“Yes. Of course.” I saluted him, which made him scowl, and I started to look around the room.
In reality, there wasn’t much to investigate. The house was small and ordinary, and it didn’t appear that Cyrano had left behind a manifesto. But since Bayle had been condescending, I wasn’t going to leave a single stone unturned.
I lifted up the blankets on the bed, riffled through the baby’s toys in the toy box, and leafed through the few books on the shelf. None of them were too exciting—there were a few books on parenting and Salla disease, a dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged, and a book by Jordan Belfort.
While I dug around their living room, Bayle walked around not doing much of anything, and Kasper scoped out the kitchen. I was flipping through one of the books when I glanced over at the kitchen to see that Kasper had dropped to his knees and was reaching underneath the stout wood-burning stove.
“What are you doing?” I asked, setting aside the book to check it out.
“I thought I saw the light catch on something.” He squeezed himself against the stove, reaching all the way to the back, then he scooted back out.
“What is it?” I asked, and Bayle came to look over my shoulder.
Kasper sat back on his knees and opened his hand, revealing two blue stones each about the size of a marble but not quite as round. Their dark blue color sparkled as Kasper tilted his hand.
“Those are big sapphires,” I said.
Kasper looked up at me. “This has to mean something.”
TWENTY-FIVE
incentives
“What is going on in my kingdom?” Marksinna Lisbet asked, and for the first time since I’d met her, she truly appeared her age.
Her golden hair fell in loose curls down to the middle of her back. Her satin dressing gown flowed around her, creating a half-circle of shimmering fabric on the marble floor of her chambers. She sat at her vanity, her makeup and jewels spread out on the table beside her.
The only jewelry she wore was the large sapphire wedding ring from her long-deceased husband, and even though it wasn’t yet six in the morning she’d already applied a coat of mauve lipstick.
“Nana, it’s not so bad,” Linnea said, attempting to comfort her. She sat on a plush chaise behind her grandmother, and based on her lack of makeup and loosely tied robe that revealed a lace-trimmed camisole underneath, I suspected she hadn’t been awake long either.
Lisbet had summoned Kasper and me very early this morning to have a private meeting in her chambers, with only her and her granddaughter. When we arrived, she apologized for the early hour, but said she thought it was the only way a meeting among us would go unnoticed.
“It’s not so bad?” Lisbet shot a look over her shoulder at Linnea and scoffed. “Just two weeks ago someone attempted to kidnap you, and last night your guard tried to murder your husband! How can you say it’s not so bad?”
“Well…” Linnea faltered for a moment, frowning. “Both Mikko and I are alive and well. So it can’t be that bad.”
“My child, you know you are the world to me, but things are very bad indeed when the only positive thing you can say is that you’re simply alive,” Lisbet said. “You’re a vibrant, healthy, young Queen. You are supposed to be alive!”
“Kasper and Bryn are here,” Linnea tried, gesturing toward where we stood at attention near the door. “They’ll help us sort out this mess.”
The Marksinna looked toward us, an unsettling weariness and fear in her eyes, and she nodded once. “You are here, and I am very grateful for it, because without you I have no idea what would have become of my grandson-in-law. But what do we do about all this?” Her gaze fell heavily on Kasper and me. “Who is behind these attempts on my family’s lives? And how do we stop them?”
“Bayle Lundeen has launched a full-scale investigation—” Kasper began, but Lisbet immediately held up her hand to stop him.
“I don’t trust that man.” Lisbet grimaced. “I haven’t trusted him for so long, but Mikko refused to hear anything about it. Lundeen was his father’s lackey, which really tells you something about him. Rune Biâelse was an awful, cold tyrant, and anybody he trusted can’t be good news.”
“Nana!” Linnea exclaimed.
“I’m just stating a fact, my dear,” Lisbet said, brushing her off. “And worse still, Rune left his son too terrified to act even long after his death.”
