69. Raengar
Raengar paced back and forth on the roof of the same angular, blocky pyramid in Luxamal that he had been instructed to land on the last time he’d come to the University of Poison. Deimos curled up like a cat nearby. The dragon was big enough that he took up most of the space on the top, and Raengar wished he had more area to pace. Not that any more space would let him thoroughly work out his anxiety.
It was midnight again, and there was no movement beyond the flickering witch-light torches that lit the pathways between the pyramids that made up the school here. Raengar would have normally stopped to admire the beauty of the ancient city and appreciate the University of Poison’s rich history, but right then his head buzzed with nervous energy and worry.
The High Acolyte of the University was late. He would give the woman ten more minutes before he slipped inside and started searching the hallways for her himself.
Raengar got in a few more paces back and forth when the trap door to the roof finally creaked opened, and the woman scrambled out.
Even in the moonlight her face looked paler and pinched tighter than he’d ever seen it before, and it sent a warning shooting through his mind. Something had gone wrong.
“Hello, Your Grace. Thank you for meeting me here.”
Raengar put his hands on his hips, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet in case he needed to move. “What news?”
“I . . . well . . .” The woman sucked in a sharp breath and looked back at the trap door from where she’d emerged. “We’ve lost three different lab samples. The blood.”
Raengar had to take three deep breaths to keep himself from freezing her heart into a solid brick. That was Rorax’s blood. Beyond that, Volla, his friend, had died to make sure Jia and Rorax got away.
“You . . . lost them?” He could barely speak through his fury.
“No, no, I mean, not lost them.” She cowered, looking fearfully over Raengar to where Deimos was watching. “Someone has been removing them from our laboratories.”
That gave him pause. “What do you need? Do you need more men to secure the building?” Gods, if M??r was behind this he would fly to Kammath right now and decimate it. Deimos was donned in his starsteel armor. M??r wouldn’t be able to do anything but watch in horror as Raengar’s dragon froze his city into ruin.
The woman shook her head. “I have decided to run the samples myself, and in secret. I will find out what you need.”
Raengar rubbed his hand over his jaw. “How much of the original blood sample do you have left?”
There was a heavy beat of silence. “Only enough to run two more.”
Raengar resisted the urge to coat his ice over the woman”s skin. She knew. She knew what was at stake here. Without more proof that the King of Alloy was working against the Realms, he could walk free. Raengar would never let that happen. He didn’t have any evidence, but he knew in his bones that M??r had helped Lyondrea open the Pits, and it was almost inevitable that thousands would die to close them.
“Run one more, do it by yourself and do it in secret. If it fails you will come to Koppar, and I will get you what you need.”
The woman’s eyes went wide for a moment, before she nodded once. “I do not wish to leave my home . . . but I will do what is needed for the good of the Realms. There is someone very powerful, and very insistent behind both this poison and these . . . mishaps. If it is the King of Alloy, I want him uprooted and burned out. He should have no foothold here in a place of learning.”
Raengar agreed.