Page 114 of Only Flames Remain

Yvette didn’t as much as glance up from her reservation book as we passed, ascending the staircase two steps at a time. When we reached the landing, I could scent him immediately. Grass and sand…with a hint of lavender mixed in.

I wasted no time bursting into the third room on the left, my hand poised on the broadsword that hung at my side. The door came apart easily beneath my foot. The man in the bed didn’t so much as startle at my intrusion.

Drunk, indeed.

Maybe even dead.

“Wake up,” I growled, approaching the bed.

The man had his hood pulled over his face, his body turned away from us toward the single window on the far wall. The shades were drawn.

I grasped the cloak at the necktie, turning him over not-so-gently. The cloak reeked of Vash. I yanked him into a sitting position by the clasp, pushing the hood back to reveal his face.

Except the man before me wasn’t Vash at all.

He didn’t resemble Vash in the slightest.

Dread pooled low in my gut as my magic surged forward. My head snapped back to the doorway to meet Emrys and Valerian’s gazes. They were gone in an instant, checking the other rooms.

The silence that ensued while I waited for them to return was suffocating. Only a moment later they were back in the doorframe, shaking their heads.

“Vash isn’t here,” Valerian declared.

I released the clasp, and the man fell back against the bed, a groan of irritation escaping him as he turned back onto his side.

“This cloak reeks of him! Where is he?”

Emrys’s mouth pulled into a thin line. I pushed past them both, checking the other rooms for myself. There was only one barely conscious man to be found among the group. Half of them were certainly Veytari, and there was reason to believe they had, indeed, traveled from Myros.

“Where is he?” I asked the man, shaking him back and forth to rouse him. “Where is Vash?”

“Vash?” the man asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Yes. I smell him all over you.” I jabbed my finger at his chest.

“Don’t know who this ‘Vash’ is. We were paid fifty pieces to wear these clothes and travel to Southgate. They even gave us coin for the ale and the women! Best deal I’ll ever come by, if you ask me.”

“Who? Who paid you?” I roared.

The man was too hungover to even flinch. To even recognize he was in the presence of the crown prince of Blackwater and could be turned into a piece of ash in a mere heartbeat.

The man simply shrugged. “Never seen him before.”

When I released him, he fell to the floor with a resounding thud.

“Godsdammit!” I bellowed, silently cursing the god of the tides, Inachus, for allowing them safe passage across the sea. Though if the acolytes were to be believed, the old god had no control over the water any longer.

The age of the gods was long over, after all.

A muscle ticked in my jaw as I turned on Emrys.

“Where is your scout?” I asked through clenched teeth.

Emrys had the good sense to shrink back, remaining silent.

“That’s what I thought. Godsdammit, Emrys.” I scrubbed a hand down my stubble, the full weight of the situation settling on me.

These men had been paid to cross the Saltale Sea. Paid to come to Southgate and linger at this tavern. Paid to wear these clothes specifically. Clothes that would identify them as Myrosian spies. Clothes that would indicate Vash had returned, but had formed another alliance.