Threat

by Drae Box

  Cray frowned, then shook his head as if he’d bitten a sour apple. “It’s fine if you ask me.”

  The griffin huffed.

  Cray gave a sheepish smile. “Minus my just being kidnapped and the crime rise.” He ran a hand down Raneth’s griffin neck. “We should fly back to the palace. Get Raneth checked over. Aldora, was it just you two?”

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Raneth

  Something had changed between them. Raneth watched Aldora as she shared with him her encounters with his assigned criminal, Jules Rivermud, mentally stacking up the additional charges he wanted to suggest to Cray. She paused, frowning. “What?” she asked, hands stilling from imitating the Rivermuds. He glanced at the clock in Quinton’s royal ward. Less than two minutes had passed and Aldora had touched his hand, wrist and arm nine times, and Raneth didn’t know why he was counting, or feeling heat crackling through his veins at each touch.

  He cleared his throat. “What, what?” he asked.

  Aldora gestured at his hand, a fork halfway between his mouth and a plate resting against his crossed legs. “You’ve stopped eating.”

  “Well, you asked me out two days ago. On a date,” said Raneth.

  Aldora smiled, teeth flashing. “Have you only just remembered that? I know you felt like a half-dead rat, but—”

  “No. I just. It feels different.”

  “What does?”

  “Us,” said Raneth, exhaling the word harder than he’d planned to. What was wrong with him today? He glanced at the wall clock again. Quinton was supposed to have discharged him an hour ago. Where is he?

  “Anybody would think you’d never been asked out before, Raneth, or that you’d never asked a girl out yourself either.”

  “I haven’t. I was training to be a royal official from my sixth birthday. Graduated at eleven and then built up more field hours than any other serving royal official.” Raneth shrugged. “Plus Bayre training.” He shoved his forkful of chicken into his mouth and chewed. He wasn’t enjoying the food that much but Aldora’s company made up for it.

  “But you do want to?” she pressed. “To date me?”

  Raneth swallowed then nodded. “Yeah.” He watched her looking at him, eyebrows raised. “You’re nice.”

  The Dagger Bearer shook her head. “I hope that’s not the only compliment you’ve got for me.”

  “You care about others, are stubborn in the best way there is, and you fill me with wonder.” Raneth shrugged then grinned. “And you make my heart beat.”

  Aldora laughed towards the ceiling, whilst a hand pushed against the front of his shoulder. Her laughter slowly dulled and she looked at him again, wiping the corners of her eyes. “You’re such a—”

  “You should be in the field, Bayre,” snapped Rhiannon Danae at the doorway. “Why are you still here?”

  Raneth moved his lunch off his lap and stood up from the bed, turning and straightening as his captain stepped into the room. How long was she standing there? Normally I would have spotted her by now. “Ma’am, I’m supposed to wait for Quinn to discharge me.”

  Danae sucked her teeth. “Consider yourself discharged. My royal officials are not lazy. Get out and take her with you. You need a win after botching up escorting Cray.”

  Raneth glanced at Aldora, watching as her cheeks and neck turned a deep red, her ears even redder. He took her hand and they eased past Danae and to the stairs, heading for the next floor up. Raneth led Aldora to a door immediately on the left of the curling stairs and opened it, revealing a square bedroom. A large double bed sat in the centre of the room, a dark wooden chest nestled at its end nearest the door with a padlock securing its contents. Raneth strode to the right of the bed and kicked a piece of skirting. The wall to the right of the door hissed, clunked and then parted, revealing a stash of weapons hanging on the wall. Retrieving a regulation dark blue royal official belt with silver eyelets, Raneth slipped it into the loops of his royal official trousers and started weaponing up. “Welcome to my room,” he said, fingers brushing against the selection of handcuffs waiting for him. He chose the newest looking set — their surface less scratched than the others — and tucked them into the belt pouch to the left of the buckle, careful to avoid cutting his knuckles against the throwing star nestled there. He probably should have explained that he had a room at the palace because he was of top rank, but it sounded like boasting, and he didn’t want to boast. He glanced at Aldora. Was the question asked by raised eyebrows?

