Blood Ties

by Lindsay Buroker

  “It’s possible Mildrey likes the company.”

  “Or a chance to have fresh gossip delivered to her.”

  “What kind of gossip would Cutter have that would be interesting to a cook?” Jev imagined Mildrey being confused as Cutter shared news of dwarves from his city back home.

  Wyleria snorted and poked him in the ribs. “About you, of course.”

  “Me?”

  “Nobody knows what you were up to while you were away. And Cutter, we’ve learned, worked with you in your company—Gryphon, it was called?—these last years.”

  “I had no idea I was interesting enough to warrant gossip.”

  “You are the future Zyndar Prime of Dharrow Castle and the surrounding estate.”

  “And that makes me interesting?”

  She snorted. “That makes you everyone’s future employer. They want to know what to expect. Not that your father seems like he’ll die any time this century.”

  “Thank the founders for that.” Jev decided not to explain how his desire for his father to live to an old age had more to do with not wanting to take over the estate than any deep feelings for the old man. That wasn’t something he should admit. At the least, he wished it was something that wasn’t true. But it was hard to love someone who had never loved him.

  Wyleria gestured toward the rear castle door. “I think Cutter may still be in the kitchen.”

  They headed inside together, with the staff they passed giving Jev friendly greetings. He returned them, trying not to imagine them all trading gossip about him and speculating on his worth as a liege lord.

  They passed another of his cousins, and she called Wyleria away, so Jev headed into the kitchen alone. The smells of baked bread and roasted pork lingered, but it looked like the cooking and cleaning had been done for the night. He didn’t hear anyone gossiping about him, and he didn’t spot Mildrey at all. He did find Cutter sitting by himself at the servants’ table, a mug of ale between his hands as he stared glumly into the foamy head.

  “You look depressed.” Jev slid onto the bench opposite him. “Are you not finding the hospitality up to your standards?”

  “Hospitality’s fine. The drink’s even decent, a good dwarven stout. I’m just vexed because I’ve been ramming my head against a wall.”

  “I didn’t think you minded doing that.”

  “Not as long as the wall falls down eventually. This one is thicker and stronger than it first appeared.”

  “Are we talking about Master Grindmor’s missing tools?” Jev assumed so, but it was possible Cutter had found another irritating wall. Maybe he’d fallen in love and couldn’t get the bearded lady to send a flirtatious smile his way—whatever that would look like on a dwarf.

  “Yes. We’ve hunted all over the city for a trace of their magic. Lorn’s been helping, but neither his senses for magic nor mine have located them. And Master Grindmor’s been looking, too, and it’s clear she’s getting frustrated. And I think she’s disappointed in me.” Cutter’s shoulders slumped low. “She’s been insulting my beard.”

  “I’m sorry, Cutter.” And Jev was. He’d arranged for Cutter to assist the master in this matter. “As soon as Zenia and I finish with this case, I’ll put some of the Crown Agents’ resources into helping you. We’ll capture Iridium and question her over a rack if we have to.” He snapped his fingers. “No, a rack wouldn’t be required. Zenia has a new dragon tear. It seems to be strong too. She questioned an elf with it and got what appeared to be truthful answers.”

  “Oh? Elves are mostly immune to dragon tears. At least attempts at mental manipulation. If a dragon tear is magically assisting you with your sword skills, and you skewer an elf with a blade, well, they’re not immune to that.”

  “Most people aren’t.”

  “What’s represented on the dragon tear? I miss cutting those beauties.” Cutter tapped the jewelry kit he kept in a pouch on his belt. “Nobody’s brought me one to work on in a while, and I doubt they will in the city here, not with Master Grindmor’s services available.”

  “A dragon.”

  Cutter blinked a few times. “A dragon? Uhm.”

  “Is that bad?” Jev was positive Targyon wouldn’t have given Zenia anything dangerous, at least not on purpose, but maybe he hadn’t known much about the dragon tear.

  “It’s… rare. And it might be dangerous, depending on the soul.”

  “The soul?”

  “Have you ever noticed that animals don’t get carved onto dragon tears?”

