The Seanchan Spy

[Eidolon]

Kasimir Nevaren

Kasimir had not been home in a week. Swollen pride prevented him from attempting any sort of reconciliation, so he had been sleeping in door ways and renting rooms when he could afford it. Certainly he didn’t have the savings to return to Tarabon, or any other far away place where he might start anew, and any way the memories of Arad Doman were too fresh to entice him somewhere foreign. He gambled some of his coin too, in the hopes of swelling his funds, but his luck ran hot and cold. He was forced to live day by day, hand to mouth, and often his winnings worked backwards over debt he had already accrued. 

For a while he took to wandering the various inns to be found in Ebou Dar’s west side, asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of the two Aes Sedai and their striking Sea Folk guardian (he did not ask for a Seanchan, since he could not be sure if the woman would be wearing her face or another’s; and besides, a Seanchan face was not so uncommon here) but no one was forthcoming, whether or not he offered to grease their palms. He could only assume that they had left, and knowing that left him with a sense of restlessness.

Sometimes he saw his Jahzara out on one errand or another; his sister would smile and her dark eyes would light up, but she was miserable, he could tell. Eventually she confided that their father left his room less and less, and their mother despaired for it, and wouldn’t he please come home? Kaz declined, of course, but he did feel sorry for her.

“Forgive him,” she pleaded one time. “It will be as if the Aes Sedai never came.”

But Kasimir shook his head angrily and murmured something about secrets, to which she was the one to stalk off. It was the last time he saw her out and about in Ebou Dar.

Kaz wondered about her more, that Seanchan woman. Aes Sedai, he reminded himself often enough, but it didn’t stop his thoughts returning to her. He had been taught from the cradle to abhor the channelling women and all they stood for, but it had been his father’s hate, and now more than ever he was tempted to shun it for that reason alone. They saved me from the Domani, he told himself, but that seemed only to murky his thoughts further.

And she holds the key to his secrets… But it was not for want of answers that he found himself drawn, again and again, to the events of that night. Some of it was spite - the blazing desire to know what his father wanted to hide so badly, and some of it was akin to sorrow, to know he had never been trusted enough to share his father’s past. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to know… and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

That night, sat at a round table in the Golden Goose with four other Ebou Dari knife duellers, Kasimir Nevaren made a decision. The pot glittering in the centre of the table had grown considerably in the last hour; a steady stream of alcohol loosened tongue and purse alike, and these five were long time gambling companions. They trusted to the integrity of the others, or swore to it fervently at least, and the coffers of friends were always more generous than when among strangers.

Gizel Chanadrin chatted about a duel that had happened last week, in which a young Ebou Dari nobleman had been slain by a ruffian of the Rahad. The others chittered with ums and ahs, but Kaz was lost in his own thoughts, none of them related to how Gizel claimed to have hunted down said ruffian and challenged him to a duel himself. (He won, of course).

Kaz reclined in his chair, heady with warm ale-glow, and thought about what he would do with all that coin. He fingered his cards; not a bad hand, but not a gambling one either. If I win this, he thought, then I go to Tar Valon and find the Seanchan called Malaika. He pushed the last remaining of his coin into the centre, and smiled smugly.

He lost.

The innkeeper chose that moment to come over.  “Three days behind,” he said. “You owe me three marks.”

Kasimir shrugged and chucked his cards at Gizel sitting opposite, watching as the man swept the treasure of coin and trinket over to him. “Ask him,” he said, folding his arms. “He’s got all my money.”

...And so it was that Kaz spent the rest of that evening scrubbing dishes in the kitchens, and lost his room at the Golden Goose to one Gizel Chanadrin.  It was a cold night.