  It wasn’t, but she lingered in the doorway, a concerned frown spoiling her features. “Does she always talk to you like that?” she asked him.

  “She’s allowed to. She’s the captain,” said Raneth. He turned, smiling at Aldora but she didn’t return it. For the first time, he noticed that she wasn’t pretty, striking or ugly. She had a kind, unscarred face. Why had he never noticed that before? Or had he pushed it from his mind? Though they had only met ten months before, it already felt as if years had gone by. Certainly, he had seen more than his fair share of assignments of late. “Danae’s always been grumpy,” he said, giving a one-shouldered shrug. He prowled to a chest of drawers to the side of the door and opened the bottom drawer, revealing a few small square tins, short pencils in multiple colours and a stack of maps. He plucked one of the silver tins from his stash and then pulled out the maps. Flicking through them, he found one of Aldora’s village and folded it until it would fit into the tin. As a precaution, he grabbed a few more maps of the settlements nearest her village, folding those before tucking the maps and some pencils into the tin. He slipped it into a pocket by his left knee.

  “Cray said you’ll have to have a hearing when you’ve caught Jules, because you failed to protect him from Reinette and her people.”

  “Yep.” Raneth stepped back into the corridor and shut his guest bedroom behind him. “With tribunes from the First Legion, the captain and Cray.” He took Aldora’s soft hand in his more calloused one. “Don’t worry, Aldora. Cray gets final say and he’s happy with me. I tried to make it right.”

  “So you’re not worried?” she asked as Raneth led her downstairs. He strode towards the throne room.

  “No. It’s standard procedure.” He looked over his shoulder at Aldora. “Unless you know something I don’t?”

  “Pedibastet said the royal official captain wants you discharged,” said Aldora as she hurried to join his side in the throne room. Raneth glanced at the thrones but they were empty.

  “There’s some stupid idea going around that I’m trying to outshine her, but I’m not. I can fly which no other royal official can do.” Raneth paused, turning to face Aldora. “That makes me faster at travel times and allows me to track criminals from much further away than normal. Maybe she feels threatened by me, but I don’t know and I don’t care. Cray is my actual commander, boss, whatever you want to call it. She’s basically responsible for looking out for the rest of us and cleaning up our messes.” Raneth strode towards the doors Rikward was guarding. For once they were open, allowing in the day’s cool breeze.

  “So she’s a nanny?” asked Aldora.

  “Basically. Now let’s get to your village, find Jules and arrest him.”

  Outside the Dagger Bearer’s house, Raneth watched as Aldora unlocked the door, before he swept his gaze to the buildings nearest them. High Street in Brown Buzzard Village was one of the wider streets, leaving them with both an advantage and a disadvantage. His blue eyes flickered upwards, checking the rooftops on the other side of the street, ensuring nobody looked back. “Raneth?” He snapped his attention to Aldora, giving her a slight smile. “Come on in,” she said.

  He stepped into her home. The living room smelled like fresh oranges due to dead candles on the fireplace to the far right. He loitered at the back of the large blue sofa as Aldora went to the dark coffee table in front of it, its surface marked from the attackers that had looted the homes the year before. Isadore had done a good job of sanding down the impe
rfections, making the table reusable instead of replacing it. A small wicker pot stood on the edge nearest the front window, with small scraps of paper jutting out at all angles. Aldora plundered the small container and started to spread the paper across the coffee table, sliding them between one another. Raneth took a closer look at the pieces, noticing dates written in multiple hands. “Are these your sighting sheets?”

  Aldora’s deft hands paused and her brown eyes glanced at him. “What?” she asked. She shook her head. “These are notes from the other villagers. If they’ve seen Jules Rivermud or think they saw him.”

  Sighting sheets. They weren’t very common in Giften — the kingdom preferred not to broadcast criminals being in close vicinity to its civilians. Sometimes, like Aldora and Haethowine had been, a warning was sent their way by Cray if a royal official was reassigned or turned up dead. Would make my job a lot easier if we had all the settlements helping us out like this. “Who’s idea was this?” he asked.

