Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Lory
“Who would have thought the good Lord Niely would put up such a fight,” Lenya purred with too much amusement to make Lory feel anything other than the utter revulsion he deserved. “Who would have thought you’d get yourself cut, not once but twice?”
Oh, she wanted to punch him in the face for it. The locked door next to her hadn’t been the issue, but the time and place he’d chosen. Anywhere else—a back alley, even an open street in the middle of the day—she’d have known how to handle. But this palace, full of hidden passages and deadly doors…
Lory shook her head, wondering if she should say something in her defense or just swallow Lenya’s reprimands.
“I wish you were here,” she thought at Khayrivven instead, well aware he wouldn’t hear her. “I’m so tired, and once I stop being angry, I know I’ll cry.” Because she’d taken a life—deserved or not.
His form flickering in the dim light, Lenya stalked from her left to her right, scanning her bloodied dress.
His astral form. When Khayrivven had first mentioned it, she had struggled to imagine what an astral projection would look like, but as she stared back at the Master of Whispers, he looked exactly the same, dressed in black with a sword at his hip.
Well, his deep umber skin was slightly luminescent, and the edges of his form blurred as he moved, but apart from that, he did seem like his corporeal version.
“At least you chose a spot that made for an instant kill … despite the mess you made.” A frown formed on Lenya’s face; he folded an arm across his chest and lifted his free hand to his chin, smoothing an invisible beard.
“You could have made the kill out in the alcove and dragged the body into the pyramid,” he scolded.
“Since the slice through his throat suggests you know how to take the voice of your target as you dispatch him, I am certain you could have managed the same effect outside—before you compromised yourself the way you did.”
He paused long enough for Lory to feel the urge to say something.
She held her tongue, trying not to let her eyes wander to the front of her dress, to the proof of what she’d done. Or to the corpse a few feet away.
“You did manage to lure Niely away from the crowd, though. That was well done.”
Lory hadn’t expected any praise, and no matter how true, Lenya’s words felt like a slap in the face.
“We might use you more often to take care of enemies among nobility since you have such a talent to use all your assets.”
Despite the suggestion in his voice, Lenya’s assessing gaze was academic, clean and cold, and showed no interest. With a nod to himself, he gestured at her hand—the knife still clutched there.
“Put that away, and report back to Ashthorn Ward. The doors on your way will be keyed to your powers for one passing. Get rid of the body on your way out.” His form started flickering. He had nearly vanished when his form flared into full view one last time. “And don’t leave any traces.”
Then he was gone.
Lory didn’t know how she made it through the endless corridors with a dead body in tow, but somehow, she did.
She’d cut off strips of her skirts to tie them around her wounds and around Niely’s neck.
Even when his heart had long stopped beating, blood was still dripping from his throat.
Once that had been taken care of, she mopped up the pool of blood with another piece of her skirts and stuffed the fabric into the front of Niely’s tunic.
The rain-soaked textiles wiped away the last of the crimson stains so that they wouldn’t be suspicious should anyone else get to this secret corridor tonight, and once it dried and dust covered the spots in question, they would be well enough concealed to draw attention. Time would do the rest.
She was panting as she dragged Niely’s body along the narrow path connecting the palace and Ashthorn on the face of the rock they’d been built upon, glancing up every other second to make sure no one spotted her, but the path had been so expertly carved that neither of the buildings were visible most of the time.
Halfway to the hidden door into Ashthorn, she peered over the edge, estimating the distance to the desert beneath.
If she dropped him there, wild animals would feast on his flesh in the night, and birds of prey would pick his bones clean.
And in a month, even his skeleton would be nothing more than bleached spikes in wandering dunes.
With a shiver of disgust, she lowered him to the ground, sliding her hands out from beneath his armpits, where she’d been pulling, and started the process of taking off every piece of fabric, metal, and gemstone he had on his person.
When she was done, she hauled him up with what was left of her strength and dragged him onto the hip-high wall of hewn rock.
For a moment, he teetered there, until Lory gave him a final push.
Swallowing her nausea, she watched as the corpse fell into the wet sand. Before she turned away, she bowed her head, paying her respect to a man who might have deserved the punch she’d delivered, and a stab—but not death. Not like this. Not a planned assassination.
