Page 99 of Wild Flame

I jerked back out of sight when I saw Nilfren was indeed inside. He was standing behind a small desk, his thinning hair mussed as if he had been running his fingers through it. His brow was pinched as he glared down at some papers before him.

I itched to get inside and see what he was staring at so intently. I knew it couldn’t be anything good if he was keeping it here rather than in his rooms in the palace.

Just then, footsteps sounded, and I heard the door to the room open. Whomever it was did not bother to knock.

“All right Ambassador, what is so important that you had to drag me down here to see it?”

My entire body froze as I recognized the voice.No! It couldn’t be.What was Leif doing here? Daring to peek back down, I saw I was right. His back was to me, but it was definitely him.

“This,” Nilfren said, showing Leif something on his desk. Leif stepped forward, moving so I could now see his profile. Whatever Nilfren was showing him, Leif looked unimpressed.

“None of this matters,” Leif said after a few moments. “Why haven’t you shut it down?”

I had never heard his voice sound like that before, so low and deadly.

Nilfren took a slight step back. “I don’t answer to you. And I told you, it’s more complicated than that.”

All my hopes that Leif wasn’t mixed up in whatever Nilfren was involved in went out the window with his next statement.

“When I figured out what you were doing, I held my silence only so that Halmar would not be implicated in your scheme after the attack on the city.”

“I told you he didn’t tell me what he intended on Unari,” Nilfren said, sounding slightly desperate, while still trying to maintain his normal haughty bluster. He straightened his cloak. “I had no idea the drug was even capable of something like that.”

From his unsettled expression, I actually believed the horrible man. And who was this man Nilfren had mentioned? Another conspirator? But I was barely even focused on that. I couldn’t believe that Nilfren had just confirmed what we suspected, that Fleshfire had had something to do with what had been doneto Ramin and the attack on the city. And that he was not only involved, but so was Leif.

“That doesn’t matter,” Leif growled. “Do you think the Zehvitian king will care if you knew or not? All that will matter is that the Halmarish ambassador is behind the operation to import Fleshfire into his country. And that Fleshfire was used in an attack on his capital. If this gets out, it could spark another war.”

“He’s not going to find out,” Nilfren huffed.

“Not if you shut down the whole operation, like I told you to.”

“But he—”

Leif gripped Nilfren around his throat, and the older man’s eyes bulged. “Shut it down,” Leif ordered. “Now. I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care about whoever is pulling your strings. Just get it done.” He leaned closer. “And if any of this comes back on our king or our princess, I will have my dragon burn you alive.”

Nilfren nodded frantically before Leif released him. Just then, Leif’s gaze darted in my direction and I jerked back out of sight.

Realms!

My eyes closed for a moment as I turned motionless, trying to meld with the shadows around me, willing myself to be invisible, willing Leif not to have seen me or feel the need to investigate.

There was a pause where no sound came from within. I waited. Holding my breath.

Then the sound of a door opening and footsteps receding.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thanking all the Nine gods that Leif hadn’t had Wormoth with him tonight. Otherwise, my hiding spot would have never held up. Most likely his dragon was somewhere nearby, but Leif wouldn’t have wanted anyone knowing he was here, and dragons were too easy to identify.

I didn’t dare move as I waited to see if Nilfren would leave as well. Thankfully he only stayed a few more minutes. No doubtregaining his composure before he too left. I stayed hidden for a while longer until I knew for sure he wasn’t returning.

I was sweating under my clothes as I twisted around. Then it only took a few seconds to climb down onto the sill and drop inside. The room boasted nothing but a large desk and chair and a small bookcase. Large wooden beam rafters crisscrossed the ceiling.

Adrenaline hummed in my veins as I wasted no time in silently making my way over to the desk. Letters and correspondence that had obviously been written in code covered the top. Careful not to disturb anything from its place, I picked up a document that caught my eye. Dozens of lines of neat script filled the page, carefully cataloging all sorts of goods and supplies and the times and dates the shipments had arrived. I quickly realized it was a shipping manifest or log of some kind. But what was odd was that a small asterisk had been noted by several shipments, all of which sailed from Nevgard to Taveran specifically. Those had to be the Fleshfire shipments.Then something else caught my eye. One of the marked shipments had the same date as my voyage to Taveran. I looked at the name of the ship, and sure enough,The Sea Dragon.That had been the ship we sailed from Halmar. Scanning down the list, I saw that name appear several times. I had no way of knowing what it was Nilfren had brought Leif here to see—the thing he had been so dismissive of—but this information was incriminating enough.

I heard a noise outside in the hall and dropped the paper as I darted for the window and back up to the roof.

As I made my way back through the city, my mind was consumed with the thought that Leif was involved, however reluctantly, and that he had known all this time about who was truly behind the attack on the city, but hadn’t said anything. Hurt and anger warred inside me at the realization.

I needed to tell Malik that we were right about the connection to Fleshfire, and that it was somehow used to control Ramin in the attack, and that Nilfren and Leif were involved. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell him without letting him know I had snuck out, but I would worry about that later.

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