Chapter 22
CHAPTER
A wrenching pull of magic broke through the haze of Vaasa’s sleep.
She sat up, ragged breaths spewing from her lips, and the motion was so violent she rolled off the couch and hit the floor with an echoing slam.
Pain shot up her shoulder and side. She rolled onto her back, her thick quilt now tangled around her.
“Sleep well?”
Vaasa froze. Immediately she registered the rays of late morning light that filtered through the stained glass window, washing the floor in red, blue, and green. And that voice.
She turned her head and saw Ozik. He stood near the entrance to the entertainment space, dressed in brown breeches and a tucked-in white blouse with his formal blue Asteryan coat. His arms were crossed, a scowl firmly planted upon his face.
Her mistake registered at once, the events of the previous evening replaying in her head.
She had slept through their morning training.
“You certainly gathered enough attention coming through the main gates in the latest hours of the night,” Ozik said. “Though no one seems to have a record of you leaving.”
Vaasa pulled herself up, clutching the blankets to her chest. “I snuck out with my lead sentinel,” she proclaimed. “It wouldn’t be difficult for him to erase those records, would it?”
Ozik snorted. He uncrossed his arms. “Really, Vaasalisa, if you’re going to commit cold-blooded murder, you should do so with a less scandalous alibi.”
Vaasa’s wide-eyed frown was the picture of shock. “What?”
Ozik tilted his head, assessing her. “You look genuinely surprised. Is it a ruse? I can never tell with you, I taught you so well.”
“What are you talking about?” Vaasa demanded, rising to her knees and then to her feet. Fatigue racked her, but she pushed through it, clinging to her performance.
“Lord Vlacik was thrown out of a fifth-story window last night,” he told her. “At The Lady Fortune.”
The sight of his body crumpled on cobblestone would follow her for years, both a daydream and a nightmare. Her lips parted, then snapped shut. She raked a hand through her tangled hair. “He’s dead?”
“Obviously.”
“I had nothing to do with it,” she said, pushing Reid’s face from her mind.
Sarcasm coated his tone. “You seem positively bereft, though.”
“Am I meant to mourn a monster?”
“Even monsters have funerals.”
Vaasa stared at him, unsure of what to make of all these tidbits of seemingly useless wisdom. “Please don’t harm Amalie,” Vaasa said instead. “I’ll come with you now to train.”
But Ozik shook his head. “It’s all right, given we’re celebrating.”
She arched a brow. “Celebrating?”
“The only high-ranking noble with knowledge of our magic is dead. You might have been forced to marry him if he’d gone to extremes to win your hand.
So put on mourning garments, hang your head in solemn prayer at the Citadel, and then tell the people we are going to discover who did this. And tomorrow, we will breathe easier.”
Vaasa almost gawked. Ozik had wanted Vlacik to die? Suddenly, she didn’t think her alibi mattered at all to him. “Are we actually going to try and find out who did this?”
Ozik only shrugged. “If someone’s imprisonment is convenient.”
The next person to challenge them would find themselves guilty of a murder, then.
He walked to the door, his voice threading the air. “And anyway, everyone at The Lady Fortune wears masks, so how could we ever be sure? We only know one detail about the killer.” Ozik turned to face her, his hand on the door. “They were wearing a sentinel’s jacket.”
It took every ounce of Vaasa’s self-control to maintain her composure and keep her breathing even. Would she cause Roman’s death once more?
As he opened the door, Ozik said, “We leave for the Citadel in twenty minutes. Mourning garments.”
“You’re in Asteryan blue,” Vaasa replied.
He grinned and repeated her words, voice smooth as silk. “Am I meant to mourn a monster?”
Thick snow crunched beneath Vaasa’s feet as she walked into the center of the city square, the Sanctum on one side of her, the Citadel on the other. She stood just in front of the iron pole at the center.
The clock tower on the Citadel chimed noon.
Nobles and merchants and workers all surrounded the platform she stood upon.
Sentinels covered every inch of the square, eyes scanning the crowds while Vaasa and Ozik addressed the people.
She rambled on, honoring the service Lord Vlacik gave to Asterya, speaking on the security of the city.
