Shadow's Edge (nat-2) by Brent Weeks Read Free Book Online Page B

feeling a shiver at that horror using her name. But the Godking was smiling. Now his eyes touched her naked body the way a man’s eyes might. Something flashed like a shadow toward her and she snatched the wad of cloth out of the air on reflex. “Take your dress,” he said.

6
    I
feel like I’ve been breathing sawdust for a week,” Kylar said.
    “River water. Five minutes,” Uly answered. Terse. Snotty.
    Kylar struggled to open his eyes, but when he did, he still saw nothing. “So you did pull me out. Where are we, Uly?”
    “Take a whiff.” She was acting tough, which meant he’d really scared the hell out of her.
Is this what little girls do?
    He got half a breath in before coughing on the stench. They were in Momma K’s boathouse on the Plith.
    “Nothing like warm sewage on a cool night, huh?” Uly said.
    Kylar rolled over. “I thought that was your breath.”
    “Which smells as good as you look,” she said.
    “You ought to be respectful.”
    “You ought to be dead. Go to sleep.”
    “Do you think domineering is cute?”
    “You need to sleep. I don’t know what dumb earrings have to do with it.”
    Kylar laughed. It hurt.
    “See?” Uly said.
    “Did you get the dagger?”
    “What dagger?”
    Kylar grabbed her by the front of her tunic.
    “Oh, the one I had to use a prybar to get out of your shoulder?” she asked. No wonder his shoulder hurt. He’d never seen Uly quite so snotty and glib. If he didn’t watch it, she’d burst into tears. It was one thing to feel like an ass. It was another to feel like a helpless ass.
    “How long have I been …out?”
    “A day and a night.”
    He cursed quietly. It was the second time Uly had seen him murdered, his body mutilated. If she had an ironclad conviction that Kylar was coming back, he was glad. He had promised her that he would, but he’d never known. All he knew was that he’d come back once. The Wolf, the strange yellow-eyed man he’d met in the place between life and death, hadn’t made any guarantees. Indeed, this time Kylar hadn’t met him at all. Kylar had been hoping to ask him a few questions, like how many lives he got. What if it had only been two?
    “And Elene?” he asked.
    “She went to get the wagon. The guards Jarl bribed are only on duty for another hour.”
    Elene had gone alone to get the wagon? Kylar was so tired. He could tell Uly was right on the verge of tears again. What kind of a man put a little girl through this? He wasn’t much of a substitute father, but he used to think that he was better than nothing.
    “You should sleep,” she said, doing her best to be gruff again.
    “Make sure …” He was so sore he couldn’t complete the thought, much less the sentence.
    “I’ll take care of you, don’t worry,” Uly said.
    “Uly?”
    “Yes?”
    “You did good work. Great work. I owe you. Thanks. I’m sorry.” Kylar could almost feel the air around the girl go all warm and gooey. He groaned. He wanted to say something witty and mean like Durzo would have, but before he could find the words, he was asleep.

7
    W
hen Kaldrosa Wyn joined the queue behind the Lightskirt Tavern at noon, there were already two hundred women standing behind the brothel. Two hours later, when the line started moving, it was three times that. The women were as diverse a group as could be found in the Warrens, from guild rats as young as ten who knew that Momma K wouldn’t hire them but were so desperate they came anyway to women who had lived on the rich east side just a month ago but had lost their homes in the fires and then been herded into the Warrens. Some of those were weeping. Others just wore vacant expressions, clutching shawls tight around them. And some were long-time Rabbits, laughing and joking with their friends.
    Working for Momma K was the safest gig a rent girl could get. They traded stories how the Mistress of Pleasures dealt with their new Khalidoran clientele. They claimed that when the twists hurt you, they had to