  Aldora straightened, a pair of sightings in a hand. “Why? Was this dumb?”

  “No,” rushed Raneth. “It’s perfect. It’ll really help, Aldora.” He prowled to the other end of the coffee table and knelt down, inspecting the notes she had already arranged before plucking a small handful from the unsorted notes and slipping them into place. “This is exactly what I do with my maps.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah.” Raneth retrieved the small tin from his knee pocket and fished out the map of her village. Grabbing a blue pencil, he spread the map on the floor by the coffee table and started to draw blue circles that he dated across the village. “I do this,” he explained as Aldora knelt down next to him, watching him closely. “And then I try to see the patterns and create an area of interest.” He stilled, lifting his gaze from the map to Aldora. “I need more sightings,” he said.

  “Oh.” She blushed before she grabbed the remaining unsorted notes and started slotting them into order. She started to point to each location on the map, giving him the date. Once the last dot was placed, Raneth frowned at the map. “So?” asked Aldora. “What do you see?”

  A lot of dots, thought the royal official. All over the place. He squinted his eyes slightly, unfocusing his vision, and focused more on what remained of the blue dots. He blinked, fully opening his eyes before grabbing a plain pencil and lightly drawing a rough circle over the map. “This,” he said as he slipped the pencils back into his tin, “is our area of focus. It’s not as highly concentrated as it could be, but there’s just slightly more sightings in this area. That means there’s somewhere there that he may be using for shelter, when he’s not scavenging.”

  “Or attacking the village to steal me,” murmured Aldora.

  “I don’t like that he did that to you. Him or his sons.” Knowing what Aldora had been forced to deal with without him, Raneth was more than a little irritated at the smuggler, kidnapper and suspected murderer.

  “I killed one of them,” said Aldora, her words barely carried by her breath.

  She never mentioned that. “When?”

  “When they were kidnapping me,” she said, blushing.

  Gently taking her hand into his, Raneth smiled. “Hey,” he uttered. “Don’t be embarrassed they got you. You were outnumbered, and that blood-gift of theirs is an unfair advantage against anyone.” He folded the map, returning it to the tin and then his pocket. “I won’t let them take you twice.” He stood up and headed towards her door. “Ready to make your first arrest?”

  Aldora stood up, a firm nod sent his way. “Yes.”

  He stepped outside and waited patiently as Aldora relocked the door of her home. A few of the villagers were in view, using the wide street to get from one side of the village to another, with just two walking along the street’s length. I wonder what it was like growing up here. He knew the villagers had never really worried about provoking their gifts, which only made them more vulnerable, even if Cray had made a point since the attack to increase the subtle and not-so-subtle warnings that the village was off-limits to anyone intending to do it harm; from more patrolling royal officials during the quieter crime periods when royal officials could be spared, to the Third Legion running exercises right alongside the village and within its walls, the hints were clear. King Cray wouldn’t stand for a second attempt on the village’s integrity. It was under his personal overwatch, protective pieces moved as if he were playing chess with an opponent yet to be identified. Which could be what we’re facing, thought the royal official as he led Aldora away from her home and towards the east gate of the village. He glanced at Aldora at his side. If only Reinette had surrendered instead of making Aldora kill her.

  “How are you dealing with the new deaths on your hands?” he asked her, making sure to keep his tone light and gentle. He didn’t want to spook her from telling him the truth, didn’t want her to feel like she had to hide it. Maybe my Dad was right, he thought, watching Aldora as her eyes flicked side to side, the Dagger Bearer selecting her words carefully. When you find the woman you could love, you start favouring them. Start being more gentle around them. The last thing he needed was for the acceptance of his feelings for her to interfere with taking down Jules. Arresting Jules, he reminded himself, even though his chest tightened at the very idea of clicking his handcuffs around the criminal’s wrists. His father would be happy that he was finally seeing Aldora as a potential partner. Raneth just wished he could have stayed oblivious for a little longer. He would never hear the end of it now. Never get a moment’s breath before Cally pushed him to pick a ring or use his mother’s. Blasted Feud. Without it, nobody would pester him, nobody would push him to have an heir and marry so young. The hints from Cally had already become bolder in the past year, and she hadn’t exactly been lacking with the hints since he turned sixteen two years ago.

