Twelve Adriana
“N YX ?” I WAVED the unmarked envelope at my informant, dragging her attention back to me. “You’ll get this to the printer today, right? It’s imperative it goes public this afternoon.”
We were tucked into the shadows of a cryptlike pub aptly named Eternal Rest at the far edge of town. It was dark and dank and housed more spiders than paying patrons.
Cobwebs collected in thick, sticky clusters in the corners, an ode to every horror story ever penned. The tables were made from scavenged parts of broken caskets. One could only hope that they hadn’t been occupied before being hacked into furniture, though given the rumors about the owner’s taste for blood and fall from vampire grace, anything was possible.
It seemed most came here to die some sort of death. Be it reputation or the utter demise of one’s sanity. Or perhaps murder by drink.
I wasn’t positive, but judging by the bitter taste of the tea I was politely sipping, I couldn’t rule out the possibility of being poisoned. I half expected my throat to swell shut, my eyes to bulge, and to keel straight over at any moment. I hadn’t thought to write out my last will and testament before the meeting and only mildly regretted it now.
Maybe I should have opted for hard liquor like my fidgeting companion.
Nyx guzzled shot after shot of ice-flower whiskey like it wasn’t just after six in the morning and that sort of thing wasn’t frowned upon even in a realm built on sin.
Though, given the clientele at Eternal Rest with their preference for blood shots, most hadn’t seen their beds in the last decade, so perhaps time was indeed relative.
She ran a hand over her shaved head, a shiver rolling through her as her hood fell back.
I’d never seen her so… shifty. Which was saying a lot, as that was her standard mode of operation.
Nyx finally settled her attention on me, her milky irises almost glowing in the dark.
“You wanted to know about the club, too, right? The Seven Sins?” she asked.
I nodded, forcing myself to not reach for the magic key I kept on me.
“Rumors. Nothing concrete.”
I raised my brows. “Who are people saying owns it?”
“Maybe all the princes. Except for ours.”
That made no sense whatsoever; it was the first time I’d heard that rumor.
“Why would Gluttony permit other Princes of Sin to fuel their power here?”
She lifted a shoulder and dropped it. “I’ll get your paper printed, miss. And see what else turns up about the club, though whoever owns it has been sought in the shadow network for years. Whoever they are, they covered their tracks well.”
Nyx jolted in her seat when the door slammed open. I’d been working with her for years and she’d never been this on edge.
I narrowed my eyes. “Is everything all right?”
“Might be the time to visit family on the Shifting Isles.”
Her gravelly voice made the fine hair along my arms rise.
Or maybe it was her cryptic warning. Nyx hadn’t looked inside the envelope; she didn’t know what mischief I was up to. Therefore, her warning meant something else scared her. And anything that scared Nyx would likely make anyone else wet their pants.
“I don’t have family there.”
“Neither do I. But I’d find a reason to get out of here. That’s for damn sure.”
Across the pub, two demons who’d been engaged in a vicious card game stood abruptly, their chairs clattering to the floor. They began brawling, bashing mugs and glasses and any other items they could at each other.
Shards of glass flew through the air, stopping short of our table by mere inches.
I kept my attention split between the fight and my informant. “Are you planning on running?”
Nyx tossed back the rest of her whiskey, tapped her empty glass against the table, then eyed me. I swore under my breath and called for another round.
Once she had her next shot, she settled back, her gaze darting everywhere.
“Gluttons for thrills and adventure or not, I think a good many will be on the run soon. After what happened to that hunter last night.”
A chill worked its way down my spine that had nothing to do with the blast of frigid air that swept through the pub as the two brawlers were tossed out.
“Stop talking in riddles or there won’t be any more whiskey. What happened?”
“That new initiate hunter? Jackson Rose. He’s dead. Word in the shadows claims he was done in by a dragon. They say he was eaten whole.”
“That can’t be true. His family isn’t high-ranking, but he’s noble. There’s been no official statement from the castle or mention of death.”
“Another oddity, but that doesn’t make what I said less true.”
A high-pitched ringing began in my ears. There had to be some mistake. I’d seen Jackson a little over a week before. He was young and brash, and quite possibly the worst dancer in the realm, but certainly not deceased.
“How do you know he’s dead and demons aren’t just gossiping?”
“Passed by his family’s house this morning. They hung his leathers outside the door.” Nyx nestled into her cloak, seeming ready to bolt at the next opportunity. “If you don’t believe me, go see for yourself.”
I fought the urge to tug my own cloak around me. Jackson couldn’t be dead. He’d been a drunken fool, certainly, but to have him wiped from the realm so young…
I glanced at the half-empty room. The bartender swept the broken glass into a pile, the sound of the broom scratching across the broad floorboards. It reminded me of sharp nails.
The Eternal Rest was rather… quiet. Even with the brawl. Normally, whenever I met Nyx here, one could count on at least three brawls happening simultaneously.
If Jackson was killed by an ice dragon, if those rumors were circulating through the network of shadow spies… then hunting down information would be next to impossible.
