For a time, nightmares had haunted him. They had become less frequent, but the details had not faded from his memory. Too often, he found himself looking back at them, staring in a kind of fascinated revulsion.
He had seen terrible things. He had faced them. He hated them, and they terrified him still, but he had faced the simple existence of such hideous destruction without letting it control his life.
Rut this was different.
Tavi had harmed no one during Second Calderon-but the pain Renzo and Varien now suffered had been dealt to them by his own hands, his own will, his own choice.
There was no dignity in what he had done to them. There was nothing in which to take pride. The abrupt joy that had sung through his body during the swift, brutal fighting faded and vanished. He had looked forward to this moment, in some ways-to a time when he could put his skills to use against those who had always made him feel so helpless and small. He had expected to feel satisfaction, triumph. But in its place, he felt only an emptiness that filled with a sudden and sickening nausea. He had never hurt anyone so badly before. He felt stained, somehow, as if he had lost something valuable that he hadn't known he had possessed.
He had hurt the other boys, and hurt them terribly. It was the only way he could have beaten them. Anything less than a disabling injury would have left them able to employ their furies against him, and there would have been nothing he could have done but suffered whatever they intended for him. So he had hurt them. Badly. In the space of a few seconds, he had visited back all the misery and pain they had inflicted on him over two years twice over.
It had been necessary.
But that did not mean that it was right.
"I'm sorry," Tavi said quietly, though the ice in his voice yet filled the words. "I'm sorry I had to do that." He began to say more, but then shook his head, turned away, to resume running toward Sir Nedus's manor. He could sort out charges and legal problems with the civic legion once he was sure his aunt was safe.
But before he had gone more than a few steps, the stones beneath his feet heaved and flung him hard into the nearest stone wall. He had no warning of it at all, and his head smacked solidly against the rock, a flash of phantom light blinding him. He felt himself fall, and tried to rise, but a rough hand gripped him and threw him with a terrible, casual ease. He sailed through the air and landed on stones, and by the time he finished tumbling the stars had begun to clear from his eyes.
He looked up in time to see that he was in a darkened, blind alleyway between an expensive little wine shop and a goldsmith's. Inexplicably, a fog had risen, and as he blinked it built up, covering his face. Tavi pushed himself up to his knees to see Kalarus Brencis Minoris standing over him, dressed in a magnificent doublet of grey and green, a circlet of iron set with a green stone on his brow, and formal jewelry glittering on his fingers and throat. Brencis's hair had been drawn back into the braid the long-haired southern cities employed in their fighting men, and he wore a sword and dagger upon his belt. His eyes were narrow and cruel, and burned with something feral and unpleasant that Tavi could not begin to give a name.
"So," Brencis said quietly, as the fog continued to rise. "You thought it would be amusing to mock me by sneaking into my father's party? Perhaps drinking his wine? Pilfering a few valuables?"
"I was delivering a missive from the First Lord," Tavi managed to say.
He might as well not have spoken. "And now you have attacked and injured my friends and boon companions. Though I suppose you will claim that the First Lord instructed you to do so, eh coward?"
"Brencis," Tavi said through clenched teeth, "this isn't about you."
"The crows it isn't," Brencis snarled. By then, the mist had risen in a thick blanket around them, and Tavi could see little more than a pair of running paces through the fog. "I've endured your insolence for the last time." Brencis casually drew the sword at his side, then took his dagger into his left hand. "No more."
Tavi stared at that disquieting light dancing behind Brencis's eyes and forced himself back to his feet. "Don't do this, Brencis. Don't be a fool."
"I will not be spoken to that way by a furyless freak!" Brencis snarled, and lunged at Tavi, sword extending into a clean thrust for Tavi's belly.
Tavi drew his own knife, managed to catch the thrust on it, and slide it away so that the tip of Brencis's sword went cleanly past him. But it had been a lucky parry, and Tavi knew it. Once Brencis began slashing, there was no way his little blade could help, and Tavi sprang back from his attacker, desperately looking for a way out of the alley. There was none.
"Stupid pagunus," Brencis said, smiling. "I've always known you were a gutless, stinking little pig."
"The civic legionares are already on the way," Tavi responded. His voice shook.
"There's time enough," Brencis said. "No one will see through the fog." His eyes glittered with an ugly amusement. "What an odd coincidence that it came up just now."
He came in again, the bright steel of his blade darting toward Tavi's throat. Tavi ducked under it, but Brencis's boot swept up to meet his head. Tavi managed to take part of the kick on his shoulder, but Brencis's fury-assisted strength was at least a match for Renzo's, and Tavi staggered to one side. Only the wall of the goldsmith's kept him from falling, and the world spun rapidly around him as Brencis raised his sword for a powerful, down-sweeping death blow.
Tavi's instincts screamed at him, and he some how managed to stagger back as the sword came down. He felt a hot flash of pain on his left arm. He swept his dagger in a cut at Brencis's sword hand, but the taller boy avoided it with contemptuous ease. Then Brencis lifted a hand and flicked his wrist, and a blast of sudden wind threw Tavi bodily to the ground. It drove him back down the alley to the wall at its end. He fought his way back his feet, only to have the wind flatten his back to the wall, where ugly, misshapen hands emerged smoothly from the stone and caught his wrists and legs in a crushing grip.
Brencis paced calmly down the alley and stared at Tavi, his expression smug. He sheathed his dagger and casually slapped Tavi across the face, then on the other side with his backhand swing. The blows, even delivered with an open hand, hit him like heavy fists, and the entire world narrowed down into a tunnel filled by the lean, arrogant shape of Kalarus Brencis Minoris.
"I can't believe how stupid you are. Did you think you could insult and defy me over and over again? Did you think that you could possibly survive such a thing? You're nothing, Tavi. You're no one. Not a crafter. Not even a Citizen. Just a favored pet dog of a senile old man." Brencis pressed the tip of his sword against Tavi's cheek. Tavi felt another sting of pain, and felt blood trail down over his jawline. Brencis stared into Tavi's eyes. The young noble's eyes were… strange. His pupils were far too wide, and his face shone with a sheen of perspiration. His breath reeked of wine.
Tavi swallowed and struggled to focus his thoughts clearly. "Brencis," he said quietly. "You're drunk. Intoxicated. You've taken drugs. You aren't in control of yourself."
Brencis slapped him twice more, contemptuous little blows. "I beg to differ."
Tavi reeled with disorientation, his stomach turning and twisting within him. "Brencis, you have to stop and think. If you-"