Chapter 6
With Jildarin turning a baleful eye on her each time she walked past his kitchen, Rylana spent the rest of the day taking inventory of the supplies and equipment in the storeroom.
She’d started, with Gniknik’s help, by opening the cashbox and counting what was in there and searching for records, but that hadn’t taken long.
There hadn’t been any tallies—even on scraps of butcher paper—of the earnings from the previous months, weeks, or even days.
Apparently, Jildarin took money from the cashbox when he needed to order food.
Given how modest the amount inside had been, Rylana had a feeling he was in debt with a lot of his vendors.
She would have to quiz him on that when he looked less…
cranky. For now, she would do what she could and hope that he would come to trust her, though that might be asking a lot. After all, she had shot him.
Every time she passed through the dining room, Rylana glanced out the windows, worried Vormalt would be out there, peering in again.
It had been a coincidence, she kept telling herself.
He couldn’t yet have learned that she was back in the city, and he certainly wouldn’t be looking for her.
Not after seventeen years. He must have married someone else by now.
Even when he’d been attempting to court her, she hadn’t gotten the impression that he was infatuated with her or even cared that much for her.
It had been more that, because he’d been an up-and-coming employee in her father’s business, and from a family of appropriate social standing, Vormalt and her father had thought it a logical idea.
The man had come around the castle for months, bringing Rylana gifts and trying to get her to set a date for their wedding, even though she’d rejected his proposal.
Three times. Until Father had tried to force the matter by accepting on her behalf.
“A coincidence,” she told herself firmly and went back to her inventory project. In a city the size of Tranquility, Rylana would probably never see Vormalt again, especially if she avoided the west side of the lake, where his family lived a mile down the road from her father’s estate.
“Hello?” A half-elven waitress who’d shown up to work the dinner service leaned into the storeroom. A pretty woman in her twenties, she had red-blonde hair, pale skin, slightly pointed ears, and a voluptuous figure that doubtless came from her human side. “Your name is Rylana, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Zalani.” The woman glanced back up the hallway before heading toward her.
Rylana lowered the inventory book, one of a handful of purchases she’d made at the stationery store.
She could ill-afford extra expenditures right now, but a bookkeeper needed pencils.
While working, she’d been flirting with the idea of asking Jildarin if she could sleep here until the diner became profitable enough for him to afford to pay her a salary.
But maybe she was delusional to believe he would let her stick around long enough for that to happen.
Sylin hadn’t returned, however, with word of having obtained affordable lodgings, so Rylana would have to find a place to spend the night soon.
The dinner service was almost over, and darkness and rain had arrived outside, so the thought of sleeping in a park lacked appeal.
“Someone came in looking for you a little while ago.” Zalani stopped in front of Rylana and peered at the inventory book. “Are you actually here for… accounting purposes?”
“Yes.”
“Rolf and Gniknik were here earlier, and they, uhm.” Zalani waved toward the front of the diner. “They saw and heard your discussion with— Well, they said you were the person who gave Jildarin his scar.” She touched the side of her eye.
“Yes.” Rylana was more interested in hearing about the someone who’d come looking for her than discussing the past.
“Your arrow must have almost taken his eye out.”
“That was the goal.”
Zalani blinked.
“We were on opposing sides during the Ore War.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. We got some of the details of the fighting up here, but…” Zalani shrugged and waved, as if to suggest it had all been so far away that the citizens of Tranquility hadn’t worried about it.
Maybe that was true. With the cold drizzle falling outside, it was easy to think of the steamy southern jungles and mountains as belonging to a far-off world.
“They’ve got a bet going about how long it will be before you try to kill Jildarin again, and if it’ll work or if Jildarin will kill you. The odds are in favor of that. He is a dragon after all, even if he gets distracted by his cooking projects.”
“I see.”
“Goblins and gnomes aren’t that great at reading humans. To me, you don’t seem very...” Zalani looked at a pencil that Rylana had tucked behind her ear. “You don’t strike me as an assassin.”
“No, I was a soldier doing my job—defending my unit from dragons. You said someone was looking for me?”
“A man with a well-groomed beard and mustache who was wearing a beaver-fur cap and a fur-trimmed cloak. Dark hair with a few flecks of gray in it. Gray eyes. Pompous. I figure he was in his early forties and he was obviously of the monied sort, but he wouldn’t give me his name. Even when I flirted with him.”
The dread stirred anew in Rylana. Her gut had been right. That had been Vernest Vormalt she’d seen through the window.
“I don’t usually flirt with the pompous ones, but sometimes it’s worth enduring their arrogance for a good tip.
” Zalani made a motion of rubbing fingers together in the air, then cocked her head.
“Even though he wouldn’t tell me his name, he was looking for Rylana Avandar.
As in the Avandar family with the big castle estate across the lake and the huge shipping business that runs freight all over the world. ” Zalani arched her eyebrows.
“It’s not that uncommon of a surname. There are Avandars all over the north.
” The words came out automatically. Though Rylana had spoken of her family to Sylin and some of the other mercenaries she’d come to know well over the years, she hadn’t proclaimed her heritage to all, never caring to be associated with her father or the estate.
In the south, few would have recognized the name, being familiar only with the shipping business and not who owned it, but, every now and then, she’d come across someone else who’d spent time in Tranquility and knew of her family.
“Oh, sure,” Zalani said. “Anyway, I didn’t tell him you were back here. He had a dubious… qora.”
Yes, Rylana well remembered the dubious qora.
The elves liked that term for one’s spiritual and magical force, and she wondered if Zalani had spent time among them.
Most half-elves ended up being raised by their human parent since elves were snooty about their blood.
