Zenia held the ambassador’s gaze as she spoke, her green eyes boring into his. Shoyalusa threw back his shoulders and returned her stare, not looking flustered.
“There will be no more trouble if you simply let bees in their hive stay there,” he said. “Trust that my people will handle any problems among our own kind, and we have no need of human intervention.”
That wasn’t the answer Jev had expected. It almost sounded like an admission. Had that furtive elf truly done something criminal? Something the ambassador didn’t approve of?
“Normally, we are happy to let your people handle your own kind,” Targyon said when Zenia didn’t reply right away—she and the ambassador were busy staring at each other, as if they were locked in some magical mental battle. “But you can understand how important it is for me to bring to justice whomever is responsible for the murder of my cousins.”
Jev thought the ambassador’s nostrils would flare in indignation at the statement, or maybe he would flinch if he knew something about it, but he did neither. He did not even seem to hear the words. His gaze was still locked with Zenia’s.
Targyon looked at Jev. As if he knew what to do.
A faint blue glow seeped out through the front of Zenia’s dress. A green glow emanated from the dragon tear on the elf’s chest. The glows mingled in the air between them like mist rolling in from two fog banks.
Jev was not wearing any weapons, but he tensed, ready to spring to protect Zenia if the mental sparring match started to look dangerous.
“Ambassador,” Targyon said firmly, attempting to draw the elf’s attention, “what do you know about the deaths of my cousins? Was one of your people responsible?”
Zenia staggered back, lifting her hands as if to defend herself. Jev jumped forward, whirling toward the elf as he placed himself between them. But the ambassador also staggered back, raising his hands defensively.
He recovered before Zenia did, snarling and pointing past Jev’s shoulder at her as he glared at Targyon.
“That’s quite a bauble you gave your forces, King Targyon. Do you know the lineage on it? I’ll wager I can figure out which of my people it was originally stolen from.”
Targyon flinched, no doubt remembering the elf princess and the vision the artifact would have shared with him, but he did not retreat from the ambassador’s glare. “Do not change the subject, Shoyalusa. Tell me what you know of the deaths—the murders—of the princes.”
“I know nothing of their deaths. My kind only monitor the goings on of humans so best to know when you intend to make war on us. We do not interfere with your rule, and we do not murder people.” The ambassador backed several more steps, glancing at Zenia as he did so.
She had lowered her hands, the pained grimace on her face disappearing. Now she gazed calmly at the elf. Knowingly? Jev hoped so.
“Since this reception of yours was a thinly veiled excuse to interrogate me, I will depart now.” The ambassador glanced at Zenia—no, at her chest and the faint blue glow still escaping the confines of her dress. “I’ll be certain to send you the details of that dragon tear when I learn them, so it can be, if you are an honorable ruler, returned to the family of its rightful owner.”
“A dwarf, right?” Jev asked. “According to the vision I saw, dwarves mined out all the dragon tears and only gave them to elves for safekeeping.”
Targyon cleared his throat. Right, this wasn’t what was important tonight. The elf was trying to divert their attention.
“Ambassador,” Targyon started, but Shoyalusa thrust up a hand.
“I’m done here. Goodnight.” He bowed like he had a board glued to his spine, then stalked out of the ballroom.
“Zenia?” Jev hoped she’d learned what they needed. Had she found a way past the elf’s dragon tear for a mental probe?
Targyon coughed, drawing a concerned look from both of them.
“Sire?” Jev rested a hand on his shoulder as four of his bodyguards approached. “Get a doctor,” he ordered one of them.
“No, no,” Targyon rasped, lifting a hand. “I’m fine.”
“Get a doctor,” Jev repeated, using his sternest commander’s voice.
He braced himself, expecting Targyon to argue further and expecting the bodyguard to be unwilling to disobey him. But one of the men ran off, not waiting for a counter order.
Targyon sighed at Jev, but all he did was wave the other three bodyguards back and focus on Zenia. “Did you learn anything useful, Captain?”
