Chapter 27
"When exactly was it?"
"I'm not sure," Sarah, the bower’s night shift employee, said, already dressed to head home for the day. "Midnight, something like that. Not any sooner."
"Midnight. She barely got any sleep, then."
"If she slept at all after you two had dinner, then yeah, barely. Or not at all."
"Dammit, Chaska," Shiro let out a long, tired sigh. "What are you doing?"
"Did you two have a fight or something?" she asked, glancing over toward the girl now seated in what used to be Shiro and Chaska's usual spot, a catgirl who smiled back at them.
"No. We didn't."
"Good, then. Anyway, I'm off, heading to market. Have a good day, Master Shiro," she said, taking her leave.
"You too," Shiro replied, trudging over to where Anya sat. "So, learned anything more about where Chaska went?"
Shiro shook his head.
"I see. I hope this isn't because of me."
At the word, Shiro glanced up at her amber eyes and shook his head again.
Truth was, it kind of was because of her, though not intentionally.
The reason Chaska had left was obvious enough.
She'd gone back to what she'd been doing before and even after meeting him, searching for Nazim's shop, which the possible presence of a hero in the city had only made more plausible.
"Just to be clear, how sure are your sources about there being a hero in town?"
After a sip of her warm milk, she answered, "My sources aren't."
"What?!"
"What they are sure of is that the ducal guard is searching for someone the ducal family believes to be a hero. That's what they know, and that part they're a hundred percent certain about."
"I see." Shiro nodded, grimacing at the very real possibility that these fancy lords were flat out wrong about the assassin being a hero at all.
"What else do you know about what these lords think they know?"
Anya frowned. "What's going on with you and Chaska's sudden interest in those heroes? Yesterday, when we were talking in her room, she asked that exact string of questions." Her expression turned interested. "You two have something to do with them, don't you? I've got this strange feeling you do."
"That's just your imagination."
"Come on, my little cauliflower, you know who I am. You know you can trust me."
"I think that's exactly the problem," Shiro scoffed, then pointed at her. "Yesterday, bringing up the hero, that wasn't an accident, was it. Maybe for someone less calculating it could've been, but not for someone as cunning as you. You did that on purpose, to gauge our reaction."
"...You noticed?" She winced. "I thought I played that one well."
"Told you, I’m a man of many talents," Shiro said, without mentioning that she had played it well, her sister too, aside from one nervous tic anyone paying close enough attention to their ears would've caught.
"I'll admit, I brought it up because I suspected you were involved somehow.
You entered the city the same day the hero died.
You were outside the watch of the person I'd asked to keep an eye on you at the exact moment it happened.
And most importantly, that same person told me his people saw you with your gun drawn when it went down. "
"That..." Shiro stammered, with no real counter, since all of it was true. He couldn't even blame Maiq for suspecting him. "How convinced is Maiq that I'm actually involved?"
"Convinced enough to say it out loud."
"Well, next time you see him, tell him I'm harmless. Wouldn't hurt a fly, unless the fly tried something first, which brings me back to my earlier question. What else do you know about this other hero supposedly in the city?"
Anya answered with, as far as he could tell, everything she had, which unfortunately wasn't much. Apparently so little was known about this hero that nobody could even confirm whether it was a man or a woman, the bare minimum confirmation Shiro had actually been hoping for.
"How the hell do these people expect to find this hero when they can't even tell how strong they are, what powers they've got, or even what they look like?"
She just shrugged.
"Assuming they do find them, are they even confident they can capture or kill this assassin?"
"That's the thing, I don't think they actually need to."
"What?"
"As long as light gets shed on the assassin, that should be enough for the ducal prince, and for whatever faction backs the dead hero. I'm not exactly well versed in politics at that level, but I believe that's roughly how the dynamic works, on top of the whole succession issue with the late duke."
"Late?"
"My bad, forgot to mention. He died yesterday morning. I heard right before leaving Maiq's place to come see what you two were up to. Judging by how nobody here's mentioned it, I'd guess it hasn't been announced publicly yet. Probably waiting until the sons' done scheming."