  “I suppose so. It’s usually a sword or book or inkwell or paint brush or something related to the wielder’s profession or passion.”

  “Right, but even if the person getting the carving done was an animal trainer, you wouldn’t put a ferret on it. I’d advise against it, anyway.”

  “Why?” Jev shifted uneasily on the bench, worried he would need to ride back into town that night to warn Zenia to toss her gift into the ocean.

  “The magic captures the essence of the object—or animal—embodied in the carving. We make them that way on purpose to give them authentic power. If I put a ferret in a carving, I’d need to bring one in from the forest to make sure to get it right. Or—and I don’t claim to know how this works—the essence of the nearest ferret around would automatically go into it.”

  “Essence?”

  “Yes, personality if you will. It doesn’t harm the animal or affect it in any way, as far as I know, but all of that particular creature’s quirks and eccentricities go into the gem.”

  “Are you saying Zenia’s new dragon tear has the personality of a dragon?”

  “In theory. I’d have to examine it to know. If it’s very old, it’s possible the magic has faded and the personality has gone dormant.”

  Jev couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea of a dragon tear with a personality in it, but he thought of Zenia’s gem glowing blue, of its magic barricading that gate. Of the zap of energy he’d felt when he brushed up against the shield it had made around her in the castle.

  “I don’t think anything has faded on it,” Jev said.

  “Ah. Keep an eye on her then. If she suddenly got the urge to burn down the castle and munch on its inhabitants, she might now have the power to do so.”

  “Munch on?” Jev gripped the edges of the table. “Is that likely?”

  “I understand something like that happened in Drovak once to someone who thought it would be a good idea to have her cat’s likeness carved into her dragon tear. She committed several cannibalistic murders before being caught and hanged. A master carver was brought in to sand off the gem and re-carve it with something inanimate.”

  “Shit, Cutter. You’re scaring me.”

  “Sorry. Where’d Zenia get it?”

  “Targyon gave it to her.”

  “Hm, maybe she can give it back. Want me to come into town with you to look at it?”

  “Founders, yes.” Jev stood up, almost knocking over the bench. He started toward the stable but remembered his original mission. “Do you know where Lornysh is?”

  “Staying at the elven embassy, he said.”

  “I was just there. They said he wasn’t there.”

  “Ever? Or just at the moment? Because he said he got a room on the fourth floor. He also said it might be a challenge to get past embassy security—”

  “No kidding.”

  “—and that I should throw pebbles at his window when I needed his help.”

  “At his fourth-floor window? Are you able to see it over that tall wall around the garden?” Jev considered Cutter’s four and a half feet in height dubiously.

  “I can if I go up onto the roof of the tavern across the way.” Cutter winked. “Sometimes, it takes him a while to come out, so I have a drink while I’m waiting.”

  “I wish I’d known that tip a few hours ago.” Jev wondered if the elf woman had lied—maybe Lornysh had been inside the tower the whole time they’d been dealing with “security.” He should have had Zeni
a ask that question with her gem.

  Her gem. Horror rose in his throat like acid as he worried anew about Cutter’s warning.

  “Let’s go find him. And Zenia.”

  Jev dismounted in the street in front of a smoldering farmhouse just inside the city wall, the scent of smoke strong in the air. Cutter sat astride one of Dharrow Castle’s stout ponies, gripping his chin as he considered the dwelling in front of them. What remained of it. It hadn’t burned to the ground, but a fire had ravaged it. Recently.

  “You sure this is the address she gave you?” Cutter asked.

  “Yes.”

  Feeling numb, Jev dropped the reins instead of worrying about tying up the horse. He walked through the open gate leading into the house and yard, dread walking with him. What if Zenia had been caught in this? Had this been some accident? Or deliberate arson? Maybe someone had meant for Zenia to be caught in it. Or…

  Cutter’s warning stampeded around in Jev’s head. By the founders’ scaled hides, the dragon tear couldn’t have caused this, could it?

  As disturbing as it was, he preferred the thought that someone else had been trying to get her and had done this. Or even better if it had been an accident.