“I don’t trust Bayle Lundeen either,” Kasper agreed. “But now I’m a part of the investigation, and I’m hoping to steer it in the right direction.”
“A noble intention, but I’m not certain it will bear any fruit,” Lisbet said. “That is why I called you both here. You have no connection to this guard, and you’ve already proven yourselves to be far more intelligent and capable than anyone we have here. I want you to look into it, separate from whatever farce it is that Bayle Lundeen is spearheading.”
I exchanged a look with Kasper, who nodded his encouragement.
“That was already our intention, Marksinna,” I said. “We did not trust the guard when we arrived, but after the incident with Cyrano, we trust them even less. Now we must determine how widespread the betrayal is, and who is behind it.”
“Excellent.” Lisbet smiled at us. “What have you uncovered so far?”
“Cyrano was supposed to be guarding Queen Linnea over the lunch hour, but he informed her that he had a meeting with Bayle he needed to attend,” Kasper began.
“I already know that,” Linnea said. “I’m the one who told you that.”
“Right.” Kasper gave her a look but kept his voice even. “We have confirmed that the meeting did exist and that Bayle was there with ten other guards who all vouch for him, along with the kitchen staff and footmen. Cyrano wasn’t supposed to attend because he wasn’t allowed to leave the Queen unguarded, which he did.”
“He told me I would be fine because I would be with Bryn,” Linnea said. “And as it turns out, I was much safer with Bryn than I would have been with him.”
“So Cyrano lied to get a moment alone with the King so he could kill him?” Lisbet shrugged. “That doesn’t tell us why he wanted to.”
“No, but it does suggest that Bayle wasn’t directly involved,” Kasper said.
“It’s also worth mentioning that Cyrano had a wife and a young child,” I said, and by the surprised looks Lisbet and Linnea gave each other, I guessed this was news to them. “His daughter has a rare disease that requires costly treatment, which makes money an excellent motivator. Both the wife and the child appear to have left in a hurry.”
“Clothes were scattered over the beds, but there were no signs of a struggle,” Kasper said. “They seem to have left very suddenly but of their own accord.”
“That’s not that surprising if they heard Cyrano was a traitor who’d been killed,” I continued, not letting the darkness of his death cloud my words. “We would expect them to run away lest they be punished for his crimes.”
“If they are innocent, they have nothing to fear,” Linnea piped up, and that was her naiveté showing.
Another time, I would have to explain to her how Viktor Dålig’s young children had been punished for his transgressions. The world was not a fair place, and a Queen needed to know that if she wanted to help rule a kingdom.
“We did find something odd, however,” Kasper went on. “Under the stove were two sapphires, a little smaller than a marble. We suspect that in the commotion of leaving, they fell out and rolled under the stove, and Cyrano’s wife either didn’t notice or was in too much of a hurry to be bothered with them.”
“Sapphires nearly as large as a marble?” Lisbet shook her head. “Are you certain they were real?”
Kasper nodded. “Based on the color and size, Bayle estimated they were worth at least twenty thousand dollars apiece.”
Linnea gasped. “How could a guard have sapphires worth that much? And how could his family be so careless as to leave them behind?”
“That is an excellent question
,” I said. It was one that Kasper and I had been quick to answer last night. “The only way Cyrano’s wife wouldn’t have noticed or wouldn’t have cared about leaving behind nearly fifty thousand dollars was if she had a lot more.”
Queen Linnea shook her head with her forehead scrunched up, clearly still baffled by what I was saying. “We pay them a decent wage, but it’s nowhere near enough to have that kind of money. Was Cyrano stealing them?”
“That is one consideration,” Kasper allowed. “The other is that Cyrano was paid off.”
Lisbet rested her chin on her hand, staring off at nothing, but her eyes darted back and forth as she thought. The Marksinna had most likely come to that conclusion long before her granddaughter had and was trying to make sense of it.
“With his daughter’s illness and the rising cost of medical bills, Cyrano was very vulnerable to bribery,” I said. “He probably believed that it was worth risking his life to take care of his family.”