And even though the rain washed the blood off her hands, she’d never forget the feeling.
When Lory returned to the Ward, a bundle of blood-and-rain-drenched clothes and a heap of steel and jewels in her arms, she didn’t bother to look over her shoulder.
She limped straight for her rooms, trying to forget who they’d belonged to.
She limped up the stairs from the dungeons, listening to the silence from the direction of the cells.
If Khayrivven’s plan had worked, she wouldn’t know.
All he’d shared was that, if things went according to plan, they’d be out by dawn, and she didn’t have the strength to make the turn left to find the cells full or empty.
Didn’t want to seal anyone else’s fate that night.
Up and up, the path dragged on, her legs heavy and her breath not fully recovered since she’d dumped Niely’s body. If Khayrivven was close by, he didn’t step out of the shadows to let her know.
“I’m going to change before I find you,” she thought into the gloomy torch glow as she climbed the next staircase, then the next, until she stood in front of her room.
She hadn’t reached for the doorknob when the door swung open and Anees greeted her with the expression of a sassy mother hen.
“If you hadn’t just delivered death, I’d make a joke and say you look like it, Fire Bug.
” With a firm grip on Lory’s wrist, she pulled her across the threshold and straight into the adjacent bathing room.
The moment Lory’s boots touched the stone tiles, she doubled over and vomited all over the rug in front of the simple bathtub, the bundle in her arms clutched to her chest.
“I—”
“You did what you had to do,” Anees interrupted her before she could spiral.
“I’m a mur—”
“Brave woman who did what she had to, to protect herself and the ones she cares about; that’s what you are.”
“Stop inter—”
“Interestingly, Khayrivven said the same thing when he came here to dump eons of guilt on me half an hour ago,” she said with a grin, helping Lory sit up, and she leaned her against the side of the bathtub.
“Now let’s get you out of these clothes and back into a uniform.
You seriously look like you’ll be sick all over the floor again. ”
Anees wasn’t wrong. Lory retched three more times before she managed to climb into the tub and wash off her guilt and shame.
By the time she was done scrubbing herself clean, Anees had sorted through Niely’s belongings.
“We’ll need to burn the clothes,” she said as Lory dried herself off.
“But there are some sweet bulbs among his jewelry. They might fetch a nice price when you sell them. And the weapons…” She counted.
“Three sharp knives at a temple ceremony at the Tears of the Gods.” She shook her head.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Niely was up to no good. ”
Tunic half over her head, Lory shot Anees a look. “He told you?”
Anees merely smiled, again that motherly expression taking over her face. “Khayrivven is the big brother I never cared to have, and much as he can annoy me, when he shows up half in tears, I’ll listen to whatever he has to pour his heart out about.”
Tears swam in Lory’s own eyes as she reached for the bond inside her chest, gently stroking the glowing gold. “Thank you.”
They did no more talking as Lory got dressed and strapped on her shortsword.
Only when she was ready to face Lenya did she pick up one of the jewels she’d collected from the lord’s hand.
A ring that might identify him, should anyone stumble across his remains in the desert.
She pocketed it and put on a grin that would make Khayrivven proud.
Before she left, Lory rushed to Anees’s side, placing a hand on her arm. “If you ever want a sister you never cared to have, you know where to find me.”
Anees glanced up from where she’d settled on her bed. “I’d be honored.”
The door fell shut behind Lory, and she descended the stairs in deliberate steps, reminding herself that she was still a human being—with more fairy blood than might be popular for the century she’d been born in, but still human.
The hallways lay deserted at this time of the night, not even the regular watch spaced out along the walls. Only when Lory approached the main level of the pyramid, where the mess hall was situated alongside a few offices, did Lory glimpse black-clothed tested on guard duty.
Lenya hadn’t given any specifics of where to find him, and she hadn’t asked, but now … now she wondered if that had been shortsighted of her, if Lenya had expected more of her.
Forcing more bravado into her prowl and her voice than she felt, Lory approached one of the students to ask for directions and was surprised to find a familiar face. Not a tested, but a thornling.
“Jarek,” she huffed.