3 #2
“The Alpha candidate is in perfect health. The household register, however, lists a relative named Liora Valen—a Beta with chronic respiratory deficiency who consumes unusual amounts of low-grade suppressants. It’s not a crime, but it indicates the family spends more on illicit apothecaries than they report to the tax office. ”
The door to the examination chamber burst open before I could reply.
Captain Riven Thorne strode into the room with the heavy tread of a man carrying news too urgent to wait for the next guard shift. The hem of his Crown service cloak was stained with fresh mud, and the hilt of his shortsword was bound with the regulation leather wrap of the assault patrols.
At thirty-three, Riven was one of the most effective Alphas in the Asteria garrison: square jaw, dark hair cropped close to the skull, and gray eyes that swept the corners of any room before looking at people.
He smelled of fog-soaked leather, hot horseshoes, and that martial dryness of men who sleep with their boots on.
“My lord,” he said, squaring his shoulders with a nod barely sufficient for protocol. “The lower wharf patrol intercepted a shipment at Lock Four two hours ago.”
I stood up, grateful for the interruption.
“Common contraband?”
“Not exactly.” Riven moved toward the marble table and set a waxed-canvas bag, soaked with river water, on the edge.
“Two smugglers with flat-bottomed skiffs were trying to unload this into the tanners’ shed.
They ran when they spotted the torches; one fell into the water, and the other swallowed a poison capsule before we could bind his hands. ”
Iven frowned and moved his test tubes aside to make room for the bag.
“Fast-acting poison? That’s not typical of river thieves.”
“That’s why I came directly here instead of sending the report to the city watch,” Riven answered, untying the hemp cord with deft fingers. “There was no silk or spirits in the cargo—only this.”
He emptied the contents onto the white marble.
Six greenish glass jars, without labels or guild marks, rolled across the stone. Beside them fell three strips of cloth steeped in dark wax, a set of blank lead seals, and a small parcel wrapped in sheepskin.
Iven pulled on thin leather gloves before touching the jars.
“These vials came from an illicit still,” the physician murmured, holding one up against the light of the oil lamp. “The liquid is thick, with sediment at the bottom. It smells of willow bark and bitter salts. Unregistered, homemade suppressants.”
“There are thousands of those in the slums,” I said, looking at Riven. “Day laborers use them to hide that their children are Omegas and keep the Council’s lineage inspectors from forcing them onto the service registers.”
“Day laborers don’t pay rowers with silver coins minted in the west, my lord,” Riven countered in a dry voice. “And day laborers don’t carry this.”
He took the sheepskin-wrapped parcel and slit it open with the tip of his dagger.
Inside, there were no drugs or coins.
There was a scrap of heavy parchment, the size of an open palm, torn at the edges as though ripped in haste from a larger document.
In the upper right corner, the impression of a dark blue wax seal was still visible, cracked diagonally and bearing the broken crest of a wave crowned by a crescent moon.
The Gray Tide.
The air in the chamber seemed to grow heavier. Riven kept his eyes on the parchment with that professional coolness that always made me wonder how much of what he knew never made it into his official dispatches.
“Where exactly did they find the boat?” I asked.
“At Lock Four, my lord. The one connecting the eastern canal with the secondary branches running toward the farming districts.”
“That lock is under the watch of the north gate guard,” I noted, fixing my gaze on his face. “It’s not a route a smuggler picks unless he knows beforehand which shifts have orders to overlook small parcels.”
Riven didn’t blink. Not a single muscle in his jaw betrayed unease.
“I’ve ordered the corporal of the watch for that sector arrested for interrogation tonight. Security at the river approaches has been reinforced since noon.”
“See to it that the interrogation is run by an officer I trust, not one of yours,” I warned him, taking a step toward the table. “And I want a full report on the estates supplied by wagons from that canal before the week is out.”
“Understood, my lord.”
Iven, who had been examining the scraps of waxed cloth with a silver spatula, suddenly lifted his head.
“Lord Corven.”
There was something in his tone—a clinical tension, unusual in such a sober man—that made me turn at once.
“What did you find?”
“Look at this.” Iven brought the tip of the spatula toward the flame of the charcoal brazier.
A sticky residue, clinging to one of the cloth strips wrapped around the jars, began to heat with a faint hiss. A wisp of white smoke rose toward the vaulted ceiling.
The scent reached me before I could take two steps.
It wasn’t the aggressive pine of Lady Vanya. It wasn’t the tamed honey of Lady Mirren. It wasn’t the perfume of any noble Alpha, nor the bitter reek of cheap suppressants flooding Asteria’s slums.
It was rainwater falling on warm stone in the middle of a summer night.
It was a wildflower opening in the shade of a deep forest, damp and alive, and beneath it all, like an undercurrent carrying sand and crushed shells, a sharp note of salt, clean and wild, alien to any corner of these dry valleys.
Beneath my ribs, the primal beast didn’t growl.
It rose to its feet.