That would explain the intent mania I saw in Cyrano’s eyes. He’d had no reason not to drop his sword yesterday, but after talking with Kasper, we’d both begun to suspect that Cyrano planned on going after me until I killed him. In fact, the payment to his family might have been contingent on his death. It would be the only way that whoever had paid him off could be certain that Cyrano would never talk.
I wasn’t sure if that made me feel any better about what had happened. Killing a desperate man intent on dying to save his family didn’t exactly sound like justice.
“Who here has that kind of money?” Kasper asked.
“Well … nobody.” Linnea shrugged her shoulders. “I mean, the women have jewels.” She motioned to her grandmother’s table, covered in gaudy necklaces and rings. “One of my necklaces might cost ten thousand dollars, but it would have to be filled with sapphires and diamonds. We don’t have massive gems like that floating around.”
“They came from the vault,” Lisbet said, looking at Linnea in the mirror. “That’s the only place where we have stones of that caliber.”
“Those belong to the kingdom,” Linnea said, trying to dissuade her grandmother. “They belong to everybody. Why would Cyrano steal from himself?”
“He didn’t steal it—he was paid off,” Lisbet corrected her, and Linnea sank down in the chaise. “And it may ‘belong’ to the kingdom, but only the royal family has access to it. Only the King is allowed to spend it.”
“But Mikko’s saving it,” Linnea argued weakly. “He’s trying to do what’s best for the people.”
Lisbet closed her eyes and sighed. “You can’t have a room full of precious stones and expect no one to get greedy.”
“Who has access to the vault?” I asked. “Who could have gotten in there to take the sapphires?”
Lisbet turned back toward Kasper and me and looked up. “The system requires thumbprint recognition that you need to get the door open, and that’s calibrated for only four people—the royal family. That would be myself, Linnea, Mikko, and Kennet.”
“There must be some mistake,” Linnea said, disputing Lisbet’s assertion. “None of us would do this. I know I didn’t, and of course you wouldn’t do it. Mikko didn’t try to kill himself, and Kennet would never do anything to hurt his brother.” She shook her head. “This is a mistake. Someone else is behind this.”
Lisbet regarded Kasper and me gravely, ignoring the Queen’s insistence that it couldn’t be any of the people she loved.
“Talk to the people and do what you need to do,” Lisbet told us. “This must end.”
TWENTY-SIX
stoic
The marble bench felt hard and cold underneath me, and I leaned forward, resting my arms on my legs. My mouth felt dry, so I licked my lips. I let out a shaky breath.
“You okay?” Kasper asked, his voice soft so it wouldn’t echo in the cavernous round hall outside of the King’s chambers.
“Hmm?” I’d been staring at the pattern of tiles on the floor, trying not to think of anything at all, and I turned to look at him.
“You seem kind of out of it.” Even though Kasper worked to keep his expression neutral at all times, his face had softened and his dark eyebrows were pinched with concern.
“I’m fine,” I lied, sitting up straighter.
We were waiting outside the King’s chambers with the intention of questioning him about the sapphires in Cyrano’s possession. After our meeting with Lisbet and Linnea, we’d gone straight down here, hoping to talk to him before Bayle or anybody else had a chance.
When we’d arrived, he’d still been sleeping, but his valet had gone in to see if Mikko would be willing to see us. A few minutes later, the valet had informed us that Mikko would, but he needed some time to wake up and ready himself, and Kasper and I had been patiently waiting for the past fifteen minutes.
“I know I’ve been really fortunate to have been a member of the Högdragen in a time of peace.” Kasper still spoke low so his voice wouldn’t carry. Not that he needed to worry, since we were alone. “I’ve only been on it for a little over a year, but even when I was a tracker, things were mostly quiet and peaceful.”
“Konstantin Black did try to kill the Chancellor,” I reminded him, not unkindly.
“I said mostly,” he said. “I was out on a mission away from Doldastam when that happened, so I missed all the commotion surrounding it.”
