CHAPTER 5 #3
He was thirty years old but looked about five years younger.
Solentine Dagarra. The head of the Shears and bastard son of Trihorn Border Margrave Izarn Demarr.
Ruthless, dangerous, and deeply paranoid.
He was one of my favorite characters. So handsome, so smart, so witty, and yet so deeply fucked up.
Solentine met my gaze.
Wow.
The Rise of Kair Toren had more viewpoint characters than you could shake a stick at, but Solentine was definitely near the top when it came to sheer page numbers, because he delivered both drama and shocking violence.
Most people had a circuit breaker that tripped and stopped them because some things were simply not done to fellow human beings.
In some people, it malfunctioned, but in Solentine it was either permanently broken or didn’t get installed in the first place.
He was infinitely dangerous, and right now he was looking at me like I was an annoying bug he needed to crush.
It sank in: This wasn’t fiction. This was my reality. I was standing in a soundproof room, the servant behind me was likely a trained killer, and I was looking at Solentine Dagarra. In the flesh. I could reach out and boop him on the nose.
Oh god, he would kill me.
Solentine smiled at me. Alarm punched the base of my neck and rolled down my spine in an electric shock. Oh no, that wasn’t good. Not at all. Dying at the hands of the Shears would hurt.
Coming here had been a terrible mistake.
Mistake or not, now I had to survive. I needed to establish my credentials and show I wasn’t afraid. But I was afraid. Very afraid.
I forced the words out. “The head of the Shears. I’m honored.”
“Tell me how you know our password, and I’ll decide what to do with you,” Solentine said in a cultured baritone. Even his voice was off the charts.
“I don’t give away information, I sell it. Right now, I have something you want, so I came here to trade. You’re missing one of your men.”
There was a barely perceptible shift in the way Solentine held himself. A little less relaxation in the line of his shoulders, a little more rigidity in the spine, a harder edge to his gaze. I had his undivided attention.
“I can make you tell me everything you know,” he said. “It won’t be difficult.”
“True. However, if you do that, the Shears will never again profit from my services. I’d like to establish a mutually beneficial business relationship, so I’m willing to make certain concessions.
I’ll tell you what happened to Miro, no strings attached.
In a week, I’ll come back for my payment.
If I like the value you put on saving a life, we can make a deal again in the future.
If I don’t, this will be our first and last transaction. ”
It was a huge gamble, but Solentine suspected everyone and everything. A week would give him enough time to check out the information I offered him. The delayed payment guaranteed I would stick around, which should make him comfortable enough to let me walk out of here unharmed.
A stupid leg-breaker would torture the information out of me and then kill me.
Solentine was a very smart man. He would want to use this week to have me watched and to try to find out everything he could about me.
Who sent me? Where did I come from? Did I have a secret agenda?
Could I prove to be useful in the future?
So many fun questions that would gnaw at his brain.
And if I played my cards right, down the line, he might trust me enough to not only pay me but provide me with a false identity. It would take a lot of work, but it was possible.
He pondered me for a long moment.
My skin felt too tight. I had a powerful urge to scream and run away as fast as I could just to ease the pressure.
Come on. Let the curiosity win.
“Where is he?”
Got him. “He broke into Baron Horost’s estate and was caught. They have him in the dungeon, last cell on the right as you enter.”
The Shears had started a century ago as a crime syndicate specializing in espionage, sabotage, and rumors.
Solentine had taken them over eight years ago and continued the policies of his predecessor, forging the former syndicate into a shadow army of informants, thieves, and assassins.
The Shears embedded capable and well-trained people all throughout Rellas.
They were the tailors, the chefs, the barbers, the embroidery maids.
Some simply gathered information and passed it on.
Others ran around the rooftops in black outfits, broke into impregnable fortresses, and stabbed people in the back when the occasion demanded.
The Shears still took lucrative contracts and sold information to the highest bidder just like they did decades ago, but now they were dedicated to Solentine, and their actions stemmed from his agenda.
Right now, a large part of that hidden agenda revolved around finding out who was supplying iron to the rebel group picking up steam in the north of the kingdom.
Miro, one of Solentine’s best black-outfit operatives, followed the trail of breadcrumbs to Horost and got himself nabbed through an epic turn of bad luck.
The day after tomorrow, Solentine, who sat on the crossroads of several currents of information, would attend a dinner at Horost’s estate to gauge the Baron’s possible involvement in the diverting of the iron ore.
During that dinner he would purposefully lose a large sum of money, and a drunk Horost, already flattered by Solentine’s presence, would magnanimously give him a tour of the dungeons so he could boast about his general awesomeness.
Solentine would see Miro and rescue him a couple of days later.
I wouldn’t change the plot in any significant way.
The sequence of events would remain the same, except that now Solentine would go to Horost’s little rave expecting to find evidence of Miro being held there.
If it worked, I would cause a minimal disturbance and net a decent sum of money.
Hopefully enough to get me out of the third floor of the bakery.
Solentine leaned forward. His eyes narrowed. “How much do you know?”
Danger, danger. I met his gaze and kept my voice calm. “Any additional information will cost extra.”
“Did he break?”
This was a test. Miro wouldn’t break, even if he was tortured to death, and Solentine knew it.
“No. He’s pretending to be a common thief, and Horost’s men are inexperienced. They’ve beaten him too badly, so they must allow him a couple of days to recuperate before they can torture him again. Do you require a map of the estate?”
“I assume the map will cost me extra?” Solentine asked.
“Yes.”
“It won’t be necessary.” His posture relaxed a fraction. He thought he had my number.
“I will come back here in one week for my payment. Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” Solentine said.
“It’s been a pleasure.”
I turned. The waiter opened the door for me and then led me all the way to the front room of the tavern.
I smiled at him and kept walking, out the door, merging with the foot traffic flowing through the street.
I’d walked for almost five minutes when my control finally snapped, and cold sweat drenched my face.
Survived. Somehow. So far so good.
Solentine would have me followed. I didn’t bother glancing behind me. I wouldn’t spot whoever was tailing me anyway. I walked up the street, made a left, then a right, and came to a large building with a wooden bolt of fabric above the entrance. I swung the heavy door open and went in.
The inside of the shop was spacious. On the left, a counter guarded the front door. Rows of tables on both sides offered bolts of fabric. More fabric hung from wooden racks by the walls. At the wall opposite the entrance, two doors led deeper into the shop.
I lingered by the nearest table, pretending to care about linen.
Two women entered, one after another, the first middle-aged, the second barely fifteen. The older woman wore a dress similar to mine and carried a full shopping basket, while the younger had a nicer outfit, almost a gown. A man followed them, young, with a larger shopping basket on his shoulders.
All three went in different directions and started shopping. One of them was likely Solentine’s.
I mulled about a bit more, made my way to the counter, put a den on the wooden surface and slid it to the clerk. “I need to use your other exit.”
He nodded and swiped the coin.
I meandered over to the door on the left, opened it, and slipped into a long hallway.
This shop took up the entire block. The exit at the end of this hallway opened to a different street, which branched into two others.
The Shears had frequently used this shop as a getaway.
The agent tailing me wouldn’t follow me through the building into the hallway because that would be too obvious.
They would leave the store, go around the block, and then quietly trail after me.
One, two, three . . . five. Long enough for my tail to exit.
I opened the door and stepped back into the main room. Let’s see which of the three worked for Solentine.
The younger woman and the man were still in the store. It was the older lady. Ha!
I crossed the main floor, went out the front door, made a sharp left into an alley, and took off. Nobody followed me.
One very dangerous meeting down, one to go.