This was her one way to dupe him in a city he owned through blood and bribery. He held freedom over her head. Telling her one more kill, one more bribe, one more job, until she was free to be her own boss.
“One more diamond behind your back,” she whispered, her breath turning white in front of her.
When the Blood King had sent her on her first kill years ago, Aina had made a promise to herself and to all the kids without a roof who still yearned to stand on top of the world. She would be the one everyone feared, the girl who made politicians, slavers, gang bosses, and mercenaries tremble.
She would be the Blood King’s equal. And one day, she would rank even higher than him.
2
Her next steps brought her back into Kosín as the sky shifted from pale blue to navy. She passed grime-covered, block-style apartments, then took narrow roads north of the Center until she reached a hill leading into Rose Court.
When dealing in diamonds, there was a pecking order not to be disturbed. She collected the goods from the mine and sold them to various vendors, who later distributed them at fair prices to magic practitioners through gangs, mercenaries, and kids with hunger in their eyes. Out of the roughly one hundred jewelry shops in Kosín, only one store at any given time would buy the uncut diamonds she carried. It rotated every one to four days, and the chosen shop was only announced through whispers spoken in dark alleys. Luckily, she was always down the right alley and knew exactly where to go.
The lights grew brighter, and laughter and gossip reached her ears as she ascended the hill, a stark difference from the whispers and shouts littering the south of the city. Between two buildings ahead, she could make out the glint of electric lights from the mansion-dotted hills in the distance. Beyond that still, the Tower of Steel stretched toward the clouds, all black spires and forbidding height under the light of both moons.
People said the Mothers had created the moons, one red for Kalaan and the other silver for Isar, to illuminate the path to happiness and light, but Aina thought they might be too shrouded by pollution to do any good.
She paused for a moment to check that her weapons and diamonds were hidden, in case she came across any guards, then joined the crowd on the main road of Rose Court.
Cobblestone streets glittered under the lampposts that flickered on at night. Floor-to-ceiling glass shop windows displayed silk dresses, leather shoes, decorative plants and rugs, boxed fruits, wine, and other merchandise for prices that could feed a family for a year in the Stacks. A stone fountain ahead was bathed in yellow light from the shops, while a couple of miles south, electricity vanished and plumbing became a myth.
Each year, this side of Kosín grew richer, and the other side—her side—fell further and further behind.
Diamond Guards patrolled the streets, the gems of their namesake studded on the buttons and buckles of their jet-black uniforms. They were an extension of the national army, reserved as a police force for the city. Aina’s hand closed around the hilt of one of her daggers by habit; she suspected trouble whenever she saw the guards. Most of the people in Rose Court barely spared them a glance, but Aina watched as a pair of them approached an older woman in a tattered brown dress and patched jacket at the corner of a bank.
They asked the woman a question in low voices. Her eyes hardened as she replied. In the next instant, one of them pushed her against the wall, pinning down her brittle arms, his diamond-edged dagger at her throat. The other guard turned out her pockets.
If rough diamonds were found on the woman, they’d shoot her where she stood.
While any worship of the Mothers was outlawed and meant a prison sentence, selling rough diamonds or using them for magic guaranteed an execution. It was considered a crime worse than faith alone, since those diamonds could be sold as jewels, and using them for magic took money away from the country.
Coins spilled out of the woman’s pockets instead of diamonds, and Aina let go of some of the tension in her shoulders. The woman could have gotten the money from anything, maybe even honest work, but the Diamond Guards would find a reason to accuse her of theft. In the nicer parts of the city, they became more brutal in meting out punishment, as if to prove to the moneyed industrialists, the Steels, that they were doing their jobs properly.
Disgust crept through Aina as the guards interrogated the woman. But like all the well-off people in Rose Court, she turned and walked away as if nothing had happened. Not even her boss’s bribes could keep a bullet from her brain if those guards caught her with rough diamonds.
That was the way of the Steels; they’d let people like her starve in the streets without a twinge of concern, then punish them again for trying to find a way to feed themselves.
A bell jingled when she entered the jewelry shop. It was small and cramped, but warm. Aina smiled at the door attendant, then browsed under the light bulbs hanging in gold-wire cages. An elderly couple examined jade earrings on a pillow inside one of the glass cases displaying the shop’s best wares. She glanced over another customer’s shoulder at the exorbitant prices diamond rings sold for.
Aina approached the counter. A bespectacled, balding man measuring a gem under a microscope looked up.
“Can I help you?”
“Just looking, mostly.” She shrugged, her eyes trailing over a set of emerald bracelets under the counter next to a sign that read RARE EMERALDS IMPORTED FROM KAIYAN’S DEEPEST JUNGLES! She might make more money if other gems, like emeralds, could be used with magic, but only diamonds worked. “The weather’s a bit rough today, so I’m trying to stay inside.”
There was the code: rough.
“I think I’ve got something you might like,” the jeweler said without missing a beat. He withdrew a box from under the counter.
“Those are nice.” She nodded at the unopened velvet box. From her pocket, she withdrew the pouch of diamonds and unhooked one side of the box he’d presented. It detached. She quickly slipped her diamonds inside before pocketing the newly detached side. There was a set price for a set weight of diamonds. Any more or less wouldn’t be accepted, and she could only sell to this jeweler once until his shop’s next rotation. Any wasted time or repeat visits would draw unwanted attention.
The box of coins jostled in her pocket while the jeweler disappeared to the back room to check the legitimacy of her diamonds. Her eyes flicked to the door attendant, who shifted her jacket aside to reveal the shiny handle of a gun—a clear message. If she tried to run while the jeweler was examining her diamonds, she’d be shot.
The jeweler returned and beckoned her closer, casting a nervous glance around his shop for any eavesdroppers. In a whisper, he said, “If you want real coin, you should bring me a black diamond next time. Very rare, very beautiful. I’ll pay you five times for that.”
Aina grimaced. Of course the Steels placed more value on the beauty of a diamond rather than its practical use as a tool of magic that their people had used for centuries. The value of diamonds had changed from a sign of faith to a sign of how many kors were in your pocket. She nodded, keeping his offer in mind, and left as quickly as possible without running.
In half an hour, she reached the Stacks with her pulse still pounding in her ears. She never got this nervous when taking out a target, but selling rough diamonds was different. She touched the box of coins and gave it a quick shake. Heavy. She had to return home to collect her pay for the baker’s kill, then wait until morning when the bank opened and she could deposit the money. She didn’t entirely trust banks, but she trusted them more than stuffing her money under a mattress and hoping that a house full of criminals wouldn’t find it.