Page 42 of The Study of Poisons
“A good question. The very same one I was going to ask you.”
“How should I know?” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Brazell’s guards I could understand. But magicians! It’s not like I’ve been going around making southern magicians angry.”
“Ahhh…that’s a shame. Since you have a real talent for angering people.” Valek sunk into the chair by his desk and rested his throbbing head in his hands. “A southern magician, Yelena, a master-level southernmagician.Do you know that there are only four master magicians in Sitia? Four. And since the takeover, they’ve stayed in Sitia. On occasion they send a minion or two with minor magical abilities into the Territory to see what we’re up to. So far, each spy has been intercepted and dealt with. Commander Ambrose will not tolerate magic in Ixia.”
And it was damned inconvenient for Valek. Needing to move, he stood up and snatched a gray rock from his desk. Carving helped focus his thoughts, perhaps just holding a stone would help as well. He paced around the living room. Yelena pulled her legs underneath her.
“For the southerners to risk one of their master magicians, the reason has to be…” Valek squeezed the stone in his hand as he searched for the right descriptor. She needed to know the danger. “Momentous. So why are they after you?” He sighed and sank down on the couch next to her. “Well, let’s try to reason this out. You obviously have some southern blood in your heritage.”
“What?”
Why was she surprised? Had she not noticed her skin tone? Or were the other children in Brazell’s orphanage similar in coloring?
“Your coloring is a bit darker than the typical northerner,” he explained. “Your features have a southern quality. Green eyes are very rare in the Territory but are more common in Sitia.”
She stared at him in shock. Did she believe these qualities were bad? In his opinion, they enhanced her beauty.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he reassured her. “When the King was in power, the border to Sitia was open to commerce and trade. People moved freely between the regions, and marriages were inevitable. I would guess you were left behind right after the takeover, when people panicked and fled south before we closed the border. It was complete mayhem. I don’t know what they were expecting when the Commander came to power. Mass killings? All we did was give everyone a uniform and a job.”
Her frozen expression remained, and he regretted having implied her parents had left her behind. What a terrible comment. He didn’t mean to imply that. She was probably an orphan before the takeover and the people in charge of her care left her behind. No, that didn’t sound nice either. The silence lengthened.
“Well, anyway, I digress.” Valek stood and resumed his pacing. “I doubt it was missing family members. They wouldn’t want to kill you. Is there anything else, besides murdering Reyad, that you did in the past? Witnessed a crime? Overheard plans for a rebellion? Anything at all?”
“No. Nothing.”
Valek tapped the rock against his forehead. Why had he said, ‘other than murdering Reyad?’ He really needed to stop talking and go to sleep before he wrecked their tenuous relationship. “Then let’s assume this has to do with Reyad. Perhaps he was in league with some southerners and your killing him ruined their plans. Maybe they’re scheming to retake Ixia. Or they think you know something about this plot. But I’ve heard nothing about Sitia attacking us. And why would they? Sitia knows the Commander is content to stay in the north and vice versa.” Valek rubbed a hand over his face. The bruises ached.
Ignoring the pain, he continued, “Perhaps Brazell has gotten creative in his old age and hired southerners to kill you; thereby accomplishing his desire to see you dead without implicating himself. No. That doesn’t make sense. Brazell would have hired thugs, no need for a magician. Unless he has connections I’m not aware of, which is highly doubtful.” Valek looked around the room as if the answer lurked in a shadowy corner. Instead, he noticed the sky had lightened, signaling the sun’s arrival. Setting the rock down, he finished extinguishing the lanterns, but his thoughts kept burning.
What else would be important enough for Sitia to risk a master-level magician? There were currently no Sitians in the dungeon awaiting execution, so no one to rescue. People born with magical abilities were rare, and only four people presently had master-level powers. He froze as a thought occurred to him. He gazed at Yelena. Couldshebe a magician?
“What?” she asked in alarm.
“Magicians will come north to smuggle one of their own kind to safety,” Valek said. But he had sensed no magic from Yelena. “Then why kill you? Unless you’re a Soulfinder, they wouldn’t want you dead.” Sitians feared Soulfinders, who were rumored to be extremely powerful and dangerous magicians who ignored the Ethical Code that governed the magicians. But there hadn’t been any Soulfinders in a century. Regardless, nothing about the attack made sense. Valek yawned and the ache in his jaw flared to life. “I’m too tired to think straight. I’m going to bed.” He walked to the stairs.
“Valek.”
He paused with his foot on the first step, hoping it wasn’t important.
“My antidote.”
“Of course.” Normally, he would wake up at dawn, draw a dose of White Fright for her, and bring it downstairs.
Valek trudged up the steps. No footprints disturbed the powder he’d sprinkled in front of his bedroom doors. And the thin paper he’d wedged between the door and the ceiling remained in place. When he’d worked as an assassin, he frequently laid in wait in his victim’s bedroom, and he took cautions to ensure that didn’t happen to him. It was a pain in the ass to reset his safeguards every day, but well worth the effort.
Even with his precautions, he checked for intruders before unlocking his cabinet. With piles of rocks and books heaped on top, nothing about his poison chest stood out from the rest of the furniture crammed in his room. However, a searcher would find it in no time. And that lock would easily be bypassed by removing the pins in the hinges. Or a sharp ax would work as well.
As he filled a pipette with Yelena’s “antidote,” he wondered if she had explored upstairs. Did she spot the powder and avoid his bedroom? There were plenty of other rooms to investigate.
By the time he returned downstairs, the sunlight had strengthened and illuminated the nasty black and blue bruise that ringed Yelena’s neck. Anger surged through him. That master magician wouldn’t survive another encounter with Valek.
“You might want to wear your hair down today,” he said, handing her the pipette.
“Why?” She ran her long fingers through her hair. They caught in the once bright ribbons that were now dull and torn.
“To cover the marks on your neck.” Not that the Commander cared, but anyone who encountered Yelena today would notice and wonder what happened. Valek enjoyed having a ruthless reputation—it made his life easier at times—but the thought of anyone believing he could strangle or harm Yelena—a person he was actively protecting, a person he had to admit he’d grown to care for—upset him very much.
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