Born of Fire

Maybe he wasn’t quite the beast his bounty sheet claimed. Maybe he liked Caillen enough to keep her safe in the name of their friendship. Grasping that small hope, she turned to face him. “Since we’re in this mess together, care to tell me why you’re so important to the Rits?”


He opened his eyes and cocked a questioning brow.

When he didn’t answer, she tried again. “Come on, Syn. I’m not green. I know governments don’t expend this kind of energy to go after a run-of-the-mill filch or even a murderer. Nor do they routinely beat their prisoners to a pulp. You were seriously interrogated by someone who knew exactly how to wring the most pain out of you while keeping you alive and able to speak. There’s a lot more to this than what’s on the surface and they want you for something significant. What is it?”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, there’s a lot more to this.”

She waited.

When he refused to say more, she gently poked him in the ribs.

He hissed and smacked at her hand, but not hard enough to hurt her. Then he winced as if his own actions had caused him pain. He glared at her before he spoke again. “Do you really care to know?”

“Yes.”

With another deep sigh, he ran his hand over his whiskers and she watched the play of lean tendons under the bruised skin. “When I was fourteen, I was doing a filch for a certain political candidate on Ritadaria. The information he wanted was pretty routine, just dirt about his opponent and their party. I was going along my merry way, recording and scanning secure chips in their offices, when I accidentally came across Merjack’s personal diary.”

“Chief Minister of Justice?”

“No, his son, who later became president.” He paused. “What I discovered was that the Minister and his son were responsible for President Fretaugh’s death.”

She gaped at his disclosure. “They killed him?”

“In a manner of speaking. Back in the day, the Minister was only a vice warden in our fun little prison. He released one of the assassins for the hit and, once the assassin killed the president, Merjack’s son killed him to keep the man from talking.”

She scowled at his far-fetched story. “That seems like a lot of effort to go to. Why not kill the president themselves?”

“They needed an airtight alibi. What better one than being directly beside the man when he’s executed and the whole thing is being covered by every major news organization in existence? All the assassin had to do was shout out a political statement against the president as he killed him and everyone assumed our friends had nothing to do with it. And no investigation was held since everyone plainly saw it was a psycho zealot who took the president out. Likewise, no one thought twice about the hero who ended up killing the zealot while trying to apprehend him. Ironic really, by killing the man they’d hired to murder the president and covering their tracks, Jonas Merjack was able to secure the presidency for himself. Living proof that there really is no justice in the world.”

Shahara digested that slowly. Now this was an interesting snippet and it went a long way in explaining why Merjack wanted Syn so badly.

Then again, Syn could be lying. Filches had a nasty habit of doing that sort of thing when it suited their purposes. “And you have the chip to prove all of this?”

“Had it.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “What do you mean you had it? How could you let something like that out of your sight?”

He gave her a droll stare. “It was a long time ago and I was a scared kid. Merjack had a separate security feed on the diary which I didn’t discover until it was too late. They were bearing down on me and I stashed the chip barely a heartbeat before they caught me.”

“Why would they go to such extremes to hide their actions only to put it down as hard evidence for someone to find?”

Syn shrugged. “Why do people do anything they do? I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out the stupidity or arrogance of the average person. Maybe he was so proud of it that he had to let it out and since he didn’t dare tell a real person, he told his recorder. I don’t know. All I know is it’s his voice and his confession.”

She wasn’t so sure. This was just a little too much to believe. “How old did you say you were? Fourteen?”

He nodded.

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that a serious political candidate would entrust something as important as gathering campaign secrets to a mere child?”

His features turned to stone. “I don’t give a damn what you believe.”

She scoffed at him. “You really are a piece of work. I almost believed you.”

“You should. It’s the truth.”

Yeah, right. “I doubt you’d know the truth if it came up and slapped you down.”

He glared at her. “And what makes you so sure that I’m lying?”

“Because I was orphaned at sixteen and I know people don’t hire children to do much of anything. The best job I had at that age was scrubbing floors.”

He snorted. “They do when it’s something highly illegal and they know you were trained by the absolute best.”