Was that what happened to the first informant who’d told me of the ice dragons—had he run instead of selling his intel to the highest bidder? It was terrifying enough to know a Prince of Sin might have been harmed, but when no other information came forward, it was easy to dismiss as fiction. Now, with a rumored death, things were growing much more worrisome.
If a prince could be attacked and a hunter killed, what chance did any of us stand to survive?
I turned back to Nyx, a new question forming on my lips.
But she was gone.
I huddled in the doorway of the building directly across from Jackson’s family’s town house, plush hood pulled low to protect me from the howling storm.
Nyx was correct: Jackson had passed on to the Great Beyond.
I stared at his leathers, hung with great care on the entrance, a symbol for all who came to visit or who simply passed by to pay their respects. Any loss of life was heartbreaking, but there was an overarching sense of foreboding that hung in the air. Perhaps that was just me. Aside from one or two spies who fled, no one seemed worried about the dragons.
Because they didn’t know.
I’d check the paper later today to see the official statement; surely there had to be one considering Jackson’s role as an initiate hunter of the prince’s prized hunting guild.
Something about the armor unsettled me.
I couldn’t quite figure out what, though. The leathers seemed… unused.
Given how fresh Jackson had been to the guild, that wasn’t too surprising. As an initiate, he’d only been in the field for a short while.
Gusts of wind covered them lightly with snow, obscuring them from further scrutiny.
It was probably nothing. And yet… that nagging little voice named Intuition couldn’t silence the sense that something wasn’t quite as it seemed.
Perhaps the tea had been poisoned and paranoia was a side effect.
Or maybe they weren’t his leathers. If Nyx was correct, if the second ice dragon attack was true, then it stood to reason Jackson’s leathers would have been marred or destroyed.
If that was the case, it was highly suspicious for them to attempt to hide that. An ice dragon attack that ended in the death of a citizen was news everyone in the realm should know.
The death of hunters north of Merciless Reach wasn’t terribly common, but it wasn’t unheard of either. The elements normally were to blame—the harsh cold was nature’s finest assassin and it killed indiscriminately.
The more I mulled over the condition of the leathers, the more uneasy I became. There was no good reason to change his armor. Hiding an attack would take plotting, planning.
But was Prince Gluttony, the male who went out of his way to show the circle he was a debauched rake, truly cunning enough to devise a plan to keep us all in the dark?
Several minutes later, a grief-stricken woman who I could only assume was Jackson’s mother opened the door, her eyes swollen and bloodshot, as she carefully dusted snow off his leathers. She seemed to be operating on sheer force of will alone. Though I suspected it was love.
Unconditional love made warriors of us all. It gave you strength to carry on, to show up for the one you lost. It set your own emotions aside. I’d known what that was like with my father.
As difficult as it had been, I’d stayed by his side, offering him sips of water to wet his dried lips until he could no longer swallow. Then, instead of running away, hiding from the inevitable, I held his hand, reminding him of all the good times we’d shared, watching as his chest stuttered, then started, taking my breath with it each time.
It had been like that for four weeks. The constant state of alarm, the worry, the knowing that one time his chest wouldn’t rise again.
Dreading it.
Then on that final night, it finally stopped. I’d stared for hours, unbelieving, though it hadn’t come as a shock. His body had grown so cold. So stiff. Still, I couldn’t let go.
Unconditional love had kept me there, right by his side, as he crossed. No matter that I wanted to run away, to scream at fate, to crawl into a ball and sleep the pain away, never emerging again. Part of me wanted to die that day too. But life can be like the day; it goes on no matter how hard we try to force it otherwise.
So, as Jackson’s mother lovingly tended to his leathers, I understood it was because she was still caring for her baby, even after he’d gone.
A million questions burned through me, but I refrained from crossing the street. It would be reprehensible to question a mother who’d just lost her son.
I stared for a few more minutes before making my way to printers’ row a couple of streets over, mind churning. If Jackson had been killed by an ice dragon… a shudder wracked through me. I could think of no other logical explanation for his sudden demise. Impossible as it seemed, I’d bet anything that we were standing on the brink of disaster.
If the ice dragons were no longer adhering to the pact that kept the Seven Circles safe, it was only a matter of time before they set their sights southward.
And our circle was the first territory they’d pass.
A new sense of urgency had my pulse pounding as I walked faster down the street.
I’d have to work twice as hard and twice as fast to turn in my Miss Match column on time while focusing on my original investigation. But no matter how difficult it would be, I’d find a way to accomplish everything.
I had to hunt down all the information I could on ice dragons, as swiftly as I could. It wasn’t about breaking the story of the century anymore. It was about the safety of my family. My friends. The entire realm.
Finding out every bit of information I could on what was actually happening needed to become a priority, no matter how much the meddling prince had tried to thwart me.
If we understood why the ice dragons were attacking, if they were attacking, then we could find a way to stop them.
A shadow passed overhead, drawing my attention up.
This time it was a storm cloud, but I couldn’t help but feel a note of alarm as I watched it move along the horizon.
I wondered if perhaps it was a warning that a different sort of storm was moving in.
One that had the potential to destroy us all.