  Jev circled the house, then walked through it. Water dripped from holes in ceilings, and charred rugs squished under his feet. He couldn’t imagine how the house had grown so saturated.

  “No bodies,” he whispered, checking all the rooms. “Hope that means everyone got out.”

  He peered into the stable in the back, and a couple of horses neighed at him. Their structure hadn’t been burned, so the tenants must have decided to leave them there for the night. And then gone off to stay with family and friends? What family and friends did Zenia have that she would have stayed with? He didn’t think she would be allowed to return to the Water Order Temple.

  Jev tried not to feel defeated as he returned to the street where Cutter waited.

  “She’s not there, and I don’t know where she would have gone. I’ll see her at work in the morning and get the story.” Jev said the words with confidence, hoping they were true and praying to the founders that she wasn’t hurt and in a hospital somewhere. “Let’s find—”

  “There you are.” A cloaked and hooded figure stepped out of the shadows of a nearby alley.

  Jev reached for his pistol before he recognized the voice. “Lornysh?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been looking for you all day.”

  Lornysh looked at the burned farmhouse. “You thought I would be here?”

  “No, I thought Zenia would be here. How’d you find us?”

  “I have my ways. Though I didn’t sense you until recently. Did you just arrive in the city? I know you were at the embassy earlier.”

  Jev couldn’t tell from his tone if there was condemnation in the statement. As an elf himself, Lornysh might not appreciate that Jev had grappled with one of the guards and fired at the ambassador’s pet creature.

  “Yes, I was trying to get in to see you. The guards said you weren’t there.”

  “I left for a few hours to attend a museum opening.”

  “That he has time for,” Cutter said, “but when he’s traipsing in sewers with me, he makes any excuse he can to leave.”

  “Sewers?” Jev asked. “I’d make excuses to leave too.”

  “I did help you all morning and all afternoon,” Lornysh told Cutter.

  “I know, I know. I’m just grumpy.”

  “Rare.”

  “Don’t make me hop off my pony and club you.”

  “Lornysh.” Jev held up a hand toward Cutter, hoping to forestall more threats. Or banter. Whatever those two considered that. “While we were there looking for you—and the ambassador—someone sprinted away. Very suspiciously. We tried to stop him, but the guards deliberately interfered. I heard one yell at him to get away while they kept us busy.”

  “Oh?” Lornysh must have decided the odds of someone spotting him in the middle of the night on the empty street were slim because he pulled back his hood. “It’s odd that someone would have fled the tower. The embassy is considered a safe place where elves are permitted sanctuary in the city. The ambassador himself told me that when he invited me to stay.”

  “Do you know who it might have been?”

  “I do not. I believe there are seven or eight elves in temporary residence in addition to the ambassador and his small staff. I’ve passed a few elves on the stairs, but I haven’t been there long, and only one introduced herself.”

  Another time, Jev might have asked if the herself had been interested in Lornysh, but all he said was, “We’re looking for a himself.”

  Lornysh spread a hand. “For the most part, everyone except the ambassador has been ignoring me, as I’m… persona non grata is the term humans use, I believe.”

  “Yes, perhaps one day, you’ll explain that to us.” Jev glanced to the side, but he didn’t think Cutter knew the story, either.

  Cutter shook his head and shrugged.

  “I hunted my own kind in your war,” Lornysh said. “The elves do not appreciate turncoats.” He lowered his voice, almost to a mumble. “Though I don’t know if that term technically applies.”

  Jev leaned forward, hoping to hear more. As far as he’d discerned over the years, Lornysh had been an outcast before he started working with the kingdom army. He never would have betrayed his own people if there hadn’t been a reason. Jev was certain of that. If not for some precipitating event, he and Lornysh never would have met. Or they would have met as enemies in the bloody forests of Taziira. Jev shuddered at the idea of having to fight his friend.

  “You say you wanted to see the ambassador?” Lornysh asked, speaking no more on the subject of his past. “And that it wasn’t permitted?”

