Free Shadow's Edge (nat-2) by Brent Weeks

to nothing before or behind.
    No, that wasn’t true. He had Elene and Uly. And he had the freedom to love. That freedom cost something, but it was worth the price.
    “Are you all right?” Elene asked him, her brown eyes concerned.
    “No,” Kylar said. “As long as we’re together, I’m great.”
    In a few minutes, they had left the northern markets and were getting deeper into the shipping district. Even here almost all the buildings were stone—a big change from Cenaria, where stone was so expensive that most of the houses were wood and rice paper. Local punks lounged in the stoops of houses and warehouses and mills, sullenly watching them go past with the universal expression of adolescents with something to prove.
    “Are you sure this is the right road?” Kylar asked.
    Elene winced. “No?”
    Kylar kept the wagon moving, but it didn’t matter. Six of the teens stood and followed a black-toothed man with a mop of greasy black hair toward them. The youths reached under steps or beneath piles of trash to find weapons. They were street weapons, clubs and knives and a length of heavy chain. The man leading them stood in front of the wagon and grabbed the near horse’s bridle.
    “Well, honey,” Kylar said, “time to meet our friendly neighborhood Sa’kagé.”
    “Kylar, remember what you promised,” Elene said, taking his arm.
    “You don’t really expect me to …” He let the question die as he saw the look in her eyes.
    “Afternoon,” their leader said, slapping a club into his palm. He smiled broadly, showing off two black front teeth.
    “Honey,” Kylar said, ignoring him. “This is different. You have to see that.”
    “Other people get through this sort of thing without anybody dying.”
    “Nobody will die if we do this my way,” Kylar said.
    The black-toothed man cleared his throat. Dirt looked permanently tattooed into his visage and two protruding, crooked, and blackened front teeth dominated his face. “Excuse me, lovers. I don’t mean to interrupt—”
    “You can wait,” Kylar said in a tone that brooked no argument. He turned back to Elene. “Honey.”
    “Either do what you promised or do what you’ve always done,” Elene said.
    “That’s not permission.”
    “No. It’s not.”
    “Excuse me,” the man said again. “This—”
    “Let me guess,” Kylar said, mimicking the man’s swagger and accent. “This here’s a toll road, and we need to pay a toll.”
    “Uh. That’s right,” the man allowed.
    “How’d I guess?”
    “I was gonna ask that—hey, you shut your mouth. I’m Tom Gray and this here—”
    “Is your road. Sure. How much?” Kylar asked.
    Tom Gray scowled. “Thirteen silvers,” he said.
    Kylar counted the seven men aloud. “Wait, doesn’t that screw your bashers? They get one silver each and you get six?” Kylar asked. Tom Gray blanched. The boys looked at him angrily. Kylar was right, of course. Small-time thugs. “I’ll give you seven,” Kylar said.
    He pulled out his small coin purse and started tossing silvers to each of the young men. “You get that much with no effort. Why risk a fight? That’s as much as Tom was going to give you anyway.”
    “Hold on,” Tom said. “If he gave us that much that easy he’s got to have more. Let’s take him.”
    But the young men weren’t buying it. They shrugged, shook their heads, and shuffled back to their stoops.
    “What are you doing?” Tom demanded. “Hey!”
    Kylar flicked the reins and the horses started forward. Tom had to jump aside to avoid being crushed. He twisted his ankle as he landed. Kylar pulled his front lips back to make himself look as buck-toothed as Tom and raised his hands helplessly. The young men and Uly laughed.

10
    T
hey spent the night at an inn, and Aunt Mea found them early in the morning and guided them through a tangle of alleys to her house. She was in her forties, looked a decade older, and had been widowed for almost twenty years, since soon after her son,