"How are you two always this well informed?"
"Perk of knowing the right people. Goes for me and my associates both."
"That's a scary perk to have."
"Not as scary as the ability to hold thousands of people hostage over what might just be a wrong guess, though. Anyway, what's your plan for today?" she asked, changing the subject. "Going after Chaska?"
He thought it over, then shook his head. "If we do end up leaving, I'll need to prepare. You?"
"I'll be here, waiting on Vanya to get back. Hopefully with good news."
???
Shiro's first stop of the day was somewhere he felt a little guilty about, resting on a premise Chaska would absolutely hate him for: that her search for Nazim's shop would lead nowhere.
As much as he wanted to stay optimistic, the realistic part of him, the part that remembered five straight days of wandering the city with nothing to show for it, and knowing now that this hero had already been in the city that whole time, couldn't shake that thought.
Which was why the first stop he'd sworn he'd never make again, unless absolutely necessary, was to track down the priest. Yes, that priest. The one who'd sold him the aphrodisiacs, only one of which kinda worked as advertised. That same priest.
If he was going to leave the city, Shiro figured he needed to stock up properly on those aphrodisiacs.
Most of the samples hadn't worked as intended, sure, but one had, side effects and all, and it had actually gotten him hard.
So before leaving, he intended to secure a full reserve of the thing, and have a few pointed words with the man about product quality while he was at it.
"So where the hell is this priest," Shiro sighed, walking through the corridor lined with statues. Like last time, he paused briefly at the one with the Asian face before continuing on, eyes scanning left and right for Antonein.
Part of him hoped he'd find the man somewhere other than where he'd first met him, given the mess he'd left behind there last time.
But after coming up empty and asking a few fellow priests, "Have you seen Antonein?
" every one of them, despite trying to hide it, gave him a judgmental look before answering with some version of, "Haven't seen him. Probably in the healer's section."
Apparently the man was about as popular among his fellow priests as he was among the healers. I wonder why.
Shiro was making his defeated way toward the healer's section when he spotted a priest coming toward him down the corridor, one who, judging by how abruptly he stopped and quickly turned back the way he came, had clearly recognized Shiro too.
"Where do you think you're going, Abel," Shiro said, catching up to the white-robed healer. "Been a while."
"You, how. Let me go!"
"Let you go? I'm just hugging you."
"I'm going to scream."
Scream? Pretty weak threat, Shiro thought, giving the man a look meant to calm him down, or at least land somewhere on that end of the spectrum. "Alright, I'm letting you go," Shiro said. "See? Let go. Was there any reason to threaten me with screaming? No, there wasn't. I'm a friend."
He still seemed unconvinced. "You're not really a senior from the capital," he said. "You lied. You took my power."
"To be fair, that one's on you guys. You assumed I was some senior. I never claimed that. And this whole taking your power thing, you never had any power to begin with, what are you even talking about. Just accept that you tried to scam me and I pushed back."
"We did no—"
"Hey, hey, hey," Shiro cut in. "It's fine.
I don't care, let's leave it in the past. I'm only here for one thing, one person, actually.
Antonein. He's in your ward, isn't he? I was on my way there actually, could you go grab him for me?
I'd rather avoid setting foot in there again after what happened last time. "
After an odd pause, he nodded and turned to go, but barely two steps in, Shiro stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Abel, I've already seen you lie to me once, and I just saw that same look in your eyes. So tell me the truth," Shiro demanded poking his ribs.
"He's not there. Hasn't been there in almost a week," the healer confessed, sinking to his knees. "He's probably with the priests, where he actually belongs."
"He's not there either. I just came from there," Shiro said, hauling the man back up. "Why would you say that?"
"I..."
"There's that deceit in your eyes again, Abel. I don’t like it. So tell me. What's going on?"
"I... I was about to report you."
"Report me? To who?" He hesitated again, so Shiro pressed harder. "To who?"
"The high priest. Antonein's uncle. He's the one who told us to report immediately if you ever came back."