Chapter Forty-One Reckoning
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
RECKONING
Lennox Raulin’s eyes were heavy-lidded. He lifted his head sharply, smacking the wood post to which he’d been firmly tied.
Barrels of gunpowder and coils of rope were stacked along the walls, and moonslight drifted across the floor through the small porthole window behind him.
He yanked on his bonds and mumbled something that sounded like “What the rotting hell?” before it turned into a fit of coughs.
Reya’s words were filled with quiet venom. “Burns, doesn’t it?”
She’d chosen Veraquisin—or as it was known on the black market, the Blind Mist—as her poison of choice.
It was the same smoke the Silver Guard had tried to use on her and Caelan.
She would have used Twilight, if only for better poetic justice, but she and Lennox needed to have a chat, and for that, he needed to be able to speak.
Lennox’s gaze snapped to the shadowed corner where Reya sat perched on the head of an oak barrel. He took in the Crimson Dagger armor, the cloak, the ruby hilt at her hip, and the familiar sword once again peeking over her shoulder.
He saw the monster of his own making, finally come to destroy him.
Reya had known the sword was too great a prize for Lennox to sell; it was proof of his patience, a symbol of his genius.
She’d found it mounted over his mantel in a spot that had long been empty—more evidence that he’d always intended to betray her.
She’d pulled Caelan’s Earth Star ring from Lennox’s finger, and it now hung once again from a silver chain around Reya’s neck.
“Hey, kiddo,” he rasped.
Reya knew in that instant she should have killed him and been done with it. But instead she’d gone to ridiculous lengths to have this conversation. One that would surely do more harm than good.
“You want to tell me what we’re doing here?”
Reya examined her nail beds. “You’re trying to find a way out of your bindings, and I’m deciding whether to end you now or later.”
His mouth curved. “If you were going to kill me, you would have done it already. Instead, you’re over there debating whether to ask questions you don’t want answers to.”
He might as well have laid her open like a book and read her aloud.
She leaned forward into a shaft of moonslight. “Do you truly have nothing to say to me?”
He didn’t look even the slightest bit concerned for his situation. “You were going to throw your life away. I needed to remind you of who you are.”
“You honestly expect me to believe that this was all some lesson?” She lobbed back the words he’d once said to her, each one sharp and deadly. “I’m not that naive. Not after everything you’ve taught me.”
He looked almost proud. “I knew if you could be bested by a bottle laced with Twilight and you never made it out of that prison, then you did not deserve the gifts I gave you. But if you did, then you would have finally learned the truth. You and I, we aren’t like any of them.
We are creatures of our own creation. We do not belong to this world.
It cannot contain us. When you came to me, you were a helpless child.
Now look at you. The fiercest woman in the empire—the Crimson Dagger. ”
He’d always thought of himself as other. Destined for greatness. But he was just a man who liked to collect valuable things to make himself feel powerful.
“My name is Reyanwyn.”
“Oh, is it now?”
“No more games. How long have you known?”
He snorted. “You were an eleven-year-old buying ingredients for blood tonics from back-alley vendors with stolen coin. I knew what you were from the first. I had planned on taking that sword and selling you to the Silver Guard the night I followed you.”
She’d expected as much, but it stung all the same.
“I almost did. But then that cretin crawled into your hovel, and I hesitated. Just because I wanted to see what you would do. You killed him without a moment’s hesitation. That’s why I chose you. You are to this day the greatest treasure I’ve ever stolen.”
Tears of rage and sadness burned her eyes. But she didn’t give them an inch. She swallowed them down deep and said through her teeth, “Was I only ever a means to an end? Or was there a time that you truly cared for me?”
He was quiet for a long moment before he said, “One doesn’t raise a child from such a young age and not come to care for it.”
She shook her head in disbelief. And yet you handed me over to them.
“Not what you wanted to hear, was it? You’d rather I was a heartless bastard. It would certainly make things easier for you.”
“You are a heartless bastard.”
“But you’re not,” he sighed. “Despite my best efforts. Come on, kiddo. You’ve proved your point. I’m impressed. Not many people can smoke me out of my own home in the dead of night. But we both know you’re not going to hurt me. So untie me, and let’s go have a drink.”
