Blood Ties

  “Training?” Jev asked. “Shouldn’t we be trained ourselves before we train other people? So far, we’ve been, uh, winging it.”

  Zenia’s mouth twisted in wry agreement.

  “You’re doing fine.” Targyon said. “Both of you. But I did ask Zyndar Garlok to bring up the handbook before he— Well, he talked me into letting him stay, so he’s not leaving. Make sure you interview him first, please. He was contentious when we spoke. I wasn’t sure if he was truly affronted because I was questioning his honor, or if it was an act, and I have to worry about him.”

  “I’ll be happy to interview him, Sire, and did you say someone knows where the handbook is?” Zenia’s eyebrows rose hopefully.

  “Zenia has been looking for it since we first arrived,” Jev said dryly. “I believe she’s hoping for something organized and cohesive with strict rules and guidelines for us to follow.”

  Zenia nodded. “I like structure.”

  “I’m not certain the handbook Garlok brought up will provide that,” Targyon said, “but you’re welcome to update it as needed.”

  “Thank you, Sire.” Zenia peered around the room, even glancing under the bed’s canopy, as if Targyon might have put the precious item in a hidden spot up there for safe keeping. “Is it here? Do you have it now?”

  “It’s on one of the bookcases in my office,” Targyon said. “Please grab it on the way out.”

  “Thank you.” Zenia turned, as if she would sprint for the office that very second.

  Rhi cleared her throat and shifted her bo to block the door. She tilted her head toward Targyon.

  Jev watched curiously.

  “Oh.” Zenia turned back to Targyon. “Sire, you said we might need to hire new people? Would they all need to be previously trained as intelligence gatherers? Or could someone with more of a meditating, martial background be taken on?”

  Rhi shot Zenia a suspicious look at the meditation mention, but when Targyon gazed toward her, she stood up straight and brought the bo to stand vertically next to her, like a second lieutenant assigned the duty of displaying the company colors in formation.

  “If you find someone you believe you can train to be a good agent, I see no reason to object,” Targyon said. “Right now, finding people I can trust means more to me than pedigrees.”

  Zenia nodded thoughtfully and looked like she was trying to find a way to officially ask if she could hire Rhi.

  Since Targyon had dark circles under his eyes, Jev decided to use zyndar bluntness and move things along. “Rhi, you want a new job?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You’re hired.”

  “Good.” Rhi nodded curtly.

  Zenia blinked a few times at this abrupt job interview. Targyon smiled faintly. It wasn’t the chuckle Jev had hoped for, but at least he seemed to have relaxed.

  A knock sounded at the door. “The doctor’s here, Sire,” a bodyguard called.

  “Send her in,” Targyon said.

  “We’ll leave you to get checked out by the doc,” Jev told Targyon. “If there are any problems you need solved while you’re recuperating, you know where to find us.”

  “Are you sure he’s not waiting for a solution to the silk pajamas?” Rhi murmured as their little group turned for the door.

  “I trust he can figure out that going naked is the only logical solution,” Jev said.

  “That might alarm the lady doctor,” Rhi said.

  “Nah, Targyon is a pretty boy. She’ll like it.” Jev looked back over his shoulder to find Targyon’s hand over his face again. “Goodnight, Sire.”

  “Goodnight, Jev.” Sarcasm dripped from Targyon’s farewell. “I may fire you in the morning.”

  “So long as you’re alive to do so.”

  Epilogue

  Zenia breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm her mind and seek the steadying peace deep within herself. She hadn’t meditated in weeks, and it felt strange doing it here, in front of a single candle and a tiny dragon figurine instead of in the temple with all its candles and the massive statue of the Blue Dragon founder. Still, she found she liked the privacy, liked that she had been given a room in the castle with enough space for a bed, a desk, bookcases, and a small shrine in the corner with a pillow on the floor for her knees.

  The comfort of meditating in a private space wasn’t enough to keep her thoughts from straying and her nerves from bouncing around in her stomach. Tonight was her first date with Jev.

