Free The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke Page A

followed the line of portraits till I came to one of Kaol, the goddess of tides and typhoons, and the one who's said to watch over pirates. I lit the incense with the little white candle burning beneath her portrait, knelt down, breathed in the smoky sweetness, muttered something about having lost my way, and then stood up and looked expectantly at the priestess.
      "Kaol doesn't usually answer requests," the priestess said. "You'd have done better to pray to E'mko." She pointed at the portrait hanging beside Kaol's, and where Kaol's ocean was darkness and chaos, a gray spitting storm and jagged scars of lightning, E'mko's was calm, flat, and dull, his benevolent eyes gazing down on his petitioners.
      "Ain't a sailor," I said. "E'mko's for sailors."
      The priestess tilted her head at me. "Are you a pirate?"
      I shrugged. "I told you, I just need to be down at the docks."
      "So you did. Kaol will help pirates." She smiled. "When the prayer finishes, we'll see if she answers."
      I sighed again and knelt down beside Kaol's portrait to wait for the incense to burn away – for the prayer to finish, as the priestess had said. I wasn't sure about the gods, since they didn't do much to make themselves known, but Papa used to swear that Kaol always looked out for her children, and that was why a pirate ship could sail through a typhoon unharmed when a navy boat couldn't.
      When the last of the incense burned up, I found myself holding my breath, half-expecting to hear a voice like thunder telling me the way back to the docks. Instead the priest took me by the hand and pulled me to my feet and said, "Follow the street until it deadends, then turn right. You'll be able to hear the sea."
      I scowled at her. "You couldn't have just told me that?"
      "I didn't," she said. "Kaol did."
      I didn't believe that for a second, but I thanked her anyway and then rushed out onto the street. I'd one more thing to buy – swamp yirrus – and no idea where to find it. Maybe I shoulda prayed to Kaol to help me find that, as well.
      The priestess's directions were good, at any rate, and soon as I heard the sea at the dead-end I followed the sound of it to the docks, and then I made way back to the night market. At the first vendor I came across, I asked after the swamp yirrus, but she shook her head.
      "Don't got anything like that, I'm afraid," she said. I must've looked disappointed, cause she leaned in close to me and whispered, "There's a new stall down near Lady Sea Salt's brothel. He might have it." She straightened up and tilted her head back toward the city. "He's set up next to a lemon tree, and he usually has a gray horse tied up with his things."
      I thanked her and set off. The crowds thinned out some, and a wind blew in from the desert, cold and dry as dust. Everybody seemed to huddle up inside of themselves, even the vendors. But then I spotted the lemon tree, twisted and bent with the direction of the wind. And the gray horse, just like the lady had said. It snorted at me as I walked up.
      The vendor had his back turned. The wind toyed with the fabric of his cloak, and even after I cleared my throat a few time, he didn't look up. Eventually, I said, "Excuse me!" I felt like I had to shout to be heard over the wind.
      "Yes, my dear?" He glanced at me over his shoulder. "You look a long way from home."
      He said it kindly, but it still left me unnerved. How could some street vendor at a Lisirran night market know my home from anyone else on the street?
      "Uh, I'm looking for swamp yirrus," I said. "Lady on the docks said you'd have it."
      The vendor turned around, and my whole body froze up immediately. He had the same gray-stone eyes the woman at the dress shop had had. I might've chalked it up to a coincidence except looking at his eyes got me dizzy, like all I could see was that gray.
      "Got one left," he said. He gave me a big dazzling smile. "I'll knock the price down some, too.