Maybe he had cared for her. But it didn’t change what needed to be done. Caelan had been right. No good was ever going to come from trying to understand this man’s mind. Only hurt.
Lennox saw the decision in her eyes, and smiled faintly. “So be it.”
“You deserve death. And you shall have it. But not yet.” The room rocked gently to one side, the oil lanterns on the wall swinging from the force of the wave. He noted the movement, and she could have sworn his face paled.
Two weeks. That’s how long it had taken to pull everything together. All for this moment.
“Your vault at the Royal Bank of Rhiterra was a sight to see. No surprise there, given all the coin I’ve paid to you over the years.”
Every trace of humor faded from his face. His expression turned cold and calculating, as if he were a different person entirely.
Reya smiled. There you are. “It was the least you owed me. I brought most of the money I stole back—I opened several accounts, in fact, under new names. I couldn’t very well go around using the old one after you gave it to the Silver Guard and let them gut my flat.
Though, I was relieved to find that you saved my armor and sword.
Too bad you couldn’t be bothered to do the same for my books.
I’ll never get those back, you know. Countless priceless tomes, gone.
” She glared at him as she unsheathed her ruby dagger and twirled it between her fingers, watching the shifting of his wrists as he sought again to loosen the sailor’s knots.
“You know, I suspected that Domwell St. Lucius was dealing under the table after I had a look at the repair logs for the Balfour and saw how many times he’d been back and forth from Delthia over the past several years.
But I wasn’t certain until I saw the ledgers in your townhouse.
” She flipped the dagger between her pointer and middle fingers.
“When the Crown started racking up debts it couldn’t pay to St. Lucius for the war it’s trying to start with Delthia, you gave St. Lucius the idea to sell across the sea to make up for his losses.
” She caught the hilt and pointed it at him for emphasis.
“You knew all the right people—you just couldn’t leave this continent yourself.
So you used him as a go-between. You set up contracts with foreign dealers from your past life and helped him smuggle the weapons out, all in exchange for a percentage of his business.
To think, all those shipments you had me and the Bluehoods courier to the docks were St. Lucius weapons.
Now he’s dead, and that infrastructure all belongs to you.
It’s a sweet deal. Unfortunately, selling to the enemy makes you a traitor to your country. ”
Lennox jerked against the ropes, his control snapping. She clicked her tongue.
“The king’s council received evidence of your treason this morning.
With your home ransacked and your accounts emptied, it was all too obvious that you’d fled the empire.
Your suppliers and distributors are being questioned as we speak.
Your facilities and storehouses have all been seized in the name of the king, but they’re of little value now that they’ve all been razed to the ground.
After the Bluehoods and I smuggled out your latest shipment of weapons, of course. ”
Once Reya had convinced the Bluehoods that Lennox was dead, they’d jumped on the opportunity she offered them—to crew for her instead. And she wasn’t about to let the king get his hands on all that steel. It was theirs now.
“If you kill me, both your brothers will die.”
Reya spun her dagger again. “Not likely, seeing as most of the underworld already thinks I killed you. That took some effort, by the way. Setting the Bear and the Bard on fire really helped drive my point home.” She’d never felt as satisfied as she did watching his eyes flash with the kind of helpless rage she’d felt for years.
“No one is going to follow the orders of a dead man who cannot pay them.”
“Every crook and killer I’ve been making rich will come for your head,” he pivoted.
Her lips pulled at that. “Don’t worry, they’ll still be getting rich. Gavin and Zaim are taking over your operations. The ones we left intact, at least. The money will keep flowing so long as everyone falls in line. Those who don’t… Well, they can certainly try to come for me.”
“Arrogant until the last,” he said with a deadly laugh. “So what now?”
“You die,” she said. “The thing is, I want you to live with the knowledge I’ve just given you. For a bit longer at least.”
“We both know that if I leave this room with breath in my lungs, I will always be a threat to you.”
“Oh, I have a friend who’s going to make sure that’s not the case,” Reya said.
The moment the words left her mouth, the grate over the stepladder to her left swung open, and a pair of knee-high boots dropped through the hatch. Followed by a black captain’s jacket. Familiar braids swayed against a red satin corset as the newcomer ambled down into the smuggler’s hold.
