Mireille pointed at the male. “Julius Kosera, but everyone refers to him as the Greyhorn. Rhinoceros bi-form and Otto’s personal muscle.”
“I know him, too. Defeated him in the arena decades ago.”
Kosera had been furious about the loss at the time, though he’d never returned to challenge Ronin again. Guess he’d found himself a new job.
The towering Beastrunner was nearly seven feet tall, his bulging muscles threatening to split the seams of his black suit jacket. His skin was a dull shade of gray, reminiscent of sun-dried mud, and his bald head showcased a squished face, two beady, black eyes and a long hooked nose.
“She’s the one you have to look out for though.” Mireille tapped on the female. She was short, barely crested Kosera’s ribs, with straight hair that fell to her waist in contrasting sheets of white and black. Dressed head to toe in black leather, her small, shapely frame was accentuated by a corset-like beltfilled with gleaming blades. “Layla Fetar. Honey badger bi-form. Otto’s fixer.”
Ronin let out a low whistle. The female was beautiful and deadly, her deep brown eyes lit with sharp cunning and violent menace. He thought it convenient for Otto that he had a honey badger bi-form in his employ. There weren’t many left on the continent, and their blood could be used as an antidote to Deathstalker venom, which was fatal for humans and could lead to True Death for other Fae, if the antivenom wasn’t administered quickly enough.
“She looks like arealfun time,” Ronin smirked.
“This isn’t a joke,” Mireille spat, swiping up the photo. “She used to be a Shadow Maiden.”
Ronin’s brows rose. The Shadow Maidens were a group of lethal females tasked with personal security for Empress Mila and Princess Belen. Trained from birth to kill in a thousand different ways. It was considered a great honor to be chosen for the position, one typically held for life.
“Why’d she defect? I can’t believe the Empire would have allowed such a thing.”
“That information isn’t in any of these files.”
Ronin dragged a thumb across his lower lip. “A hundreddrachassays I can persuade her to tell me.”
Mireille’s eyes flashed with heat before she huffed a grunt. She tossed another folder onto the table, and he chuckled at her irritation. “Shipping intake forms.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
“They were actually.” She opened the folder and pulled out several marked documents. “Most of them were full of innocuous things—produce, meats, linens, crates of wine from Nephes. But look at these.” She ran a finger down several sheets, pointing to areas where the amount of the shipment was far larger.
He glanced at the entries. “Anastasium. Isn’t that?—”
“The god-touched stone of Stygios, yes.”
“Why would Otto be ordering such a large amount of the god-touched stone of the High God of Death and Destruction? And why wasn’t this order flagged?”
“Well, technically it was, if it made it into these archives.” Mireille frowned. “But the IA only gets involved if it’s over a certain amount. All these were just below the legal limit. He was trying to stay under the IA’s radar by spreading the shipments out and burying them among other ordinary items.”
“What’s anastasium used for?”
Excited curiosity transformed Mireille’s cold features into something warm and unnervingly attractive. Ronin tried not to stare. “That’s the strange thing—its uses are purely decorative. It’s not like mentrite, the god-touched stone of Thakavi, which is mined from a single source in Cernodas to produce commstones. Or polemite, the red stone of Vestan that powers Tartarus.” Ronin shivered involuntarily at the name of the infamous prison. “Or even nessite, Anaemos’s stone that has the power to suppress wind magic. Anastasium has no uses, because the source of Stygios’s power on Ethyrios remains a mystery. If one even exists.”
“So what’s Otto using it for? Lining his bathtub? Making candlesticks? Paperweights?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re not as funny as you think you are?”
“Never,” he scoffed. “I’m fucking hilarious. Maybe you could find a sense of humor if you spent less time working and more time interacting with people.”
Mireille ignored his taunt, placing the shipping intakes back into the folder and rising from her chair, then bent over to pick up another filing box.
Delectable, his wolf crooned.
Ronin stifled a laugh, though he sure as shit didn’t disagree.Pretty sure she hates us, buddy.Don’t get your hopes up.
Mireille hauled the box onto the table in front of Ronin. There were hundreds of folders inside.
“Wrath of Vestan,” Ronin choked out, “how are there so many?”
“These are the reports that Sonya was talking about. Review them and see if any patterns jump out at you.”
