That catches me off guard and grounds me. I raise my eyebrows.
“He was found in his bed with a blade in his neck.” She speaks with all the passion of a shrug.
I would think Hana killed him, but even by fleet carriage it would take a week to reach Gain and another to return. She simply didn’t have the time.
“From whom?” I ask.
She shrugs. “We aren’t sure. As you can imagine, there are over a hundred likely suspects. Including Daysum.”
I try to find some sympathy or grief for my uncle. He never did anything wrong to me, but he was far from a good man. If Daysum killed him, it was well deserved. Now I have a new mystery, in addition to why my father is in Khitan, why the king planned his own assassination, and why he needed Sora. I suspect the king knew about Sora because of Hana, but why would she put Sora in harm’s way?
Ailor has been quietly observing us. “You really know her,” he says to me.
I nod. “From when we were children.”
“Can I trust her?”
I hesitate because I don’t know. I had nothing to lose, but he does. His death wasn’t ordered—just his captivity.
“Oh, I forgot to bribe you. Here,” Hana says.
She takes out a cloth sack twice as large as before. I think about diving for it, but she won’t take it away so long as I cooperate. Ailor remains standing still, skeptical.
Instead of tossing it to the ground, she hands the food sack to me. I can smell truffle oil through the cloth.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come for a while, Tiyung,” she says. She looks sincere. “There was much afoot. More than just Daysum and Lord Sterling’s deaths.”
“Such as?” I ask. It takes all my reserve to follow her conversation as my stomach churns. I want to tear through the bag, and I’ve noticed Ailor’s eyes have landed on it more than once.
The moaning sounds of the iku shake the walls, and she leans in between us.
“Soldiers are on the move,” she whispers.
“To where?” Ailor asks.
“North,” she says. “They are headed north.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Mikail
The Ice Caves, Khitan
Bells signaling the alarm and our doom ring out into the snowy night. I may kill Gambria myself, if I survive this. She gave me bad information either because she didn’t know—which in that case, she should’ve said that—or on purpose, to protect her former lover, and then I swear I’ll have my revenge.
Assuming I’m not impaled.
Sora, Euyn, and I run from the mausoleum toward where we stashed the horses. I look back, and a guard with a twisted beard is being tended to by two men. He can’t walk, but he’s breathing.
That is the guard Sora kissed. The one she was supposed to kill. He’s alive and sitting under the alarm bell.
She follows my line of sight, and her mouth drops open. Then she stares straight ahead as if she didn’t notice.
“Something you want to explain?” I ask as we sprint.
“Not any more than you,” she says.
I stare at her, puzzled but also running full speed. This isn’t the time to ask, but we will need to have a conversation about this later. If we survive. Hopefully, it’s not with our last breath as stakes go through our bodies.
