He glared down at her. “You would force me to tear my back in a fight you would lose? Your choice, little sister.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, a headache brewing behind my eyes. “What will it take, Maz?”
Maz interrupted his three-way scowling contest to glance at me. “Answers. Start from the beginning and tell us what you know.”
I’d rather swim to Yargoth, but they deserved some truth. I nodded, and Maz sat on his cot. Everyone else settled in as well.
I told them of how I met Kiera and her offer of escape. I mentioned her saving Ruru from the Shadow-Wolves and her role in the heist. That seemed to garner some reluctant approval from my audience.
My story clearly had holes in it—gaps where I could only surmise what she’d done at the behest of Renwell... and why.
But then I reached the part of the story after the heist.
My voice roughened as I revealed how she’d been eavesdropping on me and Melaena, discovering my identity and purpose. How she’d convinced me she was on our side, that she hated her father as well.
I told them about the task I’d given her and Ruru and that I’d kept the bulk of our infiltration plans to myself.
“Only smart thing you did,” Sigrid muttered.
I glared at her, continuing to when Kiera helped two fugitives, Helene and Isabel, escape Renwell’s clutches.
More sympathetic murmurs echoed around the room.
“He took me that night,” Maz jumped in. “Saying he learned about my involvement in the heist after interrogating the servants at Asher’s mansion.”
Yarina’s eyes narrowed. “Not from Kiera? Er, Emilia? Or whatever her gods-damned name is.”
Maz shook his head.
“Renwell could’ve been covering for her,” Sigrid said.
“But then, why take Maz at all?” I asked. “It was a risky, desperate move. Something else was going on between Kiera and her master.”
“Yes, that must be it,” Maz said, relief heavy in his voice. “You didn’t hear the way she was screaming at him. It was like Korvin took that gods-damned knife to her soul instead of... me.” He swallowed hard and looked away.
We’d spoken little of it, but I’d given Maz dreamdew drops several times when the nightmares became too much. He’d torn his back yesterday, thrashing in his sleep.
Watching him suffer that way... I might’ve done the same thing Kiera had. Or I would’ve killed both Renwell and Korvin with my bare hands, regardless of the consequences.
I couldn’t imagine what that must’ve been like to watch. Especially since Korvin was the one who’d scarred Kiera’s back so deeply years ago.
For a moment, I was back in that warm, steamy bathhouse, holding Kiera’s trembling body in my arms as she relived the terrible memory. Her fingers had dug into my bare skin as if I were a rock in a stormy sea.
I’d surrendered another small piece of myself to her then. Had she even wanted it? Or was it all part of her ploy to gain my trust?
“When did you find out who she was?” Maz asked.
Inwardly, I winced. “After you left for the ship. She... she revealed herself. Then Nikella shot her with a sleeping dart, and we tied her up in a room.”
Gods, I would never shake the absolute horror I’d felt when she’d drawn that gold-hilted sunstone knife from her boot. Everything it meant had slammed into me all at once. I’d barely registered the fact that she was trying to tell me what she’d done before I revealed my own crime.
Then she’d leaped at me with that wretched knife, murder in her beautiful eyes.
Maz’s eyes narrowed as if he knew there was more I wasn’t telling. “Why did she reveal herself, I wonder?”
“Probably trying to save her precious father,” Sigrid muttered.
I pressed my lips together. Kiera had stood between me and Weylin, more out of rage than loyalty. But then she’d learned his part in Brielle’s death.