  It had been four days since the elf scientist had been arrested, his fate not yet determined. He was currently residing in a cell in the castle’s dungeon. Lunis, though she may have wished otherwise, had survived the gut wound and was recovering under the watchful eye of a healer. Once she was well, she would leave the capital—and the kingdom—forever. Targyon hadn’t had the heart to order her execution, but he had exiled her. Zenia thought it was the right decision and hoped Lunis would be able to start over and find a new life in another kingdom.

  With these matters settled and the investigation officially closed, Jev had pointed out there was no reason they couldn’t go on their date. And Zenia had agreed.

  Giving up on meditation and any hope of achieving inner calmness, she rose to her feet. She stepped in front of the mirror to check the makeup she’d used to conceal the faint bruise left from Yilnesh’s punch. Her cheek appeared normal. A good sign.

  She smoothed her dress, a loose, flowing red and cream garment that didn’t suffocate her as she wore it, nor did it push her breasts so far north that they were in danger of falling into the Anchor Sea. She’d recently purchased it, so it was a current fashion, and she liked how it hung on her, though the way it left one of her shoulders bare did seem risqué to her. She hoped Jev would like it.

  But maybe it would be better if he didn’t like it too much since she had to tell him… Well, she hadn’t figured out what she would tell him yet. But if she kept kissing him, he would surely expect it to lead to sex. And while the primal part of her, the part of her guided by instincts and a yearning for pleasure, would like to engage in that with him, she couldn’t. Not unless he had marriage in mind, and she feared he did not. She was reluctant to bring it up, for she would be disappointed when she found out for certain, but tonight, she would tell him her stance.

  “Rotten gort of a topic for a first date, eh?” she muttered to her reflection in the mirror.

  But after all they had been through together, this had to be more like their tenth date. Would he expect it to lead to more than kissing? She lifted her chin. If he did, he wouldn’t by the time the night was over.

  She grabbed her brush off the bureau, glancing again at an unfolded note atop it as she brushed her hair. It was the message Rhi had delivered the night of the reception. Zenia had forgotten about it until she removed her boots late that night and the envelope fell out. The single small piece of paper that had been inside read: Do not trust Agent Drem.

  That was it. No signature or seal on the envelope, nothing. Days later, Zenia still had no idea who had sent it. Rhi hadn’t known how or when it appeared on Zenia’s bed in her old room in the temple. It could have been there for days before someone noticed it. What Zenia couldn’t understand was how the sender had known about Lunis’s betrayal and that Zenia was now an agent interacting with her but hadn’t known she no longer lived at the temple. Had it simply been easier to deliver a message there than to the castle? Had the person assumed someone would send it right over to her?

  She set down the brush, leaving the mystery for another time.

  A rhythmic knock sounded at the door, and she knew it was Jev. The pattern contained his irreverence.

  “Come in, Jev,” she called, smoothing her dress one last time before turning to face the door as it opened.

  Jev smiled at her, a picnic basket in one hand and something flat wrapped in brown paper and ribbon in the other. The ribbon came together in a lopsided bow that hung limply off-center, and she could tell he’d wrapped the gift himself. Z
yndar weren’t likely schooled on such things as children, having legions of servants who could wrap presents for them.

  “You’re supposed to be looking at my dashing figure rather than my mangled bow,” Jev said, following her gaze.

  She grinned at him. He was dashing. He wore slacks, a tunic, and jacket in his family colors, a less formal version of the quasi-military outfit he’d worn at the reception. The lines of the garments drew the eye to his broad shoulders, narrow hips, and flat stomach.

  She felt a twinge of disappointment that she wouldn’t be having sex with him tonight. Also a sensation of panic that if she didn’t have a relationship with him, the only man who hadn’t found her career as an inquisitor daunting, nobody else would ever be interested. Not that she wanted someone else. He was someone she trusted and cared about more than she would have thought possible after such a short time. Especially considering he was zyndar.