“You’re familiar with Reardon Voláni. This is his daughter. Kalúe. I believe you have something of hers.”
Reya’s eyes fell to the medallion around his neck.
The captain’s smile was nothing short of wicked. “Welcome aboard the Acadia, Lennox Raulin.”
Lennox swore colorfully.
Reya knelt before him as he struggled, elbows resting on her knees.
“Do you know what the Kalterrans do to traitors?” His rage was so thick she could practically taste it.
“They tie them to the tallest mast and sail for seven days and seven nights. Only when you are parched and starving, blistered and burned, do they chum the waters of the Searing Sea and throw you over the side. A man once made it three days in the water before the sharks scented the blood.” She leaned in as close as she dared.
“When the sun rises, I will not spare another thought for you. You will be a stranger to me for the rest of my days.”
He knew defeat when he saw it, and still he smiled. “Keep telling yourself that, kiddo. I’m a part of you. I always will be.”
To that, she said nothing—simply stood and sheathed her dagger, brushing Kalúe’s shoulder as she passed. “He’s all yours.”
Reya didn’t look back.
Across the harbor, the silver rooftops of Edris glistened beneath the starry sky. Kalúe leaned against the rail of the Acadia beside Reya, arms folded.
“You’re certain you don’t want to kill him yourself?” the captain asked.
Reya looked to where several crew members were perched on the mainmast sail, securing the ropes that would hold Lennox on their journey.
“The fate you and your father have planned for him is more original than anything I had in mind. Besides, I like the idea of him hanging up there for seven days and nights, thinking about all the money I took from him.”
Kalúe whistled long and loud. “You should have been a pirate.”
Reya smiled for the first time since she’d left Caelan two weeks ago.
That had been their compromise. To go halfway together.
Something she’d only agreed to after welcoming a storm-wielder into their camp.
He’d flown overhead while she and Fionán traveled north through Rhiterran villages, stopping only to send a message via porter to Kalúe in Port Talluah and barter the emerald sword she’d stolen from the prison for a horse and some supplies.
She’d regretted their compromise the moment he’d flown away, choking back her tears with a forced smile so as not to frighten the child who was counting on her to be strong. Caelan had a job to do. And so did she.
She glanced over her shoulder to where an old deckhand was teaching Fionán how to tie a sailor’s knot.
Kalúe followed her stare. “He’s a quick little thing. My crew will keep him safe. Give him a place here. He’ll make a fine pirate.”
Reya smiled. She’d called in her life debt to give the children she’d rescued from Bladestone Prison a place on the Acadia and other ships in the Voláni fleet, vessels that could outrun and outgun Rhiterran warships, away from the land fighting that was sure to come.
But they’d had to travel here light and fast past legions of soldiers, and Reya couldn’t risk bringing all of them at once.
As Fionán tied the ropes, she thought of the other five children for whom she would need to find another way.
She would take them to the coast one by one if she had to. “I think so, too.”
She would keep Ash away from the ensuing conflict, too. He was safer now on the cattle ranch than he was with her, at least for the time being. The thought broke her heart, but it was nothing compared to the possibility of losing him.
“So what now?”
Reya’s eyes lifted to the palace shimmering in the snow-capped peaks. “Now the game begins.”
Perhaps the world just needs you exactly as you are.
She was no one’s weapon. Not Lennox’s, not the Order of Light’s, and not even Una’s.
For the first time in her life, she belonged wholly to herself.
And she would face whatever her actions had wrought on her own terms. Not as the Guardian or as the Crimson Dagger.
But as Reyanwyn. All her life, she had become what she needed to survive. She could do it again.
“You can’t take the empire on alone, thief.”
Reya tossed the captain an arch look. Everyone thought it would take an army, but she knew sometimes all it took was a well-placed blade. “Says who?” Though she knew she wasn’t alone. Not anymore. And that made all the difference.
“Me.” The captain drummed her tattooed fingers on the railing and stared across the moonslit bay, to the city beyond. “What would you say to another business proposal?”
Reya’s lips twitched. “I’m listening.”