“I was hoping to find Alyona here.”
“She’s dead, Miss Ríhbiadh.” The finality of his tone suggests he’s convinced of it. “For someone who knows so much, I’m surprised you didn’t hear how I plunged an iron sword through her heart to avenge our father’s death.”
“Ididhear.”
“Then why are you searching for my dead sister in a Voshnan tavern?”
I lapse into silence.
He growls, “Why?”
I lick my lips, scrutinizing the indent my invisible feet are leaving behind on the worn path of snow. It’s only once we’ve penetrated the woods and put a mile between us and the nearest human dwelling that I come to a decision. “Release me, and I’ll explain.”
“And risk you flying off?”
“Are you afraid of the woods, Vizosh?”
He entreats his gods for patience.
“Fine. Move your death grip to my elbow. I need both hands.”
“To do what?”
“You’ll see. Actually, you won’t see; you’ll hear.”
Curiosity usurps his chariness, because he inches his fingers up my arm. I pull the shot glass from my pants’ waistband, then carry my other hand to my earring. After pricking my finger on a ruby spike, I sweep my blood over the glass in the same parallel pattern I drew on the underside of the table back at the tavern.
When voices emerge from my palm, a rasped exhale whitens the air, and I’m hauled sideways. I let Konstantin run with his assumption that we’re being followed, enjoying his panic. When he picks up the pace, I decide to come clean, if for no other reason than that my feet hurt, and I don’t feel like sprinting through snow.
“Relax, Vizosh. No one’s tailing us.”
He halts so abruptly that my body pitches forward, then back.
“The voices you’re hearing are coming from the glass I borrowed for surveillance purposes. Which was my other reason for visiting that establishment. Did you assume I was there for the vibe?”
“I assumed you were there to rile up some dissidents.”
My breath hitches. “You suspected me of trying to sabotage your reign?”
“Can you truly blame me? You appear out of nowhere, pretend like you don’t know me, make friends with an arms dealer who’d prefer I weren’t occupying the Glacin throne, and then sneak off to the human lands…with him.”
“I didn’t pretend. I genuinely had no clue who you were, nor whose suite I’d ended up in. As for Lev, I made conversation with him last night because it was the polite thing to do.”Andhe was nice,I think but don’t add out loud since Konstantin obviously has a bone to pick with his constituent.
“Did you agree to dine with him because it was the polite thing to do as well?”
“No. I agreed because I wanted an excuse to venture into the human lands, and I wanted to do so without a slew of guards on my tail. How was I to know there was contention between you and him? But more importantly, how is it any of your concern whether a man I agree to have dinner with likes you or not?”
“When that man sells illegal weapons to the masses, which the masses then use to kill my subjects, everything he does becomes my concern.”
A new bout of silence stretches between us, interrupted only by the sound of wind combing through the fir trees.
“Why are you convinced my sister’s alive?” Konstantin asks, changing the subject. “Do you know something that I don’t?”
I bite my lip.
“Did one of your Shabbin relatives bring her back from the dead?”
Coulda Shabbin have gone after Alyona’s freshly slain body and resuscitated her? Shabbins have that sort of power, but it makes no sense considering Alyona hates—hated—Shabbins. “No.”