  She tried to refocus her panic by pointing at the gift. “You brought me something?”

  “I did, but the fact that you didn’t agree to my self-assessment of dashingness makes me have second thoughts about giving it to you.”

  “Oh? You only give gifts to people who agree with your delusions?”

  “They are the best kinds of people.” Jev walked into the room, holding the gift out to her as he looked her up and down. “You are beautiful. New dress?”

  “It is. I got my first pay as a Crown Agent, so I mustered all the feminine blood in my veins to go shopping. Rhi went with me, though not to the hoity toity Silver Ridge district this time.” Zenia had been tempted to visit the jewelry store there to show off her new dragon tear, but it was technically the king’s dragon tear, and who knew what people would assume if she admitted she was carrying it for him? Probably that she was his mistress rather than his agent. “Weavers’ Row had an excellent selection and more reasonable prices.”

  “It’s a lovely dress. Is your pay adequate?”

  “The same as yours, I imagine.” She had received a slightly higher purse than she’d earned from the temple, and now that she had a room at the castle and was allowed to dine with the staff here, she was coming out ahead.

  “I don’t get a salary.” He smirked. “It’s my honor as zyndar to serve.”

  “Does that mean you have to rely upon your father for an allowance?” She knew his family had land and money aplenty, but she was less certain how much of it Jev had access to until his father passed. She could imagine him resenting a lack of independence in that regard.

  “Nah. I own the majority shares of a couple of the family businesses that my grandmother and grandfather on my father’s side left to me and my brother.” His smirk faded. “They’ve all fallen to me now with his passing. Not that he ever paid attention to them anyway. Admittedly, I haven’t paid attention to anything these last ten years either. I’m lucky my cousins Wyleria and Neama keep an eye on things. They have hefty shares, too, and we split the profits at the end of the year. Whatever doesn’t get invested back into the businesses.”

  “What types of businesses are they?”

  “Some are gold and silver mines in the Erlek Mountains. Big, burly, and manly mines.”

  Zenia arched her eyebrows. “Am I to assume from that addition that you also own businesses that don’t fit that description?”

  “Possibly. And maybe it’s ironic that the mines actually came from my grandmother? Grandpa Jev, the man I was named after, left me an herbal shop known for making blends to help women with, er, female problems. There’s also a chandlery, a meadery, and a seamstress shop that specializes in sewing dolls.”

  “Are the dolls manly and burly?”

  “They actually feature monks and mages from the various temples.” His smirk returned. “Perhaps I’ll request a Water Order inquisitor for next season’s offerings.”

  “I’m not sure many little girls would want to play with an inquisitor.”

  “The blue robe is kind of pretty.”

  “I do miss it sometimes.” She decided not to mention that it still stung to have gone from being someone in the city famous for her job to someone who probably wasn’t supposed to mention that her job existed.

  “It couldn’t have been nearly as exciting as your new job. We stormed an elven tower together. Next thing you know, we’ll be sent into dragons’ caves to retrieve the treasures for the king.”

  Zenia thought of the warning Cutter had given her about her carving and decided she wanted to stay as far away from dragon caves as possible.

  “When I was an inquisitor,” she said, “I got to run through mangrove swamps with criminals.”

  “I assume you refer to the Fifth Dragon thugs who were chasing us rather than to me. Since I was never a criminal.”

  “Hm.”

  He squinted at her, then handed her the gift. “If you don’t open this soon, I’m going to assume you don’t want it and keep it all to myself.”

  “Is it something you’d want as much as I would? Such as an inquisitor doll?” She accepted the gift and decided it was a book rather than a doll. A large, heavy book.

  “I prefer the real thing to dolls, but if you keep teasing me about it, I’ll make sure the shop makes some soon. And then give you a bunch of them. You can line them up on that wardrobe there, and the dolls can ask you deeply personal questions.”

  Zenia, busy unwrapping the book, did not reply. She soon discovered a brand-new, leather-bound tome with Alderoth Castle embossed on the front.