  “Their deaths were necessary,” stated Aldora, her right hand fluttering to land upon the grip of the Dagger of Protection. Raneth smiled, grateful it wasn’t landing on the pommel as so many civilians grew to habitualised. “I should feel bad, but I’m not sorry I did it. It was me, you, or them.” She smiled at him, but it seemed weak, barely bringing a sparkle to her eyes. “I’d choose you over a sorceress anyday.”

  “I’d choose you over a criminal any day of the week too,” murmured Raneth. He wasn’t quite sure if Aldora was hiding how she really felt or if she, like him, had accustomed herself to the fact that she would have to occasionally get her hands and blades bloody. He might have been a soldier of the Three Ks, but Aldora still had an air of innocence around her, which only endeared her to him more. Damn, I do have it bad for her. He cleared his throat, pausing where High Street ended just shy of the black wrought-iron gate of the village. To the left was the doctor’s village hospital, to the right, a score of houses ran, following the curve of the village’s original inner defensive wall. Beyond the hospital, Raneth could see shop signs standing rigid, jutting from wooden beams on new and old buildings that were intermingled. The builders had tried to style match the new buildings with the old ones that survived the attack, but the colour difference of the paint made it clear no matter how much paint was splashed across the plaster between the outer decorative wooden beams. At least the design made the shops stand out, whereas all the houses in Brown Buzzard tended to merge together, old and new, their outer skins unpainted bricks.

  The Bayre heir took in the area. The spot was perfect for a scuffle — the space where he and Aldora stood was wider, perhaps as large as Village Circle to the north of the village’s true centre. It wasn’t large enough for a century of eighty men to defend against a horde except as a physical barrier against them, but it certainly would give him, Aldora and Jules enough space to fight if it came down to it. If we have to give chase, we need to herd him here. He glanced at the small black gate. “Is that always open?”

  “Pretty much,” admitted Aldora. “It wouldn’t survive an assault.”

  “Your village leader hasn’t thought about updating it?”
asked Raneth.

  “With what money?” said Aldora, shaking her head. “The funds Cray gave Haethowine to use to rebuild the village couldn’t afford extras, and Cray warned he wouldn’t add an extension to it.”

  But he doubled it twice, thought Raneth, remembering the topic coming up a few months ago when he and his father had been asked to dine during one of his assignments, along with the Royal Official Captain. Despite his efforts, the captain had been seeing more of him than he liked of late, and each time he saw her, she seemed to only become more hostile towards him. Maybe I should be worried about the hearing. “Alright,” said Raneth. “This is a good place to try and coax Rivermud to come to if he runs.”

  “How do we herd a grown man?” asked Aldora.

  “We may have to split up so every side turning he gets to has one of us in it whilst the other one of us is right behind him.”

  “Do we want to chase him out of the village? Because I don’t think I’d be fast enough to cut him off. Master Redler is frustrated I’m so slow,” said Aldora.

  Raneth smiled. “Frustrated?” He shook his head. “If he seems frustrated with you, he’s just trying to make you work harder.”

  Aldora glowered. “All it does is make me frustrated. You’re a much better teacher.”

  The royal official gestured at the area around them. “If we can, I’d rather arrest him in your village than chase him out,” he admitted. “If he wants your village to be our hunting grounds, then it will be. It means we have cover from his revolting blood-gift.” He pulled out the map and rechecked the blue dots and their dates. “It looks almost as if Rivermud went to leave after Drigoe dumped him here, but then he doubled back. See?” He showed Aldora the map, running his finger along the newest dated dots.

  “Why would he double back?” asked Aldora.

  “I’d have to guess he saw someone he felt was a threat to his freedom.” Or life. “Haethowine and he fought, didn’t they? Maybe he didn’t want to deal with Haethowine twice,” suggested Raneth.