Victor sighs heavily. “We just do.” He pushes to his feet, keeping his arm around Estelle. She moves with him as he walks out of the room without another backwards glance at the body.
I drop my gaze, feeling my heart sink. I don’t know why I would feel so affected by seeing another woman in Victor’s arms. It isn’t as if he is actually mine. Our whole marriage was built around a lie.
It isn’t as if it was much of a marriage anyway. We never even kissed.
I rub my thumb across the part of my finger where my ring was supposed to be resting. I let out an exhale as my eyes flick back to the guardsman.
“He didn’t seem the sort,” Lief says from the door. I look to see that Corallin is standing just in front of him, he has his arms encircled around her as if trying to shield her from any remaining dangers of the night. It makes me wonder if there’s perhaps more going on between the two of them than they’d initially let on.
Corallin rests her hand on Lief’s forearm as she eyes me up. “Talyria, what are you thinking?”
I suppose I should be happy, at least I’m not completely alone by the end of the night. I start to turn to leave, but something catches my eye, and I freeze. It’s just visible on the other side of the guard’s arm, half hidden behind his corpse.
I step around him, kneeling to get a better look.
I feel my breath catch. My heart races up into my throat as I feel horror begin to flood my system.
Because there, scrawled out in blood, by a desperate hand likely while he was bleeding out is a word. Just a word. One word, only three letters long.
But they change everything.
Lek.
Chapter Sixteen
Victor
This senseless killing is really starting to drain me, no matter how much Likho tells me that I should be happy to see someone’s life cut suddenly short. I can’t help thinking about my own fate and how suddenly it was cut off.
The only difference is these people didn’t have a dark bargain they could make to retether themselves to a slightly corrupted mind and body.
What they do have are family members. Parents? Siblings? Sweethearts? People who will be waiting for them to come home, people who will be waiting for all of eternity now.
The worst part is that the rest of the world has no idea what happened in this inn tonight. With the storm still raging outside,we are locked in here, isolated and left to deal with our own problems.
Our neighbors have no idea the bloodshed that has happened just the next door over. Estelle’s parents don’t know that they should hug her extra hard the next time they see her. It’s as if the outside world is peacefully asleep while we are left to survive and bear the burdens of what has just happened.
Three men are dead. Where will the senselessness end? Why did it even begin?
Why would Ibram kill his friend? I mean, the priest I get, he was saying he could discover the killer. But then to end himself after it all?
It doesn’t make sense, but then I guess these things aren’t supposed to. They exist only to remind you that you need to cherish life for as long as you have it. To remind you to tell your dearly beloveds that you love them because you never know when you might lose them.
I pat Estelle on the arm as she lets out a little sniffle. The poor girl. She has never experienced death like this before, not like I did on the prison ship.
I’m about to offer some platitude that is honestly useless in the face of a tragedy like this, but then something catches my eye, bouncing off a light that lands right in my face. I turn my head to see one of the inn rooms. The door is wide open, and the light is somehow bouncing off one of the rings lying on the floor.
I’m not sure how, or how it broke through my hazy thoughts, but I take it as a sign. I give Estelle one last pat on the shoulder before I tell her, “Why don’t you go get my father and the girls? Tell them the nightmare is over.”
She nods, sniffing loudly. She’s a strong girl, she’ll be fine. Especially with a task to occupy her mind. She races off toward the front of the inn to tell my father that he, Mika, and Vera can climb out of their smuggling hole.
I do fully intend to have words with my father about his smuggling under the table and never telling me, but first, I have some unfinished business. Those rings are a sign.
A reminder that I’m lucky. I’m alive, and so is Talyria, even after this blood-soaked night. So, what if we lied to each other? That just means that we’re more alike than we realized. I’m already on my third chance at life after surviving that killer in the wine cellar. I don’t think I should waste it by being mad at my wife for a crime I also committed.
I stride into the room and kneel down, picking up the rings. I slide them into my pocket, rising as I feel a soft smile across my face.
Mr. The Thief Queen.
