Elven Lies (Court of Rebellion #3)

21. Chapter 21

21

“ A w, man ! Aw, no … You can’t do this to us,” Shorty blubbered, rocking on his belly on the floor while beside him, Tusks started to hyperventilate too now, spittle stringing from his mouth and spattering across the polished floor. “It can’t be true! You’re lying. You’re liars. Both of you.”

“Trust me, it’s not something I’d joke about,” Rebecca said flatly. “Though I’d never be as upset about the news as you are.”

“Ah, shit …” Shorty’s rocking intensified. “We’re screwed. We’re done for. It’s all over! We’re—”

“It ain’t our fault!” Tusks snapped at him. “Just gotta set it right is all.”

“Set what right?” Rebecca asked, trying not to cringe at the sight of two grown, admittedly intimidating-looking orcs falling apart at her feet.

“None of your business, lady,” the bigger guy spat. “But now I got a question for you .”

“Wonderful,” Rowan added flatly. “How the tides have turned…”

Tusks’s orange eyes narrowed as his breathing calmed. “If Aldous is really gone, then who’s on the hook for handing over what our boss is owed?”

“Oh, Blue Hells,” Rebecca muttered.

Of course Aldous had gotten himself involved in something that would eventually show up to fall on his successor’s head when he couldn’t deliver. It was a miracle it had taken even this long.

“No one’s on the hook,” she said. “The changeling made his own choices, and those are his alone.”

“Nah, that ain’t how it works,” Tusks barked. “I mean who took over? Who’s next in line?”

Before Rebecca could even open her mouth for a reply, Rowan pointed at her and sniggered. “ She is. New Roth-Da’al and all that.”

She glared at him. That wasn’t his information to give away, and definitely not so freely like this. He had no idea what he was volunteering her for in the first place, but any of Aldous’s unfulfilled debts were sure to be a complete nightmare.

Whose side was he on, anyway?

For a long moment, she stared at the side of Rowan’s face and waited. When he finally looked at her, she nodded toward the other side of the room. “I’d like a word with you.”

“Don’t you wanna hear what these guys are looking for?” he asked.

“ Now .” She headed away from the orcs, who were now painfully desperate to salvage their own secret mission.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Tusks shouted. “We can fix this! All you gotta do is come back with us. We’ll say we captured you, tell our boss what’s up, and you can hand over what Aldous was supposed to.”

“Hey, yeah !” Shorty exclaimed. “That’s it! We’ll capture you instead. Then everything’s taken care of!”

Rebecca turned around to stare at them in disbelief.

“They do make a fairly convincing argument,” Rowan said with a chuckle as he finally headed toward her.

“Don’t encourage them.” She studied their prisoners. “Can either of you tell me exactly what Aldous owed your boss?”

The big orc snorted. “Are you kiddin’? We don’t make the big deals. That’s for the boss.”

“That’s why they call him the Big Boss,” his buddy added.

And clearly, the Big Boss had a shortage of competent messengers.

When she and Rowan finally reached the far wall of level five, Rebecca lowered her voice. “I honestly don’t think there’s anything else we can do at this point.”

He chuckled. “You mean other than a willing surrender so they can take us back to their boss and trade in a few prisoners to be on his good side again?”

“Yeah, besides that,” she said flatly and rolled her eyes. “They’re bound from giving us his name. They don’t know what kind of deal Aldous made with their boss or what he owes. And I don’t think they’re even capable of giving us anything else we can actually use.”

“And you brought me over here for this secret huddle to see if I had any other ideas?”

“Not really.”

Rowan snorted and gestured toward the orcs. “I mean, these guys aren’t exactly overflowing with inspiration.”

“Yeah, you’re right there. Okay. We might as well end this now, then.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.”

She pointed at him. “Just don’t offer any more valuable information about me to these guys, all right?”

They headed back toward the orcs together.

“What about un-valuable information?” Rowan asked.

When she shot him another deadpan glare in warning, his grin returned.

Both orcs started to tremble again when she approached them, their eyes wide and their breathing ragged to the point of speechlessness when Rebecca knelt beside Tusks first to untie his ropes.

“W-what are you doing?” Shorty whispered.

“This isn’t getting any of us anywhere,” she said.

Tusks bucked away from her. “Stop! No! What are you doing ?”

“Just hold still.”

Standing a few yards back, Rowan folded his arms and giggled at the show.

As long as he wasn’t spilling secrets or Shade intel to random idiots who wouldn’t have figured it out on their own.

A short moment later, she’d untied and released both orcs, then dusted off her hands and stood. Both prisoners remained on the floor, though they sat up to recover a little dignity. Even then, they remained still, staring at her as if untying them were a death sentence in and of itself.

It had been a long time since she’d dealt with anyone this moronic.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she told them. “I’ve untied you, and I’m gonna let you go. When I do, you’re gonna go straight back to your boss and explain to him that the changeling Aldous Corriger is dead and won’t be paying any of his debts to anyone.”

Once again, the orcs gawked at her, trying to share occasional wary glances as if they thought she couldn’t see it.

“And that’s it?” Shorty asked.

Rebecca nodded. “That’s it.”

“You’re really gonna let us go?”

She spread her arms. “That’s the plan.”

They scrutinized her further, then Tusks tilted his head. “We don’t believe you.”

“Well that’s your problem. I’ve already untied you and told you why. You’re still the messengers, but now you have a message for your boss instead of from him. It’s not that complicated.”

“And that’s all we gotta do?” Shorty asked hesitantly.

“Simple and easy.” Rebecca stepped back to be sure she was off the golden circle in the center of the marble floor, then gestured toward it. “Now stand up and go deliver the message. And I can promise you right now, if I ever see you in this building again, I’m far more likely to change my mind.”

“Y-y-yeah!” Shorty stammered and pushed himself to his feet. “We got it, lady. No problem.”

Tusks struggled to stand beside him. “You can count on us. Message is our middle name.”

“I’m sure,” she muttered.

“You won’t regret this.” Shorty nodded furiously as his buddy dusted off the fronts of both their shirts. “What’re we supposed to call you, anyway?”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Nice try. If you don’t get out now, I’m gonna start counting to ten.”

“Got it!”

“No problem, lady. Totally understood. No names, no problem.”

Shorty stepped toward the podium rising from the golden circle to take them back to the lobby.

But Rowan stepped forward at the last moment. “One more thing.”

The orcs turned toward him, their orange eyes glowing and their lazy smiles bending around protruding lower tusks.

The Blackmoon Elf moved in a deadly blur.

Rebecca saw a streak of green and brown, heard a choked-off grunt, then two quick series of crunching snaps followed by two heavy thumps on the marble floor.

A second later, both orcs lay motionless in the center of the golden circle. Behind them, Rowan gazed at their lifeless corpses with no expression whatsoever and dusted off his hands.

Rebecca stared at the bodies—the two orcs who’d attacked them and proven themselves useless for anything beyond delivering her message. And now that message wouldn’t even be delivered.

A boiling surge of anger blasted through her as she lifted her gaze toward the elf who’d quite literally just taken matters into his own hands.

“Rowan, what the hell ?”