Zenia nodded. “He’s not positive, but he believes one of his guests created the modified bacteria that was used against your cousins.”
Targyon clenched his jaw and glanced at the exit the ambassador had taken, as if he meant to chase after him. Jev tightened his grip on Targyon’s shoulder. He and Zenia would handle the ambassador, if he needed to be handled. It was that wall-climbing cloaked elf that they truly needed to locate.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask him if he knew if the guest had delivered the infectious agent or if he had inside help. It’s likely he doesn’t know. The guest—I’d recognize him if I saw him because his face was clear to me in the ambassador’s thoughts, despite his attempt to block me—has spiky brown hair, not typical for an elf. He’s a renowned scientist, or was, back in his homeland, but he joined the—I can’t pronounce it, but I think it’s their word for the young elves who wanted to do something about humans.”
“Xilarshyar,” Jev supplied. “They’re the ones who, with their anti-human talk, caused King Abdor to preemptively and perhaps prematurely start a war. I don’t know if they were ever actually going to be a threat.”
This new development made Jev wonder if perhaps Abdor hadn’t been premature, after all.
“He’s no longer welcome in his homeland because of his association with them. That’s all the ambassador knew for certain. This guest—I believe it is Yilnesh, the one you saw—didn’t confess anything to him. He simply showed up, asking for asylum, and the ambassador granted it without question, as that’s their way.” Zenia met Jev’s eyes. “If we could find this elf, and I could question him, perhaps we could get a confession.”
“And he could tell us who his inside ally is,” Jev said grimly, looking at Targyon, at the sweat gleaming on his forehead. “And if that ally just struck again.”
Targyon grimaced, but he didn’t deny the possibility. Maybe he knew in his heart that someone had gotten him. Damn it, how? Jev knew he was being careful—he’d seen Targyon carrying around a sealed water bottle that he’d pulled up from a well himself. And Jev hadn’t seen him eat anything lately.
Zenia looked toward one of the exits. It was the one the ambassador had gone out. Two guards in the hallway were whispering to two more guards stationed inside the door.
“Trouble outside,” she whispered, a distant aspect to her eyes. Her dragon tear glowed softly again.
“Sire?” Jev considered the nearby bodyguards, wanting to know they were capable, determined, and deadly before leaving Targyon. “Will you excuse us?”
Targyon waved them toward the door without hesitation, but he added, “Don’t dally for long. I have more people I want Captain Cham to help me drive out of the ballroom.”
“She would be happy to do so, Sire.”
Zenia gave him a dirty look but strode for the exit without responding.
Jev hurried after her. As soon as they stepped into the hallway and out of sight of the guests, her walk turned into a run.
“I sense—er, my gem does—that there’s magic being used in the courtyard.”
A distant crack sounded, muffled by intervening walls.
Jev grimaced, running to catch up with her. “I sense that there are guns being used in the courtyard.”
Castle guards flowed out of side passages ahead of them, the armed men also sprinting toward the courtyard. More shots rang out, louder as Jev and Zenia drew closer. He passed her and raced out on the heels of the guards.
The uniformed men drew pistols
and ran straight across the garden-filled courtyard after a cloaked figure sprinting for the front gate. There should have been guards standing at that gate, but Jev only glimpsed one man, and he lay crumpled and unmoving on the ground.
Jev ran after the guards, intending to join them in chasing whoever was fleeing, but a gasp from one of the garden aisles made him pause. A familiar young woman lay on the ground, slumped against the side of a fountain and clutching her abdomen.
“Lunis!” Zenia yelled, racing up behind Jev.
The young woman grimaced and shook her head. By the light of the lanterns burning along the walkways, Jev could see blood on her fingers.
He stepped toward her, but Zenia gripped his shoulder.
“Go after that elf,” she ordered. “I’ll take care of her.”
“You’re sure that was him?” Jev flung a hand in the direction the cloaked figure had gone.
