Normally, I would never say that I should skip a brothel, yet here we were. I sat on the edge of a narrow inn bed that smelled faintly of jasmine oil and other people’s mistakes, staring into an empty satchel as though it had personally betrayed me. The leather mouth gaped open in my hands, slack and unrepentant. I tipped it once. Then again. I even gave it a dignified shake, as if coins might tumble free out of shame. Instead, the small rock that had been placed inside so that I’d think it’s weight right sat on the bed, mocking me.

  Never let it be said Talwyn Green-Eyes was a fool. Yet that evening is the closest I have ever been. That damnable satchel offered little respite after a night of repose. It was due on the morrow for payment to a man who didn’t like to wait. I checked the satchel again, just for posterity.

  Nothing. Not even the comforting clink of something forgotten in a corner seam. This was not how my evenings were meant to conclude. The Amalgem hummed faintly beneath my skin, a quiet vibration that tended to accompany my irritation. My tattoos, beasts, runes, jagged lines that most assumed were decorative and were wrong, as the ignorant often find their state; crawled down my arms and disappeared beneath the long sleeves of my black cassock. I dressed simply. It kept people at ease. It also kept them guessing. My knives remained where they belonged: one concealed in my boot, another flat along my back. Faithful. Predictable. Unlike the satchel.

  Fuck the satchel. Betrayer of the highest sort.

  I had entered the brothel with coin. A respectable amount of it. More importantly, I had entered with my usual gravity, which I carried naturally and without effort. I remembered silk curtains and candlelight. I remembered laughter that tried very hard to be sincere. I remembered a woman with clever fingers and an even sharper assessment of my worth. I remembered being magnificent. It is said that I am a lover. That’s modest. I have had whores pay me on occasion. No boast, just the raw truth of it, and you’d assume that I was hung like a bull; but dear reader, that is an assumption born of ignorance. It’s not the size of the boat, but the… you get the gist. It is perfect, by the way.

  Enough about my sword. I’ve never been one to wax poetic about weapons. I remembered leaving. What I did not remember was surrendering my entire purse. The simplest explanation was theft. The difficulty with that explanation was that I did not get stolen from. I was not inattentive. I was not drunk beyond reason. I was not some merchant’s son dazzled by perfume and a flash of skin. I was Talwyn. I read rooms the way other men read scripture, if they can even read. Again, the ignorant state of most. I counted exits without thinking. My eyes, for that matter, had been their usual brilliant green, the brightest green in any room, which made overlooking me a logistical impossibility. And yet, there I had been. On a rented bed, in a forgettable place of low morals, as poor as a monk who had taken his vows seriously.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  I examined the satchel again, more out of principle than hope. No cut. No torn seam. The drawstring had not been forced. There had been no violence done to it. Only absence. Which meant skill. If I had been relieved of my coin, then it had been done by someone competent. That irritated me far more than the loss itself. I did not mind being challenged. I did mind not noticing the challenge. I leaned back slightly and pressed my thumb against the cool surface of the stone embedded in my forearm. The Amalgem answered with a faint pulse, as if amused. Fate rarely concerned itself with trivial humiliations. Fortune, on the other hand, enjoyed a jest. I still had the one connected to me, but alas, the more important one, buried deep in the satchel, not meant for me was gone.

  The question remained how it had dared to happen to me, because I was, in fact, extraordinary. Now, before you grow too attached, let me temper your expectations. Soon, I will go silent. Not permanently. Do not panic. The world would not be deprived of me forever. But you would not have the constant pleasure of my perspective. I was not, despite obvious qualifications, the center of all of this. I played my part. An essential one, naturally. A catalytic one, if we are being precise. But not the whole.

  No, you are to hear from others. Dreary sons of bitches. Ignorant as they were, comfortably settled in their ignorance as most men are. They would speak with conviction about things they barely understood. They would posture. They would moralize. Some would even believe themselves important.

  Adorable, really.

  My magnificence, in this volume at least, will be fleeting. A flare in the dark rather than the sun itself. I would step in, tilt the board, and step away while lesser minds scrambled to interpret what had happened. You would endure them. I recommend patience. But understand this: It was this theft that touched it all. Now, leave me to my depression and melancholy. Yes, I did experience both. Even brilliance sours when coin vanishes and contingency plans begin to unravel. I lay back against the thin pillow, stared at the stained ceiling beams, and considered the precise degree to which my life had become inconvenient. Because on the morrow, I was to meet with Crown Prince Oblan. A man almost as gorgeous as me.

  That is not flattery. It is truth wrapped in a compliment. Tall, golden in that effortless aristocratic way, shoulders cut like a statue some sculptor wept over. Truth be told, under different circumstances, I would have let him please me. Generously. I am not so rigid as to deny beauty when it presents itself, and Oblan presented well. I live by a simple adage: if it’s pretty, fuck it. It applies so well, to so many endeavors. But circumstances, as ever, were the complication.

  I had quite a pickle. The sort of pickle that involved missing artifacts, royal expectations, and a purse that now contained a decorative stone placed there by someone with a sense of humor I did not appreciate. I still had the Amalgem bound to my flesh, quietly in my forearm, loyal as ever. The other, the one not meant for me, the one that had been buried deep within the satchel and warded against casual inspection, was gone, and princes did not enjoy being told that irreplaceable objects had simply… wandered off. Especially not when they had entrusted those objects to a man of my reputation. I closed my eyes and let the quiet settle.

  You will see what I did. I assure you, it was clever. It usually is, but at that moment, in that room that smell of jasmine and bad decisions, I had to think, and when I think, things tend to change.