“I don’t care. I’m going to disembowel that fucking Veil Worshipper.”
And then Rynn’s string of curses pulled Cason’s attention back to the alley. He had dumped out a large sack of spoils that Warley and Ripley had left behind. No dagger.
They weren’t dead, at least, but now Rynn had a different look in his eyes as he glared at Cason—almost like he was waiting for Cason to lecture him for the reckless plan. The captain wasn’t planning on sayinganything, even if he wanted to. He turned his attention toward his feet and the slow melting of ice around his boots.
Rynn growled. “We’ve been tricked. Our job was to bring in the Night Terror assassin, and that’s where our focus is going to remain. Understood?”
Cason kicked out of the ice at his feet, twisting his ankles as feeling returned. Though he wasn’t so sure that Warley and Ripley hadn’t been involved in some capacity, he still believed that woman from the market had been telling the truth. Those men were dangerous—clearly, because they had taken down four trained men—and she wouldn’t risk her life to give their names when they could snap her in half. The brothers had just shown the two magics that had been used in the robbery, but something about what they said as they ran away clicked.
It wasn’t just the two of them at Gerrart’s home. There was a third.
The Night Terror.
And, man or woman, they were smart. Smart enough to trick those two into using all of their signature attacks. Smart enough to create a scene that looked like a celvusa attack without killing a single person. And while the brothers were busy stealing the gold, the Night Terror escaped with the Veil artifacts. All of it was to draw Gerrart off the assassin’s trail.
TheVeil Worshipper’strail.
Rynn stepped in front of Cason, barely coming to his nose in height. “I asked a question. We are bringing in the Night Terror. Is that understood?”
Cason nodded. “Understood. My job is to protect the Prince of Severina, and the Night Terror is a threat.”
“The Night Terror is also a Veil Worshipper who has stolen an extremely valuable artifact from my boss who would very much like to make an example of the assassin. Will following my orders be a problem?” Rynn asked, eyebrow raised.
“You’re aware of my stance against the Veil cult.” The captain kept his face still as he lied through his teeth. “Following your orders will not be a problem.”
9
Entertainment
The inn was unsurprisingly more crowded than a typical night in Averlyn, thanks to the nearby Earth Festival. Nearly every table was full and Brela had barely seen Emerie since the woman had sat them at their table, but every time their mugs neared empty, she magically appeared with a new round and their food.
Brela always stuck to similar illusion features when they came to the inn to eavesdrop or find their next mark. Elias’s new features were a good mix of earth-kind light and dark; his hair a shiny black that ran to his shoulders, his jaw sharper and nose tighter, and his eyes a shade of green lighter. He always despised that his muscles looked smaller in this form—Farrah and Brela agreed that it made him look less intimidating when they were trying to seduce their targets—but they also assured him that they preferred his real face.
“And body,” Farrah had whispered once when she had drank a little too much one night. That was no secret to either woman, though Farrah had giggled like it was.
It was impossible to fully mask Farrah’s beauty with an illusion, no matter how Brela changed her features. Eyes would always be drawn to that woman, so Brela just focused on making her less recognizable. Farrah’s disguise included eyes a shade of blue lighter, ears a little sharper, and a rounder and lighter face than her normal tan and heart-shaped figure. She kept her slight form with more accentuated curves, and her reddish-blonde hair was perfectly twisted over her chest. Sometimes Farrah was so busy playing with her new hair that she would completely forget they were in a crowded inn trying to con rich idiots.
Despite having used her illusion magic to change her appearance since she was a child in Valisea, it was always surprising for Brela to look in the mirror and see someone else. She shifted her eyes away from the pale purple that passed as grayish, adding a deeper blue tint to complement her lightened and bruise-free skin. The white shades of her white-blonde hair browned closer to Elias’s original color, her nose elongated and lips thinned, and she mimicked more of Farrah’s narrow frame while keeping her height the same as usual. Just like Elias, she didn’t love hiding her muscles, and even though she used her illusion to hide the Veil shard in her chest, she always wore an outfit that covered the skin of her collarbone. And the scar burned into her scalp was still well hidden by the braid and sun-blessed rings she refused to untwist from her hair.
Other patrons were only just arriving, not quite drunk enough to be loud about their conversations and sitting far enough away to be useless for the prying ears.
Three of Gerrart’s men—having stripped their armor—sat close enough to their table where they didn’t need to try hard to overhear their conversation. Most of it was boring mumblings about the Earth Festival they had been at the previous night, their recent conquests over women, and worthless happenings at the earth temple since they had graduated.
Brela was nearly falling asleep at how useless all of the talk was, doing her best to keep her mind on anything except the lingering feel of Ovir on her skin. It wasn’t even her own features she wore anymore—he shouldn’t have any power over her like this—but it was always her underneath the illusion.
She didn’t need to focus much on her magic, though. Her illusions were a one-and-done type of affinity—after she used the shadow spell, depending on how much energy she put into it, it could last anywhere from an hour to a few days. Typically, an hour-long illusion for the three of them would cost her two hours of purple eyes, but today it felt different. Not just easier, but stronger. When she had first aimed for their typical three-hour spell, the magic had nearly spilled from her fingertips, like she had dumped a bucket of water from them. While she had been excited to test her magic, she was almost more excited to get home and see what her eyes looked like underneath the illusion.
“You superstitious fool,” one of Gerrart’s men hissed, sloshing his drink as he waved the mug through the air. Brela had already nicknamed him Graybeard, the oldest of the three.
“Gerrart thinks it was a celvusa,” the one in the middle replied sheepishly—Corbin. She didn’t need a nickname for him since Graybeard had already said his name earlier.
Slop kept his sluggish and hunched form in the chair. “Why in the four hells are we here hunting down an assassin, then? And why did they send that uptight captain with us?”
Captain? Brela leaned forward in her seat, as did Farrah and Elias. Finally, some good gossip. They continued to eat, pretending to be engrossed in their meat stew, bread, and beer rather than eavesdropping.
“Gods, that man is unbearable,” Graybeard grumbled.
Corbin shook his head. “He made some good points—“