  “I tried to knock on the door, but the female guard wouldn’t let me pass. I told her I was there on the king’s behalf. Which is true.”

  “It’s possible the ambassador wasn’t in.”

  “Was he enjoying the museum opening too?”

  “I didn’t see him there, but he has admitted he enjoys studying the culture and arts of the people where he’s stationed. This is his fourth posting in a human city.”

  “Great to know.” Jev huffed out an exasperated breath. It was late, he was tired, and he was worried. “I’m going to head to the castle to see if Zenia went there after—” He waved at the smoking farmhouse. “Lornysh, can you try to find that elf for me? Yilnesh was his name. Ask him why he ran? I doubt it has to do with our case, but I can’t help but wonder why he found my appearance so alarming.”

  “It is somewhat frightful since you scythed off your beard like a farmer hacking at weeds,” Cutter said.

  Jev touched his neatly trimmed beard and only spared Cutter a brief frown before focusing on Lornysh again.

  “Can you describe him?” Lornysh asked.

  “He wore a cloak and had a hood pulled up,” Jev said. “A look that’s trendy for elves in Korvann these days.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Lornysh murmured. “You’re sure it was a male elf?”

  “Not one hundred percent, but the features I briefly saw appeared male. Why, did the female who spoke to you seem suspicious?”

  “Different, at least. She introduced herself to me. Nobody else did.”

  “Maybe she thinks you’re cute.”

  Cutter made a noise akin to a cat hacking up a hairball.

  “Cutter agrees that you’re cute,” Jev said.

  “Someone’s going to get clubbed yet,” Cutter grumbled.

  “Just let me know if you can figure out who fled from us, please,” Jev told Lornysh. “I’ll reward you with a bottle of fine elven wine from our cellar.”

  “You don’t need to bribe me to get me to help. I’ve been helping Cutter, and he drags me around sewers without giving me anything at all.”

  “I offered you half a sandwich,” Cutter said.

  “After you dropped it in the sewer
stream.”

  “Not in the stream. It landed next to it, on the perfectly harmless cement.”

  “Perfectly harmless cement covered with green algae and an odious-smelling fungal growth.”

  “Natural things,” Cutter said. “I thought elves liked nature.”

  Lornysh shook his head. “I’ll make some discreet inquiries and see if I can locate this person, Jev.”

  Jev almost pointed out that the inquiries didn’t need to be discreet and that choking, punching, and threats would be acceptable. But he didn’t want to get Lornysh kicked out of the one place that had welcomed him. Sort of. He might not know his friend’s story, but that didn’t keep him from feeling it was sad that he’d been cast out of his homeland.

  “Thank you. I’ll be at Alderoth Castle if you find out anything. Or I’ll be looking for Zenia if she doesn’t show up at the castle in the morning.” Jev reached for his horse but paused. “Cutter, do you want to come up there with me? I can get a couple of agents in the office to help Master Grindmor.”

  “I want to help her.”

  “Fine, they’ll help you help her.” Jev imagined consternation among his agents as he assigned them to take orders from a dwarf traveler. Maybe Cutter could earn their favor with sandwiches, preferably ones not dropped in algae.

  Cutter’s unintelligible grumble might have been assent.

  Jev mounted his horse to head off but paused again. “Lornysh, can you sense a powerful dragon tear nearby? Zenia has one now.”

  Lornysh closed his eyes and tilted his head.

  After a few long seconds, he said, “There are a handful of dragon tears within my range, but I have no way to know if one belongs to her since I’m not familiar with her new one. There aren’t any that I would consider powerful.” Lornysh looked toward Cutter.

  “Got a feeling you’d know this one right away if you felt it,” Cutter said.

  Lornysh appeared curious, but Jev didn’t want to go over it all again, not until he had Zenia in front of him and could warn her.

  “None of the nearby ones are remarkable,” Lornysh said. “My range is only about a mile.”

  “Thanks for looking.” Jev couldn’t help but feel disappointed, but Alderoth Castle was more than a mile away, so he held out hope that Zenia had gone up there. And that nothing had happened to her in the fire or along the way.