Page 2 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

Chapter One

Emmeline

There was blood on her boots.

Again.

Fates save her, if Emmeline DeLeoste got caught sneaking into the Lyra Temple Academy’s kitchens one more time to steal the only soap that could properly scrub crimson splotches off the leather, someone was going to start asking questions. She should just go to Mist and Rose, the apothecary closest to the Academy, and purchase some for herself, but last time she did that, the slight shopkeeper with eyes like an owl commented how recently she’d seen Emmeline at her door for the same item. That sort of observation was too risky.

The Isle of Lyra was littered with similar shops, but she lived most of her life in two places: at the esteemed Temple Academy perched atop the highest hills of the island, or in the shadows as she was now. It didn’t leave much time for things as frivolous as shopping.

But she’d thrown out two pairs of boots last month, and she’d call on the Fates before she let another go, especially this pair with their delicate, lightweight silver buckles and the hidden sheathe sewn into the leather on the outside of her ankle.

And especially not for someone as despicable as the man before her now, withering beneath her triple-bladed dagger. The three points of the star-shaped weapon shone in the light of the chipped mystlight lantern hanging overhead. The fogged, dusty plum glass illuminated his features, the fear rippling through his eyes igniting a blood-drenched hunger in Emmeline’s own spirit that outweighed concern for her boots.

The kitchen soap it was.

“Who was it?” Emmeline repeated, words a soft, seductive hiss in the night. The same tone that had lured him out behind the incense den, the Rogue Spirit, in the first place. A bashful look across the crowded room, a sway of her hips in her fitted black leathers, and he was snared. Practically panting when she bit her lip and said she wanted to get some air. Only now, her tempting voice had a sharper edge to it.

“I. Don’t. Know,” the man gritted out. His knee buckled as he shifted his weight, the ankle Emmeline had stomped on to incapacitate him weakened. The veins in his neck strained as she nudged her toe against the likely-broken bones, and he spat, “When I saw your knives, I didn’t expect to be assaulted by them.”

“Mm, I can imagine what you expected when I tied your hands up.” She dragged a gloved finger across the thick rope restraining his wrists above his head, a dagger pinning them to the bare webbing of the wooden trellis. Satisfaction purred through her at the perfect restraint. “You can’t appreciate a taste of the very crimes you committed?”

She tutted, tilting her head so her long chestnut braid slid over her shoulder, and positioned one point of her dagger at the corner of his mouth. Color leached from the man’s face, and Emmeline’s chest flushed with smug warmth.

“I know nothing of that shit.”

“What a pitiful little man you are,” she cooed, pressing in.

“Nosy whore,” he sputtered, careful not to lean into the nick. Try as he might, the slur didn’t offend her. It was a low mind that had to result to such baseless insults.

Emmeline only dug the tip of her blade in deeper, rotating her wrist to drag outward from his mouth.

With it, her heart sang.

Revenge.

Retribution.

Answers.

“Are you certain you don’t know anything?” she intoned as a shallow line split his cheek. Leisurely, blood bubbled along the slice, as if his own body was teasing out this penance as much as she was.

“Yes,” he hissed as the wound stretched.

“That’s not what I heard.” She twisted her hand so one of the other two blades pushed into his cheek beneath his eye. The man whimpered. “You’ve been on this isle for three weeks now, and six of those nights you’ve returned to this incense den, in the private room on the second floor. Did you know there’s a balcony you can access from the roof across the street?”

He didn’t comment, but his breathing shallowed.

And Emmeline grinned.

“I’m certain even the Rogue Spirit’s owners don’t care about it, dusty as it is.” She shrugged, not removing her dagger. “It’s a bit of a jump, but once you’re there, you can hear everything. Including tales from men who boast of their time spent trading on the continent. The routes they took, the numbers of bodies transported, and how they don’t think the practice is truly abolished.”

Desperation drove her blade in deeper. Every drop of shining crimson, every warm speck that dripped across his chin, was one step closer to the secrets she’d been working to unravel for twenty-two years.

One step closer to finding her.

Blood hung off his pointed chin, falling to the toe of her boot with a silent splash that sent alarm ricocheting through her. Blood meant questions, and questions threatened her entire operation.