I’m Not Hugging You Until You Clean That #2
Esme’s lips flattened into a line just remembering Mina swaggering home a month ago, brandishing Ms. Royin’s kerchief.
“She had a head start,” Esme said with a fake air of annoyance.
Mina and Esme loved each other with their whole hearts, which left the rest of their bodies able to appreciate the company of others as they pleased.
“Like you can talk. You’ve rolled with every passable person in East Amaris. ”
“Well, when you’re cursed to live here, you might as well have fun,” Urias said, then sighed and lifted a shoulder. “Besides, I do have some standards. No nobles.”
“Ah, so your dick discriminates by class.” Esme snorted.
Urias watched her through his lashes, though, a knowing smile curling his lips. “You’re so in love with her. You have little hearts in your eyes.” There was a thread of jealousy in his tone.
“Disastrously,” Esme said wistfully, which was the immortals’ way of saying unfortunately.
It described the loving of finite people irresponsibly, knowing you were destined to hurt.
Esme was usually the pragmatic one when it came to love, easily hopping from bed to bed, while Urias liked to tangle in one pair of sheets for as long as they’d take him, but somehow now Esme was snuggling in one bed while Urias tripped in and out of hundreds.
Judging by the way he stared at the little bruise Mina had given Esme as a parting gift this morning, he didn’t know how they’d ended up in such opposite positions either.
“At least you got a few minutes of fun. I’ve been paying off every guard and maid in the castle not to go squealing about our friend here,” Urias shifted the conversation, sneering at Turiel’s body. “This is one step from an absolute shit show.”
“It’ll be fine,” Esme said, smiling up at him, but his eyes were nothing but tense. “We’ll make this fine, Ryukyhn. We always do.”
His shoulders dropped their tension at the sound of his real name.
Omniel had given them Micrean names because “Valos, aren’t those nasty little sounds?
” They couldn’t pray to their gods or wear their hair in certain styles, and they certainly couldn’t use those strange, unpronounceable coughs they called names.
Esme and Urias loomed over Turiel’s body.
His heart had been flayed and the killer had kindly left one half with them.
There were bigger problems, but Ojalla alive, the organ was massive, spread out on Turiel’s chest like a crimson dove.
It’d been sitting for who knew how long, so the thinness of the tissues made sense, but Esme couldn’t help but think the strange hollow at the center had been there before.
Almost like something had been carved out…
Esme knew she should collect other clues, but she was far too concerned with how ugly he was. His father had been wondrous to look at, and out of spite Turiel ruined every one of his desirable traits with copious amounts of wine and bright powder.
“You know what I’m afraid of, right?” Urias asked, placing his hands on his hips.
Esme nodded and ran a finger over the dry edge of the wound. “Left all the other organs?”
“In pristine condition.”
“Cut’s perfect, isn’t it?” Esme changed her angle, as if looking at him from fifty degrees lower might reveal something. “How’s the city?”
“Unfortunately, yes, our killer is skilled. And the city is worse than when you left.” Urias sighed, taking a wax pad out from his jacket pocket. “I counted this morning. Forty dead in all: three from overdose, two strangulations, ten from the pits, and twenty-five from random accidents.”
Esme sucked her teeth. “Magic?”
“More of it than I’ve ever felt. It reeks. Always gone by morning, though,” Urias said, tucking his book away. “Nearly choked me last night.”
“What were you doing out last night?” Esme asked, brow raised.
“Virya’s Belt makes the best nectar this side of the Wyvern.” Urias shrugged. “Tagas and I got thirsty.” Tagas was always thirsty. That Wraith could outdrink a fish.
“What’s it doing to the people?” Esme asked.
“All but turning the poor things inside out,” Urias said.
“Sex, bar fights, alcohol poisoning. The only way we know what happens at all is the bodies. I’ve started a task force just to collect and identify them.
They go out at sunup and clean up the worst of it before anyone can see how bad it’s gotten.
” Urias bit the skin by his thumbnail and it grew back immediately. Such was immortality.
Esme nodded. They were an infant world, just waiting for Magic to sneak in and shit the bed.
Omniel had tried to banish Magic from this world decades ago by shattering the Void—the portal it usually traveled through—and yet that sniveling oil slick had found its way back.
The humans knew nothing of it, so they couldn’t protect themselves.
And now this. The chaos of a country in political spiral would have Magic’s mouth watering. They were fucked.
