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Corrin would never dare come outright and tell me I can’t have Gracen as my tributary, but she may as well have. Her defiant expression says as much.
“I think we are done here. You may enter!” I holler to whoever waits outside.
Rhodes strolls in. The lithe warrior’s smooth, umber skin glows as if he ran hard all the way here. Kazimir is behind him. “Your Highness,” they echo each other.
“Thank you, Corrin. You may go.”
“Your Highness.” She bows and strolls out, ignoring the captains as if they don’t exist.
“Are you sure she’s not the one trying to poison you?” Kazimir says the moment the door shuts.
“That would be beneath Corrin. What have you found out, Rhodes?”
“I followed Lord Danthrin to Port Street last night, as requested, Your Highness.”
“And?”
“He spent an hour at Jadelight.”
One of the pricier brothels in the area. “Drowning the sorrow of his recent losses between a mortal’s legs? He doesn’t spend like an impoverished lord.”
“From what I hear, he has been there every night this week.”
“And did you find out who the unlucky lady is?” After what Corrin told me, she certainly is unlucky.
Rhodes’s deep brown eyes crinkle with his smile. “Not yet, but I will. Afterward, he made his way across the street to the Goat’s Knoll.”
“A step down, if he was looking for another vein.” The tavern is a seedy meeting place for ale and sex and blood—or all three.
“He did not partake.”
“And how much time did Bexley grant him?” Why else would he be there?
“He did not meet with her. She was not even there. At least not in the main room.”
“That is a rare occurrence.” I don’t think I’ve ever shown up there and found its owner absent. “Who was Danthrin there for, then?”
“He shared a drink and a laugh with Lord Spire first.”
I rub my chin in thought. Fernhoth and Freywich are leagues apart. What business would one have with the other?
“A drink is not proof of anything. Perhaps it was friendly chatter,” Kazimir offers.
“There’s nothing friendly about Spire. Did he meet with anyone else?”
“Some males I have not seen before. From Kier, I think.”
“They are a long way from home. What are they doing in my city?” And my realm, for that matter.
“I asked around and several sources named them mercenaries.”
“Loyal to whom?”
“To whoever has gold, is my guess. But they spend much time in Kettling.”
“And so the plot thickens.” What are you up to, Danthrin? And who could he be working with? Adley, maybe? Was my future father-in-law’s efforts to help Danthrin reclaim Gracen and her children a way to show power by swaying my decision, or an offer of help to this lowly lord in exchange for something? Still, there will be others involved. That much I know. “Keep an eye on our rabbit. See where else he hops. And I think I’ll pay Bexley a visit. Without a guard.”
“Your Highness.” Rhodes dips his head.
“Now?” Kazimir cocks his head. “This early in the day?”
He’s right. I normally wait until after dark to skulk about the city. “She’s always open for me.” In more ways than one.
He chuckles. “And how do you plan on avoiding Boaz’s notice?”
“I have a few pressing tasks for him.” Between moving Tyree and sending this letter, it should give me enough time to slip out. I study the blank page sitting before me on the desk. What am I to make of Romeria and her wild claims? The end of the blood curse in Islor?
Would that news even be welcomed? Surely, it would be for the mortals, but what about my kind?
What would happen to our way of life?
Romeria betrayed me once already. There’s no reason to believe she wouldn’t again. Of course, I then betrayed her, or some version of her. Are we even now, or will this be a game of trading tainted favor for favor until one of us dies?
I can’t trust her.
Dipping a new quill into the ink, I jot down my message and seal it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ZANDER
“I apologize for dragging you from your rest, but I thought it important they see you, know you are alive and our guest rather than our prisoner.” A two-hundred-soldier contingent arrived at dawn, demanding answers and threatening to bring the whole of Islor’s army for an attack. They saw the great beast swoop in and accused our caster of sending it to kill Lord Telor and their men.
Telor’s face is sallow and full of sleep as he rides next to me through Ulysede’s tunnel toward Islor and the coming dawn. For as long as Romeria worked on him last night, it’s clear he hasn’t recovered yet. If Gesine were free of the taillok, I would ask her to finish. “No, you were right to do so. They have already concocted a story that does not bode well for our union. Paisley is a good soldier, but not a true leader. I do not want him doing something foolish.”