“I’m sure.”
“Think he’ll be heading back to the embassy?”
“Or fleeing the city. But start there. He may have belongings to collect.” Zenia ran up the garden aisle to kneel beside Lunis.
Jev raced toward the gate. Just as he was thinking that a horse would make chasing down a criminal easier, two guards rode around the castle from the direction of the stable. They stared intently at the gate even though the elf had disappeared through it already.
Jev lifted his hands and stepped into one man’s path. “Hold!” he cried, hoping he wouldn’t spook the horse. “I’m Zyndar Dharrow, and I know where that elf is going. I need a mount.”
“Elf?” one of the guards blurted. “It was an elf? Did you see—”
Jev ran to the man’s side and dragged him off the horse. There was no time for chitchat now.
Fortunately, the guard didn’t fight him. His comrade was already riding through the gate. Jev guided his horse to follow him, hoping they could overtake the elf before he made it to the city walls.
But as soon as Jev cleared the castle, he saw the cloaked figure far, far down the road. He was on horseback too.
Jev nudged his mount into a gallop and leaned low over the horse’s neck. He doubted he would catch his fleeing foe before he reached the city, so he hoped he knew where the elf was going.
Zenia gathered Lunis in her arms, her gut lurching at the sight of blood—so much blood—smearing the young woman’s hands and leaking onto the flagstones.
“What happened?” Zenia knew Lunis would want a hospital, not an interrogation, but she had to find out what was going on, how that damn elf had sneaked into the castle, and if he’d been there long enough to infect Targyon with more of that bacteria.
“I… screwed up.” Lunis squinted her eyes shut, and tears leaked from the corners.
“It’s not your fault that you didn’t get him. He’s evaded all of us so far.”
Zenia closed her own eyes, listening as the sound of hoofbeats faded, and brought one hand up to her dragon tear. She had absolutely no knowledge of how to use magic to heal wounds, but so far, the gem had shown itself powerful and versatile. Was there any possibility it could heal Lunis?
Unfortunately, she received a sensation of uncertainty, followed by apology.
Not your fault, she told it silently. Can you sense anyone around with a dragon tear geared toward a healer? Doubting the gem understood the Kingdom Tongue, she changed the words into thoughts, hoping the dragon tear could work through her to do as she wished.
“It is my fault,” Lunis whispered after a long pause. “I knew he’d be here, but I still missed finding him. I should have warned the king. I just couldn’t without…”
Zenia shifted her attention to Lunis, to her face, but she hadn’t opened her eyes.
“Why didn’t you?” Zenia asked quietly.
She wasn’t sure how, but she had the sense of another dragon tear in the castle on the move. Coming toward them?
“Ma’am?” a guard asked, one of the men who had come too late to chase after the elf. Other guards were lifting the fallen man at the gate. To take to a healer? Or to bury? “I can carry her inside.”
“I don’t think it’s safe to move her,” Zenia said, hoping she understood her dragon tear correctly and that a doctor was coming to them. “If you see any doctors, please send them. Agent Drem took a gut wound. It’s bad.”
“I see, ma’am. I—all right, stay there. I’ll be right back.”
“Lunis?” Zenia prompted again as the man jogged away. “Help is coming. Don’t go anywhere.”
Lunis laughed shortly—it sounded like more of a cough—and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. “Got what I deserve.”
“What? Why? You didn’t answer my question about the king.”
More tears trickled from Lunis’s closed eyes. “Do I need to?” she whispered.
It took Zenia a moment to realize Lunis referred to her profession, her ability to interrogate people and read minds with the help of a dragon tear. Something she now had once again.
Zenia hesitated, reluctant to stress Lunis further by poking into her mind, but she suspected she needed the answers locked away in there. And she also sensed Lunis wouldn’t say any more. Why?
