Page 70 of Shadows and Flames
Blackwood sneered, tensed muscles revealing his intention of charging toward the exit. I stepped in his path, drew my short swords, and batted his weapon away faster than he could track. It clattered to the ground, and I kicked it away. My eyes were sharp enough to watch it slide, partially underneath a decaying wagon, but his mortal senses could not find it. He drew one of the daggers on his belt instead, the sour scent of fear rising.
“You have an idea of who I’m talking about, don’t you? Are they part of the reason you needed Von Herron?” Meline edged toward the man who bared his fangless teeth and retreated toward the corner, like a threatened animal. “Do you know where they are? How we can get to them?”
Blackwood scoffed, pointing his weapon that now trembled in his fist. “What do you want with ‘em?”
“What doyouwant with them?” Tana asked.
I had no idea who they were talking about, but that predatory focus returned within my queen, and Blackwood was the center of it. Or, the information he held.
“He stole it from me. Needed him to break the deal.”
Meline straightened, rolling her eyes and shaking Von Herron’s head, which she still held. “Why must everyone speak in riddles. We will help you retrieve what he stole if it means getting closer with ‘them’. All right? Can you put your dagger away?”
Blackwood hesitated, lip quivering as he silently spoke to himself, maybe running through the assurance my queen offered, or assessing the odds of him getting past all of us.
The man heaved a weary sigh, his age showing in the husky sound and the wrinkles beside his eyes. He lowered the dagger while not completely relaxing from his defensive crouch. This Blackwood had a right to be suspicious—I would have thought him stupid had he not been—but he was also smart enough to know when he had little other options.
“Great! Now, what can we help you with?” Tana spoke as if she stood at a counter and was greeting a pharmacy customer, not offering a consolation service for a failed contract.
My queen pinched the bridge of her nose. Perhaps I would feel badly if my actions truly kept them from finding Francie.
“How are you going to do that? Von Herron was supposed to come with me, to rearrange the terms of the deal he cut me out of. Can’t quite do that now, can I?” He gestured toward the head Meline had by the hair. My queen lifted it, glancing at Von Herron in his unseeing eyes and tilting her head, as if listening to some silent communication.
And, if by the otherworldly coolness that swept the millhouse, the gentle wafting of black smoke around where she connected with the dead man, she was. Hearing him.
Meline turned, as if following something, and I leaned toward her. To do what, I did not know, but the center of her eyes had turned black and expanded to leave just a thin ring of white around it. Eclipsed, but not entirely.
“You won’t just fucking tell us?” she growled then sighed. Meline jerked her head toward the door and rolled her eyes again at the same time a shot of ice ran down my spine. “He probably deserves that,” she called to no one and was unbothered or unaware of the confusion on my face, the wide stares from the others.
My queen dropped Von Herron’s head, letting it thunk onto the millhouse floor. She swiped her gloved hands together, as if ridding herself of the sensation. With a deep breath, my queen dropped her shoulders and refocused on Blackwood who had slunk further into the corner.
“Apparently, you were not cut out, you were bested before you could do the same to him.” Blackwood opened his mouth to retort, but Meline waved his argument away before he could give it. “I could give a shit about that. The important thing is, he so graciously informed me how to convince them to transfer the same arrangement to you.”
“Who told you that. No one was talking ‘cept for you!”
“Who the fuck else would I have been talking to. Von Herron’s spirit was lingering enough to curse your name, tell me what I needed to know, and fuck off to the afterlife.”
Of course. Death Wielder.
“Bullshit,” the man cursed, and had I not witnessed the might of my queen’s powers, I may have had a similar reaction.
“He said verbatim, ‘Walt is a jealous old curmudgeon with no tact who I could notaffordto include in the bargain, lest he offend them and get us both killed.’” The man went red from hairline to throat. “Luckily for you, I have the knowledge of howyoucan secure a deal yourself to…what? Be the one to transport their goods or something? Paschal was too busy chuckling about you being a cuckold, so that’s an assumption.”
Blackwood spat on the floor while Tana could not contain her giggles, even when she slapped her palms over her mouth.
“That fucker excluded me from a monopoly that made him richer than most of the men on this fuckingcontinent.I took in the fucking street rat only to have him double-cross me.”
“And fuck your spouse, apparently. Shame, mate.”
I reflected on the information I knew of Von Herron, the wealthiest merchant in Morova, the region. They’d not said explicitly, but our employers had wanted him dead for the same reason Blackwood wanted him at his mercy. For greed.
“The Morovan textiles. This somehow is their doing?” I asked. Von Herron had his hand in the textiles now characteristic of Morova, but the iridescent fabric had not always been a staple there. I had traveled long enough to remember a time before such products were available, before even the moderately well-off were able to dress in trappings that glowed and sparkled.
Blackwood’s body trembled, though not from fear. His fists tightened at his sides. “His agreement was binding. They wouldn’t even consider working with me, pledging all loyalty to him.”
Tomás crossed his arms. “And you want to be rich, not just make a living. Fine, are we ready to go?”
“Go where?” the Vyrkos asked, garnering a few glares.
