Chapter 21 #2
“I am sure.” Mika persisted through Oleg’s silence. “If we do not answer this offense—”
“It will be answered.” It wasn’t hard to imagine that Ivan was behind Father Izaias’s death. It was exactly the kind of cowardly thing Ivan would do.
“Is this an answer to the shooting in Moscow? We pierce his ear and he bludgeons a protected human to death using an assassin?”
“It’s possible my brother will try to distance himself when the assassin is caught. It’s possible the human was hired by someone else and Ivan knew nothing.”
“The priest was tortured.”
“Trust me, I remember.”
The seasons changed, centuries passed, and yet the library where they were sitting kept a record of it all.
Oleg’s personal journals were kept here as well as the daily logs from a hundred different house managers.
There were framed photographs and oil paintings of him through different periods of history.
There were pictures of his children. And their children.
In this place, Oleg could tell the story of his life. Not verbally—he was no poet or bard—but visibly, physically, his story was built into the very walls of this castle and the land that surrounded it.
The village hall was his hall.
The schoolhouse was his place of learning.
The church was his church even though he did not attend.
And the priest who had been murdered…
“He was tortured to extract information,” Mika repeated. “There can only be one suspect.”
“Don’t be ridiculous; I have many enemies.” Oleg stroked his chin as he looked at an oil portrait of him riding his favorite horse sometime in the late nineteenth century.
His beard was growing in again, and he didn’t mind it. Tatyana seemed to like it, so he was inclined to let it keep growing.
Beards were a bit of a “fuck you” signal for fire vampires. Those in command of their element didn’t burn them off. Arosh the Fire King had the longest beard of any vampire Oleg knew.
Annoying old man.
“Who else would hire a human to raid a human village to torture and murder a priest?” Mika leaned his elbows on his knees as he stared at Oleg intently. “This was Ivan.”
Oleg stopped contemplating his library and turned his attention to his chief boyar. “If Ivan knows that Tatyana and I are already married and we concealed it, he could use that information to destroy her credibility with the Poshani. A lie like that would be very difficult for her to explain.”
“So what do you plan to do?”
“We’ll find the human first. Discover what he knows.”
“If he’s still alive.”
Oleg nodded. “That is a fair point. If it were me, I would not let him live after he had served his purpose, but Ivan can surprise you. He’s both more cruel and more sentimental than one expects at times.”
If the human murderer was a nobody, Ivan would kill him as soon as he extracted whatever information he needed.
But should that human be the son of a friend or someone who simply caught Ivan’s amusement or attention, he would destroy things or lose money to protect him. That was how Ivan was. He was utterly unpredictable in that sense, which was only one of the reasons he would have been a terrible knyaz.
Mika continued, trying to prod Oleg toward something he’d been avoiding. “So Ivan could already know that you and Tatyana are married.”
“He could.”
“He may have already started rumors.”
Oleg shrugged. “There have been rumors circulating about my wife and me since she was turned. They say she killed Zara. I did. We both did. It was a conspiracy. Saba helped us. Saba was angry with us. We stole that vampire poison and are plotting to release it into the blood supply.”
Mika narrowed his eyes. “Did you?”
“Do I look like an idiot who would salt my own fields?” Oleg stood and walked over to one tall window that looked over the edge of the cliff where the citadel was positioned, watching the twinkling lights of the village below him.
Oleg kept his eyes on the village. Someone in the middle of the square had started a bonfire, which they often did when he arrived home. It was a little tradition the humans in the village had started to welcome the vampire lord back to the citadel.
“He was the kindest man I have ever known. The best, Lord Oleg, save for yourself.”
Oleg did not deserve the love of the village. He didn’t deserve the regard of old men who had served their families and their communities with humanity and pride.
But tonight, alone in his cold stone castle, the sight of that fire warmed him and granted him perspective to do what needed to be done.
And if Truvor laughed in his earthen grave… then let him laugh.
Oleg came to the inevitable decision. “We kill Ivan.”
“Just like that?”
Oleg frowned. “Not just like that. We must minimize the fallout as much as possible. I want no power struggles in Ivan’s wake.”
“You want Yury in charge. Askeli’s son from Pavel’s clan.”
Oleg nodded. “Go to Moscow right now and have your whispering people plant seeds. Ivan is out of favor and Yury Askеliyevich is rising. I want it everywhere. Speak to Lazlo. To Polina. To Rudov and Yuliya.”
“Pavel?”
Oleg considered a creeping suspicion that had begun to form in his mind. Pavel sending his son to Ivan’s clan. Pavel hosting Ivan in Saint Petersburg. Pavel’s fear and anger at the party the other night.