They only considered purebred elves worthy of immersion in their culture, a place in their enclaves, and protection under their gods.
“His name is Vernest Vormalt, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him,” Rylana said. “I can’t imagine what he would want with me. I don’t suppose he said?”
“Just that he heard you were back in the city and looked forward to reacquainting himself with you.” Zalani grimaced.
“You’re lucky he didn’t stay for a bowl of soup.
Even though I don’t usually mind the companionship of men—all right, I seek it out regularly—I prefer to choose who and when.
When they get randy after slurping the soup and try to forcibly choose me, I’m less delighted. ”
“I’ll bet,” Rylana murmured.
She eyed the hallway, half-expecting Vormalt to stalk into the storeroom at any moment.
She had no idea what he wanted but reluctantly accepted that she would have to deal with him.
An unpleasant thought, but she told herself that she was a much different person now, not a young and inexperienced girl of scarcely eighteen being pressured by her father.
Now, she was a veteran and a seasoned fighter.
Though she preferred the bow, she’d sparred with Sylin and the others often, not to mention engaging with actual enemies who’d made it to the shooting lines on the battlefield. She could handle Vormalt.
Not that he’d ever been overly physical with her.
He’d tried to charm her with his wit—his wit and his gifts.
The last gift he’d brought had been a collection of sugar cookies from a renowned confectionary in town, little purple and red sprinkles adorning the tops.
They’d been speaking in the library, perusing some of the old tomes there, and one of Father’s dogs had gotten into the cookies before she’d tried one.
The hound had eaten a couple before they’d caught it.
Shortly after, it had run outside and thrown up all around the grounds before slinking off into the woods.
She’d shooed Vormalt out of the library and chucked the cookies into the trash.
A week later, she’d departed for the south and hadn’t returned.
Until now. Maybe coming back had been a mistake.
“No coitus!” came Jildarin's booming voice from the dining room.
“I’d better get up there and help him usher out the guests.” Zalani hurried for the hallway as a great thump came from the front room.
“That sounds like very physical ushering,” Rylana said.
“That’s how dragons do it.” Zalani shrugged and smiled before disappearing into the hallway.
“You will eat in this establishment and nothing more!” Jildarin bellowed, another thump sounding, followed by the door slamming.
Rylana returned to her inventory, trusting her assistance wasn’t needed up front, though she yawned and rubbed her lower back. She’d been on her feet all day and wouldn’t mind sitting down, but she wanted to get through everything, and there was a lot of everything in the large storeroom.
So far, she hadn’t discovered anything unexpected except that the quantities were sometimes odd.
Did even a professional chef need two dozen spatulas?
And an entire box of meat thermometers? Yet there’d been scarcely a pound or two left in the bag of oats, a measuring cup left inside suggesting it was drawn from often.
She hadn’t yet seen sign of dragon spices, though she’d found racks of rosemary, dwarfbeard, thyme, and elfmoss, staples in most northern kitchens.
“My enemy is still here.” Jildarin stood in the hallway, eyeing her.
“There’s a lot to inventory.” Rylana held up the logbook, then turned the pages to show him how much she’d filled.
“I thought I’d wait until tomorrow to look for buyers for your gnomish ovens.
Do you want to give me a list of your suppliers—butcher, fishmonger, grocery, that kind of thing?
Or, I suppose it’s in your head, so maybe recite me a list. Then I can work with them to get totals for what you owe and what you typically order in a week. ”
Jildarin gazed at her, his face difficult to read. She had to guess what he might be thinking. Probably that she was going to great lengths if this was all a ruse to allow her to get close and try to kill him.
Behind him, the dining room had fallen silent, and the hallway was dark, lamps extinguished.
Rylana wondered if he’d sent the rest of the staff home after kicking out the randy customers.
If she was going to ask him if she could sleep here tonight, this would be the time, though maybe she was foolish to contemplate spending the night in the same building as a former enemy.
A former enemy bearing a permanent scar from one of her arrows.
Just because she felt guilty and wanted to make amends didn’t mean that he wouldn’t enjoy seeing her dead.
“Come with me,” Jildarin finally said and headed for the double doors in the back.
“Are you… going to recite your list for me?”
“I will show you where I get those items.” Jildarin glanced at her bow where she’d deposited it and the rest of her belongings earlier, then opened one of the carriage doors.
“So I can visit in the morning and learn about your accounts myself? I suppose I can do that.”
“Yes.” His gaze was cool as she picked up her cloak and joined him. Chilly air whispered through the doorway, and puddles dotted the drive and street outside.
“You’re not thinking of instead showing me the dark alley where you plan for my body to eventually be found, are you?” Rylana asked.
His eyebrows twitched, and he walked outside. “The alarms would go off again if I attacked you in an alley.”
“Probably only if you turned into a dragon first. There are occasionally murders in the city that are carried out with items the peacekeepers don’t classify as weapons and tie up with their ribbons. Even by bare hands from time to time. Determined killers can find a way.”
Jildarin looked at her again as they stepped into the street, lanterns on posts brightening the way.
“You knew that, right?” Rylana asked. “Maybe I shouldn’t have given you that information.”
“I’ve heard that the peacekeepers employ necromancers who can communicate with the souls of those who were killed in their city and find out who was responsible. The killers are then driven from Tranquility and memories of them magically stored in the guard pillars to ensure they may never return.”
“I’ve heard that too. I’m not sure how much consolation it is to the dead to know their killers are on the pillars’ naughty list.”
“Will you come with me, or not?” Jildarin didn’t sound like he cared one way or another.
Rylana sighed. “I’ll come.”