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I frowned. “But destroying the northern pass without completing the southern one would completely cut the Old Realm off from the frontier,” I said. “It would take years to reestablish travel and communication. There isn’t another way to get here, except sailing all the way around—”
I stopped when I saw the truth of it in Dmitri’s eyes. General Rufus could absolutely become a king on the frontier with the men and materials I knew he had, and that he had within his ability to obtain. Especially if he destroyed the one pathway connecting the Old Realm and the frontier. And if he succeeded, it didn’t matter what spies King Julius had in the frontier. It didn’t matter which governments he was trying to infiltrate and overthrow. If General Rufus succeeded in truly dividing the old kingdom in two with no way for the two halves to communicate or interact, life on the frontier as we knew it would never look the same again.
ChapterNine
Icould practically feel the balance of power shifting under my feet.
“I need to tell Magnus all of this,” I said as I finished getting dressed.
I started for the door, but Dmitri jumped after me. “What? No! You can’t tell Magnus any of this.”
“He has to know,” I said, yanking out of Dmitri’s grip when he grabbed my arm. “Magnus needs to know that everything is about to change.”
“You cannot tell Magnus,” Dmitri shouted, grabbing me again just as I reached the door.
This time, when I turned back to him, Dmitri had a look of pure desperation in his eyes.
“If you tell him, he’ll kill me,” he said, breathing fast, color splotching his face. “This information is all I have. I don’t have anything else. I don’t have connections to men in the eastern forest, I don’t have invaluable skills he can’t live without, and I don’t have any friends, other than you. If you tell him, then he has no reason to keep me alive.”
I clenched my jaw. I’d been partially right about Dmitri lying about how much he knew. He knew two things, but other than that, he was out of options. I didn’t want to care. Dmitri had made his bed over a year ago, with Peter, and he deserved to face the consequences.
But I couldn’t push myself that one step further to think that he deserved to die. Yes, he’d caused one of my closest friends to be grievously violated. And he’d been horrible to me too. But I wasn’t bloodthirsty, and I didn’t live for revenge. In fact, one of the things about Magnus that I admired the most was his stance that the frontier needed every life possible to be spared.
Magnus needed to know what Dmitri had just told me, but I had to figure out a way to tell him without Dmitri dying.
I shook out of his grip again after a long pause, then blew out a breath and closed my eyes.
“You can’t keep this information a secret for long,” I said, trying to think my way through the muddle in front of me. “I can’t, in good conscience, keep it from the people who need to know for more than…than a day or so.” I opened my eyes and stared hard at him. “The best thing you can do at this point is to disappear without a trace before I tell Magnus what General Rufus is up to.”
I don’t know why I expected Dmitri to be happy or grateful for my concession, but he wasn’t. He moved in so close I could smell his breath and said, “The Hakobyan estate is locked down, or have you forgotten? I can’t just walk out of here.”
He was right. Until Eneko’s murdered was discovered—and Gregorius’s too—and until the rumors about Lefric and Olympus died down and the source of the rumors discovered, Dmitri wouldn’t be able to leave the estate. I couldn’t be certain, but from what I’d seen of Lord Vikhrov and the men who worked for him so far, they would have every exit and wall guarded so that no one got in or out. Dmitri was trapped.
“You’ll just have to help find Eneko’s murderer, then,” I said as the idea came to me. “And just maybe, if you play a key role in solving his murder and Gregorius’s, Magnus will see fit to forgive you.”
Dmitri scowled. “You know Magnus is never going to forgive me. He’s a raving madman where Peter is concerned.”
“It’s the best chance you have,” I said, pulling open the door and heading into the hallway.
I stormed across the hall to the stairs, then started down at a fast clip. I could already see Hayk and Billie talking to Lefric, Sebald, and Avenel out on Olympus’s porch as I reached the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m not leaving this place without you,” Dmitri said behind me, nearly causing me to trip over my own feet.
“What?” I asked, whipping back to him.
“You heard me,” he said, the desperation I’d seen in him earlier returning. “You’re my pup. We make a good team. The only reason I’m even here right now is because of you. I’m not leaving Good Port without you.”
I gaped at him. Dmitri couldn’t…he didn’t actually…. It wasn’t possible. Dmitri didn’t have any sort of heart to speak of.
“Dmitri, I’m not—”
Before I could even begin to figure out a way to face the bizarre situation I was just realizing I might be in, Olympus and Magnus strode onto the patio, already in the middle of saying something to Lefric and the others. I couldn’t make out what it was from where I was standing, but it didn’t matter.
The moment Magnus spotted me and Dmitri, he stopped mid-sentence and glared.
“Shit,” Dmitri said. He took a step back, glancing from Magnus to me, then said, “I’m not leaving Good Port without you. I won’t leave without my pup.”
With that, he turned and sped off down the hall.
