“Shh, my sweet,” Bohdan says, wrapping his arms around his wife’s trembling shoulders.
“Our son has been murdered, Bohdi!” Ekaterina steps back. “Murdered! And you expect me to hush? How on earth areyouso calm? He’s your one and only child! Well, your one and onlylegitimateone,” she huffs under her breath. “Don’t you care at all that he’s”—a sob fractures her voice—“gone?”
Her grief frosts my core far more than the knowledge of lethal weapons in the hands of revolutionaries.
“Of course I care. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, seeking justice,” Bohdan mutters, his gaze flicking toward the far wall, toward a Glacin guard.
The soldier must’ve borrowed the uniform from a more muscled colleague, because the jacket and trousers aren’t adjusted to his frame. When he catches me staring his way, he narrows his eyes. I’m guessing he isn’t a fan of me. Or is it shifters in general he doesn’t like?
Konstantin must’ve asked Salom for clarifications, because the general says, “I went to Lev’s home and interrogated him with salt. He insisted he never brokered any new deal and that the factory workers were lying.”
Ekaterina hisses. “Ask your general where the deliverymen are, Vizosh! Ask him!”
Salom pins her with a fierce glower. “I did not set fire to their sleigh!”
She flicks her trembling fingers. “Yet they’re dead! Dead like my son!”
“Why would I blow up evidence that served me? As for your son, when I left your home, he was alive. Ask Bohdan! He was present. Ask him.”
My mind tingles with a hypothesis; one I keep to myself for now.
Bohdan’s lids spasm. “I was dealing with the aftermath of the explosion, which destroyed the road as well as the Countess’s hedges and gate. When I returned, Lev was lying in a pool of blood, so no, Salom, I wasn’t present the whole time.”
“Where’s the body?” Konstantin’s voice is alarmingly quiet.
“Here.” Bohdan gestures toward the dais upon which lays a shrouded body. “Salom insisted on bringing him back here.”
Konstantin’s hand slips from mine. I don’t follow him to the raised platform, the same way I don’t step around Bohdan or his wife for an unobstructed view of the corpse. A peek under the sheet has my Ice King’s lips firming.
Ekaterina collapses onto her knees and drops her face into her open palms. Her wails grip my insides in a vise. Though her husband’s complexion is bleak, he doesn’t sob. He doesn’t rage. He merely studies his feet.
“My sister has visited Lev multiple times since I took his hands, hasn’t she?” Konstantin asks.
Bohdan’s gaze bounds off his boots. “To drop off poultices for his wrists and offer him companionship.”
“Could she have slipped into your home after Salom’s departure?”
Bohdan’s head rears back. “And do what?Killmy boy? She loved him.”
“I loved Alyona,” Konstantin murmurs, replacing the sheet and turning back toward us.
Ekaterina shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’d blame your own flesh and blood before you’d blame your general.”
Konstantin’s knuckles whiten as his fingers tighten around fistfuls of air. “I’m still trying to gather all the facts. Salom, swallow salt.”
The general does as he’s told without question. “Did the sleigh drivers tell you the shipment was sanctioned by Lev?”
“Yes.”
“Did you set fire to the sleigh?”
“No.”
“Did you command anyone else to set fire to the sleigh?”
“No.”
“Were you alone, or were there soldiers with you?”
