8. Reznyk
Chapter 8
Reznyk
QUESTIONS
S he’s nothing like Lenore.
The resemblance fades more and more as she eats her dinner of meat, meat, and more meat and I push the sad cabbage around with a fork. Kira’s cheeks are rounder than Lenore’s, her body softer. She laughs louder, and longer, and more frequently. Hells, she’s talking to me.
Lenore didn’t speak to me the first handful of times I approached her. Even after we became lovers, she remained strangely distant, unapproachable, and mysterious, like the snow-covered summit of Victory Mountain that hangs like a mirage over the streets of Silver City.
Still, this physical resemblance is unsettling. Deeply so. There’s no spark of magic about Kira, but I’m certain she’s from the Towers, just like I’m certain the black-clad men at the tables outside are from Silver City, and probably from the Mercenary Guild. There’s just no other explanation for their presence.
But where is the magic coming from? Is Fyrris here? Hiding? Biding his time?
So many questions, and such an easy way to find all the answers I need. Something low in my gut shifts at the thought, but I can’t afford to be squeamish now. There’s a woman sitting across from me who laughs and smiles when I talk, and I know exactly how to play this particular game, don’t I? Seduction is such an easy trick.
“So, Kira,” I say, as I push my mostly untouched plate aside and lean over the table to refill her wineglass. “I assume you aren’t part of the magic-wolf-hunting party. What brings you out here?”
She glances up at me, then away. It’s a guilty gesture, like she has something to hide. Perhaps I’ve pushed her too much too early.
“Oh, you know,” she replies, with a sudden grin. “Hunting.”
I can’t help smiling back at her.
“Hunting…?” I ask, letting my voice trail off.
“The usual,” she continues, with a flirty lilt to her voice. “Magical wolves. Fencing cats. The fox who stole the moon.”
I make a little murmur of appreciation and take a sip of my own wine. It burns on the way down, leaving my cheeks hot. Gods, I need to be careful. I haven’t had wine in an age, and I need to stay in control here.
“And what brings you out here?” she asks.
“I’m just passing through.”
She makes a soft noise in the back of her throat, like a purr, and looks at me over the rim of her wineglass. I have the strangest impression she’s about to declare checkmate. The door swings open again.
The older woman clears our plates. I ask for another bottle of wine, because of course, and Kira nods in agreement when I raise an eyebrow at her. Good. This feels comfortable, and it can’t just be because of the wine. No, I can still do this. It won’t be?—
“There you are!” a voice booms through the room.
I grind my teeth together as magic burns a path across my skin. Keep it inside, damn it. The last thing I need is magic exploding across the table, especially when someone from the Towers is here in this lodge.
Kira jumps to her feet like she’s been pinched. I try to smile as the door opens wide behind her and the two drunk men from the bar walk in like they own the place. Great. Drunk, rich idiots. How I’ve missed that particular aspect of civilization.
“You come here to hunt?” the first man asks me as he helps himself to the seat Kira just vacated.
“Just passing through,” I answer, through gritted teeth.
The other man slaps me on the back. Magic hisses and spits inside my body. I turn my hands into fists beneath the table as I wrestle it back down.
“Too bad,” he says, as he takes the other chair next to me. “The hunting here’s great, you know. Why, just last night, I took a shot at a wolf the size of a warhorse! He was black as the grave, all but the eyes, they were red as flame. And my arrow went straight through the chest?—”
I try to smile. Kira skirts the table, all but pressing her back to the wall as she slides behind the first man. When she reaches me, she bends down. Her hair brushes against my neck, and suddenly I lose all interest in the men who’ve just entered the room.
“Third floor, fourth door on the left,” she whispers. “Bring the wine.”
I nod and swallow, realizing for the first time that the pants the innkeeper brought me are a little tight in the crotch region. I shift in the chair as Kira leaves the room. I don’t mean to notice the way her pants hug her backside, but gods, I’d have to be dead to miss that.
“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” the man says, leaning over the table to stab a finger at my chest. “Have you ever heard of anything like that? Anything ever?”
I blink. Both men are looking at me like they expect some sort of answer, and damn it, it’s going to take a few minutes and some deep breaths before I’m able to stand up without embarrassing myself.
“Never,” I say, trying to channel Syrus.
I never expected to admire him, Syrus Maganti, one of the four Elites who joined me in the Towers. He was the sixth son of the Maganti family, so he’d grown up with all of Silver City at his fingertips. I was ready to hate him when I met him. He was too much like the men who’d run Blackwater, men who thought they owned everything and everyone within the city limits.
But I ended up liking him despite my best efforts. Grudgingly at first, of course, but then with a sort of mad envy. I didn’t just like Syrus; I wanted to become Syrus. I’d sought magic and power to protect myself, but Syrus showed me that magic and power can be handled like a toy, a way to wring more pleasure from the world.
Gods, I was an idiot. I try to smile like Syrus, that smug half grin that makes you wonder if he’s actually listening or just watching the door for someone more interesting to show up. The men both launch into their groggy hunting stories, interrupting one another to make the wolves more massive and themselves more heroic.
So my illusions worked. Even if the rest of the hunting party are as tight-lipped as priests, these two will spread tales of the horrors of the Daggers all over the finer establishments of Silver City. But there’s no trace of magic around them, so I have yet to find the Towers’s operative.
Which leaves Kira. She’s here hunting the fox who stole the moon, apparently. She doesn’t feel like magic, and she doesn’t move like a mercenary. So why in the nine hells would she be here with the Towers?
I suppose that’s what I need to find out. I pull in a deep breath, shift slightly to make sure the tent in my pants has subsided, and then push back from the table.
“Excuse me just a moment, gentlemen,” I say, with Syrus’s opaque smile.
And then I walk to the bar to fetch the second bottle of wine and two new glasses before heading to the staircase.