Read The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) for Free Online

built a nest in her skull.
    On the horizon, the land was little more than a thickening of the water. From the time she had left Birancour, it had remained the same, a darkness to port. Once they had passed into the Inner Sea, it would have been in theory faster to lose sight of the shore, strike out from the straits that divided the Free Cities from Lyoneia, and make a short blue-water transit to Elassae and Suddapal. But speed was not everything, and even on the relatively gentle waters, winter storms could rise, and the option of finding shelter in a cove or harbor was not to be dismissed lightly. There had been troubles along the way: one of the sailors had slipped from the mast and broken his leg so badly that he’d been lost in a fever since; for two long days they had run from dark-sailed pirates before the thieves gave up the chase; and Roach had been nauseated for so long that the dark chitinous plates of his arms had begun to bend and crack as the flesh beneath them thinned away. On some day, indistinguishable from the ones before and behind it, they had sailed past Newport and the ruins of Vanai where her childhood lay in ashes. And the nearer they drew to the five cities of Suddapal, the more the anxious knot in her belly grew, and the harder it became to sleep. The anxiety built day after day, hour upon hour.
    Until now.
    The calls of the sailors changed. The ship shifted under her feet. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the dark line of land thickened and took on shape. Hills and valleys, and then the more regular forms of buildings. And then reaching out to her like a thousand fingers, the piers with their forest of masts. Suddapal, the fivefold capital city of Elassae, and home of the farthest-flung branch of the Medean bank.
    “We’ll have you to land by midday, Magistra,” the captain, an old Firstblood man with a patchy white beard said. “There’ll be the matter of the last part of the payment to consider?”
    Cithrin smiled.
    “As soon as we’re in port, Captain,” she said.
    “Might as well now,” he said. “We’ve time.”
    “Policy,” she said, as if the word explained and excused everything. She turned back toward the growing city and wished she’d had less wine in the night.
    Her agreement with Komme Medean had called for a year’s apprenticeship, and they had agreed before she left on the long winter journey south from Carse that Suddapal would be the best place. Komme Medean’s letters would have reached Magistra Isadau weeks before, but Cithrin had no way to know what the woman would think of the arrangement. Any greeting could be waiting for her on the docks. Or even a refusal.
    The sailors scrambled behind her, and the little ship turned its nose to the shore. The noise of the sails as they caught the breeze deafened. A guide boat raced out to meet them, hardly more than a canoe with three Timzinae youths hauling on red-dyed oars. Timzinae had been as common as Firstblood in Vanai, and the young men’s dark bodies and shining scales comforted her.
    “Magistra,” Yardem Hane said from just behind her. She turned, craning her head up toward the Tralgu’s broad dog-like face. His expression was impassive, but the tall, mobile ears were canted forward, toward the shore. “We’ve packed the chest.”
    “And last payment?”
    Yardem patted his hip where his leather wallet hung from his belt, the sound of coins hardly carrying over the din. “I’ll take care of it. Enen and Roach will see to the rest.”
    Cithrin nodded, her eyes following the laughing gestures of the guide boat crew. Their canvas pants and rough shirts seemed too light for the cold of the winter sea, but any discomfort they felt was hidden by their boisterous shouts and friendly profanity. She envied them. She had more money than they would likely see in a decade and had commanded control of a hundred times that, but the ease with which she held her body and the calmness of her affect were all the fruit of study