were simply figments of their believer’s imaginations.
    Kiam knew that to be a lie. His stepbrother, Damin Wolfblade, had actually met the God of War, and Wrayan Lightfinger, family friend, legendary thief, and head of the Greenharbour Thieves’ Guild, had spoken with Dacendaran, the God of Thieves, on any number of occasions.
    There were gods aplenty, he knew. They were capricious, quite venal at times, and always trying to get one up on the other gods of the pantheon. Xaphista’s method was, it seemed, to simply pretend the others didn’t exist.
    He reached the Bull’s Balls just on dusk. There was a preacher outside who carried a staff bearing the sun intersected by a lightning bolt. The man blocked Kiam’s way as he tried to enter the tavern, where the smell of something spicy and delicious was beckoning.
    “Are you an evil one?” the priest asked. He had a wild-eyed look that made Kiam wonder if Xaphista’s followers found their faith in the bottom of a mushroom pipe.
    He pushed aside the staff. “Get out of my way, fool.”
    The priest glared at him but stood aside. “You may pass. You are a sinner, obviously, but not an abomination.”
    Kiam stopped and looked at the man curiously. “Abomination? Oh, you mean Harshini?”
    “Wash your mouth out, sinner, lest their evil seek you out for speaking their name.”
    “How do you know I’m not Harshini?”
    “You touched the staff. It caused you no pain.”
    “Have you ever found a Harshini?”
    For the first time, the priest seemed a little uncertain. “Well … no.”
    “Then how do you know it works?”
    “Xaphista has spoken.”
    “Pity he didn’t tell you to piss off, old man,” a woman remarked behind Kiam.
    He turned to discover an attractive Fardohnyan woman standing behind him. She was dressed in a blue bodice designed to draw attention to her impressive bosom, and a diaphanous blue skirt that left her midriff bare. She wore a polished garnet in her navel and a slightly tarnished silver collar around her neck, denoting her as a court’esa .
    The court’esa beamed at Kiam. “Ignore him. His god is a fool and attracts like-minded followers. Are you new in town?”
    A little bemused, Kiam shrugged. “Does it show?”
    “Shines like a beacon, sweetie. You’re Hythrun, yes?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then come on inside and let me show you a good time.” She took his arm and made to lead him inside. Xaphista’s priest turned his attention to another potential patron. With some reluctance, Kiam shook free of her grasp. She was very pretty. At another time …
    “I’m sorry; I can’t.”
    The woman smiled at him and then stretched up on her toes to nuzzle his ear. Only she didn’t nuzzle him. She whispered impatiently, “The Bull’s Balls rents rooms by the hour, you fool, and if you go in there without a court’esa , you might as well pin a sign on your head announcing who you are and why you’re here. Unless you want me to send you back to the Raven in a funereal urn, you’ll smile and look lusty and buy me a drink, lover boy.”
    She pulled back from him and smiled as if nothing was amiss. “So … ready from some sin, then?”
    This wasn’t another test, Kiam realized with