Esme shut her eyes. “And Turiel was found in the castle?”
“Right next to Isobel.”
“And did she see our killer, perhaps?”
Urias gave a vile smile. “She didn’t even wake up until the blood leaked into her mouth.”
“That woman sleeps like a corpse.”
“Too bad she’s not one,” Urias said.
Esme hummed and moved around to the other side of Turiel’s slab. She crouched to look at his wound some more.
“Saw the guards on the gate,” Esme said. “Put them to death a bit too quick, don’t you think? They might have seen something.”
“They were out drunk in the city. Didn’t see a damn thing.
” Urias crossed his arms. “Wasn’t my decision, anyway.
Belchin wanted something to do.” Of course he did.
Belchin, the special council of the king, was a nosy busybody only palatable for public appearances.
He was likely suiting up to claim the empty throne as they spoke.
“Turiel had too many enemies. This isn’t fair. They took his heart out. That’s a clue, at least.”
Urias twisted his mouth, anxious about the possibility. “I’m worried it was Magic.”
“Not a half heart. Blood’s drained. Wouldn’t want something empty.”
“But why else kill him so dramatically? They dug out his heart and split it open. If you just wanted him dead, one stab would have been enough.” The only people who might hate an Asterou man that much were Wraiths themselves, and they each had a collar prohibiting them from ever harming a sovereign.
Besides, despite his annoyances, none of them despised Turiel enough to flay his organs.
“He wasn’t well liked in the Lap of Virya,” Esme said absentmindedly. “No heart, and he’s cursed to wander with Muhnir for the rest of eternity. We could be dealing with a religious fanatic.”
Micrea had three main deities: Muhnir, Virya, and Valos. Muhnir was a red-skinned, clawed monster who lorded over death and the underworld. Valos and Virya were Muhnir’s parents and also twins (don’t ask), each with their gendered sects of designated followers.
The Viryans were peace-loving healers that offered aid to the poor in their convent, the Lap of Virya, in the Foot.
They tended to be the nicest people in the city, though they did have their quirks, such as buying massive amounts of psychoactive drugs with royal money to receive messages from their goddess.
The Valosians, meanwhile, were the warrior-priests of Valos, earth-bound representatives of his will.
In Amaris, they constituted a special force of guards charged with maintaining the city’s purity through aggressively patrolling its most dangerous areas, which they very ardently argued just happen to coincide with the areas with the most immigrants and poor people.
Ask them about bad behavior in the Hand or Stomach, though, and they’d likely give you a confused pout.
They rarely surveyed those parts of the city.
“He wasn’t well liked anywhere,” Urias said as Esme hooked her fingers on the edge of Turiel’s death wound.
She just couldn’t believe the quality of the cuts.
Curiosity winning her over, she pushed her fingers into the stiffened flesh, opening her hand to pat around the dissected tissues of his chest cavity.
Damn, the killer had snapped his ribs. Esme looked down into the hole and hated that she was impressed.
Urias, however, seemed to be nothing but nauseous. While Esme had gone patting around in thousands of dead bodies in her time, the spymaster shuddered like he’d vomit into Turiel’s open mouth if she pulled anything out.
“I understand ditching us for Urias, but fisting a corpse before even saying hello?” a smooth voice said from the doorway behind them.
Esme’s head snapped up to see the rest of the Wraiths, arms crossed and faces twisted at the sight of Esme with her arm up to the elbow in cadaver. Daphna was the one who’d spoken, and they fake-gagged.
“I didn’t think Turiel was your type,” Padrian said, squeezing by Daphna and bursting into the room.
“Glad to see you branching out.” He didn’t care much about Esme’s arm smelling like rot.
He just swept her up into a hug that lifted her a foot off the ground.
Esme hummed against his shoulder, her clean hand carding through his hair.
“You cut it all off,” she complained, pouting as she pulled back from him.
Padrian was a tall man with warm brown skin, golden, hawk-like eyes, and a large, flat nose.
Maybe his heavy brow and square face should have made him look intimidating, but it was impossible to feel anything but happiness when his large, soft lips curved into a grin.
His hair, which used to brush his waist, had been sheared almost to the root.
“You weren’t here to braid it for me,” he said, setting her down.
“But it was so pretty.”
“That’ll teach you to abandon me to go chasing after women, then,” Padrian said with a wink before giving her another hug from the side. “It’s good to have you back. Promise I’ll grow it again for you.”