Page 51 of Storm of Ink and Blood

“Hello?” Zarya said.

Vikas stared at Zarya, his gaze traveling over her with wariness. He was about Zarya’s age with short, dark hair that fell in waves over his eyes. He was a good head taller than her and wore a simple blue kurta over his narrow frame.

“She’s Aazheri?” he asked. Vanshaj were understandably mistrustful of Aazheri as a general rule.

“She is,” Yasen replied, “but as I said, she wants to help you.”

“Why would she want to help us?”

“Excuse me,” Zarya interjected. “She is standing right here. If you have questions, please feel free to address them to her directly.”

Yasen rolled his eyes. “Can we come in? We shouldn’t talk about this out here.”

Vikas gave Zarya one more skeptical look and then dipped his chin.

“Very well,” he said and then stepped aside.

They entered a small front room furnished with a table pushed into the corner where three more young vanshaj men sat. In front of them were stacks of cards and piles of small round chips.

“Boys!” Yasen said in greeting, and it was obvious they all knew and loved him from their enthusiastic hellos.

“Yas,” Zarya asked, “what is going on?”

“These fine gentlemen are friends of mine. We play cards, and I beat them every time.”

“Excuse me, but you haven’t won a round in weeks,” said another man at the table, and they all laughed heartily.

Zarya frowned.

“You come here to play cards?” she asked, and Yasen nodded before he dropped onto the threadbare divan in the corner and kicked his feet up on the table. He was obviously very comfortable here.

“Sometimes. Vikas saved my ass at a gambling den when someone tried to cheat me, and things got out of hand.”

Zarya folded her arms and stared down at him. “Out of hand?”

“Turned out the sneaky bastard had three massive thugs working for him, and they were less than pleased when I broke their boss’s nose. So Vikas jumped in, and we took care of them.”

He held out a fist, and Vikas bumped his against it.

“Dhruv tries to scam everyone,” Vikas said. “But we taught him a lesson that night.”

They grinned at one another.

“Okay,” Zarya said, rubbing a hand across her face and catching the wary looks from the other men around the table. “And what are we doing here now?”

“I’ve told Vikas and the others that you can remove their collars,” he said casually as if Zarya wasn’t about to strangle him.

“You did what?”

He peered at her. “I’m pretty sure you just heard me.”

“You can’t just go around blabbing that to people!”

“We won’t tell anyone,” Vikas said solemnly. “We would never.”

His expression was so serious that Zarya felt her shoulders release. Of course they wouldn’t tell anyone. They’d wind up in even more trouble than she ever could.

“They want to volunteer,” Yasen said.