“Not every conversation can be a deep and dark one, Arren. What do you want to talk about? I am absolutely dying to know.”
“I’m pretty interested in siege weapons.” I began to describe how some of them had been employed in the Battle of Typres, when the old king fought the Scourge.
Maybe she barely listened. She had clearly been rattled by her time with Cal. Maybe she deserved to feel that way. I didn’t know.
But when her face lit up with a smile, it still made part of me soften.
“Very interesting,” she said, looking up at me, and I wasn’t sure if she was amused by the siege weapons or by me.
I frowned down at her in confusion.
For once in my life, I wished I was better with people.
Usually, I just wished I was even better at killing them.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Branok
I lifted my binoculars from the table by my balcony and stepped out into the windy night air rushing around the castle. I counted windows in the servants’ quarters that overlooked the street, until I reached Jepia’s window. There was no candle burning there, so I counted two down and five over to Leseder’s. He’d set a candle in the window.
I checked in on my other spies in Pend’s castle, grabbed my cloak, then stopped by Lynx’s room to tell him I had a meeting.
I strolled through the academy into the basement, then came up in an abandoned building. I wiped a cobweb off my face as I strolled through the damp, crumbling old shop—Arren would’ve hated this place—then stepped down into the alleyway.
For a few long moments, I stood there waiting with my hands in my pockets. It would’ve been nice to be wearing a coat, but then anyone watching me would’ve known I was leaving the academy and not heading to the kitchens or the library.
I was watching Pend’s spies. I had no doubt they were watching me back.
When Leseder stepped timidly into the alleyway, I said, “Good evening. Why does it always smell like fish down here?”
When I was a kid, I would’ve thought maybe it was just the smell of peasants. Luckily I’d seen more of the world since then.
“I have to tell you something in a hurry.” He looked nervous. He was a cook in Pend’s castle.
“You aren’t being followed,” I assured him. “I’ve already checked. There’s no one here but the two of us.”
He exhaled shakily. “Well you might want to check again.”
It wasn’t like him to be squirrely. “What has you so worried?”
“I’ve never reported anything before about the assassins.”
Well, he certainly had my attention. “What are they doing now?”
“They don’t have any missions from Pend at the moment.”
Well that was good news. Pend might come after Honor, but I figured Jaik’s obvious attachment to her would stay his hand for a while. Pend had always demanded absolute obedience from his sons, but he wasn’t going to risk destroying his relationship with them over Honor, either.
In a rush, as if he were gathering his strength, he told me, “Faleen has been retching in the morning. One of the maids overheard Pend say that he wouldn’t be sending her out anywhere for a while.”
My stomach clenched at the implications.
Faleen was pregnant.
And it wasn’t like Pend to give a damn…except he and Faleen often had a dalliance.
“Thank you for letting me know.”
Lynx entered the passageway behind me as the man scuttled off. Lynx stopped him with a hand.
“Duck into a shop and stay there for a while,” Lynx ordered him.
Leseder looked at him in confusion. The fact that there were two of us that looked just alike and mimicked each other’s mannerisms so that no one could tell us apart was often disconcerting to people. But he did what Lynx had just told him.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“Interesting turn of events,” Lynx said. “I don’t know what you just found out but I think that our friend was being followed. I don’t know why else Lugan would be engaged in a brisk evening constitutional around the block. He’s not usually the most productive citizen.”
“Well, Pend might disagree. Pend seems to find him very useful.” I was still pissed Pend had Lugan beat Jaik, but Jaik would never forgive me if I made a big deal of his beating. Although what Jaik didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “Perhaps we should make sure that Lugan doesn’t make it back to tell anyone.”
“You have that happy homicidal look on your face again. I don’t know if it worries me or if it makes me intrigued.” Lynx said.
“I think that perhaps we should indeed kill Lugan. And I think we should make it look like Faleen did it.”
Lynx did not look particularly startled by the suggestion. “And why is Faleen even further out of our good graces than usual?”
“Because I think she’s pregnant with Pend’s child. And that will change everything, if the Olds are all still bound to have children in the same season.”
Lynx took this wild new information in with nothing but a slow blink before he processed it. “Our replacements,” he said flatly.
“Our replacements,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we have to make it easy on any of them.”
“I have really wanted to kill Lugan,” Lynx mused. “But I can’t imagine Jaik will be too happy with us.”
I shrugged. “But Lugan was tracking our source. What else could we possibly do? Jaik doesn’t have to know that we have any kind of protective urges for him.”
“I like the way you think,” Lynx agreed.
The two of us headed off to murder a certain unscrupulous assassin.
Everyone needs a hobby.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Honor
The next morning, I woke up with my head against Jaik’s chest and for a moment I listened to the steady rise and fall of his chest. When he woke, he told me, “You know I’ve never slept as well as I sleep with you in the bed.”
“Really?” The thought made me feel both happy and powerful in a new way. “I don’t have any nightmares when you’re in bed with me either.”
It was the wrong thing to say, because Jaik’s face immediately clouded. “What are your nightmares about?”
“Nothing that you can kill,” I said firmly. “So you don’t need to worry about it.”
“You know that you can talk to me about anything, right?”
I didn’t really feel I could talk to him. Jaik was always so strong and stoic. The only emotions I really saw him betray were protectiveness and jealousy. How do you let your guard down and be sad with men who’ve been conditioned to never feel sadness themselves?
But I wasn’t getting into all of those deep thoughts. “Of course.”
It seemed to bother him. But he’d gotten home late, too late for Arren and Talisyn to tattle on me…yet. I knew he was going to be a lot more bothered when he heard that I’d seen Cal the night before. What would set him off more, the sense that I might have been in danger or the fact I’d been with Cal?