Page 42 of The King of Koraha
The woman glanced at Rendor in terror. Then she shot a desperate look at Shyla. Their gazes met.Got you. Just like Rendor had intended. Clever man.
“Please excuse him,” Shyla said. “We’re here to ask questions, not accuse you of anything.” Shyla turned her full attention to Izusa, reading her surface emotions.
The woman was skittish and on edge, but her fears were not about being discovered as a thief but being fired. Her brother got her the job, and now that he no longer worked for the King, she worried the new advisor would hire one of his own friends or family members. Izusa really liked her job and the people she worked with. And she loved her brother.
“How long have you worked in the castle?” Shyla asked.
“About five circuits,” she said to the table.
Shyla continued with easy questions, getting Izusa to relax. “No plans to leave even with not being paid for a while?”
“Oh no. I trust the King will pay me when the next round of taxes comes in.” And she hoped by then that Malik—one of the guards—would ask her to marry him.
Then Shyla asked the expected questions about the theft. Izusa claimed her innocence, which was the truth. But she also showed a touch of anger on Malik’s behalf. Everyone always blamed the guards, who had been working hard without pay for over two circuits.
Shyla suppressed a smile. If Malik didn’t ask for her hand, he was a fool.
“Have you heard from Xerxes lately?” Shyla asked.
Guilt welled. Izusa ducked her head. “Yes. He’s doing well in Nintri.” Although she wasn’t sure what he was doing. He’d said he found a job but never mentioned what type of work it was. She understood why he left—he needed the coins and the excitement since the old king had stopped assigning interesting cases to the squads, instead sending them on stupid or boring missions. Izusa had been telling him what had been going on with the new King so when the taxes came in, he could return and be in charge again.
Izusa confirmed what Shyla and Rendor suspected. Shyla asked a few more innocuous questions and dismissed the now relieved woman. Then she told Rendor and Najib what she’d learned from Izusa’s thoughts and emotions.
“You got all that from those easy questions?” Najib asked in surprise. He stared at the doorway. “And she has no idea she revealed so much.”
“No. Not now, but how fast is the gossip in the castle?”
“Unfortunately pretty fast. No one should guess about The Eyes or magic, but they do know you’re investigating the theft.”
“Did they know before we arrived?” Rendor asked.
“No. We weren’t even sure what we’d learned about Shyla was true until she arrived.”
That meant the merc ambush in the desert wasn’t connected to the stolen taxes. Yet another mystery to solve. But one thing was clear… “We need to travel to Nintri.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to miss more, the gamelu sausages, having Hakana as our own personal guide, or the castle’s guest suite,” Rendor said as he finished stuffing his few belongings into his pack. “At least I had time to sell that awful statue of Tamburah.” He jingled the pouch of coins, which only contained a quarter of what he’d earned. The rest of the coins were safely locked away in the King’s vault.
They hadn’t wanted to take them along just in case they were ambushed again. Since they knew no one in the castle had stolen the taxes, they trusted the huge iron door and deep pool of water to do their job.
Shyla would miss the kaleidoscope cave, the dancing water, and their privacy. Nintri was nineteen sun jumps away from Qulsary.
However, she knew they’d be back to give the King a full report. And she hoped they’d have time to see a few of Nintri’s wonders while there. In order to get there without drawing too much attention, Rendor had found them jobs as guards for a caravan heading to the city.
“Did you warn the owner we might run into trouble?” she asked him. It had taken them six sun jumps to find a Nintri-bound caravan that was hiring. She worried that the delay would allow the news about their destination to reach the mercs.
“No need,” Rendor said. “The mercs are not going to waste time and energy setting up an ambush when we’re traveling right to them.”
Good news for the caravan, but for them…not so much. “And what is stopping them from ambushing us in the city?”
“Two things,” Rendor said.
“And they are?”
“Me and you.”
She laughed. “I think one of us has an inflated opinion of our skills.”
“And one of us needs to start being more confident,” he countered, shouldering his pack. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”
