Duty Bound

by Lindsay Buroker

  Wyleria lifted her hands. “Jev, I don’t disagree with you, even if an ex-inquisitor wouldn’t be my first choice for you.”

  “That Fremia can’t be your first choice either.”

  “No, she’s not. She’s a manipulative teenager. You need… I don’t know what you need. Time, I think. I’m sorry you won’t get it. Your father agreed to a wedding date next month.”

  Jev groaned and flopped back on his bed, feeling like a thirteen-year-old boy again, completely helpless in the face of his father’s mandates. He’d just, as Wyleria pointed out, risked his life for the city, and this was the reward he got?

  “Am I too old to run away from home?” he asked bleakly.

  “Yes.”

  “Would it be selfish to wish for another war and that I’d be sent away from home?” Not that he truly wanted that, not unless Zenia could be sent away with him. Besides, with trolls skulking around in the countryside, he shouldn’t even joke about such things.

  “Very much so.”

  “Damn.”

  “I’m sorry, Jev. I understand how you feel.”

  He grunted in skepticism.

  “Trust me, I do. My mother recently found out about a relationship I’ve been having, and she’s riding around the countryside right now, visiting zyndari mothers with eligible sons, hoping to arrange a marriage for me.”

  “Ah.” He guessed she did understand. “I didn’t think you’d been seeing anyone.”

  “I am.” Wyleria grimaced. “I was.”

  “A commoner?”

  “No, she’s the right social class.”

  “Uh.” Jev stared up at the ceiling, his brain taking a while to figure out the ramifications of that pronoun.

  “Just the wrong gender,” Wyleria added dryly.

  “Did you change preferences in the years I was gone, or have I just been dense?”

  She chuckled. “You are dense, but I was only fifteen when you left and wasn’t yet certain of my preferences.”

  “Huh.”

  He didn’t know what more to say. It was selfish, but he was far more concerned about his own future. Maybe later, when he figured out a way to be with Zenia, he could turn his mind toward helping his cousin. Or at least properly commiserating with her.

  For now, he closed his eyes and willed meddling parents all over the world to disappear.

  “What do you think they’ve been talking about in there for so long?” Rhi asked.

  Zenia, sitting on a bench beside her, could only shrug. She’d picked up on Wyleria’s words that she’d been on her way into the city to discuss something with Jev before she’d heard about his injury. News from home, from his castle. It had to be. A message from his father?

  She dreaded what that news might entail but told herself not to worry until she learned what it was. If he told her.

  “I couldn’t guess,” she replied.

  “Jev’s gift is still on his desk unopened,” Rhi said. She’d gone into the office that morning and run into Zyndar Garlok and the king. She’d mentioned Targyon was waiting for a full report.

  Zenia would head up to the castle soon to deliver it. Fortunately, she had started preparing a written report while she’d been waiting for the healers to finish with Jev.

  “I’m sure he’ll open it when he’s healed,” Zenia said. “He hasn’t been up there.”

  “I once again resisted the urge to shake it.”

  “Noble,” Zenia said.

  “I thought so.”

  “Ma’ams?” A young acolyte in white trousers and a tunic walked up with an envelope. “Is one of you Captain Cham?”

  “Yes,” Zenia said.

  The girl held up the envelope uncertainly. She was eleven or twelve. Zenia wondered if she was an orphan given to the temple to raise, as Zenia had once been, long ago.

  “That’s the only clue we’re giving you,” Rhi said.

  Zenia snorted and held out her hand. “What is…” She trailed off as she recognized the style of the writing on the envelope, elegant letters written in blue ink.

  “Uh oh,” Rhi said, apparently recognizing it too. “Another message from your… helper?”

  Helper. Was that the right word? She supposed so, since the last two clues she’d received had been warnings, apt warnings. But Zenia suspected this helper would ask for a favor one day or expect something in return. When she had some free time, whenever that might be, she would try to figure out who was sending these messages and how they were always a step ahead of her.

  “Thank you,” she told the acolyte. “Where did you find it? Did you see who left it?”

  The girl shook his head. “One of our monks brought it in from outside. He said it was leaning against the wall by the door and there wasn’t anyone around.”

  “Of course not.” Zenia sighed and opened it as the acolyte returned to her chores.

  “How did whoever is sending these know you were here?” Rhi waved toward the columns of the large prayer room.

  “Who knows how he or she knows anything?” Zenia drew out the single piece of paper inside and unfolded it. As with the others, it was a short, simple message. “Avoid the elf.”

  “The elf? We only know one. Unless you count that princess that we briefly met at Dharrow Castle.”

  “It may not refer to Lornysh.” Why would it? “But to some elf we have yet to meet.”

  “Or it could be Lornysh. Maybe he’s going to start some trouble.”

  “He hasn’t yet. Why would he?”

  “I don’t know, but what do we really know about him?”

  “He’s Jev’s friend,” Zenia said. “That’s enough.”

  “How much does Jev know about him? Do you know?”

  “Enough to consider him a friend.” Zenia returned the paper to the envelope. She wouldn’t conjure up suspicions about someone because of a warning from a mystery person, especially when they had no idea which elf the message meant.

  “Hm,” was all Rhi said.

  “It could refer to that scientist we already arrested,” Zenia said, though she doubted it, not if this note had just been delivered.

  “I guess we’ll have to keep our eyes out for pointy-eared suspicious types. And Lornysh.”

  Zenia frowned at her, recalling that Rhi had conversed with Lornysh a few times while they’d been riding yesterday and other times. Zenia had usually been talking with Jev at those times. “Do you have a reason to mistrust him?”

  “He hasn’t done anything to me, other than being flinty, but he’s secretive, don’t you think? We know nothing about him. I asked where he was from and how he liked Korvann once. He stared off into the woods and ignored me.”

  Zenia held the envelope in both hands and gazed down at it. She would show it to Jev—she didn’t think she had mentioned this secret helper yet, and she should do that, regardless of whether this had anything to do with Lornysh. Whatever it had to do with, she had a feeling that more trouble was on the way.

  THE END

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