“You didn’t miss much,” I muttered. “Konstantin is insanely good at disappearing in the blink of an eye.”
“My point was that I’ve never even had to draw my sword on someone and mean it, let alone take another person’s life,” Kasper said, and I involuntarily tensed up. “I can’t imagine what that must be like.”
“It’s part of the job.” I wanted to brush it off, change the subject, do anything other than actually talk about it.
“I know, and I know you did what you needed to do.” He waited a moment, letting that sink in. “But it couldn’t have been easy for you.”
“It was surprisingly easy, actually,” I said thickly. “From start to finish, it was all over in a matter of minutes.”
Kasper put his hand on my back. The gesture felt awkward and a little stiff, but there was something oddly comforting about it.
“You were trained well, and you did what you were supposed to do. That won’t change what happened, but maybe it can make it little easier on you.”
I offered him a wan smile. “Thank you.”
The valet came out and told us that the King would see us now. I stood up and straightened my clothes, and then I followed Kasper inside.
We found Mikko in the sitting area of his chambers. He was dressed but unshaven, with a blond scruff on his chin. The high-backed, tufted chair he sat on looked cushy, but he sat rigidly with his shoulders back, appearing rather uncomfortable.
His blue eyes landed on us briefly, then went back to staring at the rug on the floor. His lips were pressed together in a thin line, and as he breathed in deeply through his nose, his gills seemed to flutter in agitation.
There was a couch and several other chairs that Kasper and I could have sat in, but since Mikko made no motion to them, we remained standing. We never sat in the presence of royalty unless we were invited to.
“I’m assuming this is about the investigation,” Mikko said.
“We just had a few things we wanted to talk to you about. This won’t take long.” I tried to keep my tone soft to calm any anxiety he might have.
Linnea had said he was painfully shy—although to be honest, he seemed more angry than he did nervous. But it was probably better for a King to seem cross all the time than afraid.
Mikko nodded once. “Go ahead.”
“Do you know how Cyrano Moen could have come into possession of sapphires?” Kasper asked.
“No.” Mikko’s hands were resting on his lap, and he began to rub one palm against his leg anxiously. “Sapphires are the most plentiful stones in our kingdom, though. Perhaps he bartered with someone for them.”
>
“We had considered this, but the ones he had were very valuable,” Kasper explained. “Bayle estimated their worth at upwards of twenty thousand apiece.”
Mikko’s expression remained hard, unchanged by the news Kasper had given him, and his eyes were now locked on the floor. He sat stoically, not responding, for nearly a minute before he said, “He shouldn’t have had those.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“I don’t know how a guard would come by those.” Mikko looked up at us and shook his head. “I have no idea how he would’ve gotten them.”
“We suspect he might have been paid,” Kasper said, “for his attempt on your life.”
The King lowered his eyes and didn’t say anything. He’d stopped moving his hand on his leg, and aside from the subtle movement of his gills when he breathed, he was as still as a statue.
“Do you know who would have access to those kinds of sapphires and would want to hurt you?” I asked him, speaking slowly and carefully.
Of course, Kasper and I already knew who had access to the sapphires, and that list was only four people long. The only person I’d really crossed off was Marksinna Lisbet. I believed she cared too much about her granddaughter to risk anything that might get Linnea hurt.
But even Queen Linnea—who seemed friendly and naive—could be putting on an act, and she could be behind everything. Most of what I knew about things here in Storvatten had come from her, and I really had no way of knowing if she was lying or not.
Despite my newfound friendship with Prince Kennet, I still didn’t trust him farther than I could throw him. As the younger brother of the King, I could think of a very obvious motive for him to want his brother out of the way, but I had no idea why he’d have planned an attack on Linnea.
That was assuming of course that Cyrano’s attack on Mikko and Konstantin’s on Linnea were related, which was the theory that Kasper and I were going on at the moment.
Ice Kissed (The Kanin Chronicles) Page 13
