Page 93 of A Trade of Blood

“That was what you said, sir. The Buravs and their rings.”

“Ah. So?”

“The Burav tughra ring features their family seal, sir,” I said. “A hawk in flight. But on their tughra rings, there is a large point at the top for the crest of the Burav hawk’s beak.” My eyes fluttered as the memories coursed through me. “Though I am no spatiast…I believe it is theexactsame length as the small perforation on Lyimo Armenta’s back. And that tiny, rounded bruise above it could be the mark of a knuckle. Like a punch.”

The Orbiis officers had gone very still, staring atme.

“And though I can’t say for sure,” I said, trying to fight the panic rising inside me, “most Buravs never wore the tughra ring, because they didn’t bother. Onlyoneperson felt insecure enough to actually keep it on his finger for everyone to see.” I looked at Tauri. “And that was Jalin Burav, sir.”

Tauri heaved a great sigh. “Well. Shit! Off to the medikkers we go, then.”

—

The medikker facilityof Lacanthim was all chaos and commotion when we arrived. The staff were rushing about, crying out to one another to check doors and windows, check paths away, check everywhere.

My heart dropped as I saw this. Somehow, I already knew.

“He’s gone, sir!” cried one medikker when I stopped them to ask. “Young Jalin up and left this morning! Opened a window and climbed out! It’smadness,his treatment isn’t set to be done for another two weeks! I can’t even imagine how he did it without howling in pain!”

“No one knows where he went?” I asked. “No one?”

“No! He’s in terrific danger, he might drop dead from sheer agony and exhaustion!”

I hunted down the custodus who’d been assigned to keep watch over Jalin and found him hurtling about the lawns in a panic. The young man paled at the sight ofme.

“He…he can’t have gone far, sir!” he choked.

“How in hell could you let him slip away?” I demanded.

“The medikkers said he was in incredible pain, sir! So much so he couldn’t move! They had him sedated to avoid feeling anything! But…I suppose for one dose, he must have kept it in his mouth, and spat it out…”

I cursed loudly and turned to Tauri, who watched me warily. “I have trackers arriving today, Kol. They can trail him, certainly. But it will take time. It is no speedy thing.”

I shut my eyes and wondered how in hell I’d ever explain this to Ana.

Chapter 24

Although I’d been sweating greatlyall throughout my toils in the warding suit that day, I sweated even more as I reported to Ana. While it seemed a hard task to hang an entire murder upon a single tiny injury upon an aged corpse, I knew that her reaction to the revelation that our latest suspect had disappeared the second we’d found evidence incriminating him would be, at the very least, somewhat less than pleasant.

And yet Ana did not rant or rage or hurl invective at me. She just sat there in her chambers, an open book in her lap, her face half-concealed behind stacks and columns of tomes. At a glance, the books were mostly religious texts. There were titles likeOf Blossoms: Poems of the DaljenandThe Preachings of Qul amid the Orchards.

When I finished, she removed her blindfold and said softly, “So. It’s as I feared. The boy is the killer who stalked among the Buravs.”

I blinked, opened my mouth, then quickly shutit.

“I sensed a comment there, Din!” she murmured. “Don’t strangle it. Let it out.”

“You…are sure he’s our killer, ma’am?”

“Oh, yes,” she said simply. “I am convinced Jalin Burav wasoneof our killers, at least.” She idly turned a page. “And that he was the one who set his ancestral home ablaze and killed all his kin.”

“I…didn’t expect you to say that so swiftly, ma’am. Nor with such conviction.”

“Ohh? And why not?”

“Well. The crime of full familial devastation requires a high degree of evidence. But to my eye, the evidence thus far is somewhat circumstantial.”

She raised her head, waiting. Her yellow eyes glinted in the dark.