Some listened, others were clearly waiting for Ozik to speak.
It wasn’t uncommon for him to deliver addresses on the throne’s behalf; he was their closest advisor and served on their council, after all.
He quickly took over, but Vaasa remained where she stood in a foolish attempt to make herself seem less like a figurehead.
When he finished, they stepped off the platform and marched into the Sanctum, the nobles following.
Vaasa scanned the crowd, sighting Lord Karev in the madness.
His inky hair had gathered small flakes of snow in the places it burst from his fur hat.
He was deep in conversation with someone.
She veered from the throne room and started up the stairs in what she knew looked like an effort to avoid him.
She passed Roman, cresting the top without looking back.
“Heiress,” Lord Karev called. “A word?”
Vaasa looked over her shoulder, finding the lord already most of the way up the staircase. “Let him pass,” she said to Roman.
Roman narrowed his eyes, but she held his gaze without budging.
As was mandatory in a moment like this, Roman stepped aside, lowering his head to Lord Karev, who strode past him.
The lord quickly took the responsibility of opening the door instead of allowing Vaasa to do so, his arm sweeping through the threshold. “You first, of course.”
Vaasa gave an urbane smile as she stepped past him and into the large council room where many of the nobles would soon join them. A large table sat in the center, surrounded by at least ten chairs.
“You look positively lost in thought,” Lord Karev said as he approached, so close that she had to crane her neck to meet his gray eyes.
She unclasped the cloak at her shoulders and swept it from her body, settling it neatly on the chair they stood next to. “So much to think about.” She was careful to keep their proximity casually close, but had put enough distance between them to feel safe.
“A shame about Lord Vlacik,” Lord Karev said.
Vaasa nodded. “A terrible crime. Though I suppose you were right about what you said the other night; he was frequenting the brothel.”
His lips pursed, his cheeks still reddened from the cold. He leaned his hip against the table. “I suppose we all have our hidden tastes.”
Her words from the night before, echoed back to her as a threat.
He knew.
Precisely as she’d assumed.
As she searched for a worthwhile response, she gave the appearance of a woman caught in a lie, but before she said anything, a small chuckle emanated from him.
And he thought he had her.
“An affair with your lead sentinel, how groundbreaking.” Lord Karev slid farther onto the table, sitting entirely upon it now. Any hint of the charm he’d previously spun for her was gone. “Unless, of course, you had an ulterior motive for being there last night?”
He was pinning her into one confession or another: Either she’d been there enjoying the brothel for its original purpose with her lead sentinel, or she’d had something to do with Vlacik’s murder.
But if he already knew she’d returned to the fortress with Roman, it either meant the whispers had become widespread or he had eyes and ears somewhere in the fortress’s ranks.
Vaasa shook her head. “I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about.”
Lord Karev smiled wickedly. “Every idiot outside of this room is whispering theory after theory, but I know something they don’t.
Something far more interesting. I’m involved in a great deal of trade along the continent, and for the first time in my life, I met with an Icrurian salt lord last night. ”
Vaasa paused. This was not something she thought he would jump to.
Lord Karev continued, “What I’m trying to decide is if your presence last night was merely serendipity, or if it’s no coincidence at all that you and he were in the same place at the same time.
Either you’re a murderer, or you’re just like your father, because all the best players know serendipity is simply successful scheming. ”
While Karev might be brazen and perhaps unhinged, he certainly wasn’t unintelligent, which Vaasa had known from the moment she laid eyes on him.
If he had put together who Reid was, they were all dead.
But he hadn’t said as much. He was accusing her of many things, but a clandestine meeting with her Icrurian husband wasn’t one of them.
Vaasa tried desperately to think on her feet. All the lord wanted was for her to think he had the upper hand, and no matter what he said, she had more leverage than he ever could: She could make him an emperor.
Vaasa put on a subtle meekness meant to soften her features. It was best he thought her afraid of him, or at least more powerless than she was. “We’ve found ourselves in a precarious position, haven’t we, Lord Karev?”
The man looked smug. His body relaxed, ease pouring from his posture as he sat unbothered in front of her. “Why don’t you explain it to me.”