Brela growled but didn’t pull out of her hand. She only moved as Trellis used her grip to drag Brela through the doors.
The marble inside the house was just as immaculate as before, whites and grays and blacks decorating every surface. Which only made the walls feel more suffocating. A mansion and a tomb. Directly ahead, the ornate doors of Ovir’s office remained closed, but she could hear the voices drifting through the cracks.
Brela’s feet were yanked out from under her as she was lifted into the air and crushed against arms and a chest larger than hers. Brela grunted and nearly elbowed the man in the jaw before his deep voice rang in her ear.
“Hello,kiakiroxa,” he teased.
“Emril,” she growled through another squeeze of his long and incredibly strong arms. At least he smelled clean this time. Before she could elbow him to let go of her, Trellis whacked the back of his head and he dropped her to the ground.
“You are trained assassins, not children,” she growled. “I should report you for leaving your post, Emril.”
Brela turned to take in her laughing friend. Emril’s hand was still rubbing the back of his head, his green eyes dulling and smile faltering as his gaze darted to the bruises on her throat. His red hair had lightened in the summer sun, pulled back with a surprisingly formal leather tie. The man might have been lanky when they were younger, but he had filled out his form with a strong chest and a posture that made him feel like he towered over Brela, even if he was only a head above.
He nudged Brela’s shoulder, forcing his smile back. “How in the four hells did you pull off that stunt at Gerrart’s house? It’s all anyone can talk about here, well, except Pierce…”
Brela opened her mouth but Trellis shoved her toward the stairs.
“You’ll have time later,” the woman snapped. “I have too much work to do with this… disaster.” She gestured to all of Brela and it took everything in her power not to growl at the woman.
“Sorry, Emril. We can catch up in a bit,” Brela said with a shrug, still being shoved up the stairs.
He shrugged, leaning on the railing as he watched her. “I could come help you strip those tight pants.”
Brela threw him a colorful curse over her shoulder. She could have sworn Trellis made the accompanying gesture as Emril’s laughter filled the room. It didn’t fade, even as they wound through the marble hallways to Brela’s old room. Past decorations and paintings and antiques that had been collected over the years from all kingdoms, yet still somehow matched.
Though her legs wanted to protest going any further, Trellis pushed her in the oak doors of her bedroom and slammed them shut behind her.
Brela studied the room—the canopy bed that hadn’t been touched in years, the desk with gouges in the wood from her knives, the splinters on the armoire from being thrown against it too many times, the floor-to-ceiling window that faced the mountains that taunted her with her true home just over the peaks.
“Gods, I hate this room,” Brela grumbled.
She turned to find Trellis had dropped her cold demeanor, her fist tight and pressed into her lips.
“Four hells, Brela,” she whispered. Her hand lifted, fingers gliding along Brela’s jaw as she lifted her chin to inspect the splotches that still lined her throat. “Ovir told me I’d have to heal some bruises, but I didn’t expect this.”
They hadn’t gotten worse than the first night, but they were still rather horrifying. They had caught Trellis’s attention almost immediately, hence the woman gripping her chin earlier. All a show.
“I screwed up,” Brela replied.
“I know you did,” Trellis sighed. “But it does no good to warn you about it now. You’ll just do it again.”
She grinned. “You know me too well, Trellis.”
That earned her a similar smack on the head as the one Emril got. “And you know me, so stop mouthing off in public so I don’t have to hit you.”
“You know I didn’t mean it,” Brela answered, lowering her eyes. “About you not being my mother.”
Trellis—the only other person in Ovir’s home that knew her secrets. The woman who protected Brela as best she could when she first arrived. The woman who stayed up with her when she had nightmares, soothed her cuts and bruises from Ovir and Dernian, taught her how to hold her head high after Ovir had beaten her to a pulp in training. Her second mother.
But all of those things were done in secret. Ovir knew—he knew everything—but no one else in the guild received the kindness in Trellis’s heart. If they did, she’d lose every ounce of respect she had built in this home. The men feared Trellis almost as much as they feared Brela.
“Come, come,” she said, her smile settling Brela’s nerves that she knew Brela had been putting on an act. She nudged her toward the mirror. “Tell me what you’ve been up to in Averlyn.”
And Brela filled her in on the last year while Trellis stripped her, draped a robe around her shoulders, and began working on her hair. She told her of her friends—who she called by different names and descriptions to protect them, because even though Trellis could be trusted, there was too much danger in revealing Farrah and Elias’s identities—and of the jobs she had done for Ovir. She was careful to avoid any details about Gerrart’s job, and specifically the celvusa, repeating the information she had given Ovir. Trellis just nodded as if she hadn’t already heard those details, continuing to paint Brela’s face, tie braids in her hair, and stain her lips red.
After Brela told her about the sun-blessed man she met at the markets and his likelihood of being at the auction, Trellis added extra perfume until Brela was nearly drowning in it. Another side effect of the shadow magic was its lack of scent. Even men and women with no magic had a specific smell, and if she was in close quarters with Captain Valkip, she’d need to be careful that his senses didn’t start to question her lack of scent.
Trellis moved her hands to Brela’s neck, the deep tingling of her healing magic a strange sensation in her throat. She had to keep swallowing to keep from coughing as she watched the purple fade, but Trellis pulled her fingers away before the greenish-yellow marks were completely faded.