Images floated into Zenia’s mind, more vividly than she had ever experienced when seeking out truths with her old dragon tear. Instead of simply getting the gist of whether someone was lying or telling the truth, along with a few fleeting thoughts, it was as if she relived Lunis’s memories with her. More, she could pull up the memories she wished… Such as one from the month before.
Lunis was at her home in the city, a modest one-room flat that she’d had since she’d first become a detective for the watch. She could afford a larger place now that she received a Crown Agent’s salary, but she was comfortable here, and didn’t see a need to move. Perhaps one day, when she found an endearing man to share her life with, she would consider a change. Or if her father ever relented and agreed he should stay with someone who could help him. She’d stopped by to visit him on her way home from work, but, oddly, he hadn’t been there. With his missing leg, lost in a factory accident, he rarely went anywhere, not wanting to deal with the stump and cane.
A knock sounded at the door, and Lunis rose, wondering who would visit her an hour after dark. A stranger stood in the hallway outside, wearing a hood and a cloak. She glanced toward the chair where her weapons belt hung, the pistol in its holster.
“There is no need for a weapon,” the cloaked figure said in a lilting accent. “Not if you cooperate.”
Lunis frowned and stepped casually toward the weapons belt, but the figure’s hand darted out, capturing her wrist before she realized he’d moved. With his other hand, he pushed his hood back, revealing short brown hair that stuck up in spikes around his head—and around his pointed ears.
She gasped and tried to yank her wrist away. He appeared slender, but a grip like iron held her tight.
“That is not cooperating,” he said coolly. “Your father would not approve.”
Lunis froze. How could this strange elf know about her crippled father? For that matter, how did he know her? Why had he come, and what did he want?
He smiled, a cold smile, and withdrew a vial from a pocket. “I need you to deliver something for me.”
She shook her head.
“If you don’t, your father will never be returned to you. Nor will he see another sunrise.”
Ice ran down her spine. “Where is he?”
“Safe. For now. As long as you do what I say.” The elf tilted the vial so she could see murky liquid inside. “You work in the castle and can get close to the princes whenever you wish.”
Four founders, what horror had come stalking her?
“Not easily,” she whispered. “I work in the basement.”
“You are trusted. You’ve worked there for two years. Your colleagues—and the princes—find you earnest and attractive.” He smirked, an unfriendly smirk.
How could he know all this?
The insid
e of her skull itched, answering the question for her. He was an elf. He had magic. Maybe mind-reading magic.
“I need you to divide this into three doses and slip it into the drinks of the three princes. All on the same day. Tomorrow.”
She shook her head again, and his grip tightened painfully on her wrist. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“You will do it, or your father will not live.”
She blinked, trying to keep tears of pain and horror from forming in her eyes. “I can’t betray my oath, my king, or his sons.”
“You’ll be betraying nothing. All this will do is make them more willing to listen when my ambassador goes to visit them this week, to make another attempt to end this war your people have started and dragged on and on.”
“The princes aren’t the ones who made that decision. The king—”
“If it works on them, we’ll then use it on him. I’m a scientist, you see, and I’ve made a serum specifically for those of their bloodline.”
“A negotiation serum?” she asked skeptically. She had never heard of such a thing.
“It is merely designed to make them more agreeable, more sympathetic to my people.”
A thousand objections sprang to her lips, but his grip tightened again, and he leaned forward, holding the vial before her eyes.
“The choice is yours.”
He pressed it into her hand, then strode out, disappearing into the hallway.
“Some choice,” she whispered, staring down at it.
“It wasn’t a serum,” Lunis whispered, finally opening her eyes, though they were glazed, and Zenia worried she didn’t see her, didn’t see anything anymore. “It was a poison.”
“Actually, it was a bacterium,” Zenia said, aware of someone walking up behind them.
“I’m Dr. Hy,” a woman said.
Zenia knelt back from Lunis so the healer could get close.
“The result was the same,” Lunis whispered, not acknowledging the doctor even when she knelt on her other side and helped lie her flat on the flagstones.