Free The Shattered Gates by Ginn Hale Page A

closed, balancing on the edge of unconsciousness. The warmth surrounding him soaked through his coat, easing his muscles. The smell of meat and beer washed over him. His stomach felt raw as it gnawed at its own emptiness. He hadn’t been hungry like this in years. He needed food, and for that he would need money.
    He slowly surveyed the men surrounding him. He didn’t waste time taking in their faces or figures. All he looked for were their coin purses. He didn’t see any hanging from the men’s belts, but that made sense. Only he and the other monks at Rathal’pesha had worn coin purses like that. In Nurjima, men kept their money in their coat pockets. He remembered noticing that habit the first time he had come here, when he had been sent to bow before the divine Ushso’Shokri, the head of his order. He had received his Prayerscars then.
    Again he glanced down at the bare back of his left hand and the noted the absence of a Prayerscar. Kahlil scowled at his own untrustworthy memory. It seemed so perfectly real.
    He had been barely twenty, and he had knelt naked in the huge chamber while black-robed priests chanted over him. He had closed his eyes, pride bursting through his chest at being Chosen.
    First there had been the soft, stroking sensation as the priests painted black ink over the backs of his hands and across his eyelids. Then the ink had begun to burn into his flesh like acid. He had wanted to scream, but he had remained silent. At last the priests had washed his hands and eyes with blessed waters and balms. The pain had faded, but the burns had only grown darker until they had become jet black. And then he became Kahlil.
    Again he observed the back of his hand, rubbing it as though the Prayerscar was somehow hidden. Though chapped and red at the knuckles, his skin showed no trace of black. Just as Nurjima had no Black Tower, he had no Prayerscars.
    He couldn’t have just made them up. No, they had been real. He felt certain.
    Something had happened to his head when he’d crossed between the worlds. His body had been injured, and so, apparently, had his memories. But he was blessed even if he had no Prayerscars to show it. He carried in his body witches’ blood and Parfir’s own bones, and he could prove it to himself right now.
    He picked a man at random, a big fellow with a yellow beard and meaty hands. The man sat at a small table ten feet or so from Kahlil. Other patrons crowded in close at nearby tables, jostling each other as they shifted and gestured. Kahlil guessed that a few tugs might not be noticed. He lowered his gaze to the blonde man’s dark brown coat, focusing his concentration on the man’s bulging pocket. Then, casually, he lifted his left hand up close to his mouth and flicked his first two fingers apart.
    A shock of biting pain shot through his fingers and bolted through his arm. The sensation startled Kahlil. It shouldn’t have hurt just to open the Gray Space. It was only traveling through that caused injuries. But then he was already wounded and weak. The force it took to open the space must have been too much strain. His body didn’t want to obey him.
    Still, he didn’t allow the rift in the space to close. Setting his teeth, he clenched his jaw against the groan that almost escaped him. Steadily, he tore the space wide, and the contents of the man’s pocket began to fall into his hand.
    There were coins and a banknote. Then a fat gold watch spilled out. The watch chain, however, seemed to have caught on something. Kahlil closed his fingers around it and gave a tug. The bearded man suddenly looked down to his coat and then to a slim man sitting at the table next to him.
    Kahlil released the watch and let the space snap back closed. At the same moment the bearded man jammed his hand into his own pocket. He felt for the coins and banknote and found neither. A look of rage came over him.
    “You thief! You think you can steal from me?” he shouted at the slim man next to him.