“Not Pavel.”
Mika did not ask. “Very well.”
“Plant seeds in Central Asia,” Oleg said. “We have connections in the Fire King’s court. I want Ivan surrounded. Nothing from Kyiv though. Our silence will lend credence to the rumors.”
“A whisper campaign against Ivan. Why?”
“Because if Ivan says something about my wife and I immediately kill him, it will paint whatever my brother says as the truth.”
Mika nodded. “But if he’s already out of favor, he becomes a resentful gossip.”
“My brother is not quick.” Oleg turned. “If he knows anything for certain, he’s had less than twenty-four hours to create a story that he likes. By the time he’s ready to speak, I want everyone around him already questioning his motives.”
“Brilliant.” Mika smiled.
Oleg rolled his eyes. “I do have my moments, Mika. Even when you’re not feeding me your schemes.”
Mika sat back in his chair and put his feet up on a low table. “Because I’ve trained you well.”
“Fuck off.” Oleg snapped his fingers, gathered fire in his palm, and aimed it at Mika’s boots. “And get your feet off my table.”
Oleg waited until the house was silent before he pulled out his phone with only one number programmed into it.
He tapped her name, unsure if she would even pick up.
She answered on the fourth ring, just long enough to let Oleg know she’d considered ignoring it.
“You missed the concert you said you were planning to attend.”
“I did. I hope you received my note.”
“And the flowers.” There was a short silence. “Then you also missed Rudov’s party.”
Oleg smiled at the vinegar in her voice. “But you did not. Someone told me that you attended with Oksana and Ludmila.”
“I had a lovely time throwing axes at their new range.”
Oleg frowned. “They haven’t invited me to throw axes.”
“I suppose it was a bit of a… girls’ night.”
He smiled. “What are you doing right now?”
She said nothing for a long moment. “I’m sitting down and rubbing my feet on the edge of the coffee table because something about high heels makes my feet twitch.”
“Hurt?”
“No, just twitch. It’s quite annoying.”
He was so glad he was not female. “Did you dance without me tonight?”
Tatyana muttered, “I would have danced with you if you were here.”
She didn’t ask him where he was.
“I’m at the citadel,” Oleg offered.
There was another long silence. “How is everything at your castle?”
“You must tell me. Even when you think it will upset me. Tell me, Oleg. I am your wife. I want to know.”
She had asked him for that, but Oleg had never actually agreed. And this? This would only upset her.
“Things at the castle are about the same.” Technically, it was not a lie. The crime had happened in the village. “Mika had a small matter that I needed to see to personally.”
“I see.” Her voice was terse.
“Are you angry with me?”
“Why would I be angry with you?” Tatyana’s voice was clipped. “I’m sure this small matter needed your personal attention or you would not have left me to attend two events on my own with the annoying task of trying to answer your family’s questions about your whereabouts.”
“So you are mad at me,” Oleg muttered. “Why? Because I needed to leave town? If you need to leave town for work, I won’t stop you.”
“Is that so? I wouldn’t know because my nights are filled with dress fittings and flower consultations. There are etiquette lessons and a new party with brand-new people every single night, and you seem to have… lost interest in all this ceremony.”
Oleg could have told her the truth and she would have understood immediately, but the last thing he wanted was for his wife to worry about their private business being exposed to the greater vampire world. She would immediately start worrying that her people would lose faith in her.
He took a slow breath. “I understand…”
After he didn’t finish his sentence, she spat out, “You understand what?”
“That you are angry.”
“You are supposed to be planning this grand wedding that you wanted, and instead, you’re leaving me to attend a month of parties and meetings without the groom I am supposed to be marrying.”
“The wedding that I wanted?” He felt his skin itch with fire. “Are you implying that you did not?”
“Did you forget that we are already married? I was content with our private wedding. Apparently you were not.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to because it clearly wasn’t enough.
” Her voice had switched to the brusque timbre she used during business meetings with a rival.
“You didn’t have access to me whenever you felt like it, and now that you do have access, you shut me out, conceal things from me, and leave me in the dark to make excuses for you. ”
“You’re using your meeting-with-underlings voice,” he muttered. “Stop it.”
“You’re getting everything you wanted, Oleg. Because of course you always do.” There was a dark fatalism in her voice that sent a chill through his entire body. “Yet somehow you don’t seem to want it anymore.”
There was a click on the other end of the line.
“Tatyana?”
Had she hung up on him?
Had someone cut her off?
“Tatyana!”
She had hung up on him.
Oleg crushed the mobile phone in his hand, the plastic pieces melting as he twisted them in his red-hot grip.