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But of course, the pirates would know about emissaries. They had probably encountered them many times before and undoubtedly feared them. It had to be why Drake had agreed to even consider this exchange.
Arkimedes glared daggers at the captain. “We don’t have time to discuss our sources, Emir. If you have the artifact, let us see it and be on our way.”
Emir’s eyes were more beast than man when they landed on Nava again. “You know I have an artifact, Reaper. It’s how you magic-wielders find us, no? But I haven’t seen the stone the mouse wants to trade us for it. Show it to me.”
Nava exhaled slowly and pulled the stone from her pocket with a sweaty hand. It flickered with the same warm light it had in the cave, illuminating the dark interior of the tent. They all went quiet. She couldn’t even hear their breaths as they took it in.
If the market had been warm, standing inside this tent, so close to three dragon shifters, was like being back in the burning forest.
“What’s that?” the third dragon asked.
“A sun stone made by a Beekeeper.” Nava closed her hand around the glowing stone, hiding it from view. All three dragons tracked her hand as she shoved it inside the pocket of Arkimedes’s coat.
“I have never heard of a gem made by the keepers of life. How did you obtain it?” Emir’s voice rumbled in his chest as he blinked away the daze of utter desire from his face.
Aristaeus was going to kill her for trading away his creation, but perhaps he would understand that this was the only way to protect him from the evil immortal trying to kill them. “Now you’ve seen mine. It’s your turn to show us the artifact.”
“How do I know this supposed stone is even real and not a spell you’re trying to trick me with?” Emir’s eyes flashed to Arkimedes, who stood beside Nava. Her soulmate’s wariness continued to bleed through their bond.
“It’s real, and I can prove it,” Nava said.
No one here knew what she truly was, so they wouldn’t understand the stone was irrelevant to what she was about to do. Nava raised her hand and called to the bees that had been crawling this place ever since she’d entered. She asked them to fly, and all at once, they listened.
Her insects circled the bright stone in a cloud of dozens, drawing surprised gasps from all three shifters.
The spectacle lasted for a few seconds until she lowered the stone and the bees settled down. “Is that proof enough? If you aren’t interested, we will leave with our stone.”
“Let’s take that little trinket of hers. It’s just two of them against three of us.” The third dragon shifter, who seemed younger than the rest, took a step forward, and his features elongated as he slowly changed into something inhuman. Nava took a hasty step away from the captain, who stood unmoving in front of her.
“I would like to see you try,” Arkimedes growled, and his aura all but exploded around him. “She is mine to protect, and you’ll keep your distance, or I won’t blink before killing you all.”
Nava’s skin prickled with gooseflesh at the menacing tone Arkimedes used. He was deadly serious, too. And she didn’t want her soulmate to carry these souls with him for the rest of his life.
The younger dragon laughed as if Arkimedes’s warning was the funniest thing he’d heard in a while. It was likely the young one had never seen how quickly Arkimedes could kill. The captain, on the other hand, paled and lifted a hand, which stopped the man’s cackle. “Drake, bring the table so we may begin the assessment.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Drake lift one of the wooden displays as if it weighed nothing. He carried it toward them, the few items on it rattling across the surface as he placed it in between the captain, Arkimedes, and Nava.
“When my man came back from the tavern and told me about your Beekeeper’s stone, I returned to my ship to retrieve this,” the captain said and removed the necklace hanging around his neck.
Drake slid a polished, wooden box in front of Emir, who used the pointed corner of his necklace to open the ornate lock. He picked up a small vial that rested on a deep purple velvet cushion.
A potion, really? Nava glanced around the table, hoping to find something a bit more…impressive. She focused on the green liquid sloshing against the glass walls of the vial. It stuck to them like a thick substance—the same color as the magic that had called her here. The vial vibrated faintly, like the flutter of her bees’ wings.
This wasn’t regular magic woven into the fabric of this object, but something much stronger and older, like the Vulcan the Crows kept in the safe house.
Made by the gods for the gods.
“You don’t strike me as someone who trades illegal contraband often,” Emir said, bringing his hand to his lips and slicing the skin of one finger open with his canines. Drake placed a dirty brass cup in the center of the table. “This is a blood oath. It protects the two parties from fake claims.”
She brought her hand to her chest in response to his words. So they wanted her to bleed in that cup and make some sort of oath she had no protection against? No, thank you.
“The Reaper will testify. This is the way we do it. After the oath, we will tell you the truth of what we know of our artifact. Then you’ll place the stone on the table and do the same. We can inspect it, and you may do the same with ours.”
“If we choose to enter this trade. So far we have shown you we are indeed telling the truth,” Arkimedes said, pushing the words past gritted teeth. A split second later, his voice filtered through to her mind. “He is right, Bee. The blood oath won’t bind you to anything other than speaking the truth about what the stone is. That’s all. We have nothing to hide.”
Nava met Emir’s expectant gaze, and sweat beaded on her temple as she brought her dagger out and pricked her hand. She allowed a couple of drops of blood to drip into the cup.
The scent of rotten flowers sitting in stagnant water drifted through the tent, although she wasn’t sure if it was the oath or something else. But when she placed the sun stone on the table, her skin crawled with an odd numbing sensation that gripped her by the throat.
