“Not yet, but he has a head start. We’ll need to be fast if we want to catch up.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be very fast.” Vana sits up suddenly, frowning at the featherglass. “Zuzana’s back already, and she doesn’t have Petir with her.”
Daromir groans. “Let’s see what the bastard has fucked up this time.”
He regrets the flippant comment twenty minutes later, when Zuzana and Indra arrive upstairs to give their reports.
“Petir Bernek was dead when we found him,” Zuzana says, setting a heavy satchel on the table. “He was hanging from a rafter. I decided dragging his body through Ostomar would be too awkward to explain if we got caught, but here’s all the shit we could grab quickly.”
“Fuck.” Daromir pushes Vana’s hand away from the bag. “Let me look at that first.”
Indra moves in front of Zuzana and takes her hands. She looks up into her wife’s eyes for a quiet moment, then asks, “You good, sweetie?”
For once, Zuzana doesn’t snark back. “Yeah, I’m good.” She squeezes Indra’s hand, then passes a piece of parchment to Daromir. “You’ll want to start with this.”
Daromir unfolds the parchment and reads it through once. The words are written in a shaky hand, and they say exactly what Daromir expects. He reads it a second time, out loud. “‘Three years ago, Prince Vana and his bloodguard caused the wrongful death of the bravest, kindest, and most beautiful woman who ever flew the skies. Today at last I give her justice. I have slain Daromir Azri, and I condemn Prince Vana to live as I have lived—missing the person most important to me. My life has been over for a long time. Now, I joyfully reunite with my beloved Irenka.’”
The four of them stare at each other. Indra and Zuzana were also there in Bernek’s dungeon when they unchained Rakos Tem.
“That’s a lot,” Indra says, grimacing. “Did Irenka even like him?”
“She was just using him.” Daromir sets the letter down. “Poor asshole.”
Vana touches the letter, then pulls his hand away. His tension is palpable through the very air. “Irenka wasn’t the only one using him. Petir didn’t kill himself, and he didn’t hire the Hound.”
“How do you know that?” Zuzana asks. “The Hound bit, I mean. The suicide looked kind of fake. Too fucking neat.”
“Petir couldn’t afford a Kennel contract after his sister cut him off, and maybe not even before then. House Bernek’s wealth isn’t liquid enough.” Vana meets Daromir’s eyes. “Someone gave him the money.”
A chill runs down Daromir’s spine. “Imrik.”
Plenty of Draskorans could afford a Hound, from nobility to blood mages to clan warlords. The list overlaps quite a bit with any list of Vana’s enemies. But most of them wouldn’t bother hiring an assassin to conceal their hand. They would be happy to kill Daromir openly and take credit for it.
Imrik Dire is a different story. If he wants Daromir out of the way, he still needs Vana to be willing to work with him.
Indra swears under her breath. “Why would His Majesty want Daromir dead?”
“Because he knows Vana too well,” Daromir says. “Imrik is a manipulative bastard, and he knows what lines Vana won’t cross. Perhaps better than either of us.”
Vana reaches out to squeeze Daromir’s hand. “You’re my last link to my life before House Dire. As long as I have you, he can’t fully control me.”
Zuzana groans. “That makes sense, but you’ll have a hard fucking time proving it.”
Vana shrugs. “I don’t need to prove it. Here.” He sets two heavy purses on the table, next to the dead man’s things. “Zuzana and Indra, these are for you two.”
Zuzana opens one and whistles. “Performance bonuses?”
“Severance pay,” Vana says, and the room goes quiet. “Effective tomorrow. I would offer a reference letter, but my word won’t be worth much in Draskora after this.”
This is the only part Daromir regrets. He likes these women, and they’ve worked well together over the years. Out of anyone in the world besides Vana, Indra and Zuzana are the people Daromir trusts most. Leaving like this puts them at risk.
But Indra just laughs. “You’re finally getting out of here, huh?”
“We’re hoping to engineer a delay before Imrik realizes we’ve left,” Daromir says. “You can use that time to get out of Ostomar with anyone else you trust.”
“We know how much Imrik likes scapegoats,” Vana says.
“Don’t worry about us,” Zuzana says, hefting the coin purse. “We can take care of ourselves. Honestly, Indra’s been wanting to quit for years now.”