  “Crown Agents Operations Handbook,” she read the title, then grinned as it sank in. “Is this—?” She flipped through the pages. “Everything that was in that mess of a handbook in the king’s office?”

  “It is. Organized, updated, and printed by a scribe with a neater hand than a press. The three agents I put to work on this kept sending me murderous glares until I promised they could take a couple of days off after they finished. That worked on two of them. Zyndar Garlok is still giving me murderous glares.”

  “You had him do it?”

  “He’s the one who let the old one become a mess. He deserved the job.”

  “I won’t disagree with that, but are you allowed to make zyndar do tedious things like organizing notes?” She paused to lovingly touch a page full of charts, then flipped to the back and found an index that included several appendices of supplementary material. She hummed with approval and pleasure at the organization.

  “Certainly. As zyndar, it’s our job to serve the king, whether it’s tedious or not. In Taziira, I once spent three days stirring a pitch concoction we made to repair our tents after hail the size of dragon heads attacked the camp with greater fervor than the elves ever did. Now, my lady, if you’re done caressing my gift, may I escort you to the library where you can caress something else? My salami, perhaps?” He waggled his eyebrows at her, hefted the picnic basket, and tipped his head toward the door.

  Zenia almost dropped the book at the blunt innuendo, and her concerns that he would expect to have sex with her tonight rushed back.

  “I refer,” Jev said, lifting the lid of the basket and delving inside, “of course, to the dinner salami.” He waved a large wrapped log of cured meat before returning it to its home. “I also have cheese, grapes, laffa bread, and honeyed pastries. You can caress whatever appeals most to you.”

  “You’re a naughty man, Jevlain Dharrow.” Zenia lost that edge of panic that had lurched back into her mind, but she still felt ridiculously nervous over the conversation she needed to have with him.

  “I don’t have the faintest idea what you mean.” He closed the lid of the basket and extended a hand toward the hallway. “Shall we?”

  Zenia smiled. Despite her nerves, she looked forward to spending time with him, quiet and relaxing time, with neither an unsolved case nor threats to the king looming over their heads.

  She stepped into the hall with him and took the arm he offered. “I’m ready.”

  After all Jev and Zenia had been through together i
n the last couple of weeks—by the founders, had it even been two full weeks yet?—he shouldn’t have been nervous about spending time alone with her. But as they ambled arm in arm through the castle hallways, the picnic basket bumping against the side of his thigh, he struggled to relax. He groped for things to say, discovered them, but then rejected them before uttering them. They all sounded goofy. Like innuendos about salamis. He wanted to be romantic, not goofy.

  He also wanted her to find him entertaining and endearing enough that she would invite him back to her room afterward, but he wasn’t sure his charm could finagle that. He sensed that she liked spending time with him, even if he was an odious zyndar, but he also sensed… he wasn’t entirely sure. Reserve. It had disappeared the times they had kissed, but it had always come back, leaving him feeling like he had done something wrong.

  Even though the library where he had arranged to have a private room to themselves was in the same castle where they both roomed now, it was a long walk through hallways and down stairs.

  “I hope the fact that you’re bringing that along doesn’t mean you anticipate being bored tonight,” Jev finally said, worried the silence had grown too long.

  Zenia glanced at the handbook resting against her hip and smiled. “Maybe I’m so delighted by my gift that I can’t stand the idea of being parted from it. Or maybe I’m worried someone will steal it if I leave it in my room.”

  “Yes, I hear theft is rampant in the king’s castle. Why would burglars want to target the infrequently visited and often vacant townhouses of zyndar families when they could truly test themselves against the legions of guards and bodyguards here?”

  “Are you teasing me, Jev?”

  “Would I do that?”

  “Because if you were,” Zenia said, “I believe it would be within my right to beat you over your head with your own salami.”

  As she finished the sentence, a couple of maids entered the intersection ahead, their route taking them past Jev and Zenia. They arched their eyebrows and looked curiously at them. One glanced in the direction of Jev’s salami. Not the one in the basket.