Chapter 16
Allie
Ididn’t know whether to hate or thank Dax for forcing me to face the crown. Either way, I couldn’t look away from him.
My cousin was truly impressive.
“You’re staring.” Dax tsked as he dipped his quill into the ink once more.
“I’m in awe,” I said. Easier to focus on someone else than myself right now.
He’d been in my room all of thirty minutes and he’d already filled out almost an entire parchment with small, flowing letters and numbers, while I’d been relegated to the role of fidgeting in my seat. I’d already read everything that amazing mind of his had stored and now flooded the pages, but nothing had stood out.
“Of?” he asked.
“You.”
He huffed an incredulous laugh. “You’ll make me blush.”
I shrugged. “It’s been too long since I saw you in action.”
Truthfully, I’d only ever had the pleasure of witnessing Dax’s skills on the few occasions when we’d trained together. While I’d been allowed to show my growing might in the sun, for all to see–and critique, unfortunately–Dax’s abilities had alwaysbeen relegated to secret rooms, usually with nobody but Uncle Maksim bearing witness and pushing him to his limits. Dara had left those dark chambers in search of her love for runes, and traveled to learn from the masters.
Not Dax. He’d always been the happiest alone in the shadows.
He’d learned that from Uncle Maksim–perhaps a little too well, I thought as Dax took another sip of the truth serum. It smelled metallic and wrong. Like something that didn’t belong in a living being.
“You’ll see me plenty until we make things right.” He jiggled the serum vial, not taking his eyes off the paper. “I’ll need pyrrot to brew more vials. This task will take some time.”
“That might be difficult.”
“You don’t need to tell anyone what it’s for. Tell them I have a special diet.”
“Not because I plan on keeping it a secret, you’re not brewing poisons,” I said. “It might be difficult to find fire roots in a frozen environment.”
“Maybe youshouldkeep more secrets. These people were enemies a few months ago.”
Some of them might still be.
“Only the important ones,” I said. “Remember what Grandpa Constantine used to say?”
“Be wary of people who smile too broadly at you?”
“The other thing.”
“Getting drunk leads to bad decisions and worse outcomes.”
“Dax.”
He sighed. “Pick your battles.”
“There we go. A truth serum is not worth a battle,” I muttered as my eyes rushed down the lines.
Every gold coin that exchanged hands in Aquila had been written down, resulting in too many numbers not worth thehassle of remembering, writing, or reading them, for the most basic things. Cows, stones, fish, arrows.
Perfectly normal exchanges for perfectly normal purchases.
Nothing to murder over.
